by Mary Balogh
Celia had paled considerably. She pushed at his hand now, turned abruptly from him, and began to move away. Algernon caught at her arm. "My apologies, ma'am," he said. "I have insulted you. Can't think what came over me. I am not in the habit of kissing females in that way. Good Lord, I have never… I truly did not mean to insult you. Please forgive me. I just seem to forget when I am with you that you are an acquaintance merely. I… Please allow me to escort you back to the house."
Celia looked back at him, biting her lip. "I am sorry," she said. "It was nothing. I was embarrassed, that is all. No one has ever kissed me before even as a jest. Yes, please, I would like to return to the house. The breeze is quite chilly."
She took his offered arm and they walked in an awkward silence back to the house. Algernon stopped before they went inside. "Can that episode be forgotten?" he asked. "I like and respect you, Miss Barnes, and value your friendship. Will you say you forgive me?"
Celia smiled up at him and placed her own hand in his outstretched one. "There is nothing to forgive," she said. "Thank you for the things you said. And thank you for the rose. Yes, my lord, I would like to think of you as my friend."
They shook hands and smiled at each other before walking up the marble steps to the door.
***
An hour earlier Rachel had run lightly up the stairs and along to the nursery. She wanted to see these children, aged three and one. She grinned at herself as she knocked softly on the door and opened it. She would far prefer to spend the next hour playing with David's nephews than to look at flowers with Lady Cardwell and Algie or converse in the drawing room with the viscount.
She looked around her with a smile, preparing to introduce herself to the children's nurse. She found herself smiling instead at David Gower. He was standing at the opposite side of the room by one of the long windows. He held a baby in his arms. An older child stood on the window seat before him looking out through the window.
"Oh," Rachel said foolishly, "I am sorry. I did not know you were here."
"Hello, Rachel," David said. His eyes were smiling at her in that way that made her feel weak at the knees. "Do come inside. Did you come to meet my nephews? I am very proud of them, you know, and quite delighted to have someone to whom to show them off. It is more than six months since I saw them last. This little one, in particular, was a very small baby then."
"Where is their nurse?" Rachel asked.
He grinned. "I sent her to have tea with the housekeeper," he said. "Little Simon here was running her off her feet. Once one sets his legs to the floor, he believes that they should be in continuous motion. And he moves at a run, destroying everything in his path. I have enabled myself to have something of a rest by the simple expedient of picking him up. Right, cherub?" He pinched the stomach of the baby, who chuckled with delight.
"They are lovely," Rachel said. "The older one looks like your brother and you." She smiled at the little boy, who had turned from the window to stare at her. She held out a hand. "May I present myself? I am Lady Rachel Palmer. I do not know your name, sir."
The boy placed a small hand in hers. "Rufus Gower, ma'am," he said, bobbing his head in a swift bow.
"Ah," she said. "You share your papa's name. I am pleased to meet you, sir." She curtsied.
"When I sent the nurse away twenty minutes ago," David said, "it was with the promise that I would try to get these boys to bed. They usually sleep for an hour immediately after luncheon, but the upheaval of the journey for more than two days and the strange house at the end of it all has upset their routine. I had them almost persuaded when you arrived. Shall we try, boys? Lady Rachel is an expert storyteller. If you go to bed immediately and settle down quietly, perhaps she can be persuaded to tell you a story."
Rachel looked at him in alarm, to find that his eyes were twinkling. "Well, I know some of Aesop's fables," she said.
"Uncle David, carry me," Rufus begged, directing large blue eyes his uncle's way.
"Uncle David's arms are already full," Rachel said. "Will I do?"
"Here," David said, "you take Simon. But please do not set his feet anywhere close to the floor or we will spend another twenty minutes chasing him."
The baby's arms closed around her neck. His cheek as it brushed hers was hot, she felt. He was clearly tired and holding himself awake by sheer willpower.
The scene in the children's bedchamber seemed an incredibly domestic one to Rachel. She tucked the baby into one bed while David did the same with the older child in the other. The baby immediately gathered the silk border of the blanket into his fist, put a thumb in his mouth, and addressed himself to sleep. Rufus watched her wide-eyed as she sat on the edge of his bed and told him fables. It was not until she was halfway through the third one that his eyelids began to droop. She finished the story, kissed his forehead, and rose to leave. Simon was already asleep. David was standing at the foot of the beds.
"Have you always loved children?" he asked Rachel as they stepped back out into the nursery and he closed the door behind them. "You certainly have a gift for holding their attention."
"Yes, I have always enjoyed playing with children," she admitted. "Papa says it is because I have never grown up myself. I think the local children should be taught to read, David. Do you think I would be able to teach them? And would there be any real point? I mean, I know there would be a point, but would their parents and everyone else see that? I am not at all sure. I have never really thought about it before." She was staring eagerly at him, the old Rachel he remembered from London.
"I suppose you can only ask," he said. "But yes, if you really wished to do that, Rachel, I think you would do it successfully. You have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. It would be a great commitment of time, though. Are you sure you will have the time to spare?"
"Oh, yes." Rachel gazed earnestly back. "I will have a great deal of time. My whole life." She flushed suddenly.
