Simply Perfect

by Mary Balogh

  “Especially for you,” he said, untwining her arms from about his neck and kissing both her hands before releasing them. “Miss Edwards, why on earth is there a fire burning?”

  “I was afraid that Lizzie would catch a chill after you took her out in the garden last evening, my lord,” she said.

  “And why the darkness?” he asked. “Is there not enough darkness in Lizzie’s life?”

  Even as he spoke he was striding over to the windows and throwing back the curtains to flood the room with light. He opened the windows wide.

  “The sun was shining directly in, my lord,” Miss Edwards said. “I wanted to protect the furniture from fading.”

  He looked at Claudia as he moved back to his daughter’s side and set one arm about her shoulders.

  “Lizzie,” he said, “I have brought someone to meet you. She is Miss Martin, a friend of mine. Miss Martin, may I present my daughter, Lizzie Pickford?”

  There was something strange about the child’s eyes, Claudia had seen as soon as the curtains were drawn back. One was almost closed. The other was more open, though the eyelid fluttered, and the eye wandered beneath the lid.

  Lizzie Pickford was blind. And if Claudia’s guess was correct, she had been blind from birth.

  “Lizzie,” Miss Edwards said, “make your curtsy to Miss Martin.”

  “Thank you, Miss Edwards,” Lord Attingsborough said. “You may take a break. You will not be needed for the next hour or so.”

  “Lizzie Pickford,” Claudia said, walking closer to the child, taking her hot, thin little hand in her own and squeezing it before letting it go, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Miss Martin?” the girl said, turning her face to her father.

  “I had the pleasure of visiting her last week when I was away from you for a while,” he said, “and then of escorting her to London. She has a school in Bath. Would you like to offer Miss Martin a seat and me too since we are visiting you? My legs are aching from all the standing.”

  The girl chuckled, a light, childish sound.

  “Oh, silly Papa,” she said. “You did not walk here. You rode. In your curricle—there was more than one horse. I heard them. I told Miss Edwards that you had come, but she said she had heard nothing and that I must not get my hopes up and become feverish. You are not tired of standing. Or Miss Martin either. But I am pleased you have come, and I hope you will stay forever and ever until bedtime. Miss Martin, will you please sit? Papa, will you? I will sit beside you.”

  She seated herself very close to him on a sofa while Claudia sat as far from the dying fire as she was able. The child took his hand in hers and laced their fingers. She rubbed her cheek against his sleeve, just below his shoulder.

  He smiled down at her with such tenderness that Claudia was ashamed of what she had thought of him on the way here. He very obviously did know a great deal about love.

  “Miss Martin’s school is just for girls,” he told his daughter. “It is a delightful place. They learn lots of things, like history and mathematics and French. There is a music room full of instruments, and the girls have individual instruction. They sing and have choirs. They knit.”

  And not a single one of them, Claudia thought, had ever been blind. She remembered his asking if she had ever thought of taking in girls with handicaps. However did one teach a blind child?

  “When I heard the violin that one time with you, Papa,” the child said, “Mother said there must never be one in this house as the sound of it would give her the headache. And when I sing the songs Mrs. Smart taught me, Miss Edwards says I give her the headache.”

  “I think,” he said, “Miss Edwards is beginning to give me the migraines, Lizzie.”

  She laughed with glee.

  “Shall I send her to work for someone else?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Oh, yes, if you please, Papa. Will you come to live with me instead this time?”

  His eyes met Claudia’s, and they looked suddenly bleak.

  “I wish it were possible,” he said, “but it is not. I come to see you every day, though, when I am in London. How could I not when you are my favorite person in the whole wide world? Shall we be polite and include Miss Martin in this conversation since I have brought her just to meet you?”

  The girl turned her face in Claudia’s direction. She looked in dire need of air and sunshine and exercise.

  “Do you read stories at your school, Miss Martin?” she asked politely.

