by Mary Balogh
She sounded breathless by the time she had finished.
“Women!” Reggie’s father said genially, looking for confirmation of his good-natured complaint from the earl.
Havercroft offered no such confirmation, and Reggie’s father set about rubbing his hands together again.
“Do have a seat,” the countess said. “We are pleased to see you, Mr. Mason. And you too, Mr. Reginald Mason.”
Lady Annabelle Ashton sank back into the seat from which she had risen on their arrival. It was as close to one of the windows as it could be without actually falling out of it to the ground below.
Reggie sat some distance from her. He would have lifted one hand to loosen the knot of his neckcloth, but such a gesture would suggest that he did not feel entirely comfortable, and he did not want to give anyone the satisfaction of suspecting that that was true.
“Mr. Mason,” the countess said, her eyes on him, “have you met my daughter? Annabelle, make your curtsy to Mr. Reginald Mason, if you please.”
Reggie jumped back to his feet as Lady Annabelle got to hers.
“Lady Annabelle,” he said, making her a bow.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, curtsying.
All of which was utterly absurd. They had lived less than two miles from each other most of their lives, both of them under strict orders to ignore the very existence of the other. Now they were finally being introduced and expected to marry.
Her eyes did not quite meet his as she resumed her seat and he felt permitted to resume his. Her jaw was set in a hard line. He wondered what was going through her mind.
His father was openly looking about the room, doubtless pricing out even item down to the last penny and concluding with great satisfaction that the Havercroft drawing room, for all its brocaded walls and gilded frieze and landscape originals in their heavy gold frames, was no more expensive than their own.
Lady Havercroft began a polite conversation about the weather and the health of the king and the hot air balloon that had ascended from Hyde Park last week. Reggie’s mother hoped the weather would stay warm for the summer in the country, though they needed some rain, of course, to keep the grass green and grow the crops, and anyway it was greedy to ask for too much good weather. And pointless too since the weather did what it pleased no matter what they wished. Which was a good thing since everyone wanted different weather for different reasons and might end up fighting wars over it if they were able to control it. As if there were not enough things already to fight wars over. His father pronounced flat out that the king was mad, which was a pity since the Prince Regent was even more of an idiot, and that if men had been meant to fly, the good Lord would surely have given them wings. And some men were filled with enough hot air without there being more beneath their feet—an observation that was followed by a hearty and unilateral bellow of laughter.
The shadow of a smile flitted across Lady Annabelle’s ghost-pale lips.
It was many months since Reggie had seen his father so brimful of good humor.
“Well,” his father said at last, breaking a short silence that threatened to become awkward, “I have brought Reginald to make his offer to your daughter, Havercroft, according to our agreement yesterday. Shall we hear him do it so that the whole business can be sealed up right and tight?”
The earl turned steely gray eyes upon Reginald. He might have regarded a worm beneath his boot with more respect and less dislike.
“I could hardly have phrased it better myself,” he said, his tone quiet and aristocratic and withering.
Reggie’s father did not wither. He rubbed his hands and beamed.
“Get to it, then, lad,” he said.
Right! A public offer it was to be, then, both sets of parents watching and listening and judging. How utterly delightful!
Should he stand? Sit? Kneel? Move closer? Farther away? All the way out onto the landing? Should he smile? Frown? Look contrite? Amorous? Grateful? Humble? Dignified? Triumphant? Defeated? Defiant? Compliant? Supercilious?
Good Lord, his mind was babbling, and he was missing what the Countess of Havercroft was saying. She had risen to her feet to say it, and Reggie scrambled to his again.
“Mr. Mason, William,” she said, looking from Reggie’s father to Havercroft, “how can you possibly expect the young people to come to any sort of amicable agreement unless they are given the chance to speak privately with each other? We will leave them alone. Mrs. Mason, do come into the music room. I will have tea fetched there.”
And she swept across the room and opened a door that led to a connecting room—the music room, obviously. Reggie glimpsed a large pianoforte in there and his mother exclaimed over its size. The two older men followed, one behind the other. The earl was the last through the door. Reggie waited for it to shut.
He waited in vain. It closed, but only halfway.
Privacy, it seemed, was to be illusory7.
There was no sound of conversation from beyond the door. They had probably all pulled up chairs to listen. And also to watch? It was impossible to tell.
He turned his head to look at Lady Annabelle. She was also looking at the door—and then at him. Their eyes locked and held.
He raised his eyebrows. She raised hers. She was far better at it than he. Her eyebrows had been born
aristocratic.
“Well,” he said.
“Well,” she replied.
~~~
Mr. Bernard Mason was huge. His head was as round as a large ball and almost as bald. It had glistened in the sunlight that was streaming through the drawing room windows. He had an amiable, almost jovial face. He spoke with a broad north country accent.
Mrs. Mason was plump and pretty. She seemed placid and good-natured. She spoke with the same accent.
Both were talkative. Both were absolutely appalling in her fathers eyes. Annabelle had been able to see that. The fact that he was beholden to them, that he must marry her, his only daughter, to their son, must be the stuff of nightmares to him.
But he was not the one who was going to have to marry Mr. Reginald Mason.
