Chapter 14

The Earl of Wetherby spent the following morning with the marquess, Viscount March, and some of the other gentlemen riding about the estate farms, in particular viewing the progress of the lambing season.

Lady March had mentioned at the breakfast table that Annabelle was still in bed with a headache. The earl hoped she would recover and be up by luncheon time. He had determined during a night of much thought and soul-searching to find some time alone with her that day and to spend that time talking to her about herself, about them. He intended to find out if there were any truth in the suspicions he had felt during their ride home from Winwood Abbey. He wanted to try to establish some closeness between them.

His plan succeeded more easily than he had expected. Annabelle was indeed up when the gentlemen returned to the house. She seated herself beside him quite voluntarily at luncheon and immediately launched into praises of the weather and expressed her longing to be outside and walking.

“It’s chilly,” he said to her with a smile, “but perfect for a walk. Shall we take a look at the lake?”

“Yes,” she said, “that would be very pleasant.”

He waited for her to announce their intentions and invite everyone else to join them, but she stayed quiet when Christobel and Eva declared that they would drive into the village for the afternoon if there were just someone willing to chaperon them. Rosamund set them to squealing by offering to accompany them. And the Reverend Strangelove sobered them again when he decided to do himself the honor of escorting three such lovely and vivacious young ladies.

Some of the younger people had spoken so enthusiastically about Winwood Abbey that the marquess and marchioness were to take Lady Wetherby, Lord and Lady Sitwell, and some of the older members of their family driving there.

At last, it seemed to Lord Wetherby, he would have Annabelle to himself for a couple of hours. And she seemed to be in an unusually cheerful mood.

“I hope your headache has quite disappeared,” he said to her as they began their walk over rolling lawns and beneath widespread trees toward the lake.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” she said. “I think it was just tiredness. These days have been unusually busy and exciting ones.”

“Have they?” he asked, smiling. “You are used to a quiet life, then?”

“I like being at home in the country,” she said, “with my horses and my dogs and my books and paints. I like being with people who are familiar to me. You live in town most of the time, my lord? Justin?”

“Yes,” he said, “but it is the habit of a young man looking for some excitement to fill his life. I have always kept a close eye on the running of my estates. I believe that I would prefer to live mainly in the country when I am married and have a family.”

Perhaps he was speaking too plainly, he thought. He expected to see the color rush to her cheeks and the stone wall to go up behind her eyes.

“Do you hope for that to be soon?” she asked. “I look forward to the time when I will marry and have my own home to run and my own children.” She was staring brightly ahead, he saw in a downward glance. Her cheeks had more color than usual. “Look at the crocuses,” she said. “There are so many of them.”

“You were nine years old, I believe,” he said, “when my mother and your grandmother conceived their now-famous idea. Were you brought up in the belief that some definite arrangement had been made at that time?”

“Yes.” She glanced up at him.

“And last year,” he said, “when you were taken to London to be presented and to enjoy the Season, was it in the knowledge that you would eventually marry me?”

Her cheeks were very pink. “But was I not right to think so?” he said. “You did ask Papa for me before we went home.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, covering her hand reassuringly with one of his. “And I did so quite freely. But you were very young, Annabelle—only seventeen at the time, only eighteen now. Have you missed not being able to encourage other suitors?”

“The gentlemen in London were kind,” she said. “But there was no one I would have wished to encourage.”

“And no one at home?” he said. “No one you grew up with that you have regretted not being able to grow more fond of?”

“No,” she said.

“And no one here?” he asked. “None of the cousins or second cousins with whom you have grown up?”

“No, of course not.”

Lord Wetherby found himself looking down at the crown and brim of her bonnet and being forced forward at a faster pace.

“Oh, look, we are at the lake,” she said. “I am glad we are not to go boating today. It is too cold.”

“Yes,” he said, “it would be chilly on the water.”

“Why do you ask?” she said, stopping on the bank a short distance from where he had sat with Rosamund the day before. “Am I too young for you? Were you forced into making Papa an offer for me? Is there another lady you would prefer to marry?”

“No.” He set his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eager, upturned face. “I offered freely because it is time I took a wife, Annabelle, and because when I met you last spring I found that I was content to make my mother’s choice my own. But I am nine-and-twenty, you see. I have had time to know something of life and to know what I want. I would not like to think that you are being rushed into something before you have had a similar chance.” 

