Simply Perfect s-4

by Mary Balogh

  After their return from Lindsey Hall, Joseph and Portia sat together in the formal flower garden to the east of the house. He was feeling mortally depressed. For one thing he had spent very little time with Lizzie, and the deception, though it had seemed to amuse her, had been distasteful to him. For another thing, he and Claudia Martin must now stay away from each other. No longer could he enjoy even her friendship. And for a third thing he had been able to discover no warmth, no compassion, no generosity, no spark of passion, beneath the beautiful, dignified, perfect appearance Portia presented to the world. And he had tried. “I am pleased that you enjoy riding,” he had told her on the way back to Alvesley. “It is one of my favorite activities. It will be something we can do together.” “Oh,” she had replied, “I will not expect you to be hanging about me all day when we are married, just as I will not be hanging about you. We will both have our duties and our pleasures to keep us busy.” “And those pleasures cannot be found in each other’s company?” he had asked her. “When necessary,” she had said. “We will entertain a great deal, of course, especially when you become the Duke of Anburey.” He had persisted. “But private pleasures? Walking together, dining together, even just sitting and reading or conversing together? Will there not be time for them too? Will we not make time for them?” He had not added the idea of making love as another private pleasure in which they might choose to indulge after they married. “I imagine,” she had said, “that you will be a busy man. I am sure I will be busy with all the duties of being the Marchioness of Attingsborough and later the Duchess of Anburey. I will not expect you to feel obliged to amuse me.” He had not pursued that line of conversation. He had tried, now, here in the garden, to get her to relax and enjoy with him the beauty that surrounded them. “Listen!” he had said just a few minutes ago, holding up one hand. “Have you ever thought about how much we miss in life from being endlessly busy? Listen, Portia.” There was a stream at the bottom of the flower garden with a rustic wooden bridge crossing it and wooded hills beyond. And, sure enough, the birds in the trees here were as busy with their summer chorus as those in Richmond Park had been. He could also hear the gurgle of the stream. And he could feel the warmth of the summer air. He could smell the flowers and the water. She had maintained a polite silence for a few moments. “It is by being busy, though,” she had said then, “that we prove ourselves worthy of our humanity. Idleness is to be avoided, even despised. It reduces us to the level of the bestial world.” “Like Lizzie Pickford’s dog sitting beside the maypole waiting to take her safely wherever she wished to go?” he had asked with a smile. It had been a mistake to mention that particular animal. “That child,” she had said, “ought not to have been rewarded for being so forward when she was in company with her betters. Blindness is no excuse. It was very good of you to go walking with her to the lake, and the Duchess of Bewcastle made a point of commending your kindness and good nature, but she must surely have wondered if you had not shown some lack of discrimination.” “Discrimination?” “Her own son, the Marquess of Lindsey, was outdoors with her,” she had pointed out to him, “as were the children of the Marquess of Hallmere and the Earl of Rosthorn and Lord Aidan Bedwyn. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to turn your attention to one of them.” “None of them asked me to go walking with them,” he had said. “And none of them was blind.” And none of them was his own child. “The Duchess of Bewcastle is a very amiable lady,” she had said. “I cannot help wondering, though, if the duke does not regret condescending to marry her. She was once a teacher in a village school. Her father was once a teacher. Her sister teaches at Miss Martin’s school in Bath. And now she has all those charity girls staying at Lindsey Hall and speaks of them as if they give her as much pleasure as the children of the duke’s own family. They ought not to be there. For their own good they ought not.” “For their own good?” “They need to learn their proper station in life,” she had said. “They must learn the distinctions between themselves and their betters. They must learn that they do not belong in places like Lindsey Hall. It is really