by Mary Balogh
She was very quiet in the shop. She agreed with the jeweler that all the bracelets were very lovely, but she insisted that she did not have a favorite.
“That one,” Kenneth said at last, indicating the most lovely—and most costly—of all, a delicate bracelet encrusted with diamonds. “Wrap it, if you please.”
Moira stayed at the counter while he went to the back of the shop to pay for the bracelet and take possession of it. It would be like a wedding gift, he thought—a belated one. He had given her nothing on their marriage except her gold wedding ring. Now he would give her diamonds to wear.
She did not return his smile when he rejoined her at the front of the shop. She turned quietly and preceded him out onto the pavement. Her eyes, he saw when she looked up at him, were troubled.
“It must have cost a fortune,” she said. “You do not need to do this. You do not have to buy my—my favors.”
“Good Lord,” he said, lowering his head to peer beneath the brim of her elegant brown bonnet. “Is that what you think I am doing? You are my bride of fewer than three months, ma’am. I have bought you baubles because it pleases me to do so. I have bought you diamonds because I have yet given you no wedding gift.”
“A wedding gift?” she said. “But what if we do not remain together?”
He did not want to think of that possibility this morning. “That will not alter the fact that there was a wedding,” he said. “And a gift is just that. The bracelet is yours to keep, no matter what happens between us. Perhaps if nothing else, it will remind you of a—pleasant morning.”
“Very well, then,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”
But somehow some of the joy and exuberance of the morning had gone. He had been planning to take her for an ice. But if he did that, they would have to sit at a table together and make conversation. What would they talk about? Had he made an idiot of himself, buying her gifts as if he were an infatuated youth? He had better take her straight to the library, he decided, and then home.
But even as he offered her his arm, his attention was taken by another couple, who had stopped close to them.
“Ken?” a familiar voice said, and he turned to greet Viscount Rawleigh and to bow to Lady Rawleigh. “I met Nat in the park this morning. Will you do me the honor of presenting us?”
Kenneth made the introductions and watched Rex look curiously at Moira while she smiled and talked with the same charm she had shown the evening before.
“Mr. Gascoigne told my husband that you had arrived in town,” Lady Rawleigh said to Moira. “We were planning to call upon you this afternoon, were we not, Rex? Mr. Gascoigne said this is your first visit to London.”
“Please come anyway,” Moira said. “We will be delighted.”
“But I have a better idea,” Lady Rawleigh said. “Are you to attend Lady Algerton’s ball this evening?”
Moira looked inquiringly at Kenneth.
“We are indeed,” he said.
“Then you must come first to us for dinner,” Lady Rawleigh said. “Will that not be splendid, Rex?”
“I shall certainly look forward to making Lady Haverford’s closer acquaintance, my love,” the viscount said. He grinned. “And to chatting with you too, of course, Ken. Perhaps you would be so good as to reserve the second set of dances this evening for me, ma’am.” He smiled at Moira.
“They seem very pleasant,” she said when the two couples had gone their separate ways a few minutes later. “Lord Rawleigh was another of your friends in the cavalry, my lord?”
“There were the four of us,” he said. “We were as close as any brothers could be, I believe. Will you like to go to Rawleigh’s for dinner?”
“Yes,” she said. “It is why I have come, is it not? To meet people, especially those connected with you? Did Lady Rawleigh travel with her husband? Follow the drum, I believe the term is.”
“They are only recently wed,” he said. “No more than a few weeks longer than us, in fact.”
“Oh,” she said. “They seem fond of each other.”
“Yes,” he said, “I believe they are.” And the silence stretched between them until they reached the library and had a good excuse not to speak aloud. He would not tell her that Rex’s marriage had been quite as sudden and quite as reluctantly entered into as his own. It would only be more obvious to her, as it was to him, that those two had worked on their differences and overcome them while he and Moira had not. Not yet. This morning he had been hopeful. But now there was something between them again—something negative. That damned bracelet. He should have walked past the jeweler’s and taken her for an ice.
* * *
MOIRA would have liked to relax during the afternoon, perhaps by walking in Hyde Park. She longed to see it—it was so very famous. She would have liked to relax and look forward to the evening. Viscount Rawleigh had seemed amiable and his wife warmly charming. It would feel good to have a friendly acquaintance of her own gender in London. Her husband would not wish to spend the whole of every day with her, after all. And she would have liked to feel a pleasurable anticipation of the evening’s ball—a real ton ball, one of the Season’s famous squeezes. She was eager to build up memories to take home with her in a few weeks’ time—pleasant memories.
The morning had not been a success. And the fault was largely hers, she admitted. Life at Penwith had been lived so very frugally for years past. There had been no room in her life for impulsive extravagance. The straw bonnet this morning had seemed just that, as had the gloves. But her husband was wealthy, she had realized, and they were in London during the Season, and she had done nothing really to hide her longing for the bonnet. She would have been delighted with just those gifts. They would have made an already exciting morning perfect.