“I’m not being rushed,” she said, leaning a little toward him. “I want to marry you, Justin. I like you and admire you and I think I may even love you. I’m not being forced.” The stone wall was no longer behind her eyes. There was a fever there instead, a hot urgency.

“Well, then,” he said, lifting one hand in order to cup her cheek with it. He wanted to sit down and draw her onto his lap and cradle her head on his shoulder. He wanted to comfort her and coax her to confide in him, just like a child in trouble. But she was not a child. She was the woman he was to marry.

She raised her own hand and covered his, holding it against her cheek. She looked at him with bright, expectant eyes.

“I believe I am supposed to wait another three days until your grandfather’s birthday,” he said, smiling at her.

“I don’t want to wait,” she said.

“Don’t you?” He ran his thumb lightly over her lips. “Will you marry me, Annabelle?”

“Yes,” she said, and she smiled radiantly at him, transforming herself into a remarkably pretty young girl. “Yes, I will, Justin.”

He kissed her lightly on the lips and she threw her arms about his neck, as she had done two days before, and kissed him back with hot ardor.

“Now we have a definite problem,” he said, holding her firmly by the waist a little way away from him and grinning at her. “How are we to keep secret for three days the fact that we have broken the rules?”

“I don’t want to keep it a secret,” she said, her eyes shining up into his, the fever raging behind them. “I want to go back and tell Mama and Papa and Grandmama. I want to have it announced today. Can we, Justin?”

“If it is what you wish,” he said gently. “I don’t think they will be unduly angry with us. But are you sure, Annabelle? Would you like to have those three days in which to discover if you are comfortable with your decision?”

“I will never regret it,” she said. “And I will make sure that you never regret it, either, Justin. I will spend my life making you happy. It will be the sole purpose of my life to see to your contentment.”

“Well,” he said, “what more could I ask of life?”

“When will we marry?” she asked.

He laughed. “I think we had better consult both our families on that,” he said. “Weddings have very little to do with the bride and groom, I have heard, and everything to do with their families.”

“But it will be soon?” she asked, her hands smoothing the lapels of his coat. “This spring or this summer?”

“I don’t think either side of our family will object to that,” he said.

“And we will live in the country?” she said. “On your estate? I don’t mind living in London if that is what you wish. Tell me about your homes.”

He drew her arm through his and began the return walk to the house. And he talked almost the whole distance, answering her eager questions about the life that was to be hers.

It was done, then, he was thinking. There were not after all to be three more days of certainty with that one tantalizing grain of uncertainty. It was done.

And he was glad. They would make their announcement as soon as the travelers returned from Winwood Abbey, and either Gilmore or March would doubtless make their betrothal known to the whole family. It would be irrevocable then. Even more irrevocable than it had been when his carriage had turned through the gates of Brookfield four days before.

It would be a relief.

It had been a trying afternoon. Rosamund would not have minded spending it with a pair of silly, giggly girls, whose heads seemed to be filled with nothing but bonnets and beaux. They made her feel positively aged, but they made her also more than ever thankful that she had been mad enough to marry at the age of seventeen a man who was almost old enough to be her grandfather. She was glad that she had learned the value of quietness and solitude and good sense.

She had been a foolish young girl, though never quite in Christobel’s and Eva’s way. And she still could be remarkably foolish—getting out of Dennis’ carriage in a temper with a snowstorm approaching, giggling over a snowball fight with Justin, balancing on an abbey wall with Josh. But she was glad there had been Leonard and the knowledge that life could be calm and contented and rich with meaning that came from books and music and conversation.

She was fortified, she felt, against the intense pain that the next few days would bring. She had lain awake through much of the night and had forced herself to relinquish that faint glimmering of hope that Annabelle’s words had brought her. And she was glad when at the luncheon table she heard the earl and her niece plan to walk to the lake together and saw Annabelle look so determinedly happy. She was glad that she had given up hope and prepared herself to face her future.

But it was a trying afternoon. There was her sick awareness that Justin was with Annabelle and that Annabelle was in a strange mood. And her awareness that they were walking to the lake, where she had been with him just the day before. And there was Toby maneuvering her into the churchyard, of all places, while the girls tried on bonnets at the milliner’s, in order to ask her to marry him.

