by Mary Balogh
“You would do well to hope,” he said, his eyes sweeping over her, “that I do not change my mind.”
She looked back at him—and blushed.
“I will not change my mind,” he said despite the alarming surge of desire her words and the look of her had aroused. “What happened between us two nights ago, though pleasant enough, was a mistake. It might yet have consequences. We will have to hope not. But you may rest assured that I will never again put you in danger of conceiving.”
She did not look away from him despite the blush, which did not recede. She tipped her head to one side and prolonged the gaze. “I believe,” she said at last, “that you must have loved your mother very deeply.”
For a moment he was almost blinded by fury. He clasped his hands very tightly at his back, drew a few slow breaths, and was very thankful for the iron control he had always been able to impose upon his temper.
“My mother,” he said very quietly, “is not a topic for discussion between us, my lady. Not now, not ever. I trust you understand?”
It was a question that could be answered in only one way and with only one word, but nevertheless she appeared to be considering the question.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I believe that perhaps I do.”
“Shall we climb higher?” He indicated the continuing path with one hand. “There are some different and equally magnificent views from higher up.” He should have gone riding, he thought. He should have kept to himself.
“I think not this morning,” she said. “Your father is to show me the portrait gallery after breakfast, though I shall try not to keep him there too long. I shall try to persuade him to rest afterward.”
“You do that,” he said, pursing his lips.
“And then I am to call upon Claudia at the dower house,” she said.
He nodded curtly. Let her do that too. Let her make friends with Claudia and with Will and with the whole lot of them if she could. She might find it harder than she imagined. Let her make friends with Tillden and with Lady Marie this afternoon. He should be feeling more than ever triumphant this morning. But she had succeeded in making him feel thoroughly out of sorts.
“Allow me to escort you back to the house for breakfast, then,” he said. Though he doubted anyone else would be up even yet.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you would care to accompany me? To the dower house, I mean. You did not have much opportunity to talk with your brother yesterday. And I suppose you have not yet met your nephews.”
“My heirs after William?” he said. “No, I have not. Unfortunately I have other plans for this morning.”
She circled around the folly ahead of him and they set off down the slope. They walked in silence, not touching.
But he spoke again as they approached the house—reluctantly, not at all sure he wanted to do what he was about to say he would do.
“Perhaps my other business of this morning can be postponed,” he said. “Perhaps I will accompany you to the dower house.” That was where they lived, he had discovered last evening, William and Claudia and their two sons. “After all we have been married for only two days and are deep in love and will not wish to be separated unnecessarily.” His tone sounded grudging even to his own ears.
“And William is your brother,” she said, smiling at him.
Yes. And William was his brother. And there were some ghosts to lay to rest, as he had realized yesterday.
PERHAPS THE DUKE of Withingsby lacked the ability to love, Charity thought, though she was by no means convinced of it—she did not really believe that it was possible to be human and incapable of love. But certainly he was capable of a pride bordering on love.
He had been at breakfast when she and her husband had returned from their early-morning walk and had entered the breakfast parlor together. He had stood and made her a courtly bow, at the same time sweeping her brown walking dress and her simple chignon—she had not summoned her maid when she had risen early—with haughty eyes.
Immediately after breakfast he had brought her to the portrait gallery, which stretched along the whole width of the house, and had proceeded to show her the family portraits and to describe their subjects and, in certain cases, the artists who had painted them. He displayed a pride and a degree of warmth she had not seen in him before.
“The people Van Dyck painted,” she said, stepping closer to one canvas displaying a family grouping, “all look alike. It is not just the pointed beards and curled mustaches and the ringlets that were fashionable at the time. It has something to do with the shape of the face and the eyes—and the sloping shoulders. His paintings are easily distinguishable anywhere.”
“And yet,” he said, “I believe you will agree, ma’am, that the Duke of Withingsby depicted here bears a remarkable resemblance to your husband.”
He did. She smiled at the likeness. “And to you too, Father,” she said. “But then I think I have never seen a father and son who so resemble each other.” And who so love and so hate each other, she thought. She did not believe she was wrong.
“That terrier,” he said, pointing with his cane to a little dog held in the arms of a satin-clad, ringleted boy, “is reputed to have saved his young master’s life when the boy fell into a stream and struck his head. The dog barked ceaselessly until help arrived.”
“The boy who is holding him?” she asked, stepping closer still to examine both the child and the dog.
“The duke’s heir,” he said. “My ancestor.”
“Oh.” She turned and smiled full at him. “So you owe your life too to that little dog.”
“And you owe your husband to it, ma’am,” he said, raising haughty eyebrows.
“Yes.” She felt herself blushing for some unknown reason. But she knew the reason even as she realized that her father-in-law was noting and misinterpreting her flushed cheeks. She blushed because she was deceiving him, because even though she really was married to his son, she was not truly his wife. She did not want to deceive. It would have been far better if her husband had come alone to Enfield Park to confront his grace, to assert his determination to live his life his way and to choose his own bride in his own time.
