by Mary Balogh
“Can I take that as a yes?”
“Mmm.”
The next time she knew anything, it was half past eight.
He was stroking the fingers of one hand gently through her hair.
The Duke of Stanbrook arrived home, by prearrangement, at ten o’clock, Lady Barclay with him, though she might as easily have come with Lord and Lady Trentham, for they had been invited for breakfast. The Earl of Berwick and Viscount Ponsonby had been invited too.
“Never let it be said,” Viscount Ponsonby said when they were all seated at the table, “that any of us were ever allowed to s-slip off with quiet dignity on a journey when there were other Survivors ready at hand to give him a grand send-off. Or her, I will add, Imogen, before you can correct me.”
“The grand send-off today will be welcomed, Flave,” Vincent told him, “provided it does not come accompanied by old pots and kettles.”
“Pots and kettles?” Viscount Ponsonby frowned. “Who would be so dastardly? People would turn their heads as you rattled by. That would be a m-mite embarrassing.”
“Has anyone heard anything of Ben?” the Earl of Berwick asked of the table in general. “Apart from the fact that he is in the north of England with his sister, that is?”
No one had.
“I wish he had been here,” Vincent said. “He could have danced for my wedding.”
There was general laughter.
“Sir Benedict Harper had both his legs crushed under his horse,” Lord Trentham explained to Sophia, “and refused to have them amputated on the field, as he was strongly advised to do. He was told he would never walk again, but he does, after a fashion. He swears that one day he will dance, and none of us dares doubt him. A fierce lad is our Ben when he is crossed. Or even sometimes when he is not.”
“More important, Lady Darleigh,” Lady Barclay said, “is the fact that we really do not doubt what he says. If he says he will dance, then he will. We all believe it.”
“We would all b-believe there were fairies at the bottom of your garden too, Imogen,” Lord Ponsonby said, “if you told us there were.”
“Well, there you are, Flavian,” she said. “But I would not say any such thing, would I? Our trust in one another has been earned through honesty.”
“Unless you really did see them, Imogen,” Vincent said, grinning.
“Granted,” she said. “Lady Darleigh, you will think us quite frivolous. Fairies at the bottom of the garden, indeed!”
“I do not,” Sophia told her. “I have a lovely mental image of them. I believe I must sketch them and Vincent will make up stories about them for his nieces and nephews. We will make up the stories together, in fact.”
She had leaned forward in her place and was looking eagerly from face to face. She met astonishment and amusement. And she heard the words she had spoken and observed the posture of her body and the expression on her face as though she were looking at and listening to a stranger. Oh, they would all think she had taken leave of her senses. She subsided back into her seat.
“Sophie is a caricaturist,” Vincent explained. “I have not seen her sketches, of course, but I would be willing to wager they are wickedly satirical. And now she wants to turn her talent to storytelling and illustrating.”
Sophia could feel her cheeks flood with hot color. She was being regarded by a duke, an earl, a viscount, a baron and his wife, a nobleman’s widow, and her own blind viscount.
Just a week ago…
But this was not a week ago.
“It is just foolishness,” she murmured against her napkin.
The duke’s austere face looked at Vincent with unmistakable affection and then at Sophia with … well, surely with some kindness. Everyone else was looking at her in much the same way. No one was frowning or sniggering at her stupidity or gawking as if she had sprouted an extra head—or forgotten her rightful place in the corner.
“Enthusiasm and creativity are never foolish,” Lady Barclay said.
“Neither is shared enjoyment,” Lady Trentham added, “especially when it is with a loved one.”
“And how l-long have you been married, Lady Trentham?” Viscount Ponsonby asked. He waggled his eyebrows at Lord Trentham. “Hugo, you rogue, you.”
“Do you really tell stories, Vince?” the Earl of Berwick asked.
Vincent looked sheepish. “Well,” he said, “when one’s nieces and nephews beg to have a bedtime story read and one’s sister shushes them in great embarrassment and no doubt with significant gestures in the direction of my eyes while mouthing Uncle-Vincent-is-blind at her offspring, one must, out of sheer self-respect, become inventive.”
“Keep him storytelling, Lady Darleigh,” Viscount Ponsonby said. “He may forget about his v-violin.”
“But I will not let him forget,” Sophia assured him.
Breakfast lasted for a mere hour. Sophia had started it feeling horribly self-conscious, especially as she was seated at the foot of the table, opposite the duke at the head. She finished it feeling a little less in awe of the Survivors and just a little bit proud of herself for not being entirely mute, as she had been during the meal yesterday.
And she felt a little less of a fraud. Perhaps her marriage would not be a temporary thing after all. Vincent had said they must stop thinking that way, and she felt as he did. She ought not to have agreed to such a thing in the first place. Marriage was marriage. It was not right to stretch it and twist it to suit one’s own purpose.
Lady Trentham slid an arm through hers a short while later, when Vincent’s carriage had drawn up outside the door and footmen, under the direction of Mr. Fisk, were loading it with more baggage than they had arrived with, and they were surrounded with all the bustle of farewells.