“I am greatly honored,” she told him, “and I am fond of you, Toby, but I am not the right wife for you. I would be a great trial to you.”

It took her all of ten minutes to persuade him that she was being neither coy or self-denying nor overly modest.

And then she looked at him, silent and hurt as he examined some of the older, mossy headstones, and wished that he could have been just a little different, just a little less pompous, just a little more sensitive to the feelings of others.

How good it would have been to be able to feel a fondness for him strong enough to take her into a marriage. She would not demand love, only a little fondness. She knew from experience that that could be enough. She had been only fond of Leonard when she married him. Yet she had grown to love him more dearly than she had loved even her father.

If only she could feel for Toby what she had felt for Leonard in Bath. They could have made an announcement that evening at dinner and she would have been safe. She would have had a definite life to plan and dream of while the main drama of the next few days unfolded around her.

But it was not to be. She could not marry Toby under any circumstances at all. And yet he was a person with feelings despite all the pomposity. She had hurt him.

The drive home was not a comfortable one. The girls talked and giggled and seemed to notice nothing strained about the atmosphere. But the Reverend Strangelove beside Rosamund sat very straight and very silent and very dignified.

She did not enter the house. She took herself off to walk alone, carefully avoiding the lake side of the house. Doubtless Justin and Annabelle had returned long before, but she did not wish to risk coming upon them. She walked for what seemed like hours, returning to the house only in time to hurry to get ready for dinner.

And she sat through dinner, between Lord Beresford on the one side and Sir Patrick Newton on the other, allowing them to carry most of the conversation, and she came to the conclusion that the situation was finally and totally intolerable. If she had to wait another four days until the ball was over before removing herself to Leonard’s cousin’s, she might well go into a nervous collapse. All her sensible thoughts of the night before really could not carry her through four more days.

Annabelle was sitting at her grandfather’s right, Justin beside her. His mother and his sister and brother-in-law were at the marquess’s left. The conversation seemed to be animated at that end of the table.

Rosamund waited impatiently for Lady Gilmore to rise and signal the ladies that they might leave the gentlemen. She was going to retire to her room, she decided, and if anyone came looking for her, well, then, she would have the headache that Annabelle had had that morning.

But it was the marquess who rose to his feet and signaled for silence. He smiled genially the length of the table at his wife.

“My birthday has been planned as the perfect day,” he said. “Yet it seems that one of my relatives and one of my other guests have seen fit to spoil those plans.”

He did not look by any means unhappy about it, Rosamund thought.

“My granddaughter Annabelle,” he said, “and the Earl of Wetherby have shown a lamentable lack of patience today and have betrothed themselves three days early.”

There was a buzz and a smattering of applause around the table.

The marquess held up one hand. “But being the old tyrant that seventy-year-old marquesses have every right to be,” he said, “I hereby forbid anyone in this room to divulge the news to anyone outside this room. The public announcement will be made to our friends and neighbors at my birthday ball as planned. In the meantime, I think it is as well that we all adjourn to the drawing room together so that the ladies may kiss my soon-to-be grandson and the gentlemen my granddaughter.” He beamed down at them and bent down to be the first to kiss Annabelle.

There were noise and laughter, the sound of chairs being pushed back. Only one sound penetrated Rosamund’s consciousness before she forced a smile to her face and allowed Sir Patrick to pull back her chair.

“The devil,” Lord Beresford muttered from beside her.

Well, Rosamund thought as Lady March turned to hug her just inside the dining-room doors, tears in her eyes, there could be no headache and no convenient escape to her room now. She squared her shoulders and prepared to face the evening.

And if she had had any lingering hope of an early escape, it was dashed when she found her brother waiting for her outside the dining room.

“Well, Rosa,” he said, “Anna is a naughty girl, isn’t she, rushing things like this?”

But he looked pleased and proud enough to burst, she thought, reaching up impulsively and kissing him on the cheek.

“Gilmore had to be allowed to make the announcement,” he said, “but I hoped perhaps to have one to make too.” He smiled genially at her. “But that was being too greedy for one day, I suppose. Tobias is proving to be a slowtop, after all. I thought that was why he decided to accompany you into the village.”

