by Balogh, Mary
There were a few moments of incredulous silence while everyone—Matilda included—gawked at the dowager countess. Gawked was the only appropriate word.
“I really meant no offense, Matilda,” Louise said at last. “You must know that. I am merely concerned for you. Of course you may … But do you have an attachment to Viscount Dirkson?”
“Is it true,” Jessica asked, “that you were once in love with him, Aunt Matilda?”
“And that you are again?” Anna asked. “But we are embarrassing you. Do forgive us. We really do care, you know. If we did not, we would not tease you. We care about your happiness. And about you. Do let us shift the subject a little. Were there fireworks last evening? Were they as amazing as they usually are?”
But before Matilda could answer, the butler appeared in the doorway—no one had heard his discreet knock—and they all turned to hear what he had to say.
“Viscount Dirkson, my lady,” he announced, and Charles came striding into the room.
Charles had seen the two carriages outside the door. He had even recognized one of them as belonging to the Duke of Netherby. For a moment he considered driving his curricle right on by and returning later, but there was always a chance that he had already been spotted from the drawing room window. Besides, he had no reason to hide from the Westcott family. Indeed, he had every reason not to.
He was a bit disconcerted a few minutes later, however, when he stepped into the drawing room on the heels of the butler and found the room seemingly full of ladies. All of them were members of the family. Matilda, he was happy to see, was not hovering behind her mother’s chair today but was seated very straight backed on the edge of another chair, two spots of color in her cheeks.
“Ma’am.” He bowed to the dowager countess and looked around at the others. “Ladies. Matilda.” He smiled at her.
She looked back at him with what he could describe only as acute embarrassment as everyone else rushed into greetings, which varied from subdued to effusive. He guessed they had been talking about him before his arrival. He wondered if Matilda had told them, as he had told his children—Adrian last night, Barbara and Jane this morning.
“Estelle was bubbling over at breakfast about last night’s visit to Vauxhall,” the Marchioness of Dorchester said. “What an inspired idea it was, Lord Dirkson, to choose that venue at which to celebrate your daughter’s birthday.”
“It was entirely her idea, ma’am,” he told her. “But it was indeed a lovely evening. Was it not, Matilda?”
“It was,” she said, and surely it was not his imagination that all attention was suddenly riveted upon her. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. Her lips were in a prim line. “It was lovely.”
Ah, she had not told them.
“I came to assure myself that you had taken no chill or other harm,” he said.
“It was kind of you,” Louise, Dowager Duchess of Netherby, told him, “to invite Matilda.”
“Kindness had nothing to do with it, ma’am,” he said. “Or if it did, it was on Lady Matilda’s part. She was kind enough to accept my daughter’s invitation to be one of the party.”
“Oh,” Lady Molenor, Matilda’s youngest sister, said. “The invitation came from your daughter, did it?”
“It did,” he said. “At my suggestion.”
“Estelle’s invitation came from Mrs. Dewhurst too,” the marchioness said. “At the suggestion of Mr. Adrian Sawyer, I believe. She had a splendid time.”
“Do have a seat, Lord Dirkson,” the dowager said, indicating an empty chair.
“I do not intend to stay, ma’am,” he said. “I came to pay my respects and to ask Lady Matilda if she will drive with me in my curricle in the park later.”
“Oh,” the Dowager Duchess of Netherby said, “my sister has never ridden in a curricle. She would be terrified.”
“I have, Louise,” Matilda said. “I rode up with Bertrand one afternoon several weeks ago, and far from being terrified, I found it to be one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.”
“Matilda?” Lady Molenor said. “Impossible.”
“With Bertrand?” the marchioness said. “Well, the rogue. He said nothing to us.”
“Bravo, Aunt Matilda.” The young Duchess of Netherby laughed. “How splendid of you.”
“Indeed,” Lady Jessica Archer agreed. “How did he persuade you to do something so daring, Aunt Matilda?”
“Exactly when was this?” the dowager countess asked eagerly.
Matilda was stretching her fingers in her lap and then curling them into her palms again. “Thank you,” she said, looking at Charles and ignoring the questions her family had for her. “That would be delightful.”
“Matilda—”
“Oh good, Aunt Matilda.”
“Are you sure, Matilda—”
She continued to ignore them all. She licked her lips, her eyes still upon Charles, though it was clear she was addressing everyone when she spoke. “Last evening Viscount Dirkson asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
Well, that silenced them—for a few moments anyway.
Charles smiled slowly at Matilda, and she frowned back at him.
Part of his attention was caught by the sound of the dowager countess, her mother, drawing breath. He waited for the tirade that was sure to come.
“Well, thank God for that,” was what she actually said.
* * *
Matilda thought her fingernails might well be drawing blood from her palms, but she could not seem to relax her hands. She thought her heart might beat a path through her chest cavity and ribs. She held her mouth in a firm line so that she would not … what? Laugh? Why would she feel an irresistible urge to laugh when she was so tense that her jaw felt locked in place?