He moved along to the next painting and the next until they stood at last before the most recent. She gazed at it mutely, as did his grace.
He looked a good deal younger in the portrait. With his very dark hair and healthy coloring, he looked more than ever like his son. The Marquess of Staunton—proud, youthful, handsome—stood at his shoulder. The other young man must be Lord William, though he looked different in more than just age from the man she had met the day before. He looked—sunny and carefree. Marianne had not changed a great deal. The solemn child must be Charles. No one had smiled for the painter, though William seemed to smile from within.
“She must have been beautiful,” Charity said. She referred to the duchess, who sat beside her husband, looking full at the beholder. Though the least striking in looks of any of them, she seemed, strangely enough, to be the focal point of the portrait, drawing the eyes more than the child did, or than the haughty duke himself, more than her proud eldest son. The painter, Charity thought, had been fascinated by her. There was a look of faded beauty about her, though it was probable that the artist had downplayed the faded part. But he had not erased the look of sadness in her eyes.
“She was the most celebrated beauty of her time,” the duke said stiffly.
Was that why he had married her? For her beauty? Had he also loved her? She had borne him thirteen children. But that fact proved neither love nor lack of love. She was Anthony’s mother, Charity thought. The woman about whom he still felt so deeply that he had turned to ice this morning when she had suggested to him that he must have loved her.
“She was the eldest daughter of a duke,” his grace continued. “She was raised from the cradle to be my bride. She did her duty until the day of her death.”
Giving birth to Augusta. Charity felt chilled. Had he loved her? More to t
he point, perhaps—had she loved him? She had done her duty …
I am the daughter of a gentleman, she wanted to say. I was raised to be a lady. I too know my duty and will perform it to the day of my death. But it was not really true, was it? She had married just two days ago and had made all sorts of promises that would never be kept. She had made a mockery of marriage—for the sake of money. Her husband had been very right about that this morning, when she had been outraged to discover just why he had married her in such haste and brought her here. She felt a pang of guilt and was surprised that she should feel so defensive, so eager to justify herself to this stern man who never smiled and who appeared to have inspired no love in his children.
“Father,” she said, taking his arm, “you have been on your feet for long enough. I am truly grateful that you have brought me here and shared your family—Anthony’s family—with me. But let me take you somewhere where you may rest. Tell me where.”
“I suppose,” his grace said, “Staunton did not even offer to clothe you in suitable fashion for your change in station.”
He had silenced her for a moment. She was horribly aware of her drab walking dress, from which she should have changed for breakfast and certainly for this visit to the gallery. But she had so little else into which to change. She did not release his arm. “We married in haste, Father,” she said. “Anthony wanted to come here without delay. He was anxious about your health. There was no time for shopping. I do not mind. Clothes are unimportant.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “appearance is of the utmost importance—especially for a woman of your present rank. You are the Marchioness of Staunton, ma’am. And of course he married you in haste. I wonder if you know why he married you. Are you naive enough to imagine that you are beloved, ma’am, merely because of melting looks and kisses on the hand and the conjugal activity that doubtless occurred in your bedchamber last night? If you harbor dreams of love and happily-ever-afters, you will without a doubt be severely hurt.”
She swallowed. “I believe, Father,” she said as gently yet as firmly as she could, “it is for Anthony and me to work out the course of our marriage and the degree of love it will contain.”
“Then you are a fool,” he said. “There is no we in a marriage such as yours. Only Staunton. You are a wife, a possession, ma’am, of sufficiently lowly rank to enable him to demonstrate to me how much he scorns me and all I stand for. He will get children on you so that he may flaunt to me and to the world the inferiority of their mother’s connections.”
This, Charity thought, still clinging to his arm, almost dizzy with hurt, was how she was earning her money. For Phil. For Penny. For the children. She would not lose sight of the purpose of it all. How glad she was now that she had had the foresight to declare herself an only child.
“Do you feel scorned, Father?” she asked. “Are you hurt by Anthony’s marriage to me?”
He did not answer her for several silent moments. “If I am, ma’am,” he said at last, “Staunton will never have the satisfaction of knowing it. You will see that I am not without resources of my own. Most games are intended for more than one player. And most games are truly interesting only when the participants play with equal skill and enthusiasm. Yes, my dear ma’am, I am feeling fatigued. You may help me downstairs to my library and then ring for refreshments for me. You may read the morning papers to me while I rest my head and close my eyes. You are promised to Lady William for later this morning? I will spare you after an hour, then, but not before that. My son came home to me yesterday, bringing me also a daughter-in-law. It behooves me to become acquainted with her. It would not surprise me to discover that I will grow markedly fond of her.”
