by Cheryl Holt
She sighed with resignation. If she refused, what would become of her? She felt as if she was running toward a cliff and about to jump off. When she landed at the bottom, where would she be?
“Yes,” she murmured. “I’ll marry you.”
“I’m glad.” He squeezed her hand, then he stood, and another odd visual exchange passed between him and Mrs. Mountbank. “Will that be all?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Mountbank said.
“Then I’ll return to the party. My friends will be missing me.”
He left, and Mrs. Mountbank asked Lord Wood, “What about me, Harold? May I go as well?”
“Yes.”
She strolled out, and Lord Wood focused his attention on Theo. “I’ll expect you to set the date with the housekeeper tomorrow. She’ll begin working on the arrangements.”
“All right.”
“We’ll celebrate the engagement on Saturday evening. We’ll announce the betrothal at midnight as we’d meant to have happen last Christmas with Hedley. This time, you will not screw it up with any misbehavior.”
“I’ll try my best not to,” she sarcastically said.
“I’ll have Isobel invite everyone she knows.”
“That sort of huge gala doesn’t interest me at all.”
“It interests me,” he pompously stated. “You don’t think I care about you, but you are my only daughter, and I will give you a proper sendoff. We’ll put together as grand an event as we can in the short period that’s available.”
“I don’t need you to make a big fuss.”
“I’m making a fuss anyway. Don’t imagine you can delay by skipping the meeting with the housekeeper. I’m happy to let you devise your own plans, but if you can’t or won’t, we’ll organize it without you.”
He stomped out, and Theo was all alone in the quiet room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Theo, there you are!”
“Hello, Susan.”
“This place is insane. I’ve been searching everywhere for you, and I’d about decided you’d given up and gone to bed.”
They were out on the rear verandah of Lord Wood’s mansion, and she’d found Theo lurking in the shadows on the balustrade. The rooms inside were packed to the rim, the air hot and stuffy. Susan had been wandering through the parlors, looking for old friends, looking for Theo, and being determined to hide from Lady Wood or her mother.
She hadn’t met the horrid Isobel Mountbank yet, and it was her plan that she’d never meet her.
“You didn’t run into Penelope, did you?” Theo asked.
“No, but the girl is so self-centered, I doubt she’d remember me.”
“She might remember Neville though. He’s so handsome.”
Susan grinned. “It’s embarrassing to have a husband who is prettier than I am.”
She’d thought the comment might make Theo laugh, but she didn’t even smile.
“Have you had any nibbles?” Theo asked.
“Yes, actually, and I believe they may turn into huge bites.”
Theo had invited Susan and Neville to visit whenever Mrs. Mountbank was hosting a large party. No one guarded the door or screened the identities of the guests. As long as they avoided Penelope, they could revel with the rest of London.
But Susan didn’t come to revel. No, she came to conduct business on Neville’s behalf. The top-lofty crowds at Mrs. Mountbank’s soirees were composed of the perfect people to hire Neville, and they could definitely afford to pay him.
She wasn’t about to live like a pauper, and she wouldn’t put herself in a fiscal bind where she might have to call on Edna again. That one appointment had been quite enough.
She was a proud person, probably very much like the Colonel. She wouldn’t beg her mother for assistance, but she wasn’t stupid. The baby would bring many expenses that they couldn’t currently afford, and since Neville had incredible talent, she had to exploit it.
He didn’t care about her schemes so long as he could paint all the time, so she was happy to solicit new clients for him, and he was happy to paint them. So far, marriage was suiting them both.
“What’s wrong?” she asked her cousin. “You’ve seemed better lately, but tonight you’re miserable. Is it Mrs. Mountbank? What’s she done now?”
“Oh, Susan, I can’t begin to explain.”
“Well, begin at the beginning. It’s the best place to start, and I insist you start. What is it? Tell me, so we can deal with it. I’m not about to permit you to slide back into the doldrums.”
“I just wish everything could be different.”
“It never will be, Theo. Not after your father wed Penelope.”
“Mrs. Mountbank must have given him an enormous amount of money to persuade him to go through with it.”
“I’m sure you’re correct. Penelope’s dowry must have been obscene.”
“Otherwise, why endure these changes? He likes to gambol at his private clubs, and he hates huge mobs of revelers. Yet he’s allowed Mrs. Mountbank to throw the doors open.”
“We’ll see how it washes out, although I’m predicting it will end badly.”
“I agree.”
“He made his bed, Theo. Let’s let him lie in it.”
“I have to get over it, and for the most part I have. Mrs. Mountbank can grab the reins and good riddance.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bernard proposed, and I accepted.”
Susan was shocked to hear it. “When?”
“Just a bit ago.”
There were too many guests on the verandah with them, too many ears perked in their direction, too many tongues that might wag to Mrs. Mountbank.
She clasped Theo’s arm and led her down into the garden, walking silently with her until she spotted a bench under an arbor. It was cold and drizzly, and they didn’t have their cloaks, but the arbor would protect them from the sprinkles until Susan could drag the whole story out of her cousin.
“Had you any idea he planned to propose?” she asked.
