by Mary Balogh
And she was right. The only matter on which he was quite inflexible was that they not host any grand entertainment themselves. Nothing more grand than an invitation to tea.
“They will take one look at you and understand perfectly, Grace,” he said with a grin. “And it is quite obvious that you have not been merely overindulging in food, or you would be fat all over.”
And so they went to the Courtneys’ dance and card party, where they met Miss Purnell for the first time. Grace liked her. She was darkly beautiful and quiet, though she was not shy. There was a poise and a charm about the girl that was somewhat at variance with her age. She must be about the age Grace had been when she had had Jeremy. And Grace thought that there was a fondness between the girl and her betrothed, though they danced together only once during the evening.
Grace was forbidden to dance, but she had accepted the command with a smile. “Very well, Perry,” she had said. “I will be good, as you will see. But on one condition: you must not feel obliged to hover over me all evening. You must enjoy yourself.”
“And I cannot enjoy myself by staying with you?” he had asked.
“No,” she had said. “You know what I mean, Perry. You must promise.”
“I promise,” he had said solemnly, holding his right hand in the air.
But it was a mixed blessing, she found, this renewed spate of social activity. It curbed her restlessness, filled her days and her thoughts with activities that helped a long nine months to their end. But it reminded her again of how old she was to be bearing what everyone around her believed to be her first child. Much as she delighted in her growing bulk when she was at home, much as she liked to look at herself privately in a mirror, standing in profile, her hands over the rounded shape of her womb, which held Perry’s child, in public she sometimes felt ungainly and unattractive. And embarrassed.
And she found herself again, as she had used to do, watching Perry when they were in company together, watching his gaiety, his smile, and his dancing eyes, listening to his laughter, and feeling that she was too old for him, too serious, too unattractive. There was no jealousy in her, only an unwilling and an unreasonable sadness.
Unreasonable because Perry had shown her nothing but affection since their marriage. And because since she had sent Gareth away and since she had told her husband that she was with child, his every look and action had shown concern for her as well as affection. She was the most fortunate of women. She was the happiest of women, she told herself over and over again.
There was only one thing lacking in her happiness. Only one very small detail. Perry had never said that he loved her, that she was all the world to him. It was a very small detail. His looks said those things. His actions said those things. And even if he did not feel that ultimate commitment to her, he was the kindest and most considerate of husbands. And he had given her a child and filled the one remaining emptiness in her life.
It must be her pregnancy, she decided, that was making her temperamental: delirious with happiness one moment, stirred by doubts and fears the next.
Peregrine, for his part, felt a similar mixture of emotions. On the one hand he was happier than he had been at any time in his life. Finally he felt that he could relax in the knowledge that his marriage would continue. And continue not just because it was too difficult and too troublesome to end, but because they both wished it to do so.
Grace had sent Sandersford on his way and claimed to feel nothing but indifference for him any longer. And her behavior during that dinner at Amberley had seemed to bear out her claim. She had shown no preference for her former lover or even any shrinking from him and no sign of distress after their final leave-taking.
The only apparent sadness she had shown since had been at the churchyard where he had taken her and her father the day before the latter returned home. The two of them had cried in each other’s arms at Paul’s graveside while he had stood quietly by. And of course she had been quiet and dejected for two days after the departure of her family. But that mood had paradoxically delighted him, showing as it did that her reconciliation with them was complete. Even the stern Martin had hugged Grace as if he had wanted to break every bone in her body before following Ethel and Priscilla inside their carriage.
It was very good, Peregrine found, to be able to relax again, to know that his wife was his. It was good to talk with her again on any topic that interested him, read to her, watch her about the tasks he was willing to allow. It was good to be free to love her again. And it was very good indeed to watch her growing larger with their child, growing more beautiful to his eyes with every passing day.
And he was terrified. Afraid that the child would die, either during the nine months or—worse—at birth. How would he ever comfort Grace if she should lose this second child, coming as it was so long after the first? After the beloved son who had died? He could survive the pain. The only person he really needed was Grace, though he did of course ache with longing to hold this child of theirs. But Grace? Would she be destroyed by the loss of her baby?
And he was terrified that Grace would die. Would he be as fearful if she were ten years younger? he wondered. Was it natural to fear for the life of the woman one had impregnated? He would not want to go on living without Grace. He would have done so, of course, had she decided to go with Sandersford. He would do it doubtless if she died in childbed or from any other cause. But he would not want to. And if it was the bearing of his child that killed her, he did not think he would ever be able to talk himself back to life again. Unknown to Grace, he had had a private talk with Doctor Hanson, and he knew full well that the dangers that faced both her and the child were only enhanced by her age.
He was aware of her restlessness, though he did not understand its causes. He knew that it irked her to sit indoors and allow him to coddle her, to watch the gardeners do every task in her beloved garden while all she could do was walk sedately through it, her fingers itching to get down among the flowers to perform their miracles. He knew that when they walked, she fretted at his slow pace and willed him to take just a few more steps before turning to go back home again. He knew that she longed to do more visiting and more entertaining.
