by Mary Balogh
Harry looked at her in some surprise. With almost any other young lady, some of those words would have sounded as if they must be capitalized—“My Heart Belongs to Another.” With Miss Fanny Leeson they sounded like simple fact. She was looking very pretty and very self-contained. Her cheeks were only slightly flushed.
“We are not betrothed,” she went on to explain. “He has not yet spoken to Papa because I did not want to take attention away from Audrey, who has only very recently become betrothed to your cousin and is very happy about it. But we have a secret agreement.”
“I must wish you every happiness, then,” Harry said. He looked at her, a twinkle in his eye. “And I think it only fair that you know, Miss Leeson, that I am not really in search of a wife. I do believe, however, that my female relatives are in relentless search of one for me. They are very determined to force me into being happy.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling at last and looking even prettier than before, “I know what that feels like, Mr. Westcott. Are not relatives an abomination?”
They shared a private moment of guilty amusement before Bertrand and Elizabeth and Charles, Viscount Dirkson, stepped out onto the terrace.
Seventeen
Camille informed everyone at breakfast the following morning that she was going with Abby to deliver Mrs. Tavernor’s written invitation to Harry’s birthday ball.
“And Harry ought to go with you,” Grandmama Kingsley suggested. “It would be very fitting, since the three of you practically grew up here at Hinsford and Mrs. Tavernor was once the vicar’s wife.”
“Of course,” Harry said when all eyes turned his way.
Apparently Abigail had asked Lydia at church yesterday morning if she might call upon her today with Camille, and Lydia had given her permission. But how would she react when he turned up with them? It might seem like harassment since she had said a firm no to him just two days ago. But he wanted very badly to see her, to judge for himself whether she was coping with the disruption to her life.
She was at home when Harry arrived with his sisters. Not alone, however. Mrs. Bailey was with her, and the first few minutes were taken up with a flurry of introductions and hearty greetings and assurances by Lydia that no, their calling was not an inconvenience to her, and assurances by Camille that no, Mrs. Bailey must not feel obliged to leave on their account.
“We have come because I asked at church yesterday if we might,” Abby explained after the ladies were all seated in the living room.
“Our mother has told us about her friendship with your mama when they were both young, Mrs. Tavernor,” Camille said. “She was delighted to discover that her friend’s daughter was living right here. Sometimes happy coincidences really do occur.”
“Is this true?” Mrs. Bailey beamed her pleasure from one to the other of the ladies. “Do tell us more, Mrs. Cunningham.”
Which Camille proceeded to do, with embellishments of the already embellished story their mother had told. The conversation moved by natural progression to London and Seasons past. Mrs. Bailey reminisced about her own courtship, which had come about because her mama had once enjoyed a friendship with her husband’s mama.
“Not that he was my husband when we first met, of course,” she added.
Harry was standing with his back to the room, looking through the window while Snowball, who appeared to have accepted him as a friend of long standing, settled across one of his boots. After a while, when it became apparent that Lydia was not participating in the conversation, he went to draw up a stool beside her chair, and she leaned down to lift the dog onto her lap.
“Is it very bad?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“It will blow over as such things inevitably do,” she told him. “I am grateful for what your mother did on Saturday and for what you and Mr. and Mrs. Bennington did at church yesterday. I am grateful too for this morning’s call. I do not doubt they will all sway public opinion, if not quite in my favor, at least no further away from it. But this is enough now, Harry. I am quite capable of living my own life. I do not need any further assistance.”
“I do not doubt it,” he told her. “But Lydia, I—”
He got no further.
“We have brought your official invitation to Harry’s birthday party, Mrs. Tavernor,” Camille said, raising her voice. “It is to be a ball. I wish we had known we would meet you here, Mrs. Bailey. We would have brought yours too. I believe my mother intends to deliver it to the vicarage this morning. We want as many of Harry’s neighbors as possible to help us celebrate. My brother will turn thirty only once.”
“For which fact I am fervently thankful,” he said.
Mrs. Bailey laughed heartily.
“Thank you,” Lydia said, taking the card when Camille got to her feet to hand it to her. “I will consider it.”
Abigail stood too and pulled on her gloves. “Wonderful,” she said, smiling warmly. “We brought Mrs. Bartlett’s invitation card with us too since she lives just next door. We must be on our way to deliver it.”
“Lydia,” Harry said, getting to his feet too and putting the stool back where he had found it, “after we have made that delivery—in about half an hour, I suppose—will you come with us and perhaps take a stroll in the park? With me? It is such a beautiful day.”
He had not planned the invitation until the words were coming out of his mouth. And she was bound to say no. But dash it all, why should they deny themselves any sort of friendship when they had clearly grown to like each other? And all because of the risk of the very stupidity that was now happening anyway? Why not be bold and open about it and to hell with anyone who wanted to make scandal of it? Not that she was going to see it that way, of course. And now he had probably embarrassed her in front of the vicar’s wife and his sisters.
“That would be just the thing for you, dear,” Mrs. Bailey said with a comfortable smile.