“No. Lord Wood brought me to his library, and he was shouting and haranguing. He was incensed that we hadn’t set the wedding date, and I told him it was because we weren’t intending to marry. It went downhill from there.”
“He forced Bernard into it?”
“No. Mrs. Mountbank and Bernard came in, and they all claimed it had been decided before I ever returned from Egypt.”
“Bernard has been lying to you?”
“Apparently yes.”
“The bounder,” Susan muttered. “Why relent, Theo? Was the conversation horrid? Were they awful to you?”
“Bernard was kind, but Lord Wood and Mrs. Mountbank weren’t particularly pleasant. They pressured me unmercifully. Lord Wood said I was an unnatural female and that I needed a husband more than any woman he’d ever met.”
“Lord Wood is an idiot.”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“Why would Bernard trick you like that? Why would he pretend there would be no betrothal when he’d already consented to one?”
“I don’t think he was tricking me precisely. I was very despondent when I arrived home, and he realized I was. If he’d pushed me to become engaged right away, he’d have had a hard time convincing me.”
“I suppose.”
“This way, he spent a month wearing me down so I’d see that he’s a cordial, steady fellow. Marriage to him doesn’t seem so illogical, and my father is so determined to accomplish it.”
“I’m betting Mrs. Mountbank is behind his sudden desire to be rid of you.”
“Yes, and I appreciate her position. She and Penelope are his life now. When a bride enters the picture, the daughter has to step aside.”
“It’s galling, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and Mrs. Mountbank and I are constantly butting heads over the smallest details. It’s an impossible situation.”
“So Bernard proposed, and you said yes.”
“I didn’t feel I had any other choice.”<
br />
“Is he aware of your scandal with Lord Trent? How about your amour with Mr. Grey?”
“Mrs. Mountbank has kept him fully apprised of my foibles.”
“And he still wants you.”
“It’s mad, I know,” Theo admitted.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
“Neither do I, but Lord Wood was so insistent. I really believe he’d lock me in an asylum if I refuse to obey. He often threatens it.”
“He might.” Susan’s uncle was a stubborn prig.
“Bernard was very persuasive too,” Theo said.
“He’d have to be to get you to agree.”
“He reminded me of how miserable I’ve been with Mrs. Mountbank and Penelope. He swore he’d take me away, so I’d never have to see them ever again.”
“Are you prepared to leave your home and your father and never return? He’s never been much of a parent to you, but he is your family.”
“He doesn’t care about that, and I have to stop caring too.”
It was such a sad, pitiable comment, and Susan clasped Theo’s hand and linked their fingers.
“Oh, Theo, I wish I had wise counsel to share with you.”
They sat in silence, staring at the mansion, the windows glowing from all the candles that were burning. The house was pretty when it was lit up. It was difficult to imagine that a building could appear so magical on the outside, but contain such wretched people on the inside.
“I don’t love him,” Theo eventually murmured, “and I won’t ever love him.”
“Could you learn to be content though?”
“Maybe.”
“Perhaps that’s all a woman can hope for.”
“That’s a pathetic statement on our options, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
They endured another poignant silence, then Theo said, “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“When I left Egypt, I assumed your mother deceived Mr. Grey somehow so he’d abandon me.”
“Yes, you quarreled about it.”
“I truly thought he would return to Cairo, find me gone, and come after me. I peeked over my shoulder the whole time we were traveling to England, and I’ve watched for him every second since I’ve been back.”
Susan sighed. “I’m sorry, Theo. I should have been a better friend to you.”
“I was so sure of him.”
“Edna very likely had a scheme in place to mislead him, but if he would blindly fall for it, he didn’t deserve you. If he was too much of a coward to fight for you, if he was too spineless to stand up to Edna, why would you want him?”
“I saw him last night.”
The remark was so quietly voiced that Susan had to lean nearer. “What did you say?”
“I saw Mr. Grey. He’s in London. I bumped into him quite by accident at the theater.”
“He didn’t call on you?”
Theo scoffed with derision. “No, he definitely didn’t call on me.”
“Why is he here?”
“There was that old scandal with his baby brother and his cousin, remember?”
“Yes, I remember. The baby vanished while Mr. Grey was his guardian.”
“Yes.”
“It’s why Edna hates him.”
“He had to complete some legal wrangling over the inheritance.”
“Is he staying long?”
“I didn’t bother chatting. He was with that odious Mrs. Valda. Remember her? We met her at Valois’s villa.”
“The Frenchwoman? Isn’t she a notorious trollop? Her husband had deserted her in Egypt to her scores of lovers.”
“Mr. Grey is one of them. They’ve been intimate for years.”
“How do you know that?”
“You mother told me—in very caustic terms—and I might not have believed her except I saw them together once.” Theo chuckled dolefully, her woe excruciating to witness. “All these months, Susan, I’ve been dreaming about him, but I’m such an idiot.”
Theo bent forward, her elbows on her knees, and Susan stroked a comforting hand over her back.