Annabelle liked his parents. She always had. Not that she had been allowed to have any dealings whatsoever with them, but she had not been able to help hearing Mr. Mason’s booming voice when he talked with the vicar after church, or his loud laugh when he exchanged pleasantries with fellow parishioners. And once, when she and her mama had taken a basket of food to a sick villager, sitting in their carriage until their coachman had delivered the offering and the woman of the house had come out to make her curtsy and shower them with thanks, the woman had remarked that Mrs. Mason had called earlier and had sat talking with the sick person for all of half an hour. Annabelle had wished that they had done that. It sounded like fun. It sounded compassionate.
Their son was a different matter altogether. Although he bore a faint resemblance to his mother, it was really so faint as to be virtually nonexistent. He was dark-haired and tall and slender, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist and hips, and long, well-muscled legs. He was immaculately tailored and elegant. He spoke with the refined accent of a gentleman. And his face, faultlessly handsome, was set in an expression that seemed halfway between amusement and contempt.
How dare he!
“It would seem,” he said when it became obvious to both of them that the door between the drawing room and the music room was not going to be shut, “that our fathers between them have arranged our marriage, Lady Annabelle.”
He did not bother to lower his voice or disguise the fact that the idea had not been his.
“Yes,” she said, gazing at him disdainfully. If he was going to look at her that way, then she was going to look back at him this way.
“And yet,” he said, “only a week ago you were so determined to marry someone else that you ran off with him. Your father’s coachman, I understand.”
She pressed her lips together and glared at him. Her eyes narrowed. Oh, he was going to play games with her, was he?
“
What was his name?” he asked.
“Thomas Till,” she said. “I would guess it still is his name.”
“Till?” His mouth quirked at one corner. “You would have enjoyed being Mrs. Annabelle Till?”
“Far more than I will enjoy being Mrs. Annabelle Mason, I daresay,” she retorted, forgetting for a moment that they had an audience beyond the music room doors.
He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of the hit, and his eyes dared to laugh.
“You lament his departure from your life, then?” he asked her.
She glanced toward the half-open door, remembering. “My decision to elope was a mistake,” she said disdainfully. “It was rash and impulsive.”
“You are impulsive by nature, then?” he asked her. “And rash? And fickle?”
Oh.
Oh!
Annabelle’s nostrils flared and she glared. He looked politely back at her as though he had asked her if she would like some tea.
From beyond the door into the music room there was a male throat-clearing followed by a female murmuring. And then silence.
Well, two could play his game. Her eyes narrowed.
“I understand, Mr. Mason,” she said, “that you are extravagant.”
His eyebrows, which had returned to their normal place above his eyes a few moments ago, arched upward again.
“It is a deadly sin indeed,” he said, “and I am guilty as charged.”
“I have heard,” she said, “that you need a whole extra room for all your clothes since your dressing room is not large enough to accommodate them all. And that your gambling debts are high enough to finance a small country for a decade. Are you weak-willed by nature? And irresponsible? And foppish?”
There was a distinct male chuckle from the next room followed by a female shushing and silence.
He stared long and hard at her. his lips pursed.
“How small a country are we talking about here?” he asked. “I fear your informant may be prone to exaggeration—which is really quite unusual for a gossip. Half a decade may be more accurate. Perhaps three-quarters. But should we reserve the insults for later, after we are married? Our parents must be waiting with some anxiety to hear the outcome of this private encounter.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said haughtily, lifting her chin and looking at him along the length of her nose, “but is it not premature to refer to the time after we are married? I have not heard you offer me marriage yet. And I certainly have not accepted that offer.”
“But you will,” he said. “Hear my offer and accept it, that is. You really have no choice, do you? Till is probably halfway across the American Wild West by now and still running.”
“I have exactly as much choice as you,” she said. “A man’s debtors can become rather nasty, I have heard, when his father is not forthcoming with the funds to pay them.”
He nodded slowly for a few silent moments.
“Touché,” he said. “Ours is sure to be a match made in heaven, I see. We will doubtless live happily ever after. Is there another cliché to better describe the bliss of our future union?”
“A love to outlast all loves?” she suggested. “A melding of souls for all eternity?”
“There is no need to exaggerate,” he said crisply, and he came striding toward her across the room until he was only a foot or so away.
Annabelle had to tip back her head slightly to look into his face. She could smell his cologne, feel his body heat. She swallowed and then wished she had not. The sound of it seemed to fill the room.
He seemed very large and… virile.
“Tell me, Lady Annabelle,” he said, “do you still have tender feelings for Till?”
She narrowed her eyes at him again.
“I do,” she said, “And tell me, Mr. Mason, do you need all those clothes you purchased?”
“I do,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a mocking smile. “Especially the boots. Ten pairs in the last ten weeks if memory serves me correctly, each more fashionable than the last. You look more becoming with color in your cheeks and light in your eyes. You looked like a ghost when I arrived with my parents.”
Was that why he had been so obnoxious? To bring a flush to her cheeks and a spark to her eyes?
And then his voice dropped so low that she scarcely heard what he said.
“Do you suppose they can see as well as hear?”
“Possibly,” she said just as softly. He pursed his lips again.