“Lady Darleigh,” she said, “that new traveling dress is very smart indeed, and I insist upon taking at least a part of the credit for it. I cannot take credit for you, however. You must always smile and look happy, my dear, as you do this morning. And pretty. Please do be happy. I scarcely know Lord Darleigh, but I have a great fondness for him because he was kind to me at Penderris Hall and because Hugo loves him.”
Sophia felt horribly embarrassed. If she was looking different this morning from the way she had looked yesterday, everyone would think…
Well, of course they would.
But … pretty?
“I am going to make him happy,” Sophia said impulsively. “I have never before had a chance to make anyone happy.”
“But you must be happy too. And as for your husband, remember Lizzie’s dog,” Lady Trentham said, patting her hand before letting her go to be hugged by Imogen and to have her hand kissed by all the gentlemen until the Duke of Stanbrook drew her into a hug and murmured in her ear.
“I am hopeful,” he said. “Indeed I am distinctly hopeful this morning that you are the angel for whom I have been praying for my Vincent, Lady Darleigh.”
She had no time to do any more than glance at him, startled. It was time to board the carriage. Vincent was already standing at the open door, waiting to hand her inside.
Lizzie’s dog, she thought as she settled into her seat and made room for Vincent beside her. Lady Trentham and Lady Kilbourne between them had told her the day before yesterday about their cousin’s blind daughter who dashed about the house and park where she lived with great daring and only the occasional tumble, courtesy of an energetic dog that nevertheless seemed to understand that he had the child’s safety at his mercy when he was on his leash. With a little more training and discipline, Lady Kilbourne had explained, Lizzie’s dog could free her as no cane or careful memory ever could to live a life that was hardly any more restricted than a sighted person’s.
Mr. Handry climbed onto the box, followed by Mr. Fisk, and the carriage rocked into motion. Sophia leaned closer to the window to wave to the duke and his breakfast guests, all of whom were gathered on the steps or pavement to see them on their way. Somehow they looked a little less formidable than they had yesterday. Vi
ncent too smiled and waved.
“Sophie,” he said as the carriage turned out of Grosvenor Square. He leaned back in his seat, took her hand in his, and rested it on his thigh. “I brought you to London so that you would not be overwhelmed by my family, at least until after we were married. Instead, I exposed you to all the boisterous energy of my friends. Have you minded terribly?”
“No,” she said. “They were kind. And I have been able to practice not being a mouse.”
“I have noticed,” he said, “and have appreciated your efforts. Has it been hard?”
“Yes,” she said. “I expect every time I open my mouth either to be ignored or to be regarded with utter incomprehension or amazement. Or outrage.”
“My friends like you,” he said.
Her first instinct was to deny it. But she had made a promise last night—a promise to obey the only command he had given her so far in their marriage and perhaps the only one he ever would. Besides, it was true. Or at least, it had the possibility of being true. Lord and Lady Trentham had looked upon her with distinct wariness when she had first appeared in their house. The other Survivors had looked upon her yesterday with considerable reserve and a not-quite-carefully-enough-concealed concern for their friend. This morning they had noticeably warmed toward her. All of them, even the formidable cynic Viscount Ponsonby, and the austere Duke of Stanbrook, who clearly loved Vincent as a son.
Indeed I am distinctly hopeful this morning that you are the angel for whom I have been praying for my Vincent, Lady Darleigh.
My Vincent.
She had felt a little as though the bottom had fallen out of her stomach when he had said that.
“And I like them,” she said. “Will Sir Benedict Harper ever dance?”
“He walks with two canes,” he told her. “Sometimes he will take a few steps without them. Apparently, it is a painful sight to behold. And inspiring too, for he was told that his legs would be useless appendages for the rest of his life and might even become diseased and threaten his life. He will dance, Sophie. I have no doubt whatsoever that he will.”
“And you?” she asked him. “Will you dance?”
He turned his head sharply in her direction and then smiled.
“In the dark?”
“Why not?” she said. “I have never danced myself, though I have watched others dance. I watched at the assembly last week. And I watched Henrietta and her dancing master. He taught her to waltz. I think it must be one of the loveliest feelings in the world to waltz. I would dance it if I had the chance, even in the dark.”
“Oh, Sophie,” he said, “would you? I have never waltzed either, though I did see it performed at a regimental ball before … Well, before my single glorious battle hour. I thought it would be a lovely dance to perform with the right partner.”
She gazed wistfully at him.
13
Traveling was a tedious business, especially when one could not watch the passing countryside. It was also uncomfortable, even when one owned a well-sprung carriage with thick, soft cushions. Even so, Vincent was in no hurry for the journey to end.
He was a coward.
Though part of him was excited too at the prospect of being home, of starting an entirely new life. And it would be new, partly because the circumstances of his life had changed, and partly because he was determined not merely to drift onward in the same vein as before.
They rode in silence much of the time. But it was not an awkward silence. They did talk too. She described features of particular interest that they passed, and once she held forth for what must have been close to half an hour on everything that was not of interest—a gray, cloudy sky; a whole copse of trees with black trunks and branches and no leaves; a fly-infested dung heap; cows too indolent to stand up in their meadow; a field full of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of sheep, not a single one of which was black; a stretch of flat land without even a molehill to break the monotony—until he was helpless with laughter.