“It was,” she said, looking suspiciously at him. “Did you set him up to it, Dennis? Oh, you are quite insufferable. What makes you think I could possibly endure Toby for a lifetime? I suppose he came asking you just as if you were Papa?”

“He asked me this morning, yes,” he said, “as is only proper, Rosa. You refused him?”

“Of course I refused him,” she said, “and hurt him into the bargain. You ought not to have encouraged him, Dennis. I am none of your concern. I am twenty-six years old and no longer your ward. You will kindly inform any other gentleman who comes to you of those facts. And once all this is over, I am going to return to Lincolnshire. Felix will let me live in the house and I can be free of meddling brothers.”

She turned sharply away from him, but he caught at her arm. “What a spitfire you are, Rosa,” he said. “I was about to say, if you had just waited, that I was glad. I mean, I would have been happy if you had accepted, and it would certainly have been a good match. And who was I to say no when Tobias came and asked me? I told him he would have to put the question to you. But I’m not sorry you said no.”

“You aren’t?” she said doubtfully.

“Quite honestly,” he said, “if you promise not to repeat my words to anyone, I would have to say he is a pompous ass.”

She looked at him incredulously and then they both laughed guiltily.

“It’s time you and I became brother and sister again, I think, Rosa, isn’t it?” he said, opening his arms to her. “Come into the drawing room and share our joy over Anna.”

“Oh, gladly, Dennis,” she said, going into his arms and hugging him wordlessly for several moments.

And so she entered the drawing room with her brother’s arm about her shoulders and was led straight to Annabelle and the Earl of Wetherby.

Annabelle hugged first her father and then Rosamund, who kissed her cheek and hugged her in return.

“I did make my own decision, you see,” the girl whispered to her, “and I am so very happy, Aunt Rosa.” She smiled up at the earl, forcing Rosamund to do likewise.

“My congratulations, my lord,” she said, extending her right hand to him.

But every other lady had kissed him. As he took her hand, she reached up to kiss him on the cheek at the same moment as he leaned down to kiss hers. But it was their lips that met in a brief aunt-nephew embrace that set every nerve ending in her body jangling.

“Thank you, Lady Hunter,” he said, and released her hand.

“Soon enough you will be able to call her Aunt Rosa,” Lord March said jovially, squeezing Rosamund’s shoulder and laughing heartily at his own joke.

“I think not, Papa,” Annabelle said. “Aunt Rosa is younger than Justin.”

Music and cards had been planned for that evening, but it was too festive an occasion for them to be so dull, the marchioness announced. They would have the carpet rolled up and there would be dancing. Lady Carver would play the pianoforte.

And so, Rosamund found, she was forced to dance and be gay. And when there was a waltz and she protested to Robin Strangelove that she did not know the steps and it turned out that he was not very proficient either, Annabelle, dancing alongside them with Lord Wetherby, suggested with uncharacteristic high spirits that they change partners.

“I learned the steps in London last year, Robin,” she said, “and even danced them at Almack’s. And Justin will be able to teach you in no time, Aunt Rosa.”

Rosamund kept her eyes on her feet until she finally caught the rhythm. There was much laughter about them as several of the young people tried the dance for the first time.

She wished she had not learned so fast. She wished she could have spent the whole of the half-hour concentrating on the learning of new skills. But there were the warm touch of his hand at her waist and the long fingers of his other hand curled about hers. And there were his cologne and the distinctive masculine smell of him. And the strong muscles of his shoulder against her hand and beneath her wrist.

And there were his blue eyes when she looked up, eyes that had once watched her as he made love to her.

There was nothing whatsoever to say. And in such a public and confined setting she could not gaze into his eyes. She lowered her own to his neckcloth. And longed for the music to stop. And willed it to last forever.

He was as silent as she until the music finally drew to a close. He held her for just a moment before releasing her. His eyes were smiling at her in the way they had done when they were standing on the steps outside Mr. Price’s house the morning she left.

“Good-bye, Rosamund,” he said so quietly that she felt rather than heard the words.

She did not answer.

Lord Beresford took Rosamund by the hand when a set of country dances was forming.

