Olivia smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling with tears. “Yes, Harry, with all my—"
She got no further, for Sir Harry dragged her into a ruthless embrace which would have bereft her of speech even had she been able to free her lips from his—although it must be noted that she made no visible effort to do so. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and returned his kiss with every appearance of enthusiasm. Silence reigned in the private parlor for the next four minutes and twenty-four seconds, until at last the door knob rattled and the door opened to reveal Lady Hawthorne standing on the threshold.
"Lud, but this room positively reeks of April and May,” she remarked, sailing into the room. “I daresay you spoke scarcely more than a dozen words to each other the entire time."
Sir Harry offered no comment, but devoted his full attention to the adjustment of his cravat, while Olivia was similarly absorbed in replacing the several hairpins which had somehow worked themselves loose from her coiffure. Their seeming fascination with these mundane tasks, as well as their heightened color, was all the proof Lady Hawthorne needed as to the accuracy of her speculation.
"And now,” declared the dowager, “if you two are quite finished, we must rejoin your sister and the marquess upstairs."
"You left Georgie alone with that bounder?” demanded Sir Harry, aghast.
"Not at all. I left them under the chaperonage of the innkeeper's wife."
If this set Sir Harry's mind at ease, that agreeable sensation did not last long. Upstairs, the marquess lay in bed propped against the pillows. His torn and bloodied shirt had been removed, and his shoulder bandaged with torn strips of bedsheets. The innkeeper's wife sat complacently in one corner of the room, while Georgina had pulled a chair alongside the bed, from which location she attempted to spoon-feed the invalid from a bowl of broth.
"So you will survive, I see,” remarked Sir Harry as he entered the room. “More's the pity."
"I regret that I cannot oblige you by dying just yet,” returned the marquess, putting his nurse gently aside so that he might rise from his bed of suffering to confront his erstwhile foe. “Hawthorne, I trust you will sympathize with my plight. After having failed in my attempt to seduce your fiancée, I now find myself in the deucedly awkward position of having to ask your permission to pay my addresses to your sister."
This pronouncement had a profound effect on both Hawthorne siblings.
"The devil, you say!” sputtered Sir Harry. “Why, if I hadn't already pinked you once, I would—"
"No!” cried Georgina, her face white with shock. “My lord, you must not!"
Lord Mannerly looked at her with an expression approaching tenderness. “My poor child, if word of this night's work gets out, do you truly think your vicar will still wish to marry you?"
"Pray, sir, do not think that you must marry me to—to salvage my reputation, or some such thing—"
"My good girl, I have never felt myself obliged to salvage any woman's reputation. If you truly think I would offer you marriage for such a jingle-brained reason as that, you are even greener than I first supposed!"
"Oh,” said Georgina, quite cowed.
"Georgina is far too young to marry anyone, as her behavior thus far proves,” insisted her brother.
To Sir Harry's surprise, Lord Mannerly did not attempt to dispute this statement. “Then we shall wait until the end of the Season before making any sort of announcement. That will give me a month or better to court her in earnest."
"A month? Not even in a year, Mannerly!"
"Tell me, Sir Harry, do you plan to wait a year or more to wed Miss Darby?"
Sir Harry cast a look of comic dismay at his intended. “Only if she insists!"
"Then you will understand my reluctance to agree to your terms. Shall we split the difference and say six months?"
The marquess held out his left hand (his right being, at the moment, out of commission), and after a moment of severe inner struggle, Sir Harry took it.
"Very wise,” said Lady Hawthorne, observing this exchange. “Best to accept it with as good a grace as possible. Lord Mannerly appears to me to be the sort of man who gets what he wants."
"Not always,” replied Sir Harry with a secret smile for Olivia. “But what about the vicar, Georgie? I thought you wanted to marry him!"
"I have decided that Mr. Collier and I would not suit,” Georgina replied primly.
"Well, you would have made him miserable,” said Sir Harry with brotherly candor. “Of course, you'll probably make Mannerly miserable, too, but at least I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that he deserves to be so."