“Please do come,” Abby said. “Your little dog looks eager for some exercise.”
Snowball was standing on Lydia’s lap, facing away from her, her fluff of a tail brushing across her bosom.
Lydia’s chin had risen in a stubborn gesture Harry was beginning to recognize. “I shall be ready in half an hour,” she surprised him by saying.
* * *
* * *
“Why not?” Lydia had thought when he asked. Why not? What had a more or less careful adherence to propriety and common sense achieved? And that was not a question that needed answering.
So here she was, doing what she had never done in four years of living in Fairfield and well over a year of being in her cottage right opposite the drive to the manor. She was on Hinsford property, walking through a park in which she had never before set foot toward a house she had never seen. The drive wound between large, ancient trees, giving the impression that one was moving into an enchanted place, a land apart.
She was with Major Harry Westcott, whom she had very sensibly and very firmly renounced—if that was not too strong a word—almost a month ago. She was not walking beside him, however. It was actually worse than that, for she was walking arm in arm with Mrs. Camille Cunningham, his elder sister. Just as she had walked a couple of days ago with his mother along the village street.
There was very little from the last few days that made any sense to her, either in what was happening beyond her doors or in what she herself was doing in reaction to it all.
What was it about Harry?
She was not in love with him, was she? Well, she supposed she was and had been for a long time, but in her dreams, not in reality. There was or ought to be a vast difference between the two—and it was entirely her own fault that there was not. She did not want to be in love with any man in this real world. She had made the deliberate choice to be alone and independent. And heart-whole.
She just wished someone would tell her heart that. It was not good when head and hea
rt were divorced from each other and not on speaking terms. Of course, she had not done herself any favors by taking him as a lover one memorable night—and she tried very hard not to remember. An impossibility when he was within her sight, of course. Or when he was not, for that matter.
Snowball, on a long lead, was trotting happily at her side.
Mrs. Cunningham was telling her about the grand adventure of transporting herself and her husband with nine children, two dogs, and two nurses, plus her grandmother and her grandmother’s personal maid—“not to mention all our baggage, Mrs. Tavernor”—from Bath to Hinsford while also preserving her sanity. Lydia surprised herself by becoming helpless with laughter more than once. Harry, meanwhile, was walking ahead of them with his younger sister. They were conversing quietly together, but both looked back more than once to smile at something their sister said.
No, there was absolutely no point in denying to herself that she was in love with him, Lydia thought when her eyes met his on one such occasion. He was smiling while she was laughing, and it seemed to her it was a shared moment of pure joy. Her stomach was even dancing, though not necessarily with joy.
However, one did not need to act upon one’s feelings. One’s actions ought rather to be based upon sober reason and common sense. With a little willpower, one could establish control over one’s feelings and do what one knew one ought to do and what one really wished to do.
It all sounded so . . . reasonable.
So why was she here?
The trees were becoming less dense. There was more sky visible and more sunshine. There was more grass. There were flower beds. And the house.
It was not a vast mansion. But it was grand and attractive and well situated near the top of a very slight slope of land, with a wide lawn before it and trees surrounding it, but at a sufficient distance not to crowd or darken it, only to give an impression of rural seclusion.
It looked like a happy place in which to live, Lydia thought without stopping to ask herself what exactly she meant by that. Perhaps because it was his home. Or because a number of the people staying here were outdoors and there were shouts and shrieks and laughter coming from one group out on the lawn playing cricket, and chanting from a circle of very little children and their two adult supervisors at the top of the lawn. A group of riders was gathered over in front of the stables on the far side of the house. It looked as though they were about to go riding together. Three elderly ladies sat on the terrace, watching all the activity.
She should have expected this, Lydia thought with an inward grimace. It was, after all, the sort of day that was made for outdoor activities. But surely Harry’s intention was not to take her right into the midst of the throng and perhaps even introduce her to those ladies. He had asked her to walk in the park with him.
Even as she thought she might have been trapped into something quite different, however, Harry stopped and turned toward her.
“I do not suppose you are a star bowler or batter, by any chance, Lydia?” he asked.
“I am not,” she said. Though her brothers had learned when she was still quite young not to lob easy balls at her just because she was a girl. She had punished a number of those balls with her cricket bat before they had taken her more seriously.
“It is just as well,” he said. “The two team captains, whoever they are, would probably come to blows over you. Shall we stroll around behind the house? The kitchen gardens are back there and, beyond them, more trees and what as children we used to call the jungle walk. It was not designed or constructed by any landscape artist, alas, but the path is kept clear and it is quite pretty and not much frequented.”
“I would like that,” Lydia said.
“Watch out for snakes,” Mrs. Bennington said, and all three of the siblings laughed. “Harry used to yell that as he was jumping out at us from behind a tree with a length of creeper dangling from one hand. After the first time or two we would just roll our eyes and walk on.”
“You used to poke out your tongue and cross your eyes too, Abby,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “I was more genteel. I merely stuck my nose in the air and made derogatory remarks about boys.”