quite cruel to them to allow them to spend a holiday here.” “They ought to remain at the school, then,” he had said, “kept busy with mending and darning and fed bread and water?” “It is not what I mean at all,” she had told him. “You must surely agree with me that those girls ought not even to be at a school with other, paying pupils. Those others are only the daughters of merchants and lawyers and physicians, I daresay, but even so they are middle class, not lower, and there is a definite distinction.” “You would not want to see your own daughter go there, then?” he had asked. She had turned her head to look at him and laughed. She had looked genuinely amused. “Our own daughters,” she had said, “will be educated at home, as I am sure you would expect.” “By a governess who may have been educated at Miss Martin’s school or one like it?” “Of course,” she had said. “By a servant.” And so now, a mere few moments later, in another silence, Joseph felt his spirits slide all the way down to the soles of the riding boots he was still wearing. There was no hope, no ray of light, ahead. He ought to have insisted upon a decent period of courtship before committing himself to offering for her. He ought… But there was no point in such thoughts. The reality was that he was betrothed to Portia Hunt. He was as firmly bound to her as if the nuptials had already been solemnized. The sound of feminine voices in merry conversation with one another came from the terrace behind them, and soon Lauren and Gwen and Lily and Anne Butler stepped into the garden. “Ah, your peace is being invaded,” Lauren called when she saw them. “We are going to climb to the top of the hill and admire the view. Have you been up there?” “We have just been relaxing here,” Joseph said with a smile. “We are going to sit up there and make plans,” Lily said. “Plans?” Portia asked. “For a picnic the day before the anniversary celebrations,” Lily explained. “Elizabeth and I have been telling everyone about the delightful scene that met our eyes when we arrived at Lindsey Hall earlier, children everywhere, all enjoying themselves enormously.” “And it struck my mother-in-law and me,” Lauren said, “that there are lots of children here too and yet all the official celebrations virtually exclude them. And so we decided on the spot to organize a children’s picnic for the day before the ball.” “How delightful,” Portia murmured. “But now we have to plan it,” Mrs. Butler said. “And because I was once a teacher, I am expected to be an expert.” “Lauren and Lady Redfield are going to invite all the children from Lindsey Hall too,” Gwen said. “And some of the other children from the neighborhood. There will be an army.” “Miss Martin’s girls too?” Jos eph asked. He had been wondering how he could arrange to see Lizzie again. “But of course not,” Portia said, sounding shocked. “But of course,” Lily said simultaneously. “They were a delight, were they not, Joseph, all dancing about the maypole? And that little blind girl was quite undaunted by her affliction.” “Lizzie?” “Yes, Lizzie Pickford,” she said. “Lauren is going to invite them all.” “Alvesley may never be the same,” Lauren said with a laugh. “Not to mention us.” Joseph, smiling back at her, could remember a time when Lauren had been every bit as straitlaced and apparently lacking in humor as Portia. Love and her marriage to Kit had transformed her into the warmhearted woman she was now. Was there a glimmering of hope for him after all? He must persevere with Portia. He must find a way to her heart. He must. The alternative was too dreadful to contemplate. “Do you want to come up with us?” Gwen suggested, looking at Portia. “The sun is rather too hot,” Portia said. “We will return to the house.” The ladies proceeded on their way across the bridge and onto the path that would take them up the rather steep slope. Even Gwen was undaunted, despite a rather heavy limp, the permanent aftereffect of a riding accident that had happened during her marriage, before Muir died. “It is to be hoped,” Portia said as they rose to their feet and he offered her his arm, “that they plan the picnic very carefully indeed, though it is kind of Lady Ravensberg and Lady Redfield to think of it. There is nothi
ng worse than children being allowed to run wild.” “Nothing worse for the adults in charge of them, perhaps,” he said, chuckling. “Nothing more blissful for the children themselves.” Would Lizzie come? he wondered. And would Claudia Martin come?