“You’re not the only female in history to be fooled by a man,” Susan said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just look at me with Preston Price. He was a dodgy character—as you repeatedly warned me—but I wouldn’t listen. I saved myself by marrying Neville. Perhaps you’ll save yourself with Bernard. Perhaps you’ll finally be happy again.”
“It’s the real reason I agreed to wed Bernard. It’s not because of the pressure from Lord Wood. It’s because Mr. Grey was with Mrs. Valda. He seemed annoyed at having run into me. I was so insignificant in his life, I’m surprised he recollected who I was.”
“I doubt that, Theo.”
Theo was rewriting history. Susan had been with the star-crossed pair in Egypt. She’d never seen a man stare at a woman as Mr. Grey had stared at Theo when he figured no one would notice. His gaze had been hot and searing, filled with such longing, that Susan would glance away, deeming it inappropriate to view such strident emotion.
She’d always been amazed that Mr. Grey had given up on Theo so easily, and as with her cousin, she was convinced Edna had chased him away. Was he aware of how deeply he’d hurt Theo? Did he care? Susan suspected it might be worth it to find out.
“Do you know where he’s staying?” she asked.
“Gad, no. And I don’t want to know either. Why?”
“I thought he might have heard from Mr. Price. I would enjoy learning of his exploits after he departed Cairo.”
On telling the lie, she kept her expression blank. If she ever stumbled on Preston again, she’d likely greet him with a knife through the ribs! She loathed him that much.
Theo pushed herself to a sitting position, and she shivered. “It’s cold and raining, and I’m making you tarry while I pointlessly complain. You shouldn’t be so nice to me.”
“I don’t mind the cold.”
“I have to stop obsessing about him.”
“I’m positive you’d feel better.”
“I’m clear on what I was thinking, but obviously his opinion was very different. He was supposed to change my life. That’s what I can’t get over. He didn’t change it, and I can’t change it.” She peered up at the stars. “Can you and Neville come to supper on Saturday?”
“Are you certain Mrs. Mountbank will allow us in the door?”
“It’s my engagement party, so it’s not up to her. I need you and Neville there for moral support.”
“Then we’ll definitely join you.”
“Lord Wood is planning another midnight proclamation. Hopefully, I’ll be able to avoid Lord Trent long enough to have my betrothal become official.”
“Hopefully.” Susan laughed. “What is it with Lord Wood and his midnight declarations?”
“I have no idea. He probably imagines it adds a touch of grandeur to the proceedings. Isn’t it ridiculous?”
“Quite.”
Up on the verandah, Neville had wandered outside. He was staring into the garden, looking for her.
“There’s Neville, Theo. I have to go. I hate to leave you when you’re so dejected.”
“It’s all right. It’s my constant condition anymore. I’m getting used to it.”
“You shouldn’t dawdle out here. Let me walk you into the house.”
“No, thank you,” Theo said. “I’ll linger for a bit, then I’ll sneak up to my room. I’ve had all the socializing I can stand for one evening.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Susan stood, and she gazed down at her cousin and patted her on the head as if she were a young child.
“I’ll come on Saturday,” she promised.
“Good.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Very soon, we’ll both be old married ladies.”
“Why, we’re already halfway to our dotage.”
Susan hovered, but Theo waved her away. She
went up the path and climbed onto the verandah. When she glanced back, she couldn’t see Theo anywhere.
“Hello, Mr. Grey.”
“Miss Wallace? This is a surprise.”
Soloman was in his hotel suite, and when he’d heard a knock on the door, he’d assumed it would be a maid bringing clean towels. He’d answered while hardly paying attention to who it might be. But Susan Wallace?
“It’s Mrs. Pinkerton now,” she said. “I’ve wed since I last saw you.”
“Should I offer my congratulations?”
“Of course. May I speak to you for a minute?”
“I guess.”
“Before I enter, I must ask if Mrs. Valda is present. If she is, I’ll return later.”
“No, she’s shopping. She’s sailing for France, so she’s preparing for her trip.”
Why was he explaining himself to the rude girl? He’d barely talked to her in Egypt. He hadn’t liked her then and his opinion hadn’t changed.
“If she’s out, I will come in.”
“Will your reputation survive it?” he inquired as he pulled the door wide. “After all, I’m here by myself.”
“My husband is the only one who matters to me, and I couldn’t possibly diminish his esteem. He knows where I am and why.”
“May I take your cloak and bonnet?”
“No. I don’t intend to tarry.”
Snooty witch! “Will you sit?”
“I will.”
There were two chairs over by the hearth, and she chose one, while he plopped down in the other.
“Would you like a brandy?” he asked. “I’d suggest other refreshments, but brandy is all I have.”
“Normally, I’d be happy to enjoy a libation with you, but my tummy is a bit unsettled. I’d better not.”
He studied her, thinking she was plumper than she’d been. He sneaked a peek at her stomach, seeing a distinct bulge.
“Yes, Mr. Grey, I’m in the family way.”
“Should I offer my congratulations again? Or should I keep my mouth shut?”
“Well, I was terribly ill at the beginning, so at first I was conflicted about it. But my personal affairs have calmed—and my stomach too—so yes, I’m glad now.”
“Then I’m glad for you.”