by Mary Balogh
“Miss Fry,” he said, “this is all my fault.”
“No.”
His eyes turned unerringly her way. “You were turned out because you foiled a plan involving me last evening. I ought to have been able to foil it myself and am ashamed that it fell to you to rescue me, a perfect stranger. I am deeply in your debt.”
“No,” she said again.
He wore a form-fitting coat of green superfine, buff-colored pantaloons, and shiny Hessian boots, with white linen and a simply tied cravat. As usual, there was nothing ostentatious about his appearance, only perfect correctness. Yet somehow he looked so suffocatingly masculine and powerful that Sophia found herself trying to press back farther into her chair.
“Can you tell me,” he asked her, “that that is not the reason you were turned out? And, I suppose, the fact that I lingered at your side after we returned to the assembly room.”
She opened her mouth to speak, thought of lying, thought of telling the truth…
“No, you cannot.” He answered his own question. “And what are your plans now? Do you have other relatives to go to?”
“I shall go to London,” she told him, “and seek employment.”
“Do you know someone who will take you in and help you in the search?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she assured him brightly.
He stood there, frowning down at her, his steady blue gaze only slightly to one side of her face. The silence stretched a little too long.
“You have nowhere to go, do you?” he said. It was not really a question. “And no one to help you.”
“Yes,” she insisted, “I do.”
Again the silence.
He clasped his hands behind his back and bent slightly at the waist.
“Miss Fry,” he said, “you must allow me to help you.”
“How?” she asked. And then, more hastily, “But it is quite unnecessary. I am not your responsibility.”
“I beg to disagree,” he told her. “You need employment if you have no other relatives to take you in. Genteel employment—you are a lady. I could ask my sisters—but it would take too long. I have a friend in London. At least, it was his plan to go there this spring. He has vast and prosperous business interests there and will surely have something suitable to offer you or be able to find you something elsewhere if I provide you with a letter of recommendation.”
“You would do that for me?” She swallowed. “Would he listen to you?”
“We are very close friends.” He frowned. “If only I could be perfectly sure he was there. The Duke of Stanbrook also talked of spending part of the Season in London. Perhaps he will be there even if Hugo is not. But where would you stay while you wait to be settled into employment?”
“I—” But he had not believed in her mythical friends.
“Hugo would perhaps take you in for a short while,” he said. “If he is there.”
“Oh, no.”
“His stepmother and his half sister live with him in his London home,” he explained. “They would surely not mind—”
“No,” she said, feeling quite distressed. It was one thing to knock upon someone’s door with a letter of recommendation and a plea for employment. It was quite another to beg to be given lodgings in a stranger’s house. “Oh, no, my lord. It is impossible. You and I are strangers. You do not know me well enough to vouch for me to that extent, even to your closest friend. It would be rash of you, it would be an imposition upon him and his mother and sister, and it is something I could not possibly bring myself to do.”
He still frowned down at her.
“I am not your responsibility,” she said again. But her stomach was feeling decidedly queasy. What was she going to do?
The silence stretched between them. Should she say something to dismiss him? But perversely she did not want him to go, she realized suddenly. There was a terrifying emptiness yawning ahead, and she was not sure she wanted to be alone to gaze into the abyss. She gripped the arms of her chair more tightly.
“I think you must marry me,” he said abruptly.
She gaped inelegantly, and it was surprising she did not push herself right out through the back of her chair.
“Oh, no.”
“I hope,” he said, “that is an exclamation of surprise rather than an out-and-out rejection.”
And suddenly, surprisingly, she was angry.
“It was not my intention,” she said, her voice breathless. “It was never my intention, Lord Darleigh, to be in a sort of competition with Henrietta to see who could trap you first and most effectively. That was never my plan.”
“I know.” He was still frowning. “Pray do not distress yourself. I am well aware that you have set out no lures for me, that what you did last evening was done out of the goodness of your heart.”
How could he possibly know that?
“And you think you must show your gratitude by marrying me?” she asked him.
He stared silently for a few moments.
“The thing is,” he said, “that I am grateful and that I do feel responsible. If I had used my head, I would have refused to budge from just outside the door of the inn with Miss March and you would not have had to come to the rescue and thereby incur the wrath of your aunt and uncle. I am responsible for you. And I like you, even though that liking is based purely upon the strength of what you did and our short conversation afterward. I like your voice. That sounds ridiculously lame, I know. But when you cannot see, Miss Fry, sound and the other senses become far more acute. Normally one likes the look of someone to whom one feels attracted. I like the sound of your voice.”
He was offering her marriage because of her voice?
And was he saying he found her attractive?
“It is a good thing,” she said, “that you cannot see me.”
He stared again.
“You look like a gargoyle, then, do you?” he asked.
And then he did something that had Sophia gripping the arms of her chair even more tightly. He smiled slowly, and then the smile developed into something else. A mischievous grin.
Oh, all those stories about his boyhood must be true.