All three laughed again and Lydia smiled too. She had forgotten the days of tormenting brothers. After the disappointment over her come-out Season that never was and the terrible mistake of her marriage, she had allowed memories of her childhood and girlhood to turn sour.
Snowball began to bark suddenly and ferociously and pull on the lead as a great monster of a . . . creature came galloping toward them in pursuit of three shrieking little girls. Lydia stooped down and snatched up her dog. But who was going to snatch up her? And the others? She experienced a few moments of blind panic and horror before realizing that the creature was a large dog and that the little girls were not fleeing from him but rather being accompanied by him. They were shrieking with excitement at seeing Lydia’s group. They all, the dog included, came to an abrupt halt when they were a few feet away.
“Mama,” one of the little girls yelled, addressing Mrs. Bennington as though she were still half a mile away, “Rebecca has pulled out her tooth and Emma has cut one. Both on the same day. Can you believe it?”
“I was supposed to tell,” one of the others complained loudly. “Because Emma is my sister.”
“Papa has my tooth,” the third child cried. “He said he is going to have it set in gold and wear it on a chain about his neck for the rest of his life, but I think he was funning me. It would be . . . disgusting to wear my tooth, would it not, Uncle Harry?”
Snowball was yipping and wriggling, eager to get at the monster. The monster, meanwhile, was sitting on his giant haunches, looking ungainly and slightly lopsided. He—she? it?—was panting loudly and woofing a friendly greeting to its would-be assailant.
“Let me see that gap, Rebecca,” Harry said, and took the child’s chin in his hand as she opened her mouth wide and pointed. “Hmm. No sign of a new tooth yet.”
“Has Emma’s tooth come through at last?” Mrs. Cunningham asked. “I have never known a more stubborn tooth. Or a crosser baby. Susan’s pushed through last week.”
“I believe,” Mrs. Bennington said, “you girls left your manners back at the house. Make your curtsies to Mrs. Tavernor, if you please. This, Mrs. Tavernor, is my daughter, Katy.” She indicated the child who had told the initial story. “This is Alice Cunningham, Emma’s sister. And Susan’s. They are twins. And the girl with the newly lost tooth is Rebecca Archer.”
“Lady Rebecca Archer,” Alice Cunningham said—and giggled. “Her papa is a duke. The Duke of Netherby.”
“The dog is Beauty,” Mrs. Cunningham added. “She was facetiously named by Abby’s husband when she was a puppy, but she grew to fit the name.”
There was a chorus of “How do you do, Mrs. Tavernor?” from the cousins, who looked to be all about the same age. They bobbed curtsies.
“I am very pleased to meet you all,” Lydia said.
“Your dog looks like a ball of fluffy wool,” Rebecca Archer said. “He is sweet. May I pet him? Will he bite?”
“She does not bite,” Lydia said. “And she loves to be made a fuss of.”
All three girls crowded around to pet her dog. They laughed with glee when Lydia told them her name.
“She looks like a snowball,” Katy Bennington said. “How funny.”
“She licked my hand,” Alice Cunningham said, snatching it away with a squeal. “Come and see Emma’s tooth, Mama. You can come too, Aunt Abby. And Uncle Harry. Would you like to see it, Mrs. Tavernor?”
“Mrs. Tavernor and I are going for a walk,” Harry said. “I will come and admire the tooth later. Rebecca’s too if she insists and if her papa has not already gilded it. Mrs. Tavernor?” He stepped forward to take Snowball from her. “Hush, dog. We know you are a mighty warrior, but you may frighten poor Beauty if you are set down.” He offered Lydia hi
s free arm.
“I scarcely recognize my home,” he said as they walked away. “It has suffered an invasion. A surprise one, I might add. I did not have an inkling. Foolish of me.”
“Do you mind?” she asked him.
He sighed and then chuckled. “I am extremely fond of them all,” he said. “And I appreciate the fact that they made such a herculean effort to plan this surprise and come all the way here just to help me celebrate my birthday. Camille made their journey sound hilarious when she described it to you just now, but in reality it must have been . . . well. Nightmarish? Everyone has come. The whole family. Without exception. Even one grandmother who is almost eighty and the other who is not far behind. I am very grateful to them all.”
“But?” she said. They had turned off the drive just when it had seemed inevitable that they would come close to more people. He was leading her along the east side of the house.
“There is no real but,” he said. “This may all seem ridiculously extravagant for a mere thirtieth birthday. Everyone has one of those, after all, provided he or she lives long enough. It is more than that with my family, though. They all want desperately to make things up to me. They look upon me as being at the very heart of what happened ten years ago. I was the one who suffered most obviously. I lost everything—the title, the properties, the fortune, my legitimacy, any residual respect I had left for my father. I lost my position as head of the family. I lost my ability to protect and care for my mother and sisters. And then I went off to war and got myself horribly wounded a number of times. I was actually sent home to England to recover at one time and arrived with a high fever and pretty much off my head. I got myself very nearly killed at Waterloo and was eventually carried back here, ill, weak, and destitute except for what I could still expect from an officer’s half-pay.”
He paused to smile at Lydia.