Simply Perfect

by Mary Balogh

  He closed his eyes briefly.

  “I think what we need to do, Portia,” he said, “is speak to your father. It is a shame he and your mother did not stay longer. It must be dreadful for you to be without them today. Shall we call a truce? Shall we put a polite face upon things tomorrow for the anniversary celebrations and then leave the day after tomorrow? I will take you home, and we will discuss the whole thing with your father.”

  “He will not release you,” she told him. “Do not expect it. He will make you marry me, and he will make you give up that dreadful creature.”

  “The centrality of Lizzie to my life is no longer negotiable,” he said quietly. “But let us leave it for now, shall we? Soon you will have your mother for moral support and your father to argue and negotiate for you. In the meanwhile, may I escort you to the drawing room?”

  He offered his arm, and she set her hand on his sleeve and allowed him to lead her from the library.

  And so officially he was engaged once more. And perhaps—who knew?—he would never be free again. He very much feared that Balderston might agree to his terms and that Portia might marry him and then not honor them.

  All of which he would deal with when the time came because he would have no choice.

  But for now he was not free and might never be.

  Ah, Claudia!

  He had not dared think of her since setting foot inside this house again.

  Ah, my love.

  Lizzie sat at a little table in Joseph’s bedchamber the next morning, dressed neatly in her picnic dress, which a maid had brought to the room earlier, neatly cleaned and ironed, and with her hair freshly brushed and caught up in her white hair ribbon, also newly ironed. She was eating breakfast and holding court.

  She was to return to Lindsey Hall after breakfast, but in the meanwhile she had a string of visitors. Kit and Lauren came with Sydnam and Anne Butler and her son, and then Gwen came with Aunt Clara and Lily and Neville, and they were closely followed by Susanna and Whitleaf. All wanted to bid Lizzie a good morning and hug her and ask if she had slept well.

  All had smiles for Joseph himself.

  Perhaps they were only smiles of rueful sympathy, of course, because they all understood the ordeal he had been through yesterday, though most of it had been kept behind closed doors. But even so, he wondered why he had kept the secret for so long. Society had its rules and expectations, it was true, but he had always belonged to a family that had love to spare.

  And then his mother came. She hugged him wordlessly and then went to sit on a chair at the table while Lizzie lifted her face, knowing that yet again there was someone in the room besides just her and her father.

  “Lizzie.” His mother took one of her hands in both her own. “Is that short for Elizabeth? I like both names. You dear child. You look quite like your papa. I am his mother. I am your grandmother.”

  “My grandmother?” Lizzie said. “I heard your voice yesterday.”

  “Yes, dear,” his mother said, patting her hand.

  “It was after I went walking with Horace and got lost,” Lizzie said. “But Papa and Miss Martin found me. Papa is going to train Horace so that he does not get lost with me again.”

  “But how adventurous you were,” his mother said. “Just like your father when he was a boy. He was forever climbing forbidden trees and swimming in forbidden lakes and disappearing for hours on end on voyages of discovery without a word to anyone. It is a wonder I did not have a heart seizure any number of times.”

  Lizzie smiled and then laughed with glee.

  His mother patted her hand again, and Joseph could see tears in her eyes. She was not without courage herself, coming here like this in defiance of his father. She hugged and kissed both him and Lizzie, and then it was time to leave for Lindsey Hall. She and Lady Redfield came outside onto the terrace to see them on their way.

  Joseph rode over there with McLeith, Lizzie up on his horse before him and the dog running alongside until he tired and had to be taken up with them too, much to Lizzie’s delight. McLeith was, of course, going to call upon Claudia, as he did almost every day. Joseph wondered if the man would ever persuade her to marry him, though he very much doubted it.

  When they arrived at Lindsey Hall, Joseph sent the note he had written last night up to Miss Martin with a footman but then went back outside, where the Duchess of Bewcastle and Lord and Lady Hallmere were talking to Lizzie. McLeith went inside to see Claudia. Joseph strolled down to the lake with Lizzie and the dog.

  “Papa,” she said, clinging to his hand as they walked, “I do not want to go to school.”

  “You will not be going,” he assured her. “You will remain with me until you grow up and fall in love and marry and leave me.”

  “Silly,” she said, laughing. “That will never happen. But if I do not go to school, I will lose Miss Martin.”

  “You like her, then?” he asked.

  “I love her,” she assured him. “Is it wrong, Papa? I loved Mother too. When she died I thought my heart would break. And I thought no one but you could ever make me smile again or make me feel safe again.”

  “But Miss Martin can?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It is not wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Your mother will always be your mother. There will always be a corner of your heart where she lives on. But love lives and grows, Lizzie. The more you love, the more you can love. You need not feel guilty about loving Miss Martin.”

  Unlike him.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “Miss Martin can come and visit us, Papa.”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed.

  “I will miss her,” she said with a sigh as they stood on the bank of the lake and he looked along to where the trees grew down almost to the water. Just there…“And Molly and Agnes and Miss Thompson.”

  “Soon,” he said, “I will take you home.”

  “Home,” she said with a sigh, resting the side of her head against his arm. “But, Papa, will Miss Martin take Horace?”