His voice was chilly, his eyes more so. But it did not take a genius, Charity thought, to guess what game it was his grace had decided to play. She had known from the start, of course, that she was to be a pawn. She had just not known the extent of her involvement in that role. But it seemed that every hour brought her a fuller understanding of what she had got herself into.
She supposed she deserved every moment of discomfort that had already happened and that was still to come.
9
HE WAS NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THE REST OF the day. He was not enjoying himself at all. But then he had not expected enjoyment. Only a satisfying sense of triumph. There was still that, of course, but his wife had dampened it considerably during their early-morning walk by accusing him of cruelty. Cruelty to a young lady he could remember only as a plain and gawky child playing with Charles.
If he had come alone, he thought, he probably would have ended up marrying the girl. Even after the eight years of independence and the conviction that he was free of his father. If he had come home alone, and if Tillden had come with his daughter, he would have found it extremely difficult to avoid the betrothal everyone expected. It would have seemed more cruel then to have said no.
He was not a cruel man, merely one who wished to be left alone to live his own life. But when one was the heir to a dukedom, one did not belong to oneself, not unless one went to unusual lengths to assert one’s independence.
He was walking down the driveway with his wife, on the way to the dower house to call upon Claudia. He had had no chance to assess his feelings about the visit. He did not want to assess them. He wondered if William would be at home. He wondered if he would be forced to meet the children.
“You went into the village earlier?” his wife asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I went to talk to his grace’s physician. The man has been brought from London merely to tend to his health, but according to his own complaints, he is abused and ignored at every turn.”
“Your father is sick,” she said. “He tires very easily.”
“He is dying,” he said. “It is his heart. It is very weak. It could fail him any day or it could keep him going for another five years. But he refuses to rest and to turn over his responsibilities to a steward’s care, as he has been advised to do.”
“Then we must persuade him to do so,” she said.
They had stepped onto the Palladian bridge and had stopped by unspoken assent to view the river and the lawns and trees through the framework of the pillars.
We? He looked at her sharply and raised his eyebrows. “We must?” he asked.
She was alerted by his tone and turned her head to look back at him. “He called you home,” she said. “He must have found it difficult to do so, to make the first move when he is such a proud man. He wants to settle his affairs, my lord. He wanted to see you married to the lady of his choice. He wanted to see you take over from him here so that he could rest and face his end in the knowledge that the future was assured.”
“He wanted the feeling of power again,” he said curtly.
“Call it what you will,” she said. “But you came. Oh, it was on your own terms, as you keep assuring both me and yourself. But you need not have come at all. You had made your own life and your own fortune. You had left intending never to return. But you did return. You even took the extraordinary step of marrying a stranger before you did. You came.”
She had the unerring ability to arouse intense irritation in him. It must be the governess in her, he decided. “What are you trying to say, ma’am?” he asked.
“That you never did break free,” she said. “That you still love your father.”
“Still, my lady?” he said. “Still? Your powers of observation are quite defective, I do assure you. Have you not seen that there is no love whatsoever in this family—or in your husband? You see what you wish to see with your woman’s sensibilities.”
“And he still loves you,” she said.
He made an impatient gesture with one arm and signaled her to walk on. The picturesque view was lost on them this morning anyway.
“You can make his last days peaceful,” she said, “and in the process you can make some peace with yourself, I believe. There is the embarrassment of this afternoon to be faced, and of course ther
e will never be the eligible alliance your father had hoped for. But all may yet turn out well. You can stay here—there is nothing in London that makes it imperative that you return there, I daresay. And I believe your father may come to accept and even to like me a little.”
There was so much to be commented upon in her short speech that for a few moments he was rendered quite speechless.
“His grace may come to like you a little?” he said at last. Did this woman suffer from delusions in addition to everything else?
“He showed me the gallery,” she said, “and of course thoroughly exhausted himself in the process. He allowed me to help him downstairs to the library and to set a stool for his feet and a cushion for his head. He allowed me to read the papers to him while he closed his eyes. He would spare me at the end of an hour, he said, only because I had promised to call upon Claudia.”
The devil! He was speechless again.
“I know you came here for a little revenge,” she said, “but you can stay for a more noble reason, my lord. We can make him happy.”
“We.” He might have shouted with laughter at the notion of the Duke of Withingsby being happy if he had not also been pulsing with fury. “You, I believe, my lady, are forgetting one very important thing. His grace may live for five years, or conceivably even longer. We could make him happy for all that time? How, pray? By proving to him that it is a marriage made in heaven? By presenting him with a series of grandchildren? Are you quite sure you wish to expand our business arrangement to include so much time and so much, ah, activity?”
He had silenced her at last. And of course, as he fully expected, she was blushing rosily when he turned his head to look at her. But an idea struck him suddenly. She had no family. Apparently she had no friends. She had no one. Perhaps … Exactly what was she up to?