She had a marvelous eye for the ridiculous. And a gift of humor—quiet, dry, and irresistible. It was the sort of thing he might expect from Flavian—and it amazed him that his wife and that particular friend could have anything whatsoever in common.
“You have convinced me, Sophie,” he said. “Sight is not everything.”
“Not having it,” she assured him, “saves you from having to observe a whole lot of dullness.”
She told him more about her father when he asked—handsome, charming, charismatic, ever hopeful of winning his way to untold riches, always with the words, “One day my ship will come in, Mouse,” on his lips. And forever having to flee from unpaid landlords, unpaid merchants, and irate husbands. But, after his wife left him, he had fed and clothed and housed his daughter except when he was in particularly dire straits, and he had educated her at least to the degree that she could read and write and figure well enough to work out that their meager, precarious finances would never enable them to settle to a stable existence. And then, one day, he had not fled fast enough from a wronged husband and had had a glove slapped in his face—literally. In the ensuing duel he had been shot right between the eyes before he had even raised his own pistol to the firing position.
“Did you know about the duel beforehand?” Vincent asked her.
“Yes.”
There was a long silence, and he felt her bleakness.
“I was waiting,” she said. “And praying. And trying to think about other things. And waiting. And praying. Nobody came for a long time. Not until late in the afternoon, though the duel was at dawn. I suppose they forgot about me.”
That day must have seemed a month long. The feeling of abandonment and perhaps worthlessness must have seeped permanently into her bones.
“He had written three letters,” she said, “and Mr. Ratchett, his friend and his second at the duel, had been instructed to deliver them should he die. They were to his brother, Sir Terrence Fry, and to his sisters, Aunt Mary and Aunt Martha. Sir Terrence was out of the country, as he almost always is. Aunt Martha did not reply. Neither did Aunt Mary, but she lived in London and Mr. Ratchett took me to her and I stayed.”
“She took you in willingly once you were there?” he asked.
“She did not turn me away,” she said. “I do not know what I would have done if she had. But I rarely saw her. She told me I was hopeless as soon as she saw me. She bought me clothes when I needed them, and she gave me pin money from time to time, which I used mainly to buy paper and charcoal. She spent most of her time in her own sitting room or away from home with her friends.”
“There were no cousins?” he asked. “She had no children?”
There was a short pause.
“No,” she said. “She was childless.”
He had become sensitive to sound, or, sometimes, the absence of sound. And to atmosphere, to that slight charge of something inexplicable and indefinable that could hang in the silence or even occasionally in the noise.
Why that short pause when the answer was simply no?
He did not ask.
“And then she took a chill,” she said, “and died after three weeks. She left her money to charity.”
“And Lady March took you in.”
“She and Sir Clarence were at the funeral,” she said, “and a group of Aunt Mary’s friends commended her for coming to take that mousy girl home with her. They were influential ladies. All sorts of nasty gossip originated with them almost daily. They could slay a reputation with one word in the right ear.”
“And so she was obliged to take you,” he said. “Do you have a caricature of the gossips?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said. “With long bodies and long necks and waving lorgnettes and quivering noses and Aunt Martha cowering on a level with their knees.”
“And the mouse in its corner?” he asked.
“With folded arms and glum expression,” she said. “I was eighteen. I ought to have looked for employment. I just—I had no idea how to go about it
. I still do not. I ought to have gone to London last week. On the stagecoach, I mean. To look for work.”
“You do not like our arrangement, then?” he asked her—and wished immediately he had not used that particular word.
“It is passive at present,” she said. “It has been all take and no give. My clothes alone have cost you a fortune.”
“You were not altogether passive on our wedding night,” he reminded her. “Or last night.”
They had made love three separate times in their inn room, and though she had not been a particularly active partner, neither had she been unwilling. She had certainly given every indication of enjoying what they did.
“Oh, that,” she said dismissively—and perhaps a little sheepishly.
“Yes, that.” He frowned. “And do not tell me, Sophie, that you have not liked it. I would be forced to be quite ungentlemanly and call you a liar. And even apart from your own enjoyment or lack thereof, you have given me pleasure.”
“But that is not much,” she said.
If he had not been concerned about this further evidence of her lack of self-esteem, he might have grinned.
“Not much?” he repeated. “I suggest you know little about men, Sophie. You do not know how very central sex is to our lives? Pardon me for my blunt use of the word. I am twenty-three years old. Now at last I have a wife. I hope I will never come to think of you only as a convenient supplier of regular sex, but it will never ever be just oh, that, or but that is not much to me.”
He became aware that she was laughing softly, and he joined her.
“This is not the sort of conversation a gentleman imagines having with his bride two days after the wedding,” he said. “It is indelicate, to say the least. Forgive me.”
Several minutes of silence ensued, but he realized at the end of it that her thoughts had been continuing along the same path.
“What will you do,” she asked him, “after the year is over?”
He closed his eyes as though he could shut out thought as well as sight.
“Will you take a mistress?” she asked when he said nothing.