  “I think,” he said, “she will be happy if he stays with you.”

  Claudia Martin was walking with McLeith some distance away, he could see. They must have come over the hill behind the house and down through the trees.

  He determinedly turned his attention to his daughter again. And how blessed he was to be able to be with her openly like this after so long.

  “We never did have our boat ride yesterday afternoon, did we, sweetheart?” he said. “Shall we find a boat and do it now?”

  “Oh, ye-e-es!” she cried, her face lighting up with pleasure and excitement.

  “I would not have been surprised,” Charlie said, “to have found you ready to leave this morning, Claudia, as soon as the child returned and could go with you. I would have been annoyed on your behalf. It is Attingsborough’s job to take her away, and it should be done as soon as possible. He ought not to have had her brought here in the first place. It has put Bewcastle in an awkward position and is a dreadful insult to Miss Hunt—and Anburey.”

  “It was not his idea to bring Lizzie here,” Claudia told him. “It was mine.”

  “He ought not even to have brought the child to your attention,” he said. “You are a lady.”

  “And Lizzie,” she said, “is a person.”

  “Miss Hunt,” he said, “has been dreadfully upset even though she has too much dignity to show it openly. She was humiliated before a houseful of guests from both Alvesley and Lindsey Hall, not to mention the local gentry who were at the picnic. I half expected that she would refuse to continue with her plans to marry Attingsborough, but it seems she has forgiven him.”

  Yes. She had not needed to be told. She had read the stark message Joseph had sent up after she had watched his approach from the schoolroom window. She had only half noticed that Charlie was with him and Lizzie. She had waited without hope—but had realized after reading his note that in fact she had been deceiving herself. She had hoped. But suddenly all hope, all possib
ility of joy, was snatched away.

  As they emerged from the trees to walk toward the far end of the lake, she looked back to where she had lain last night with Joseph—and she could see him farther off, standing at the water’s edge with Lizzie. By a great effort of will, she brought her mind back to what they had been talking about.

  “Charlie,” she said, “Lizzie was conceived more than twelve years ago, when the Marquess of Attingsborough was very young and long before he met Miss Hunt. Why would she feel threatened by Lizzie’s existence?”

  “But it is not her existence, Claudia,” he said. “It is the fact that now Miss Hunt and a large number of other people—soon to be everyone of any significance—know of her. It is just not the thing. A gentleman keeps these things to himself. I know the expectations of society—I had to learn them when I was eighteen. You cannot be expected to know. You have lived a far more sheltered life.”

  “Charlie,” she said, suddenly arrested by a thought, “do you have children other than Charles?”

  “Claudia!” He was obviously embarrassed. “That is not a question a lady asks a gentleman.”

  “You do,” she said. “You do have others. Don’t you?”

  “I will not answer that,” he said. “Really, Claudia, you always spoke your mind far more freely than you ought. It is one thing I always admired about you—and still do. But there are bounds—”

  “You have children!” she said. “Do you love them and care for them?”

  He laughed suddenly and shook his head ruefully.

  “You are impossible!” he told her. “I am a gentleman, Claudia. I do what a gentleman must do.”

  The poor dead duchess, Claudia thought. For, unlike Lizzie, Charlie’s illegitimate children must have been begotten when he was already married. How many were there? she wondered. And what sort of lives did they lead? But she could not ask. It was something some sort of gentleman’s code of honor forbade him to speak of with a lady.

  “This has all rather spoiled the atmosphere I hoped to create this morning,” he said with a sigh. “The anniversary is today, Claudia. Tomorrow or the next day at the latest I must leave. I am well aware that I am the only guest at Alvesley who does not have some claim to be family. I do not know when I will see you again.”

  “We must write to each other,” she said.

  “You know that is not good enough for me,” he told her.

  She turned her head to look more fully at him. They were friends again, were they not? She had determinedly let go of the hurt of the past and allowed herself to like him again, even though there were things about him she did not particularly approve of. Surely he was not still—

  “Claudia,” he said, “I want you to marry me. I love you, and I think you are fonder of me than you will admit. Tell me now that you will marry me, and tonight’s ball will seem like heaven. I will not have an announcement made there, I suppose, since it is in honor of the Redfields and besides, neither of us has any close bond with the family. But we will be able to let it be known informally. I will be the happiest of men. That is a horrible cliché, I know, but it would be true nonetheless. What do you say?”

  She had nothing to say for several moments. She had been taken completely by surprise—again. What had obviously been a deepening romance to him had been merely a growing friendship to her. And today of all days she was not ready to cope with this.

  “Charlie,” she said eventually, “I do not love you.”

  There was a lengthy, uncomfortable silence. They had almost stopped walking. There was a boat pushing out from the bank some distance away, she saw—the Marquess of Attingsborough with Lizzie. She was smitten with a memory of his rowing her on the River Thames during Mrs. Corbette-Hythe’s garden party. But she must not let her thoughts wander. She looked back at Charlie.

  “You have said the one thing,” he told her, “against which I have no argument. You loved me once, Claudia. You made love with me. Do you not remember?”