He smiled and changed the subject. "I should have come downstairs when I saw your barouche arrive earlier," he said. "Did no one think to tell you I was here?"
"No," Rachel said. "I would not have come up had I known. You must stay until the nurse returns, must you not? I shall go back downstairs."
"Must you?" he asked with a smile. "Come and sit with me by the window for a while. It is a great shame that there must be an awkwardness between us, Rachel. We could be very dear friends, could we not, if there were not the other to make it painful to be in each other's presence?"
Rachel came and sat at one end of the long window seat. He sat at the other. "Yes," she said, "I believe we could." Her eyes rested on his face. She smiled.
"Why do you do what you do?" he asked. "Why do you spend your mornings with the poor?"
"For very selfish reasons," she said. "It makes me happy. The mornings are the happiest time of my days."
"It is not because of me?" he asked. "It is not that I have made you feel you ought?"
"You reminded me perhaps," she said, "of the way things were before my attention was completely taken up with London and the Season. And I think I wanted to win your respect, and even admiration. But it is not just for you, David. Not by any means. I shall continue after you are gone. All my life."
"Do you do it at all for God?" he asked curiously. "I do not know much about the state of your faith, Rachel. I know that you know a great deal of the Bible, of course."
Rachel was silent for several moments, staring across at him. "I am not quite sure," she said. "Religion seems so restrictive. It makes people sober and unhappy. It is full of things one must not do. I want to be happy. I want joy in my life. I want to run and dance and be free. I don't think I am a very good member of your flock, David."
His eyes smiled deeply into hers and his mouth was curved up at the corners. "Oh, I think that perhaps you are far closer to God than many of my other sheep, Rachel," he said. "The type of religion you fear is best suited to those who wish to create their own God. It is a human tendency to stres
s the negative, to emphasize what one should not do rather than what one should. It is not God's way. God gives us only two commandments: to love Him and to love one another. They are very positive commands. And you are beginning to live them already. If you will learn to accept that it is what God wants you to do, I think you will be able to sing and dance and be incredibly happy. You should be happy, Rachel. You were made for joy."
"My own private sermon," she said. "And it is not even Sunday."
"Pardon me," he said. "I did not mean to preach. It is just that I feel an enormous responsibility for you. Not just the responsibility of vicar to parishioner, but that of lover to beloved. I know I have hurt you. And I believe that the hurt I have inflicted may be deep enough to wound you for a lifetime. But you need not be unhappy, Rachel. That seems like a paradox, does it not? But I believe it. You can be happy if you realize that you need not depend on a poor weak human for your joy. I could bring you only unhappiness ultimately, you know."
Rachel smiled rather wearily and stared out through the window.
"With Algie you will live the life you are suited to," he said. "With religious faith you will also be able to live a rich life. I will be quite superfluous to your life, you see."
"David." Rachel turned back to look full at him. "Whom are you trying to persuade? Do you not think I have sense enough to have told myself all these things and more in the last week? I have already adjusted my mind to the type of future I am facing. And I am not going to marry Algie, you know."
His face paled noticeably. "Not marry Algie?" he said. "But your betrothal has been planned, Rachel. And you love him."
"Yes, I do," she said. "Far too dearly to use him as a refuge from a bruised heart. He deserves to have all of the woman he will marry. I could offer him only a part of myself."
David closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "Does he know?" he asked."
"No," she said. "I do not wish to broach the topic while your brother is here and while our guests are still at Oakland. When they have all left I shall tell him. You see, I can be as courageous as you, David."
David got to his feet and stood with his back to the window. "I am sorry," he said finally. "I am truly, sorry, Rachel."
"You need not be," she said. "I think you have saved both Algie and me from a bad marriage. It is only recently, you see, that I have realized that we do not love each other as a husband and wife should. Perhaps Algie already knows that. I am not sure. He has been the one to advise caution, to insist that we wait until autumn before making our betrothal official. But I have now realized it. I admire Algie, and even love him, for his placid good nature. I suppose I have always felt that I would take on some of that nature if I married him. I thought I would be safe with Algie. But of course that was nonsense. I have grown up a great deal in the past few weeks. I would still be me if I married Algie a thousand times. I would still be restless and frightened."
"Frightened?" He turned back to her with a frown.
"Yes," she said. "I have always been frightened by life. It is so vast, so without form or logic, so..." She let out her breath in a rush. "So meaningless. I have always tried to drown out the silence with the sound of my own voice and laughter and fill in the vast empty spaces with movement and gaiety. Life terrifies me."
David was on his knees in front of her suddenly, both her hands in his. "Rachel," he said earnestly, "it must not. Oh, you have so much to give: your gaiety and sunny nature, your gentleness and compassion, your energy. There is meaning in life, dear, even in the bleak and painful moments. There is a pattern that we will see clearly as we get older. Already I can see purpose in some of the experiences in my past. I can see purpose, for example, in the existence of those two little boys in the next room, though when they were born they distanced me further from hopes of a title and a fortune. There is a meaning to your life too. You will see it one day and be glad of it. Just have faith, Rachel."