But he looked suddenly human, a real person shut up inside all the pomp and trappings of a viscount. And a handsome, elegant viscount at that.
And he had dreams.
“If I did,” she said, “people would notice me. Nobody ever notices me, my lord. I am a mouse. It is what my father used to call me—Mouse. Never Sophia. And for the last five years there has always been a the placed before the word so that it has no longer been even a name but a simple label. I am not a gargoyle, but a mouse.”
His grin had faded, though the smile remained. His head had tipped slightly to one side.
“I have been told,” he said, “that the best and most famous actors are invisible people—or mice, perhaps. They can project the character they play on stage to perfection, but in their own right they can be quite unremarkable and can escape detection even from admirers who are looking for them. And yet all the richness of their talent is contained within themselves.”
“Oh,” she said, somewhat startled. “Are you saying that I am not really a mouse? I know that. But…”
“Describe yourself to me, Miss Fry.”
She rubbed her hands along the arms of her chair.
“I am small,” she said. “Five foot nothing. Well, five foot two. I am small in every way. I have the figure of a boy. I have a nose my father used to describe as a button and a mouth that is too wide for my face. I cut my hair very short because … well, because it curls too much and is impossible to control.”
“The color of your hair?” he asked.
“Auburn,” she said. “Nothing as decisive as blond or raven. Merely auburn.”
She hated talking about her hair. It was her hair that had led to the destroying of her soul—though that was a ridiculously theatrical way by which to describe a little heartbreak.
“And your eyes?”
/> “Brown,” she said. “Or hazel. Sometimes one, sometimes the other.”
“Definitely not a gargoyle, then,” he said.
“But not a beauty either,” she assured him. “Not even nearly a beauty. Sometimes when my father was alive, I dressed as a boy. It was easier when … Well, never mind. No one ever accused me of being an impostor.”
“Has no one ever told you that you are pretty?” he asked.
“I would only have to look in the nearest glass,” she said, “to know that they lied.”
He did one of those silent stares again.
“Take a blind man’s word for it,” he told her, “that you have a pretty voice.”
She laughed. She felt absurdly, pathetically pleased.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
Suddenly she was engulfed in a tidal wave of temptation. She gripped harder. She would be leaving permanent indentations in the arms of the vicarage chair if she was not careful.
“I cannot do that,” she said.
“Why not?”
Only for a thousand reasons. At least.
“You must know,” she said, “that the whole village is buzzing with talk about you. I have not heard much of it, but I have heard enough. It is said that you left home a while ago because your relatives were trying to make you marry a young lady you did not really wish to marry. It is said that they have set their minds upon finding you a wife. Everyone here has been speculating about who, if anyone, will suit you among the young ladies with whom you are familiar. And, of course, my uncle and aunt made a determined effort last evening to catch you for Henrietta. You are set about by people who are scheming to get you married, though their motives differ widely. I will not add to that crowd, Lord Darleigh, by marrying you just because you are kind enough to feel responsible for me. You are not responsible. Besides, you told me yourself last night that your dream does not include a wife.”
“Do you have any active aversion to marrying me?” he asked her. “My blindness, for example?”
“No,” she said. “The fact that you cannot see is a handicap, but you do not seem to treat it as one.”
She did not know him. But he really did look fit and well muscled. She knew he had been blind for several years. If he had sat in a chair or lain on a bed most of that time, he would not look as he looked now. His face was weather-bronzed too.
“Nothing else?” he asked. “My looks? My voice? My … Anything?”
“N-no,” she said.
Except that he was a titled, wealthy, privileged gentleman despite the blindness, and lived in a mansion far larger than Barton Hall. And that he had a doting mother and sisters. And twenty thousand pounds a year. And that he was handsome and elegant and made her want to cower in a corner, worshiping from afar—even from within her mouse hole. Actually, that would make a splendid cartoon, except that she would have to capture his splendor without satire and she was not sure she could do that. Her charcoal almost always viewed the world through a satirical eye.
“Then I beg leave to press my suit,” he said. “Miss Fry, please marry me. Oh, very well. We are both young. We both admitted last night that we dream of independence and of being alone to enjoy it, unencumbered by spouse or children. But we also recognized that dreams are not always reality. This is reality. You have a frightening problem; I feel responsible for helping solve it, and I have the means of solving it. But our dreams need not completely die if we marry. Quite the contrary. Let us come to some sort of arrangement that will benefit us both in the immediate future and offer us both hope for the longer term future.”
She stared back at him. Temptation gnawed at her. But she did not understand quite what he offered.
“In what way,” she asked him, “would marriage to me benefit you, Lord Darleigh, either in the shorter term or the longer? Apart from soothing your conscience, that is. It is perfectly obvious how it would benefit me. There is not even any point in making a list. But what would such an arrangement, as you call it, offer you? And what do you mean by that word—arrangement? How does it differ from just plain marriage?”
