Someone to Care

“Thank you.” Viola got to her feet. “I shall go and fetch a cloak and bonnet.”

“Do dress warmly,” Isabelle advised. “Once the daylight goes at this time of year, it can feel like the middle of winter out there.”

“I shall,” Viola promised, and she left the room without another glance at Marcel. He followed her out without paying any attention to André’s grin.

She was wearing half boots when she came back downstairs five minutes later, and a long gray cloak of winter weight and a bonnet and kid gloves. Her eyes met his, but she did not smile. Neither of them spoke until the footman on duty in the hall had opened the door for them and shut it behind them.

It was actually lighter outside than it had appeared to be from the drawing room. He gestured to the path on their left as they came down the steps. It meandered across lawns and among scattered oak and beech trees on its way to more dense woodland and the lake and the dower house beyond that. They would not go as far as the woods today, though. Darkness came rather early this late in the year, and darkness in the country could be quite total.

He searched his mind for something to say after she had taken his arm and they had set out along the path, but he could not think of a blessed thing. It was quite unlike him, and he resented it. He resented her, which was quite illogical and even more unfair. He almost hated her—at the same time as he was not over her. If he was not careful, he thought, he would be having a childish tantrum, throwing himself to the ground and drumming his heels and his fists on the path. And that would be more than a little alarming.

She took the responsibility for choosing a topic of conversation from him. “It is insufferable,” she said, and he could hear that her voice was vibrating with anger.

“It?” There were a number of its to which she might be referring.

“All my family and the Westcotts coming here tomorrow,” she said. “All? My mother? My brother? The dowager countess, my former mother-in-law, who is in her seventies? All of them are coming?”

“If their replies to their invitations are to be believed,” he said.

“It is intolerable,” she said again. “You ought to have forbidden it.”

“The invitations were sent and the acceptances received before I got wind of it,” he said. “Or anyone else for that matter. Jane was puce in the face when I came upon her—she had just intercepted a few of the replies. I am not sure Estelle told even Bertrand, which would be most surprising.”

“Then you ought to have put a stop to it as soon as you did know,” she said. “Have you no control over your children?”

He was getting a mite annoyed now too. “I imagine it would be beyond the pale even for the notorious Marquess of Dorchester to uninvite houseguests when they had already written acceptances,” he said. “And Estelle did it with the best intentions, you know. She wished to please you. Strange as it may seem, she actually likes you.”

She appeared not to have been listening to those last words. “Why did you not tell me you are the Marquess of Dorchester?” she asked.

Had they not dealt with this matter before? Perhaps not. “For some reason I have not quite fathomed,” he said, “people treat the Marquess of Dorchester rather differently from the way they treat Mr. Lamarr. I thought you might treat me differently.”

“You thought I might be frightened away?” she asked.

“Would you have been?” He could not see her face fully about the brim of her bonnet.

“Yes,” she said.

He was a little taken aback, though he had withheld the truth from her for precisely that reason. “Why?” he asked.

“I was not exactly a fallen woman when you met me again, Marcel,” she said, “but I was and am a tainted woman. I lived, albeit unknowingly, in a bigamous marriage for twenty-three years. I gave birth to three illegitimate children. I took back my maiden name when I learned the truth and retired to a quiet life, as far from the ton as I could get. The closest I have come to returning since then was this past spring when I went to London for Alexander and Wren’s wedding. I went to the theater with them one evening. It was not an enjoyable experience, though there was no gasp of outrage when I stepped into the Duke of Netherby’s box. I was glad to retire to my quiet life again. And then a few weeks ago I discovered that you are a marquess.”

“You ran away with me, not the marquess,” he said. “Just as I ran away with you, not with the tainted former Countess of Riverdale. But what a ridiculous word, Viola—tainted.”

“You made an informed decision,” she said. “I did not. You withheld pertinent information from me.” Her voice was shaking a bit again, a sure sign that she was still furious.

“You would not have enjoyed me so much if you had known you were making love with the Marquess of Dorchester?” he asked. They had stopped under the branches of a large beech. “He makes love in the same way as Marcel Lamarr does. If our love nest had not been discovered with the two of us more or less in it, would my title have made a difference, Viola? If you had discovered that fact after you had returned home? Would it have made a difference?”

“But that is not what happened,” she said. “We were discovered, and you made that stupid announcement that we were betrothed, and now look at the mess we are in.”

“Stupid?” he said. “And are we in a mess?”

“Yes, stupid,” she said, her eyes flashing too now. “We should have told the simple truth—that we had gone there for a week or two of relaxation and that we were about to return home. Let them make of it what they would. Good heavens, we are not children or even young adults. It was none of their business why we were there. And any unpleasantness and awkwardness would have blown over by now. We would both have been free.”

“And living happily ever after,” he said.

“And living separately ever after,” she said, “as we had planned and as we wished. We had reached the end, Marcel, but your stupid announcement complicated and prolonged it. And now this.” She gestured with one arm toward the house. “My own family and all the Westcotts arriving tomorrow to celebrate our betrothal in grand style. Do you understand how impossible you have made life for me?”

He gazed at her with narrowed eyes and a cold heart. “You would take pleasure from sleeping with me,” he said, “but not from marrying me?”

“Oh, stupid,” she said. “Stupid.” It seemed to be today’s favorite word.

“You will probably survive the ordeal of marrying a marquess,” he said. “It is actually quite a coup for you—or so the ton will be sure to say.”

Dusk really was gathering about them now. Compounded by the shade of the old tree, it made any clear sight of her face difficult. But every line of her body suggested outrage.

“You arrogant—” She could not seem to find a cutting enough noun to slap up against the adjective.

“Bastard?” he suggested.

“Yes,” she said, her voice colder than the air was getting to be. “You arrogant bastard.”

He wondered if that word had ever passed her lips before.

“For wanting to marry you?” he asked. “Am I so inferior to you, then, Viola, that I cannot aspire to your hand?”

She stared long and hard at him and then turned back to the house in obvious exasperation. But before she could take more than one step, he reached across her to grasp her arm.