And he gave in, against his better judgment, when Amberley’s betrothed arrived and various social entertainments were planned in her honor. He took Grace to the Courtneys’ informal dance, the Carringtons’ picnic, Amberley’s garden party, among other things.
But he ended up feeling uneasy. She could do nothing strenuous, of course. She could not dance or walk any great distance. And he found himself watching her almost constantly, though she had begged him not to feel obliged to keep her company at every moment of every entertainment. He was proud of her, proud that their friends and neighbors would see that she carried his child. And he ached with love for her, observing her converse with Miss Purnell and others with her usual quiet charm.
And he wondered if she was happy. There was no reason in the world why she should not be. She had freely chosen to stay with him—or had she? She had been pregnant before that infernal letter from Sandersford had arrived. And she had told him that bearing a son was what she wanted to do—she very rarely admitted the possibility that it might be a daughter. And she seemed perfectly contented with his company by day and his lovemaking by night. Indeed, it could no longer be said that he made love to her almost nightly. To his wonder, he had found since their reconciliation that he made love with her.
There was no reason to believe her unhappy. But he found himself, quite against his will, watching her with ladies of almost her age, ladies with grown children, and he wondered if she perhaps found it humiliating to have a younger husband who had forced her into beginning a new family.
And always, returning to haunt him against all reason, was that knowledge that when she had made her decision regarding Sandersford, she had not after all been free to make a free choice. He had begotten his child in her perhaps a week before that letter came.
It
was absurd. He had every reason to be happy. He was happy. But he watched his wife with unwilling unease. Did she love him? She had never said she did. And it did not matter if she did or not. Love was only a word. She showed him love, or respect and loyalty and affection anyway. They were enough. Quite enough.
But did she love him? Absurdly, totally absurdly, he was afraid to ask. And afraid to say the words himself for fear they would be unwelcome and embarrass or even distress her.
GRACE ATTENDED THE wedding of the Earl of Amberley and Miss Alexandra Purnell in the village church during September, and the wedding breakfast afterward at Amberley Court. There were only two weeks remaining until her expected confinement, and she was feeling quite huge, but she assured Peregrine that she was quite well and that riding in the carriage could not do her the harm that it might have done a few months before.
But she did not have to plead. He was quite as eager as she for her not to miss such a rare and glorious event as the marriage of the Earl of Amberley. And he reassured her when she mentioned her size that they were not in London, where perhaps the presence of a very pregnant lady in public might be frowned upon. In the country, people were far more tolerant and willing to accept life for what it was.
“The only thing you must absolutely promise me,” he said with a grin, “is that you will not begin your pains in the middle of the church service or the wedding breakfast. Not only would you divert everyone’s attention from the bride, but I might give in to the hysterics or a fit of the vapors.”
“I promise,” she said, and spread her hand over her swollen abdomen. “Oh, Perry, this son of yours is going to be a boxer, I swear. I sometimes wish he did not have to practice on me.”
“Your daughter is going to be a dancer, is she?” he said, lifting her hand away and setting his own in its place.
Grace liked the earl’s bride very well and had been pleased to find her a regular visitor during the past couple of months when she was confined more and more to her home. They would be friends, Grace liked to think until she remembered that there must be a fifteen- or sixteen-year gap in their ages. And yet their husbands had been childhood friends and the earl was, in fact, two years older than Perry. It was a little awkward, but it was an awkwardness that she was going to have to accustom herself to. And not before time. She had been married to Perry for two and a half years.
Were all marriages as hard to adjust to as hers was proving to be? she wondered. Even if husband and wife seemed suited in every way, were there still inevitable problems of adapting to each other once the nuptials were over?
She watched the earl and his bride as they stood and kneeled together at the front of the church. They were a beautiful couple and seemed very well-suited in character. Would they live happily ever after from this day on? If rumor was at all true, their association had certainly not had an auspicious beginning. But at this particular moment they were very deeply in love with each other. That seemed very obvious to Grace.
And gracious, she thought later as she watched the earl and his new countess move among their guests after the wedding breakfast, those two had known physical love already. And she flushed in shock at her own improper intuition and glanced self-consciously at Peregrine, half-expecting that he would have read her thoughts.
“Are you feeling quite the thing, Grace?” he asked, leaning forward and covering her hand briefly with his.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, “I am quite well. Your son must be sleeping. Will they be happy, Perry? I do hope so. I like them both excessively.”
“I could never quite picture Edmund married,” he said. “He is a handsome devil, of course. I used to be envious of his good looks. But he is a very private person too. They seem fond of each other, though, don’t they? I suppose if they want a happy marriage, they will have it. It all depends on how much they want it, doesn’t it?”
They were interrupted at that moment by Lady Madeline and Lord Eden, the latter looking extremely dashing in the green uniform of an officer of a rifle regiment. Madeline was clinging to his arm. A few months before at the age of two-and-twenty, rather late in life, he had finally defied his family’s reluctance and fulfilled a lifetime ambition to buy himself a commission in the army. He was off to Spain the following week to join the British troops there.