She gazed upon Charles and could hardly believe he was the same man as the one with whom she had danced and laughed last evening. And kissed. The one with whom she had stood beyond the rotunda to watch the fireworks while exclaiming all the while in childish superlatives at the splendor of it all. The one who had stood behind her at last and encircled her waist with his arms so that she could rest the back of her head against his shoulder and not grow dizzy as she gazed upward—despite the fact that they might have been observed by half the ton, or even three-quarters.
Today he was an immaculately clad gentleman, handsome, solid of build, somehow remote from her. Except that … He had named her alone when he had entered the room and greeted everyone. He had smiled at her. He had come to make sure she had taken no harm last evening, though from what she might have taken harm she did not know. He had neatly turned the idea that he had been kind to invite her to Vauxhall into one in which she had been kind to him by accepting Barbara’s invitation. And he had come—he had said it in front of her mother and sisters and sister-in-law and nieces—to invite her to drive in his curricle with him in Hyde Park. It must be thirty years or more since any gentleman had invited her to do that.
She was fairly bursting with her love for him. All last night’s and this morning’s anxieties had fallen away. He had come. And he had smiled and called her by name. He wanted her to go out with him. He still loved her.
Tomorrow had not come after all. It was still today. Eternally today in which to be with Charles, to enjoy his love, to return it in full measure, to …
“Thank God, Mama?” Mildred said.
“I thought my punishment was to be eternal,” her mother said. “It is the millstone I have carried about my neck for well nigh forty years. I thought I would carry it to my grave.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Mama?” Louise asked. “Are you well? Matilda, is Mama ailing?”
“Stop fussing,” their mother said. “Start talking about a wedding instead. It must be a grand one. I will not stand for anything less. Matilda must have her grand wedding at last. And if you have anything to say to the contrary, Lord Dirkson, I would suggest that you keep your tongue between your teeth and allow the women to do what women
do best.”
He actually grinned as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Plan weddings?” he said.
“Precisely.” She nodded briskly.
“Mama—” Matilda began.
“Ma’am.” Charles spoke again. “I am quite prepared to allow the world to turn upon its axis as it always has done. However, I feel compelled to speak out on two points before I lose my voice altogether, and I fear that time is imminent. First, Matilda and I did not get as far as discussing our wedding last evening. I have no idea what sort of ceremony she wants or where or when she wants it to happen. She must make that choice—with me. I will not allow her to be bullied into giving in to what her family and mine may think appropriate. And second, when the women sweep in to organize us, as they no doubt will unless Matilda chooses to elope with me, it must be remembered that there are women in both the Westcott and Sawyer families. My daughters, despite my dire warnings this morning, very probably have my wedding half-planned already.”
“I am still in shock,” Anna said, getting to her feet. “But a very pleasant shock. Aunt Matilda! I cannot tell you how pleased I am for you. And you too, Lord Dirkson. Avery and I slipped off quietly to marry one afternoon, you know, while Grandmama and the aunts and cousins were busy planning a grand wedding for us. I was never happier in my life.” She leaned over Matilda’s chair and hugged her warmly. “And Abigail married Gil in the village church at home just a few weeks ago with no one present except Harry and the vicar’s wife. I believe she will always treasure the memory. Perhaps you—”
“Thank you, Anna,” Matilda said. “But I want a wedding.”
She had not thought of it until now, when she had been almost afraid to believe in the truth of what had happened last evening. But it was true. All her life she had dreamed of a grand wedding, but for most of that time that was all it had been—an ever-fading dream. And, for the last twenty years or so, entirely faded.
“Then a wedding is what you will have, my love,” Charles said.
My love? Oh. In front of half her family.
“St. George’s it will be, then.” Louise clapped her hands as though to draw the attention of thousands. “We must have the banns called next Sunday. It is already rather late in the Season and we do not want to wait until it is over and most of the ton has returned to the country. If Matilda is to be married at St. George’s, the pews must be full to overflowing. Oh goodness, we must let Wren know and Elizabeth and Althea. They will want to be involved in the planning.”
“We must arrange a meeting with Mrs. Dewhurst and Lady Frater,” Viola said. “They will have ideas of their own. They already do, according to Viscount Dirkson.”
“Alexander will want to host the wedding breakfast,” Anna said. “But I know Avery will insist that the ballroom at Archer House has more room.”
A ton wedding at St. George’s on Hanover Square? A wedding breakfast in the ballroom at the town house of the Duke of Netherby? Matilda started to feel anxious again. Surely, oh surely, she would be the laughingstock. She had not meant anything quite so grand. Just a definite wedding with …
“Matilda,” Charles said. “My curricle is outside your door. Why wait until later to go for our drive? I have the distinct impression that our presence here is de trop. Will you come now?”
“Yes.” She got to her feet. “Oh yes. Thank you.”
How many times had she participated in family conferences and family planning committees? She had usually been at the forefront of them all, busy planning how to extricate some family member from disaster or how to help them celebrate an event in their lives. Was she now to be the object of such family activity?
Oh. It did feel good.