  She closed her eyes briefly. Actually she could not remember much apart from the inexpert fumblings and the pain and the happy conviction afterward that now they belonged together for all time.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said gently. “We are different people now, Charlie. I am fond of you, but—”

  “Damn your fondness,” he said, and smiled ruefully at her. “And damn you. And now accept my humblest apologies for using such atrocious language in your hearing.”

  “But not for the atrocious sentiments?”

  “No,” he said, “not for those. My punishment is to be lifelong, then, is it?”

  “Oh, Charlie,” she said, “this is not punishment. I forgave you when you asked. But—”

  “Marry me anyway,” he said, “and to the devil with love. You do love me anyway. I am sure of it.”

  “As a friend,” she said.

  “Ouch!” He frowned. “Think about it. Think long and hard. And I’ll ask again this evening. After that I will not pester you. Promise me you will think and try to change your mind?”

  She sighed and shook her head.

  “I will not change my mind between now and tonight,” she said. “It is too late for us, Charlie.”

  “Think hard about it anyway,” he said. “I will ask again tonight. Dance the opening set with me.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  A silence fell between them.

  “I wish,” he said, “I had known at eighteen what I know now—that there are some things on which one does not compromise. We had better walk back to the house, I suppose. I have made an idiot of myself, have I not? You cannot see anything more than a friend in me. It is not enough. Maybe by tonight you will have changed your mind. Though it will not happen just because I want it, I daresay.”

  And yet, she thought as she walked beside him, if they had not met in London this year, he quite probably would not have spared her another thought all the rest of his life.

  She could see that Lizzie was trailing her hand in the water—as she had done in the Thames not long ago. And then she heard the sound of distant laughter—his and Lizzie’s mingled.

  She felt more lonely than she had felt for a long, long time. There seemed to be a dark and bottomless pit right inside her.

  Portia Hunt had no relatives at Alvesley Park. She did not have any particular friends there, either, apart from Wilma. And now Joseph had gone off to Lindsey Hall for the morning.

  Joseph’s relatives were not unkind. Although all except his immediate family disapproved of her as a choice for his bride, they felt genuine sympathy for her. She had had an unpleasant shock during the picnic, even if she had largely brought it upon herself. It was understandable that she had felt somewhat humiliated. And clearly there had been some great upset later in the afternoon and again late in the evening after Joseph returned from escorting Miss Martin home. Somehow the betrothal had survived, though—Wilma had informed them all of that.

  Susanna and Anne had informed Lauren and Gwen and Lily that it was a great shame because Claudia Martin was in love with Joseph—and he with her, they dared say. It was with her he had gone searching for Lizzie, was it not? And it was she he had asked to come to the house to watch Lizzie while he spoke with his father and Miss Hunt. And it was he who had taken her back to Lindsey Hall though Kit had offered to escort her. He had not come back immediately, either.

  But they were kind ladies. Although there were all sorts of things they might have been doing in preparation for the grand anniversary ball in the evening, they invited Miss Hunt to go walking with them—and Wilma too. They strolled along the wilderness walk beyond the formal garden and the little bridge. Lily asked Miss Hunt about her wedding plans, and she launched into a discussion of a subject that was obviously dear to her heart.

  “How lovely,” Susanna said with a sigh as they passed the turnoff to the steep path that would have taken them to the top of the hill, and kept on along level ground instead, “to be so in love and planning a wedding.”


  “Oh,” Portia said, “I would not dream of being so vulgar, Lady Whitleaf, as to imagine myself in love. A lady chooses her husband with far more good sense and judgment.”

  “Indeed,” Wilma said, “one would not wish to find oneself married to a miller or a banker or a schoolmaster merely because one loved him, would one?”

  Susanna looked at Anne, and Lauren looked at Gwen, and Lily smiled.

  “I think what is best,” she said, “is to marry a man with a title and wealth and property and good looks and charm and character—and to be head over ears in love with him too. Provided he felt the same way, of course.”

  They all laughed except Portia. Even Wilma tittered. Tiresome and stuffy as the family all found the Earl of Sutton, it was also no secret among them that he and Wilma were partial to each other.

  “What is best,” Portia said, “is to be in control of one’s emotions at all times.”

  They turned back in the direction of the house rather sooner than they might have done. Although the sky was still blue and cloudless and the tree branches overhead not so thick that they blocked out all the sunlight, a chill seemed to have settled on the air.

  The Duke of McLeith was standing on the small bridge, his arms draped over the wooden rail on one side, gazing down into the water. He straightened up and smiled when he saw the ladies come toward him.

  “You are back from Lindsey Hall already?” Susanna asked redundantly. “Did you see Claudia?”

  “I did.” He looked mournful. “She is, it seems, a dedicated teacher and a confirmed spinster.”

  Susanna exchanged a glance with Anne.

  “I think,” Wilma said, “she ought to be grateful for your condescension in taking notice of her, your grace.”

  “Ah,” he said, “but we grew up together, Lady Sutton. She always had a mind of her own. If she had been a man, she would have succeeded at whatever she set her hand to. Even as a woman, she has been remarkably successful. I am proud of her. But I am a little—”

  “A little—?” Gwen prompted.

  “Melancholy,” he said.