“We will proceed to business, then,” he said, his voice at normal volume again and brisk and businesslike.
He took her right hand in his—which was warm in contrast with her own—and he…
Oh, yes, he really did. He went down on one knee before her.
“Lady Annabelle,” he said, looking up at her, his very dark eyes soulful, almost worshipful, and surely many fathoms deep, “will you do me the great honor of marrying me and making me the happiest of men?”
She could not stop herself from feeling a great welling of emotion. She had always dreamed of such a moment. What woman did not? And here it was. But it was a public moment even though their parents were hidden from sight, and this was all a charade, performed for their benefit.
“I will,” she said. And she said it softly, for him only. If they wanted to hear it in the music room, let them strain their ears.
He lifted her hand to his lips, and she felt the pressure of them against her fingers and the warmth of his breath against the back of her hand. There was a soreness in her throat as she fought—foolishly—against the tears that threatened.
This was not right. This was really not right.
Which was probably the understatement of the century.
And yet… Oh, and yet…
He did not even have time to look up or get to his feet before the music room door opened fully and their parents surged back into the drawing room, Papa looking stern and perhaps relieved, Mr. Mason smiling broadly and rubbing his hands together, Mrs. Mason smiling happily, and Mama’s eyes glistening with unshed tears—though she was smiling too.
Her answer must have been audible after all, Annabelle thought a moment before Mr. Mason grasped the hand of his son, now back on his feet, and pumped it heartily up and down, while Mrs. Mason folded Annabelle to her ample bosom.
“My dear Lady Annabelle,” she said, “I have always dreamed of having a daughter, though nature denied me any other child but Reginald. And now I am to have one after all. No daughter will ever have been welcomed into a family more warmly than you will be into ours. Oh, except by your mama, that is. I am sure she has always made a fuss of you. You were always as pretty as a picture, even as a very little girl. Oh, my dear, I am so happy I could weep. And you will be happy too, mark my words, even if you may doubt it now. Reginald has been somewhat wild lately, but he has always been a good-hearted, affectionate boy.”
And then Annabelle found herself being folded to the large chest of her future father-in-law and kissed noisily on one cheek and called daughter.
Finally her mother hugged her tightly and wordlessly.
Her father was standing before the fireplace again as if he had not moved since the sound of carriage wheels outside in the square had announced the arrival of the Masons.
“The betrothal announcement will be in tomorrow’s papers, and the first banns will be called at St. George’s on Sunday,” he said when everyone else had stopped hugging and kissing and laughing—those last two activities exclusive to the elder Masons. “On Monday there will be a betrothal ball here. Everyone will come, curiosity being the dominant characteristic of the ton. You will be saved from ruin, Annabelle, and you, Mason, will be elevated in rank by your marriage. Everyone will be satisfied that justice has been done and respectability preserved, and in one month’s time, after your nuptials, you may live together for the rest of your lives as best you may.”
No mention of the fact that his own financial ruin had just been averted.
> “Happily ever after, I am sure,” Mrs. Mason said, beaming.
“The Masons have always enjoyed long, grand marriages,” Mr. Mason said, rubbing his hands in what Annabelle realized was a habitual gesture when he was pleased. “We know a thing or two about loving, eh, Sadie?”
“I am quite sure, William,” Mama said with quiet dignity, “Annabelle and Mr. Reginald Mason will make the best of their marriage. I am hopeful that they will.”
“Hope costs nothing,” Papa said.
And all the while Reginald Mason stood a few feet from Annabelle and said not a word. Neither did she. He was looking at her with steady, unreadable eyes. She glanced at him but could not hold his gaze.
She should perhaps be smiling. But everything in her wanted to weep. She was not quite sure why.
She glanced at her betrothed again. Her betrothed. He looked back but said nothing.
She was going to be Lady Annabelle Mason.
Mrs. Reginald Mason.
It had all been accomplished in a twenty-four-hour period.
All sewn up right and tight.
4
Ten Years Ago
The youth sprawled on the bank of the river was sucking on a blade of grass. He was feeling relaxed and sleepy in the heat of the summer sun. He half listened to the song of some unidentified bird hidden in the trees behind him and gazed up with half-closed eyes at the few small, fluffy white clouds that were scudding across the sky, blown by a wind that did not reach the ground.
A slight breeze would feel rather pleasant, but he would not move into the shade. He liked being just here.
It had been a favorite haunt of his as a child, even though technically he had been trespassing here, as he was now. It was Oakridge land. Why it should have always been more attractive to him than the land on the other side of the river a mere few yards away he did not know. Or
perhaps he did. The other side belonged to his father. There was not that titillating feeling of danger there.
And of course the old oak tree was on this side.
He turned his head to look at it. It still looked rather impressive even through his fifteen-year-old eyes: large and solid and ancient. It had been a child’s paradise. He had climbed it nimbly and endlessly as a boy—once he had conquered his fear of heights, that is. He had often sat in its branches, weaving imaginative tales in which he was a pirate or a highwayman or Robin Hood or a knight on the ramparts of his castle, the moat below and a horde of fierce barbarian attackers massed on his father’s side of the water.