But then there had been the fan. And finally the bracelet, which she was quite sure had cost more than she and her mother had spent in a year. She did not want extravagance or gifts, she had thought. She wanted—oh, something of more human value. Friendship, perhaps, even affection. She had thought that was what she had agreed to—to try to build some sort of amicable feeling between them that would perhaps help them to make something workable of their marriage. She had not agreed to have her affections bought or to encourage him in the belief that lavishing money and gifts on her was an acceptable substitute for affection.
But she had felt his change of mood after they had stepped out of the jeweler’s. And she had realized her own mistake. He had been enjoying himself. He had bought her the gifts because he had wanted to. And she had spurned him. She would simply have to try again and try harder. She had not expected this to be easy, after all. And so she hoped for a walk in the park, for a simple pleasure that would enable them to talk to each other, perhaps, without this morning’s stiffness of manner.
But the afternoon was not to be either a pleasant or a relaxing one—not by any means. Her husband told her during luncheon that he would be taking her to call upon his sister. And when her stomach had already taken a plunge at that announcement, he added that his mother was staying at Viscount Ainsleigh’s too.
“No,” she said firmly. “Oh, no, my lord. I will not call upon them.” She had not agreed to this. She had agreed to a pleasurable few weeks seeing London and participating in ton events. She had not agreed to be trapped into following his less pleasant agenda. She had nothing to say to his mother or his sister.
“Yes,” he said with an answering firmness, “you will. You are my wife. I must present you to them.”
“But I will not be your wife in a few weeks’ time,” she said. “Not in anything but name. And they both made their sentiments toward me quite clear at Christmastime. I have no wish to have any dealings with them.”
“At Christmastime,” he said, “you were not my wife or even my betrothed. We will make the call, Moira. There are certain civilities that must be observed. This is one.”
“It is a command, then,” she said, tight-lipped. “I am being given no choice in the matter.”
His eyes were cold. He was the old Kenneth again. “It is a command,” he said. “One that would not need to be given if you knew what was what.”
It was an accusation that rankled. “So this is what the diamond bracelet and the bonnet and fan were all about this morning,” she said. “And the gloves.”
“You are being childish,” he said.
“We always return to that, do we not?” she said. “We have a disagreement, and I am childish. And you, my lord, are a boorish tyrant. I was foolish to come, and foolish to agree to try to make things different between us. Nothing will ever change.”
“Not unless we decide that it will,” he said.
“There is no we in any of this,” she said. “Only you and I: you giving orders, me obeying them.”
He was drumming his fingertips against the tabletop. “You refuse to observe the proper civilities by calling on my mother this afternoon, then?” he asked.
She got to her feet, forcing him to his, though there was still food on his plate. No, he would not do this to her. He would not accuse her of the failure of their experiment before even a single day had passed.
“I shall be ready,” she said, “when it pleases you to send for me, my lord.”
He stood where he was as she left the room.
She let anger sustain her through the next hour and through the silent carriage ride that followed it. How dared he force her to call upon his mother, who had all but driven her from Dunbarton on the night of the Christmas ball, and on his sister, who had treated her with such disdain and dislike on the evening of the assembly in Tawmouth. But then, he would dare anything. There had never been any real human compassion in Kenneth.
She turned to him as the carriage slowed outside Viscount Ainsleigh’s town house. “Do they know?” she asked him. “Do they know why we married?” His answer would make all the difference to how she would behave.
“I offered them no explanation,” he said. “None was necessary. But if you would care to change that look on your face, ma’am, we may make it easier on ourselves by having it appear that it was a love match.”
“We were so deeply in love,” she retorted, “that we separated after one week and lived apart for two whole months? They will not believe it for a moment.”
“I thought you did not care for my family,” he said. “Do you care what they believe?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, then,” he said, “it does not matter if we fail to deceive them, does it? But if you will smile at me, ma’am, I will smile at you.” He did so, giving her the full force of his not inconsiderable charm.
“But of course,” she said, “you care for them, do you not? And you care what they believe.”
“If I admit to that, Moira,” he said, “then I will merely be ensuring that you scowl at me throughout the coming hour.”
“You deserve to be scowled at,” she said.
“Quite so,” he said so agreeably that she was left wondering if they had been bickering or joking. Perhaps this was all a joke to him, but it was very serious to her. She would rather be doing anything on earth other than what she was actually doing. She was being handed down the steps of the carriage.
The Dowager Countess of Haverford and Viscountess Ainsleigh had clearly not been warned of this visit, though both were at home to visitors. Two ladies and one gentleman sat with them and Viscount Ainsleigh in the drawing room. Perhaps it was as well, Moira thought. Although the faces of both her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law were studies in frozen surprise when she and Kenneth followed the butler’s announcement into the room, good breeding demanded that they treat her with the strictest courtesy. Lady Haverford even seated Moira beside her on a sofa and poured her tea.
“I trust you left Lady Hayes in good health,” she said.
“Yes, thank you,” Moira said. “She was quite well.”
“And I trust you had a comfortable journey to town.”