  “We do indeed,” Claudia told her. “My girls learn to read as soon as they come there if they have not learned before, and they read many books during their years with me. They may choose among the numerous volumes we have in the library. A library is a place where there are shelves and shelves of books.”

  “So many stories all in one place,” the child said. “Mother could not read me stories because she could not read though Papa told her many times that he would teach her if she wished. And Mrs. Smart does not read. Mr. Smart does, but he does not read to me. Miss Edwards does because it is one thing Papa told her she must do when she came here as my companion, but she does not choose interesting stories and she does not find them interesting. I can tell from the way she reads them. She has a flat voice. She makes me yawn.”

  “I read you stories, Lizzie,” the marquess said.

  “You do, Papa,” she agreed, lifting her free hand and touching his face before patting it with her fingertips. “But sometimes you pretend to read when really you are making up your own stories. I can tell. But I don’t mind. Indeed, I like those stories best. I tell stories too but only to my doll.”

  “If you told them to someone who could write,” Claudia said, “then that someone could write them down for you and read them to you whenever you wished to hear your own story again.”

  The child laughed. “That would be funny,” she said.

  A plump, elderly woman entered the room then, carrying a large tray of tea and cakes.

  “Mrs. Smart,” Lizzie said, “I know it is you. This is Miss Martin. She is Papa’s friend. She has a school and it has a library. Do you know what a library is?”

  “You tell me, dearie,” the servant said, smiling fondly at her after nodding politely to Claudia.

  “It is a room full of books,” Lizzie said. “Can you imagine?”

  “They would not be much good to me, dearie,” Mrs. Smart said, pouring the tea and handing around the cups. “Or you either.”

  She left the room.

  “Lizzie,” the marquess said after they had eaten some cakes, “do you think you would ever like to go to a school?”

  “But who would take me, Papa?” she asked. “And who would bring me home?”

  “It would be a school where you could stay,” he said, “and be with other girls, though there would be holidays when you would come home and I would have you all to myself again.”

  She was silent for some time. Her lips moved, Claudia could see, though whether it was with trembling or silent words it was impossible to tell. And then she cast aside her empty plate and climbed hastily onto her father’s lap and burrowed close to him, her face hidden against his shoulder.

  He stared bleakly at Claudia.

  “Miss Edwards said I was not to do this ever again,” Lizzie said after a short while. “She said I was too old. She said it was unseemly. Is it, Papa? Am I too old to sit on your lap?”

  But the child had no eyes, Claudia thought. The sense of touch must be far more important to her than it was to other children of her age.

  “How could I bear it,” he said, resting his cheek against her hair, “if you were ever too old to want my arms around you, Lizzie? As for sitting on my lap—I think it is quite unexceptionable until you turn twelve. That gives us five whole months longer. What does Miss Martin have to say on the subject?”

  “Your father is absolutely right, Lizzie,” Claudia said. “And I have a rule at my school. It is that no girl is ever forced to g
o there against her will. No matter how much her parents may wish for her to come and learn from me and my teachers and make friends with other girls, I will not allow her to set foot over the doorstep unless she has told me that yes, it is what she wants. Is that clear to you?”

  Lizzie had half turned her head though she was still burrowed safely against her father like a much younger child.

  “You have a nice voice,” she said. “I can believe your voice. Sometimes I do not believe voices. I can always tell which ones to believe.”

  “Sweetheart,” the marquess said, “I am going to take Miss Martin home now. Later, I am going to come back on my horse. I will take you out for a ride on him. Would you like that?”

  “Yes!” She sat up, her face alight with joy again. “But Miss Edwards says—”

  “Don’t worry about what Miss Edwards says,” he told her. “You have ridden up with me before and always been perfectly safe, have you not? I will have a word with her after I bring you home, and she will be gone by tomorrow, I daresay. Just be polite to her until then. Will you?”

  “I will, Papa,” she promised.

  Claudia took her hand again before leaving. Despite the strange eyes, she could grow into something of a beauty if there was enough stimulation in her life to bring animation into her face even when her father was not with her—and if she was exposed to more fresh air and sunshine.