  For four days Claudia did not set eyes upon the Marquess of Attingsborough. For herself she was very glad indeed. She must forget him—it was as stark and as simple as that—and the best way to do that was never to set eyes on him again. But Lizzie grieved. Oh, outwardly she seemed to be thriving. She was looking less pale and thin than she had. She had friends willing to take her about and read to her. She had music to listen to since some of the girls liked to take a turn at the spinet and several liked to sing. Claudia tried telling her stories from history and then asking her questions later. The not unsurprising discovery was that Lizzie had a sharp memory. She was certainly not uneducable. She dictated two more of her own stories, one to Claudia and one to Eleanor, and never tired of having them read back to her. She liked to knit, though her inability to see a dropped stitch or to pick it up if someone else pointed it out was a problem yet to be solved. She had the dog as a constant companion and increasingly as a guide. Indeed, she was becoming bolder every day, taking short walks with just the dog while Claudia or Molly or Agnes trailed along behind in case they were needed and sometimes went ahead to lead Horace in the desired direction. She was even something of a favorite with the duchess and her other guests, who often made a point of speaking with her and sometimes included her in their activities when the other girls were engaged in a game in which she was unable to participate. Lord Aidan Bedwyn took her riding with him one day while his older children rode their own mounts and his young daughter rode with her mother. But despite it all Lizzie grieved. Claudia found her one afternoon when the other girls had gone out with Eleanor on a lengthy nature hike, curled up on her bed in her room. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “Lizzie?” Claudia said, seating herself beside the bed. “Are you sad at being left behind? Shall we do something together?” “Why does he not come back?” Lizzie wailed. “Is it something I did? Is it because I called him sir instead of Papa? Is it because I asked him to wait at the lake with you so that I could show him I was able to find my way back to the house with just Horace and Molly?” Claudia smoothed a hand over Lizzie’s hot, untidy hair. “It is nothing you did,” she said. “Your papa is busy at Alvesley. I know he is missing you as much as you miss him.” “He is going to send me to your school,” Lizzie said. “I know he is. He is going to marry Miss Hunt—he told me so when I was still at home. Is she the lady who said I was a clumsy dancer? Papa is going to send me to school.” “And you do not want to go?” Claudia asked. “Even though Molly and Agnes and the other girls will be there, and Miss Thompson and I?” “I want to be home with Papa,” Lizzie told her. “And I want you and Horace to come as you did before, only more often. Every day. And I want Papa to stay the night every night. I want…I want to be home.” Claudia continued smoothing a hand over her hair. She said nothing though her heart ached for a child who wanted only what ought to be every child’s right. After a few minutes Lizzie was asleep. But the very next day Claudia was able to seek her out with altogether more cheerful news. She had just heard it herself from Susanna and Anne, who had come over from Alvesley with Lady Ravensberg. And Lizzie, Claudia had decided, would be the first of the girls to hear. She was standing by the fountain with Molly despite the fact that it was a chilly, windy day that threatened rain. They were trailing their hands in the water and sometimes stretching out their arms to feel the spray. They were giggling. “You girls will all be going to Alvesley Park tomorrow,” Claudia said as she came up to them. “You have been invited with all the children to a picnic.” “To a picnic,” Molly said, her eyes as wide as saucers, the fountain and the water forgotten. “All of us, miss?” “All of you,” Claudia said, smiling. “Will that not be a wonderful treat?” “Do the others know?” Molly asked, her voice just a little lower than a shriek. “You are the first to be told,” Claudia said. “I am going to tell them,” Molly cried, and she went dashing off to find the other girls, leaving Lizzie behind. Lizzie’s face was turned up and seemed lit from within. “I am to go too?” she asked. “To Alvesley? Where Papa is?” “You are indeed,” Claudia told her. “Oh,” Lizzie said softly. And she stooped down and felt for Horace, who was sitting quietly beside her, and took the leash in her hand. “Will he be glad to see me?” “I expect he is counting the hours,” Claudia said. “Take me to my room, Horace,” Lizzie said. “Oh, Miss Martin, how many hours is it?” Horace, of course, was not that good a guide, though he might learn in time. He was always careful to see that Lizzie ran against no obstacle, but he had no particular sense of direction despite Lizzie’s great faith in him. Claudia led the way indoors and upstairs, and Horace trotted after her, bringing Lizzie along behind. But it always pleased the girl to think she was becoming independent. She could not get to sleep that night. Claudia had to sit beside her bed and read one of her stories aloud and pat her hand while Horace curled up against her. Claudia doubted she would sleep either. She had decided reluctantly that she must go with the girls to Alvesley—it was too much to expect Eleanor to take the responsibility entirely on her own shoulders. But she really, really did not want to go. She had been concentrating very hard on making plans for the coming school year and upon renewing her acquaintance with Charlie, who still rode over to Lindsey Hall every day. But now she was going to have to see the Marquess of Attingsborough once more. It was pointless to hope that he would stay away from the children’s picnic. She knew he must be pining for Lizzie as much as she was for him. Was it just her imagination that heartbreak was worse the second time around? Probably, she admitted. At the age of seventeen she had wanted to die. This time she wanted to live—she wanted her life back as it had been until the afternoon she had stepped all unwittingly into the visitors’ parlor at school to discover the Marquess of Attingsborough standing there. And she would get that life back. She would live and prosper and be happy again. She would. It would just take some time, that was all. But having to see him again was not going to help.