“Yes, thank you,” Moira said. “My hus—Kenneth had his steward send several servants with me for safety and had them reserve the best rooms in the best inns. It was a very pleasant and interesting journey. Everything was new to me, of course.”
“You have not been to town before?” Helen asked. “You must find it all very strange and different from country living.”
Moira chose not to read disdain and condescension in the words. “I arrived only last evening,” she said. “But I certainly found the shops very exciting. Kenneth took me along Oxford Street and Bond Street this morning.”
“And are you to attend Lady Algerton’s ball this evening, Lady Haverford?” one of the lady guests asked.
Yes,” Moira said, “and I look forward to it with some eagerness.” She must appear quite rustic to these people, but she would not try to pretend to a sophistication and an ennui that would merely make her look ridiculous. She smiled.
“Kenneth will be dancing the opening set with you, doubtless,” Viscount Ainsleigh said. “Will you reserve the second for me—Moira? May I call you that since we are brother and sister?”
“I should like that.” She smiled more warmly. She had liked the viscount from her first meeting with him at the Dunbarton ball, when he had tried to cover up for his wife’s rudeness to her and Sir Edwin Baillie. “But I am afraid the second set is promised to Viscount Rawleigh, sir.”
“Michael,” he said. “Then we will make it the third—if that is not reserved too?”
“Thank you, Michael,” she said.
Kenneth was standing beside the sofa, slightly behind her. He rested one hand lightly on her shoulder and without pausing to think, she lifted her hand to touch her fingers to his. It was a gesture that she knew was not lost on her in-laws or on their guests—a not-strictly-proper gesture that was nevertheless perhaps excusable in newlyweds who were much in love with each other. That was not the case at all, of course. He had thought, perhaps, to offer her some moral support. She had felt the need to accept it. But it did not matter. Perhaps, as he had suggested in the carriage, it would be easier to have it thought that theirs was a love match. She turned her head to look up at him and, when he smiled at her, she smiled back.
“You will, of course, bring your wife to my side when you arrive this evening, Kenneth,” the dowager countess said when they were leaving a short while later. She accepted his arm to descend the stairs with them. “I shall see that she is presented to all the people with whom the Countess of Haverford ought to have an acquaintance.”
“As you wish, Mama,” he said, inclining his head.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Moira said.
Her mother-in-law looked at her with unsmiling eyes. “It is as well,” she said, “that you miscarried. A new countess who lacks both town bronze and a recognizable name does not need the added gossip that would arise from a confinement a mere six months after the nuptials.”
He had lied to her. He had told them. All the while, when she had been sitting with them in the drawing room, they had known. Moira’s chin went up.
“I suppose you have been in correspondence with Mrs. Whiteman at Dunbarton,” Kenneth said. “I must have a word with her about misplaced loyalties. It has taken Moira all this time to recover her health and spirits, Mama. But we can find no real consolation for the loss of the child that would have been ours. I would be grateful if you would not mention this to anyone else.”
“I would be hardly likely to,” she said. “So you have won yourself wealth and position and security, Moira. I can do nothing to change that. I can only hope that you will live up to what is expected of you—and offer to help you move smoothly into the life that must be yours.”
It was a grudging offer. There was no warmth behind it, no offer of affection. But it was an offer, nonetheless. An
offer of some sort of acceptance. If she was to stay with Kenneth, Moira thought—if—then she would be foolish to reject it.
“Thank you, ma’am,” she said.
“You had better call me Mother,” the dowager countess said. “I have guests in the drawing room. I must return to them.”
Kenneth bowed to her. Moira curtsied.
And then they were back in the carriage, sitting stiffly side by side.
“I am sorry,” he said when they were in motion. “I did not realize that she knew. Mrs. Whiteman will, of course, be dismissed from her post at Dunbarton. I will not tolerate a housekeeper whose loyalty to my mother is stronger than her loyalty to you. What my mother said must have hurt you.”
“Yes,” she said. But what he had said had unexpectedly touched her. He had spoken as if the loss had been his as well as hers—we can find no real consolation for the loss of the child. . . . And he was prepared to dismiss the housekeeper for going over her head and reporting to her former mistress. Oh, Kenneth, she thought, don’t confuse me.
“Was the visit quite as bad as you expected?” he asked.
“No.” She fixed her eyes on her hands in her lap. “If we had not called this afternoon, we would have met them this evening, would we not? It would have been intolerably awkward.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And you thought of that.” She foolishly had not. “Yes, it was better than I expected. At least no one showed me the door when I went in.”
“They would not dare,” he said. “You are my wife.”
She smiled at her hands.
“Am I forgiven, then,” he asked, “for issuing the command?”
“It is your right to command me,” she said.
“That is a dangerously meek reply,” he said, looking at her sidelong.
She shrugged her shoulders and changed the subject. “I like Viscount Ainsleigh—Michael,” she said. “He is a true gentleman.” She was surprised that she liked him. Sean had loved Helen and should have married her. And would have if . . .