“There is lemonade next door,” he said. “Take me there before I die of thirst. Or are you one of those determined dancers who cannot bear to miss even one measure of a dance?”

“The lemonade by all means, Josh,” she said.

It seemed that once they were outside the drawing room in the hallway, she could suddenly breathe more easily. She smiled at him.

“You, too?” he said. “A kindred spirit as you always were, Rosamund? To the devil with the lemonade. Go and fetch a cloak.”

She did not argue but did as she was bidden. She did not even argue when he laced his fingers with hers as they stood outside the main doors, and took her in the direction of the formal gardens. All she knew was that she could finally breathe again.

“You were bracing yourself for it in three days’ time, weren’t you?” he said. “It was a shock to have it happen tonight.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “It was arranged nine years ago. What difference do three days make now?”

“I thought perhaps I had her persuaded,” he said. “Little fool.”

“It was wrong of you, Josh,” she said, “what you did last night, that is. She has been brought up to expect this. It can only confuse her to put doubts in her mind at this late date.”

“Or to force her to face the doubts in her own mind,” he said.

“Any normal young girl would have some doubts before making such a momentous decision in her life, Josh,” she said. “I’m not sure it means that she has serious doubts in reality.”

“You have schooled yourself well not to hope, haven’t you?” he said. “The time was, Rosamund, when you would have fought tooth and nail—literally—to get what you wanted.”

“I have grown up,” she said.

“Hm,” he said. “I’m not sure I have.”

They were standing close to the marble fountain. He set his back to it and raised one foot to rest against it.

“Anyway,” he said, taking her by the hand again, “to the devil with Justin and Annabelle and betrothals. Come here, Rosamund.”

And before she realized his intention, she was against him and his mouth was over hers.

Her first instinct was to fight her way free. Her second was to seek comfort and forgetfulness in his arms. She stayed where she was, not participating in the embrace, but not impeding it, either.

Josh was every bit as experienced as Justin, she realized before much time had passed. She withdrew from him with some reluctance.

“Forget him,” he said. “You’ve slept with him, haven’t you? And you have fallen in love with him. There are other men who can give just as much pleasure, Rosamund, and love brings more pain than joy. It’s better to enjoy the pleasure and forget about the rest.”

“With you?” she said.

“Yes, with me.” He flicked her chin with one knuckle. “I’ll make you forget, Rosamund—for tonight, anyway, Perhaps for longer. Maybe we should join forces and marry. We like each other well enough. Come to bed with me. I’ll prove to you that I know a thing or two about pleasuring a woman.”

“I don’t doubt for a moment that you do,” she said. “But just for my sake? Just to help me forget? Why so selfless, Josh?”

“Perhaps I have some demons of my own to banish,” he said. “I want you—now. Don’t be coy, Rosamund. Please?”

“Josh.” She set her hands on his chest, imposing a little distance between them. “I can’t. Not because I don’t want it. At the moment I do, shameful as it is to admit. But it would be totally divorced from all love or tender feelings. We cannot make love to each other just to banish demons.” 

“Can’t we?” he said. “Why not?”

She sighed. “Because it is an act of love,” she said, “not of hatred.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said.

“No,” she said, “but you might in the morning. And I would hate myself.”

He laughed softly. “The trouble with women,” he said, “is that they are always thinking. They never simply do what they want to do. They stop to think. A pox on all women.” He flicked her chin again.

“Josh,” she said, “I am very fond of you.”

“I don’t need your fondness,” he said, grinning at her. “I need your body, woman.”

She smiled at him. “What brought this on?” she asked. “The betrothal? Why did you try to stop it last night?” 

He put a finger over her lips. “I brought you out here to seduce you,” he said, “not to have my soul stretched out and pinned for your inspection.”

“Is Annabelle your demon?” she asked quietly.

“A pretty little demon, isn’t she?” he said. “She was even smiling at him tonight, Rosamund. Are you feeling as blue as I am—in every imaginable way? We had better go inside. I don’t suppose there are any seducible chambermaids in such a respectable house, are there?”

“I very much doubt it,” she said.

He sighed. “Another night of celibacy, then,” he said. “And don’t tell me that it is good for my soul, Rosamund, or I’ll throttle you.”

“All right,” she said, “but I’m sure it is.”

They looked at each other and laughed a little ruefully.