He lifted her hands one at a time and pressed his lips to her palms. "Even this," he said. "There is even meaning in this. We will understand one day why we had to love and why our love had to shatter both of our plans for the future. I believe we will even admit that it was best it happened exactly the way it has. Pain and all. Perhaps then we will each be able to love the memory of the other without any of the pain and guilt and confusion that make our feelings almost unbearable at the moment."
"Perhaps you are right, David." Rachel lifted her hands to smooth back the hair at the sides of his head. "I know already that I will never be sorry that I met and loved you. I believe I am the richer for knowing you. You have helped me to face myself and my own fears."
She was smiling into his eyes, her hands still in his hair, his resting on her knees, when the children's nurse bustled back into the nursery. David rose and turned to her with a smile.
"Task accomplished, Mrs. Jones," he said. "Both children are sleeping soundly. Have you met Lady Rachel Palmer?"
Five minutes later they were walking together down the staircase toward the salon, both feeling strangely comforted after almost a week of studiously avoiding all meetings with each other. Their pain over the fact that their love could know no satisfactory outcome had almost blinded them to the fact that they had also grown to be close and dear friends.
Chapter 11
The arrival of Viscount Cardwell breathed new life into the final week of the house party at Oakland. Every day the members of the two households met for various activities. There were walks, rides, picnics, dinners, card parties, musical evenings. All the entertainments were to culminate in the dinner and ball at Singleton Hall two days before all the guests, including Lord and Lady Cardwell, were scheduled to leave. Even Celia had expressed her intention of returning home on that day, though Rachel had urged her to stay longer.
David attended rather more of the week's activities than he would normally have done. His brother was to stay with Algernon for only little more than a week altogether, and he seldom saw his brother or the children, who would grow up so quickly. He wanted to spend as much time as he was able with them while they were close by.
And so he saw Rachel almost daily. They did not often seek out each other's company, but the awkwardness that had kept them apart after their morning encounter in the gig had largely disappeared. They could be in the same room with each other without dreading a chance meeting of their eyes. Indeed, several times they spent some time in conversation together. It was on one such occasion that she told him with a giggle about her loss of an admirer.
"Mr. Hart confided to me yesterday that he has won Patricia Lacey's consent to speak with her papa when they both remove to Brighton," she said. "Does he not seem to have got matters the wrong way around, David? And he thanked me profusely for inviting him to this house party, as it gave him the opportunity to win her affection. How mortifying. Ail the time he appeared to be languishing after me, he was fixing his interest with the very demure Patricia." She laughed gaily again.
On another occasion she told him of the progress of her plans to teach some of the children of the estate to read. "I would never have time to go from house to house teaching a handful of children at a time," she said."There would need to be ten of me. I need someplace where I can gather them all together. A school, no less. But where, David? I thought I might use a room at Oakland, but the children might be shy and uncomfortable in such surroundings. Besides, Mama and Papa think I must have windmills in my head to even consider the idea. I am sure they would not agree to their home becoming a school."
David had not been able to offer any solution to that particular problem. But he did welcome the ease with which they could speak to each other again. There was a painful ache about being close to her, of course. When the guests left he would have to speak to Algie and leave as soon as possible himself. And then he would never see her again. But there would be some consolation in the knowledge that they would be able to part as friends. And they were that, he sensed.
On the day before
the ball, however, David was forced to miss a picnic that was to be held on Oakland grounds. When his brother arrived with Algernon's curricle to take him up, he was already occupied with matters that could not be delayed.
"You must go without me, Rufus," he said when Mrs. Saunders showed his brother into his study. "I doubt if I shall be there at all this afternoon. Make my apologies, please? This is Mr. Macleod, Lady Wexford's solicitor. My brother, Viscount Cardwell, sir."
The two men exchanged bows.
"I hope you left Lady Wexford well," Lord Cardwell said.
The solicitor bowed his head again. "I am afraid her ladyship passed away suddenly five days ago, my lord," he said. "She had a heart seizure."
"David, I am so sorry," Lord Cardwell said, turning to observe his brother's drawn face. "We were all fond of her, of course, but I know she had a special place in your affection because she was your godmother."
"It is hard to believe," David admitted. "She had me to a garden party just a few weeks ago, you know, while I was in town with Algie. I would have wagered she had another ten years in her at least, despite her rheumatism."
"Is there anything I can do?" Lord Cardwell asked sympathetically.
"I think not," David said. "Mr. Macleod has only just arrived. He has business to discuss with me, he says."
"I shall go on to Oakland then," his brother said. "Madeline and the children will already be there. They went in the carriage with Algie. I said I would come for you, as you would be the one the boys would crawl all over if we brought the carriage this way."
The solicitor too left just an hour later, having declined David's offer of hospitality. He wanted to be well on his way back to London by nightfall, he said.
It was not too late to go to the picnic, but David decided not to. His mind was in too much turmoil. He needed time to think. And he suspected that he was going to need even more time to reflect and to pray. Some decisions were just not easy to make. Sometimes it was quite impossible to know which course of action was right and which wrong, which would help one progress toward one's destiny and which would set one forever on the wrong path.