by Mary Balogh
“No,” she said. “I grew up at Morland Abbey in Sussex, my father’s home and now Avery’s. I still live there with my mother. And with Avery and Anna and their children, of course.”
“Your mother did not move to a dower house after your father’s passing?” he asked. “Is that not what most dowagers do?”
“Most?” she said. “I do not know. My mother and I have our own apartment in the abbey. It is very large. The abbey, I mean, though our apartment is spacious too. We are not confined there, however. We live freely with my brother and sister-in-law.”
“You do not long for your own establishment?” he asked.
She turned her head. “Are we returning to that subject?” she asked. “My own home, you mean, as a wife and mother?”
“Yes,” he said. “Are not most young ladies eager to get away from their mothers and their brothers in order to be mistresses of their own establishments?”
“I cannot speak for most ladies,” she said.
“Then speak for yourself,” he told her, acknowledging with a nod a couple of riders who were cantering by in the opposite direction.
“I have never been tempted,” she said.
“Because you cannot be?” he asked her. “Or because it has just not happened?”
“Oh,” she said, sounding cross again, “we are back on the subject. What about you, Mr. Thorne? You must be considerably older than I am. Thirty, at a guess? At least that. Have you never been tempted to marry?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “It happened a couple of weeks or so ago, soon after I had disembarked after a long voyage from America. I was relaxing in the private parlor of the inn at which I had put up for the night, reading and minding my own business, when I was interrupted by the landlord, who had come to beg me to relinquish my claim upon the room, for which I had already paid handsomely. A lady had arrived unexpectedly at the inn and was demanding it. A very important lady. He dared not say no. His business might be forever ruined. When I followed him from the room, prepared to argue the point, I came face-to-face with the lady herself, though I do not doubt I was not intended to do so. Almost instantaneously I gave in to the temptation to give up not only the parlor but also my single state. I decided that Lady Jessica Archer, sister of the Duke of Netherby, would be my wife.”
“What nonsense you speak!” she exclaimed. “You decided that I would be your wife. How dared you then? And how dare you now?” She looked at him sharply. “How did you know who I was?”
“The landlord was obliging enough to provide the information,” he said. “I daresay he thought that knowing who you were would the more readily persuade me to relinquish my claim upon the room.”
“That was unpardonably indiscreet of him,” she said.
“Yes, was it not?” he agreed. “That dour-looking majordomo you had with you would doubtless have had his head if he had known.”
“Mr. Goddard?” she said. “He is Avery’s secretary.”
But it was time to change the subject. He had wanted to shock her, to make it clear to her that he had no interest whatsoever in dallying with her and thus becoming just one more member of the court for which she obviously cared not a fig. He had definitely ruffled her feathers.
“I believe the Pen Ponds are worth a look,” he said. “Shall we find them and then leave the curricle somewhere and enjoy the scenery on foot?”
“Very well,” she said after appearing to consider the matter. “We will walk. We will also talk, Mr. Thorne. If you are to expect that I will even consider your preposterous intention of marrying me, you must answer some questions. You know about me. You knew who I was the very first time you set eyes upon me. I daresay that would account for your interest. All vanity aside, I know I am extremely eligible despite the fact that I am twenty-five years of age. I know nothing whatsoever about you except that you are a kinsman of Lady Vickers and have recently returned to England after spending thirteen years in America. I do not even have more than a nodding acquaintance with Lady Vickers, though Avery has a great deal of respect for Sir Trevor.”
“They are my godparents,” he told her.
“Even that fact does not arouse any great passion for you in my bosom,” she told him. “I doubt any further facts will either, but I like the Pen Ponds, and it would be a shame to have come all this way and not see them.”
“As soon as we are on foot, Lady Jessica,” he told her, “we may enjoy our surroundings at greater leisure while you interview me.”
“Interview?” she said. “As though for employment? As my husband? Very well, Mr. Thorne. Prepare to make yourself irresistible to me. This may be your only chance.”
He could not decide if he liked her or not. Her manner was cold and haughty and had been almost from the moment when she had stepped out of Archer House and looked over his rig while virtually ignoring him. But she had used the word passion a few moments ago and it had set him to wondering if she was capable of feeling any. Something told him she might be. Not that he had thought of his choice of a countess in terms of passion.
And there had been that smile she had leveled upon her brother before she crossed the pavement to his curricle. For a brief moment she had been transformed before his eyes into someone quite different. He had a hankering to see that smile again, but directed at him this time.
Perhaps it was too soon, however, to decide whether he liked Lady Jessica Archer. Or if it would make any difference either way.
He needed a countess rather more than he needed a wife.
Seven
Pen Ponds was a rather unfortunate name, Jessica had always thought, for what was in reality two sizable lakes separated by a causeway right in the heart of Richmond Park. One might almost be led to expect a couple of muddy watering holes with a few dejected ducks bobbing in them. They were actually very picturesque. If the Queen’s Ride gave the dual impressions of grandeur and deep seclusion, the Ponds gave more the impression of open countryside, of the elemental intermingling of earth, water, and sky. The birds did not remain hidden here as they did on the Ride, pouring out their songs from the green depths of the woods, but rather called them out with freer abandon as they swooped over the water in pursuit of one another or glided and swam upon its surface.
She ought not to have agreed to walk here. She was not in the right mood for it. She ought to have demanded to be taken back home. Mr. Thorne was quite unpardonably presumptuous.