  “I take it,” Claudia said after she had been helped up to the seat of the curricle again and they were on their way back to Grosvenor Square, the tiger up behind, “that you wish to send Lizzie to my school.”

  “Is it possible?” he asked, his voice without any of its customary pleasant good humor. “Is anything possible for a blind child, Miss Martin? Help me, please. I love her so much it hurts.”

  Joseph felt more than a little foolish.

  Help me, please. I love her so much it hurts.

  By the time he turned his curricle back into Hyde Park, Miss Martin had still said nothing in response. They were the last words that had been spoken between them. He felt the urge to spring his horses, to return her to Whitleaf’s house as soon as he possibly could, and to be very careful not to run into her again while she was still in London.

  He was unaccustomed to baring his soul to others, even to his closest friends—except perhaps Neville.

  She broke the silence once they had left the busy streets behind.

  “I have been wishing,” she said, “that Anne Butler were still on my staff. She was always exceptionally good with girls who were in any way different from the norm. But I have just realized that all girls are different from the norm. In other words, the norm does not exist except in the minds of those who like tidy statistics.”

  He did not know how to answer her. He did not know if she expected an answer.

  “I am not sure I can help you, Lord Attingsborough,” she said.

  “You will not take Lizzie, then?” he asked, his heart sinking with disappointment. “A blind child is uneducable?”

  “I am quite sure Lizzie is capable of a great deal,” she said. “And the challenge would certainly be interesting from my point of view. I am just not sure school would be best for her, though. She appears to be very dependent.”

  “Is that not all the more reason for her to go to school?” he asked.

  And yet even as he argued the point his heart was breaking. How would Lizzie cope in a school setting, where she would have to fend for herself much of the time, where other girls might be unkind to her, where by the very nature of her handicap she would be excluded from all sorts of activities?

  And how could he bear to let her go? She was just a child.

  “She must be missing her mother terribly,” Miss Martin said. “Are you sure she should go away to school so soon after losing her? I take in abandoned children, Lord Attingsborough. They are often much damaged—perhaps always, in fact.”

  Abandoned. Lizzie? Is that what he would be doing to her if he sent her to school? He sighed and drew the curricle to a halt. This particular part of the park was quiet and secluded.

  “Shall we walk awhile?” he suggested.

  He left the curricle and horses in the care of his tiger, who did not even try to hide his delight, and he walked beside Miss Martin along a narrow footpath, which wound its way through a copse of trees.

  “Sonia was very young when I first employed her,” he told her. “So was I, of course. She was a dancer—very lovely, very much in demand, very ambitious. She expected a life of glamour and wealth. She expected to bask in the admiration of a series of titled, powerful, wealthy men. She was a courtesan by choice, not necessity. She did not love me; I did not love her. Our arrangement had nothing to do with love.”

  “No,” she said dryly, “I suppose it did not.”

  “I would not even have kept her longer than two or three months, I suppose,” he said. “I was intent upon sowing some wild oats. But then along came Lizzie.”

  “I daresay,” she said, “neither of you had even considered the possibility.”

  “The young,” he said, “are often very ignorant and very foolish, Miss Martin, especially upon sexual matters.”

  He looked down at her, supposing he was shocking her. This was not, after all, the sort of conversation with which he usually regaled the ears of ladies. But he felt he owed her an honest explanation.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “they are.”

  “Sonia did not particularly enjoy motherhood,” he said. “She hated having a blind child. At first she wanted to put her into an asylum. But I would not allow it. And if I was to insist that she be a mother, then I had to take on the responsibility of being a father—not difficult right from the first moment. Never difficult. And so we remained together until her death, Sonia and I. She found her life irksome though I gave her almost everything money could buy—and my loyalty too. I hired the Smarts, who took some of the burdens of being a parent off her shoulders when I could not be at the house and have been like kindly grandparents to Lizzie. Sonia did not have much idea how to entertain or educate or train a blind girl, though she was never actively cruel. Of course Lizzie was inconsolable when she died. And of course she misses her. I do myself.”