“Matilda,” Charles said when she joined him downstairs after going to fetch her bonnet and gloves and reticule, “I will not allow you to be bullied, you know. Even by me. Especially by me. You are looking worried, even a little stricken. There is no need. You must tell me as we drive what you want. And you shall have it. You are the bride. You are to make the decisions.”
You are the bride.
She felt that growingly familiar urge to weep. She smiled instead as he handed her up to the passenger seat of the curricle and she remembered that heady feeling of being much farther off the ground than she had expected. The feeling of danger and exhilaration. She laughed aloud.
“But everyone would be so disappointed,” she said, “if we were to run off with a special license to marry in secret. Besides which, I would be disappointed. And they would be upset if they planned and planned and I disapproved of everything. My family would be upset. So would Barbara and Jane. I think a marriage is for two people, Charles. But a wedding is for their families and friends. Shall we just let them plan?”
“It would save us a lot of anguish,” he said, grinning at her as he took his place beside her. “When I walked into that room awhile ago and saw you, I feared you had changed your mind. You looked brittle and severe.”
“But only because I was convinced you must have changed your mind,” she said.
“Absurd,” he told her.
“Absurd,” she agreed, and they both laughed as though someone had just made an extremely witty remark.
“Charles,” she said, laying a hand on his arm as he leaned down, took the ribbons from his young groom, and gathered them in his hands, “I wish we were in the country. I wish I could ask you to spring the horses.”
He turned his head to look into her face, his own still filled with laughter. “Do you, my love?” he asked her.
“I know you are a notable whip,” she told him. “It was always a part of your reputation.”
“One day soon,” he said, “when we are in the country, I will spring the horses and risk both our lives as they dash along at a neck-or-nothing pace.”
“Oh, will you?” she said. “Thank you, Charles. I am not a staid old lady quite yet, you know.”
“I have noticed,” he said, and he risked horrible scandal by leaning toward her and kissing her briefly on the lips while windows in numerous houses all around them looked accusingly on and his young groom pretended to be looking intently elsewhere.
As the curricle moved off in the direction of Hyde Park, Matilda, in marvelous ladylike fashion, threw back her head and laughed.
Nine
Several times over the following month, Charles sat alone in his library, wishing that he had not suddenly found himself at the center of a whirlpool or a tornado—both seemed appropriate metaphors. For of course the notice of his betrothal appeared in every London paper and perhaps a few provincial ones too. And wherever he went, he faced congratulations or—at his clubs—endless witticisms over which he was forced to laugh. His son and one of his sons-in-law dragged him off to his tailor and his boot maker and his hatmaker and Lord knew where else so that on his wedding day he would be able to astonish the ton with new and fashionable everything.
His daughters and every female on earth who had a connection with the Westcott family, no matter how slim, held meeting after meeting to discuss every aspect of the wedding that women invariably found to discuss and wrangle over. Though to be fair, he heard no reports of arguments or raised voices or heated discussions or rivalries between the two families. Early predictions proved quite accurate. The wedding breakfast was to be served at Westcott House, the home of Alexander, Earl of Riverdale, on South Audley Street. Invitations were sent. If any member of the ton then staying in or within a twenty-mile radius of London had been omitted, Charles would be enormously surprised. Relatives from farther afield had been summoned, including a few cousins he scarcely knew but whose presence on his wedding day was deemed by his daughters to be essential to his happiness.
Charles would just as happily have done what the Netherbys had once done and sneaked off to marry Matilda in an obscure church somewhere, special license in hand, while their families were in a flurry of plotting and planning for a grand wedding to outdo all others this year. But despite ever-changing misgi
vings and second and third and sixth thoughts through which Matilda suffered during the course of the month, he understood that a big public wedding was what she really wanted. And what Matilda wanted she would have. She had waited long enough for her wedding—thirty-six years.
What she had feared most was being laughed at. Charles felt no doubt that there were certain elements of society that ridiculed her behind her back. There always were. The world would never be rid of unkind people who compensated for their own insecurities by dragging down other happier, more successful people to their own level through their gossip. They were to be heartily ignored. She was well received wherever she went. Barbara held a soiree in her honor, and Jane had her as a special guest in Wallace’s private box at the theater the very evening after the announcement appeared in the papers. The Duke and Duchess of Netherby hosted a betrothal party at their home, and the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorchester organized an afternoon tea. Charles took her driving in the park several times and escorted her to a private concert and a literary evening.
She received well-wishers with quiet dignity wherever she went. No longer was she the fussy spinster forever in her mother’s shadow, though perhaps that had something to do with the fact that her mother flatly refused to have her there any longer. And Matilda need not fear for her care, her mother informed Charles when he broached the subject of her coming to live with them after their marriage.
“You need not fear either, Lord Dirkson,” she had added. “I am quite capable of looking after myself. And has Matilda not told you? My sister is coming to live with me when I return to the country after the Season is over. She will be bringing her longtime companion with her, an estimable lady who will offer companionship without trying to worry me into my grave.”