“It all depends on how much they want it.” The words echoed in Grace’s mind for the rest of the day and the days to come. Marriage was not quite so simple, though, was it? Both she and Perry doubtless wanted a happy marriage, and had from the start. And they had that now, did they not? But it had not come easily and it had not come merely from the wanting. They had both had to work hard and give a great deal to achieve the measure of harmony and contentment they now knew.
And she could still not say that they were perfectly happy. Happily-ever-after happy. There were always the niggling doubts. Perhaps such happiness was impossible to achieve in real life. Perhaps because a married couple must always be made up of two distinct people, perfect harmony, perfect togetherness was an impossible illusion, the stuff of dreams and romance. Perhaps she and Perry were as happy as a married pair could ever hope to be.
And perhaps people never reached a pinnacle of happiness, even an imperfect one. Perhaps one could never say that now one was as happy as could be, and that was the way things would always remain. She and Perry would always have to work on their marriage, fight to retain the contentment they had won. That was true of any marriage, she supposed. For theirs perhaps it was more so than usual. The age gap would always create awkwardnesses and doubts and feelings of inadequacy in both of them. But the problems would never be insurmountable unless they chose to make them so.
When she was eighty and he seventy, the age difference would be almost unnoticeable, she thought with a smile of amusement.
“Not allowed, Grace,” Peregrine said, taking her by the elbow. “I absolutely forbid you to enjoy a joke that I cannot share. Out with it.”
“I was thinking that when I am eighty and you seventy, no one will notice the age difference,” she said.
He grinned before looking at her a little more seriously. “Do you think they notice now?” he asked. “Do I look so much younger than you, Grace? I do not see it when I look in the mirror and when I look at you. And I doubt that our friends do. We are just Perry and Grace to them. I don’t plan to still be crawling about among flower beds when I am seventy, by the way. Your eighty-year-old knees will have to take you alone then, I’m afraid. I will not be able to keep up with you.”
She laughed.
“I think we might just be able to get close to Edmund and his bride now,” he said.
The new Countess of Amberley held out both hands to Grace as they approached, and smiled warmly. “I am so honored that you came, Grace,” she said. “Are you very uncomfortable? You should not be standing so much, should you?”
Grace took her hands. “You look very beautiful, Alexandra,” she said. “And of course I cried at the church, just like every other lady present. Except you, that is. And I am quite well, thank you.”
The countess looked up, bright-eyed, at her new husband, who was talking with Peregrine. “Perry has promised Edmund that he will send word as soon as your time comes,” she said, “so that Edmund may go and pace the floor with him. I will not come. I don’t believe that you will feel like making social conversation at that time.” She laughed and squeezed Grace’s hands. “But I will come and visit afterward as soon as I may and duly admire your child. You must be very excited. And frightened?”
Grace smiled. “Yes, both,” she said. “I am glad the weather has been kind to you today. And I am glad that you decided after all that the wedding would be here. The Misses Stanhope were ready to hold a wake, I believe, if you had removed to London or Yorkshire.”
“Papa favored St. George’s in London,” Lady Amberley said. “And I am not at all in the habit of defying Papa. But Edmund and I decided this together. This is where we belong, where we love
to be even though I came here for the first time only a few months ago. It made sense that we also marry here. Oh, and today I am so glad. I have all my friends around me and I have never had friends before. You must know what I mean, Grace. Do you know?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “This is a special part of the world. We are fortunate, you and I, that our husbands live here.”
“Our husbands,” the girl said with a breathless laugh. “How strange that sounds, and how very lovely.” She looked wonderingly at the earl again, and he smiled and moved to her side.
“Lady Lampman,” he said, “I must tell you how grateful I am that you have come to our wedding. It would not be quite right to be without my oldest friend on such a day, and one who got me into so many scrapes as a boy, I might add. Yet I am sure he would not have come and left you at home alone. If you will pardon me for noticing your, ah, condition, I must say that I think it heroic of you to have traveled all these miles.”
“You don’t know Grace,” Peregrine said with a grin. “I have had to have new locks put on all the garden sheds so that she does not sally forth into the garden at the dead of night to create new flower beds. And I have to tie her arm to my side when we are out walking so that she does not break into a gallop. You are looking at a man who is almost worn out from the exertions of chasing after a, ah, pregnant wife, Edmund.”
“Perry,” Grace said, and all four of them laughed.
“We are pleased to have you here anyway, Lady Lampman,” the earl said, extending a hand to her, “aren’t we, Alex? And if you wish to take Perry to sit down before he collapses, ma’am, please feel free to do so.”
Peregrine took Grace’s arm and smiled down at her as bride and groom turned away to greet another group of well-wishers. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed with color, sure signs of fatigue. “I am going to order the carriage to be brought around,” he said. “And you may not argue with me, Grace. You are tired and I am in the mood to play tyrant. Besides, that daughter of mine is going to wake soon and want her dancing lesson again. Or has she started already?”