"It is unfortunate that Lord Mannerly's attentions to Miss Darby were so very marked,” observed Lady Hawthorne. “Still, six months will at least allow time for the talk to die down, and we shall put it about that the marquess applied to Miss Darby for assistance in fixing his interest with Georgina."
This suggestion found favor with everyone except he whom it most nearly concerned.
"My good woman, I have never found it necessary to apply to a third party for assistance with my, er, affaires de coeur!"
"No, I suppose not,” returned the dowager. “Therefore, the indignity of being believed to have done so will serve as fitting punishment for your part in tonight's escapade. Now, I think it best that you, Mannerly, remain here for the night. Harry will send word to your valet to join you here. As for you, Georgina, make your farewells to his lordship. Harry, you may escort us back to Curzon Street, then take yourself off to your own lodgings and act as if you have been in residence there for the past month!"
* * * *
It was a weary little group that arrived back in Curzon Street. A dreamy-eyed Georgina bade her grandmother goodnight and floated up the stairs. Olivia, for her part, wanted to spend every possible minute with Sir Harry, and to this end insisted that she felt fine. It was not until this threesome settled in the drawing room for a lengthy conference that Sir Harry noticed that his intended bride's eyelids were starting to droop. Consequently, he ordered her to take herself to bed and, when she showed signs of refusing, threatened to toss her over his shoulder and carry her there himself.
"I think I liked you better as Lady Hawthorne,” Olivia complained, softening the blow to Sir Harry's manhood by taking his arm as he walked with her to the foot of the stairs. Here she turned and regarded her betrothed with an earnest expression. “Harry, try not to mind too much about Georgina and Lord Mannerly. I know it is not what you would wish for her, but I think he does care for her, in his own way. Besides, we stand in his debt, you and I."
Sir Harry pondered this idea distastefully. “Much as it galls me to be indebted to Mannerly, I suppose you are right. My God, Livvy, when I think how close we came to making a cold, loveless marriage—"
"No, Harry, never that.” She paused long enough to yawn, and Sir Harry, reminded of the lateness of the hour, repeated his demand that she go to bed.
She took two steps before turning back, delaying the inevitable parting as long as possible. “Will you call on us tomorrow?"
Sir Harry snatched her hand from the rail and planted a kiss on it. “Try to keep me away!” he retorted, smiling at Olivia in a way that warmed her all the way down to her toes.
He watched until she disappeared at the landing, then rejoined his grandmother in the drawing room.
"Well, Harry, you've much to explain,” remarked the dowager as her grandson collapsed wearily onto a chair.
"And much for which to beg your pardon. Believe me, Grandmama, if I had known how much trouble it would cause, I would never—” He broke off, considering how it had all worked out. Would he have done it anyway?
"Nonsense, my boy, if you had the chance, you would do it again tomorrow."
"Grandmama, you are a mind-reader. Still, there are a few things you should know, and for which I am profoundly sorry. While living here under your name, I was obliged to bring my valet, and to disguise him as a lady's maid, only his disguise was not
very good, and—well, the long and short of it is that everyone belowstairs believes you to be keeping a lover!"
Lady Hawthorne was incredulous. “At my age? Surely you jest!"
"Wait, there's more. At one point I found it necessary to speak to my friend, Mr. Wrexham, in private, and when he was ushered to my bedchamber, I'm afraid the footman assumed the worst. And then there was Colonel Gubbins, whom I was obliged to wallop with my reticule when he tried to kiss me. In short, ma'am, I've made a regular mull of your life, and am more than happy to turn it back over to you. Olivia's mother is expected to return to London tomorrow—today, rather—and as soon as she arrives, I should be pleased to escort you back to Bath."
"What humbug!” scoffed Lady Hawthorne. “You know quite well you should be pleased to do no such thing! You would much prefer to remain here in London, dancing attendance on your Miss Darby."
Sir Harry, grinning broadly, made no attempt to refute this statement.