  Joseph’s yearning to see Lizzie again was like a gnawing physical ache. Every day he had been on the verge of riding over to Lindsey Hall. He had restrained himself partly because he would have been unable to think of an excuse to see her even if he did go there, and partly because he owed it both to Claudia Martin and to Portia—not to mention himself—to stay away. But it was only partly of Miss Martin he was thinking when the carriages from Lindsey Hall arrived all in a cavalcade together on the afternoon of the picnic, and half the guests at Alvesley and almost all the children stepped outside onto the terrace to greet the new arrivals as they began to spill out of the carriages. Soon there was a noisy, shrieking melee of adults and children, the latter darting about among adult legs in search of comrades and potential new friends and addressing one another with the sort of volume they might have used if they were five miles apart. Joseph, who was out there too, spotted Claudia Martin as she climbed down from one of the conveyances. She was wearing a cotton dress he had seen before in London and her usual straw hat. She was also wearing a severe, almost grim expression, which suggested that she would rather be anywhere else on earth than where she was. She turned back to the carriage to help someone else down. Lizzie! All decked out in her best white dress with her hair tied high behind with a white bow. He hurried forward. “Allow me,” he said, and he reached up into the carriage, took his daughter by her slender waist, and lifted her down. She inhaled deeply. “Papa,” she murmured. “Sweetheart—” The dog jumped out and ran around them, barking, and Molly ca me down the steps behind him. “Thank you, sir,” Lizzie said more loudly, lifting a mischievously smiling face toward his. “Are you the gentleman who walked to the lake with us last week?” “I am indeed,” he said, clasping his hands behind him. “And you are…Miss Pickford, I believe?” “You remembered.” She giggled—a happy, girlish sound. And then othe
r girls came spilling out of the carriage, and one of the older ones took Lizzie by one hand while Molly took the other. They bore her off to another carriage, which held the remainder of their number with Miss Thompson. Joseph looked at Miss Martin. It seemed somewhat incredible that he had kissed this stern woman on two separate occasions and that he loved her. Yet again she looked the forbidding, quintessential spinster schoolteacher. And then her eyes met his, and it was incredible no longer. There were depths behind those eyes that drew him instantly beyond the surface armor she had put on to the warm, passionate woman within. “Hello, Claudia,” he said softly before he could frame an altogether more appropriate greeting. “Good afternoon, Lord Attingsborough,” she said briskly. And then she looked beyond his shoulder and smiled. “Good afternoon, Charlie.” Someone was tugging at the tassel on Joseph’s Hessian boot. He looked down to see Wilma and Sutton’s youngest, who proceeded to lift both his arms in the air. “Uncle Joe,” he commanded. “Up.” Uncle Joe obligingly stooped down to pick him up and settle him astride his shoulders. The empty carriages from Lindsey Hall were moving off to be replaced by other carriages bringing children and adults from neighboring homes. Ten minutes or so later a veritable army—to use Gwen’s analogy—of children was making its disordered way toward the picnic site on a wide expanse of lawn beside the lake to the right of the house, the older ones rushing ahead, toddlers riding shoulders, babies bouncing or sleeping in arms. They might all be deafened by the noise before the afternoon was over, Joseph thought cheerfully. Lizzie and Molly and the older girl were skipping, he noticed. 17