Marriage to her would offer him absolutely nothing whatsoever. That was what. Again, there was no point at all in making a list—there would be nothing to put on it. It would be a blank page with a wistful little mouse gazing up at the emptiness from a bottom corner.
He felt behind him for the arms of the chair to which the Reverend Parsons had led him and sat down at last. He looked a little less intimidating. Or perhaps not. For now there was an illusion, as there had been last evening, that they were just two friendly equals having a cozy chat. Yet … Well, there was nothing equal about them except a basic gentility of birth.
“If one considers the facts purely from a practical and material perspective,” he said, “ours would be an unequal match. You have nothing and no one and nowhere to go and no money. I have property and fortune and more loving relatives than I know what to do with.”
And that was that. There was really no more to be said.
She stared into the abyss and felt as though her stomach had already descended into it.
“There is no other perspective,” she said.
“Yes, there is.” He was silent again for a few moments. “I ran from home six weeks or so ago, as you have heard. I have not made a good start on my life as Viscount Darleigh of Middlebury Park. I have allowed myself to be ruled by all the well-meaning people surrounding me there. And now they have decided it is time I married, and they will not be satisfied until the deed is accomplished. I want to change things, Miss Fry. How much easier it would have been if I had asserted myself three years ago. But I did not, and there is no going back. So where do I start now? Perhaps in taking a wife home with me. Perhaps I will have the courage to start again and start differently if I have someone at my side who is undeniably mistress of Middlebury. Perhaps it is the very thing I need. Perhaps you will be doing me as great a favor as I will be doing you. If I can persuade you to agree, that is.”
“But to choose a stranger,” she said.
“It is precisely what my relatives wished me to do six weeks ago,” he said. “She had been brought to Middlebury by parents who needed to marry her well. She had no personal wish to be there. We had no previous acquaintance. She was a sacrificial lamb. She told me she understood and she did not mind.”
“Ah,” she said. “But clearly she did?”
“Would you mind?” he asked her.
“Marrying a blind man? No,” she said. But what was she saying? She was not agreeing to marry him. “But I would mind forcing you into something you do not want to do, with someone you do not know and someone who could bring nothing into the marriage except, perhaps, that she really would not mind.”
He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair and looked as though he was searching for words.
“Was this the arrangement you spoke of?” she asked. “That you offer me material comfort and I offer you the courage to become the master of your own domain?”
He exhaled audibly.
“No,” he said. “Remember our dreams.”
“Our impossible dreams?” She attempted a laugh and then wished she had not when she heard the pathetic sound she made.
“Perhaps not so impossible.” He sat forward suddenly, and his face looked earnest and eager and boyish. “Perhaps we can have both them and marriage.”
“How?” They seemed mutually exclusive concepts to her.
“Marriages,” he said, “perfectly decent ones, are undertaken for all sorts of reasons. Especially marriages of the upper classes. Often they are alliances more than love matches. And there is nothing wrong with an alliance. Often there is a great deal of respect, even affection, between the partners. And often they live lives that are quite independent of each other even while the marriage survives. They see each other from time to time and are perfectly amicable with each other. But they are free to live their own lives. Perhaps we could agree to such a marriage.”
He was still looking eager.
“You could eventually have your cottage in the country,” he said, “with your flowers and your chickens and cats. I could eventually prove to myself that I can be master of Middlebury and of my life alone. We could have a marriage now, when we both need it, and freedom and independence and a dream come true in the future. We are both young. We have plenty of life ahead of us—or we can hope for plenty.”
“When?” She still felt chilled—and tempted. “When could we move from the one phase of our marriage to the other?”
He stared past her shoulder.
“One year?” he said. “Unless there is a child. It is a real marriage I propose, Miss Fry. And the begetting of an heir is a duty I must look to sometime. If there is a child, our dream will have to be postponed, at least for a while. But a year if there is no child. Unless you would rather make it longer. Or less. But I think we would need a year to establish ourselves as Viscount and Viscountess Darleigh of Middlebury Park. And we ought to do that. Would you agree to a year?”
She had not agreed to anything. She felt a little as though she were about to faint. She could be married and have her life of quiet contentment? Could the two coexist? She needed time to think, and lots of it. But there was no time. She lowered her chin to her chest and closed her eyes.
“It would be madness,” was all she could think to say.
“Why?” He sounded anxious. Anxious that she would say no? Or that she would say yes?
She could not think. But one thought popped free.
“What if there was a child,” she asked, “and it was a girl?”
He thought about it and then … smiled.
“I think I would rather like to have a daughter,” he said, and then he laughed. “Another female to rule my life.”
“But what if?” she persisted. “What if you were still without an heir?”
“Then … Hmm.” He thought again. “If we became friends during our year together, and I see no reason why we should not, then we would not have to be strangers for the rest of our lives, would we? We would not be separating, only living apart because it suited us to do so. Perhaps we would both be quite happy to come together again from time to time.”