"As for my returning to Bath,” replied the dowager with great deliberation, “my London come-out was not a success. By the time your grandfather offered for me, I was twenty-four years old and all but on the shelf, and all the tabbies had it that although 1 was the daughter of a viscount, I had to content myself with a mere baronet. Now, many years later, I have returned to find myself reputed to be keeping no less than three lovers in my pocket.” Lady Hawthorne's face lit up in a mischievous grin. “My dear boy, why on earth would I want to leave now?"
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Epilogue
Let all thy joys be as the month of May, And all thy days be as a marriage day. FRANCIS QUARLES, To a Bride
On a mild sunny day in late September, the Reverend James Collier stood in his pulpit, reading aloud the marriage ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer. The bridal couple stood before him, gorgeously arrayed in their wedding finery: Sir Harry Hawthorne handsome and elegant in a dark blue coat and white waistcoat over black pantaloons, Miss Olivia Darby radiantly beautiful in white India muslin, her dark hair crowned with a wreath of white roses which had been delivered to Darby House just that morning from Sir Harry's own hothouses.
Alas, the vicar's own nuptials were not to be, for Miss Georgina Hawthorne had indeed fallen prey to the temptations of the Metropolis. Glancing at that young lady, who was on this occasion serving her future sister as bridesmaid, Mr. Collier felt a pang of regret. She was very lovely, with her coppery curls tied up with peach-colored ribbons to match her gown.
But there would be time for repining later. For now, those parts of the little parish church not filled with flowers were overflowing with wedding guests, and in addition to his regular parishioners, the good reverend was pleased to see such distinguished visitors as Lord and Lady Clairmont, the bride's sister and brother-in-law; the dowager Lady Hawthorne, who needed no introduction to be instantly recognized as the bridegroom's grandmother; and the marquess of Mannerly, who had driven up from London just the day before.
While Sir Harry Hawthorne repeated the vows that would unite him with Miss Darby, the vicar took the opportunity to study this noble guest. He knew not quite what to make of the marquess's presence. When he had called at Hawthorne Grange the day before with some last-minute inquiries regarding the ceremony, it had seemed to him that Sir Harry regarded his houseguest with thinly veiled hostility. Ordinarily, Mr. Collier would have judged the marquess as the sort of gentleman whom he, as a man of the cloth, could not quite like, yet even he had been disconcerted by Sir Harry's obvious resentment of his visitor. Indeed, he had felt it his Christian duty to do what he might to pour oil on the troubled waters. Yet when he had attempted to apologize to the marquess for his host's abrupt manner, ascribing Sir Harry's lack of civility to premarital sensibilities, the nobleman had come to that pugnacious young man's defense, giving Mr. Collier a blistering set-down for his pains. He could only suppose that Sir Harry and his guest did not despise one another as much as they pretended, and had wisely refrained from interfering again where his assistance was clearly not wanted.
The sounds of Mrs. Darby sniffing audibly into her thoroughly saturated handkerchief recalled the vicar to a sense of his duties and, turning to Olivia, he charged her to repeat the vows just spoken by her intended husband. As Olivia promised to love, honor, and obey, Mr. Collier's thoughts again strayed to Miss Hawthorne, allowing himself one moment to regret that he would never hear those words upon her lips. Glancing down at the young lady who would never be his, he was shocked and disturbed to see her and Lord Mannerly exchanging furtive glances which could only be described as amorous. Merciful heavens! Was that why she had cried off so abruptly? If Miss Hawthorne had succumbed to the worldly charms of the marquess, clearly she was unsuited to be the wife of one in Holy Orders.
Amid the bride's mother's tears, the groom's mother's smiles, and the approving nods of the dowager Lady Hawthorne, he uttered the pronouncement that joined Sir Harry and his lady in holy matrimony, all the while silently thanking his Maker for his narrow escape.
To the 300 “Heyerites” of the Georgette Heyer Internet Listservice, with thanks for their unwavering support.
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