  “Lizzie needs a home more than a school,” Miss Martin said.

  “She has a home,” he said sharply. But he knew what she meant. “It is not enough, though, is it? After Sonia’s death I hired a companion for her. There have been three others since then. Miss Edwards is the latest. And this time I chose someone young and apparently sweet and eager to please. I thought her very youth would be good for Lizzie. But she is obviously not up to the task at all. Neither were the other three. Where can I find someone to be with my daughter at home and give her all she needs? The Smarts are too elderly to do it alone, and they are talking of retirement. Would one of your pupils do it, Miss Martin? It crossed my mind, I must confess, to offer the position to Miss Bains or Miss Wood if the employment for which they came here proved unsuitable.”

  They were about to step free of the copse of trees onto an open stretch of grass, where a number of people were strolling or sitting, enjoying the warm summer afternoon. They both stopped walking instead and stayed in the shade of an old oak tree, looking out into the bright sunshine.

  “I do not know if any very young person would be up to the task,” Miss Martin said. “And in London of all places. That child needs air and exercise, Lord Attingsborough. She needs the countryside. She needs a mother.”

  “Which is the one thing I can never give her,” he said, and he could see from the look in her eye that she understood that even his marriage could not provide Lizzie with a mother. His daughter was illegitimate and must forever be kept apart from—and secret from—any legitimate family he might have in future.

  Everything had been reasonably simple as long as Sonia was alive. He had known, of course, that his daughter was living a less than ideal existence, but her basic needs had always been provided and she had alway
s had a home and security and affection from the Smarts—oh, and from Sonia too—and love in abundance from him.

  “Anxiety has become my constant companion since Sonia’s death, Miss Martin,” he said. “I suppose it was there before that, but it is only since that I have faced the fact that Lizzie is growing up. A handicapped child can be pampered and protected and held on one’s lap and within the circle of one’s arms when she is very young. But what is to become of her as an adult? Will I be able to find her a husband who will be kind to her? I can shower her with wealth, of course, but what of her inner being? What will there be to sustain her or give her any happiness? What will happen to her when I die?”

  Miss Martin set a hand on his arm, and he turned his head to look down at her, strangely comforted. Her intelligent gray eyes gazed steadily into his and without thinking he covered her hand with his own.

  “Let me get to know Lizzie better, Lord Attingsborough,” she said. “And let me think about the possibility of her attending my school. May I see her again?”

  He realized suddenly and in some embarrassment that his eyes had filled with tears. He blinked them away.

  “Tomorrow?” he said. “At the same time?”

  “If the weather is still fine, perhaps we can take her out,” she said, sliding her hand free of his arm. “Or are you reluctant to be seen with her?”

  “We could take her for a picnic,” he suggested, “to Richmond Park or Kew Gardens.”

  “I will leave that for you to decide,” she said. “Does anyone know about your daughter?”

  “Neville,” he said. “The Earl of Kilbourne. He has met her and sometimes looks in on her when I am away, as I was in Bath recently. But basically a gentleman takes care of such matters himself. It is not something he talks about with his peers.”

  “And does Miss Hunt know?” she asked.

  “Good Lord, no!”

  “And yet,” she said, “you are to marry her.”

  “That,” he said, “is a recent development, Miss Martin. My father has been ill and now fancies—perhaps correctly—that his heart has been affected. Before summoning me to Bath he had Lord Balderston, Miss Hunt’s father, as his guest, and the two of them concocted the marriage scheme. It makes sense. Miss Hunt and I are both single and of the same world. We have known each other for a few years and have always dealt well enough together. But until very recently I did not think actually of courting her. I was unable to think of courting anyone as long as Sonia lived. I believe in monogamous relationships even if the woman is but a mistress. Unfortunately, we grew apart over the years even though I believe we always remained fond of each other. Indeed, for the last two or three years of her life we did not even…Well, never mind.”