He was very different from Mr. Rochford, who had called upon her yesterday afternoon an hour after Mr. Thorne left and asked very properly if he might have the honor of driving her in the park later at the fashionable hour. He had even come into the house again when he returned for her, to ask her mother if he might be permitted to do so—Mama had been home by then. Jessica had been a bit annoyed at his doing so, of course, as she was no young girl and it was quite unnecessary, but even so, he had erred on the side of correctness. He had conversed pleasantly with her before they got caught up in the exchange of greetings and chitchat with acquaintances they met in the park, and he had been unfailingly charming. He had smiled without ceasing, as he had done the night before, but really it was a handsome smile, and it was far better than a scowl.
She did not find Mr. Thorne nearly as amiable a man. If Mr. Rochford hoped to marry her, as he very well might—he was, after all, about to become heir to an earldom and she would be a brilliant match for him—he had not so much as hinted that he intended to do so, just as though she were a commodity to be purchased at his will.
The seat of Mr. Thorne’s curricle was narrow enough that her shoulder or elbow or hip had constantly been nudging against him during the journey here as the vehicle swayed around bends or bounced over uneven patches of road that were all too numerous. But somehow she was far more aware of him now that they were walking side by side, not touching. Physically aware—of his height, of the breadth of his shoulders,
of the muscular shapeliness of his long legs encased in tight pantaloons and Hessian boots, of his aura of masculinity, whatever that was supposed to mean. Good heavens, he was not the first handsome gentleman with whom she had ever walked. She could not recall being aware of any of those other men to the point of discomfort, almost suffocation. She had not been uncomfortable yesterday with Mr. Rochford, despite the admiration in his eyes whenever he looked at her and the speculative glances with which they had been generally regarded in Hyde Park.
She was markedly uncomfortable with Mr. Thorne.
No other man had ever told her he was going to marry her. No other man had ever asked her age or suggested that she kept her court about her as a sort of shield against taking any man’s courtship seriously. No other man had informed her that she was easy on the eyes. What a ghastly, vulgar expression! No other man had ever suggested that she had given up hope of finding the one man who would distinguish himself from the crowd. No other man . . .
Oh, bother. She was not enjoying these teeming thoughts one little bit. She was not enjoying his company either. She did not like him and resented her physical awareness of him.
They paused at the midpoint of the causeway to watch a couple of swans glide gracefully, leaving V-shaped ripples behind them, across one of the ponds.
“How do they move like that without making any apparent effort?” she mused aloud.
“All the effort goes on beneath the surface of the water,” he replied, “leaving the impression above of effortless grace.”
They had been virtually silent since leaving the curricle. So much for her promise to interrogate him. Or to interview him, to use his own word. As though she were seriously considering his . . . his what? He had not actually asked her to marry him, had he? Rather, he had told her he was going to. What an insufferable man. What on earth was she doing walking with him like this and gazing at the lake and talking about swans? Avery would have made short work of him long ago if he had heard any part of what Mr. Thorne had said to her.
She did not need Avery’s intervention.
Oh, she was feeling thoroughly out of sorts.
There were not many other people in the park. At the moment there was no one at all in sight, though several times she had heard the sound of distant laughter. It was hard to know exactly from which direction it came.
She wished he was not standing quite so close. Yet when she half turned her head in his direction as though to caution him to keep his distance, she could see that there was at least a foot and a half of space between them. And a sudden thought popped into her mind, as though from nowhere.
Was this how Abby had felt when she met Gil? Or how Cousin Elizabeth had felt when she met Colin, even though she was nine years older than he? Was this—oh goodness—was this how Aunt Matilda had felt when she met Viscount Dirkson, or, rather, when she met him again?
Jessica recalled a day spent at Kew Gardens two years ago with a party of other young people, chaperoned, oddly enough, by Aunt Matilda and Viscount Dirkson. Two of the younger gentlemen had been Jessica’s cousins, but two had not. One of those had been Mr. Adrian Sawyer, the viscount’s son. He was a good-looking young man. She had liked him then and still did. But there had been nothing between them except mutual amiability on that occasion and since then.
Had it been different for Aunt Matilda on that day? She and Viscount Dirkson, Jessica remembered, had stayed at the top of the pagoda for a while after the rest of them had clattered down the winding stairs and gone off to see one of the temple follies. Jessica had not thought much of it at the time, but not long after Aunt Matilda had shocked the family to its core by announcing that she was going to marry Viscount Dirkson.
Was this how she had felt at Kew? This . . . this awareness?
Abby had not liked Gil when she first met him. Jessica could remember that. Yet soon after . . .
Enough.
“What were you doing in America, Mr. Thorne?” she asked.
“Getting rich,” he said.
Money. Always money with him. He behaved like a cit even if he was not one. He continued unprompted.
“Partly through sheer chance and largely through hard work,” he said. “A kinsman of mine owned a prosperous import-and-export business. He employed me as a lowly clerk until I proved that I was worthy of greater responsibility. He was a widower without children of his own. When he died at far too young an age in an accident, he left everything to me. In the years after his death I managed to grow the business and become even wealthier.”
“What happened to the business when you returned to England?” she asked.
“My right-hand man was also a trusted friend,” he told her. “I offered him a partnership and left him in charge. I feel confident that everything will continue to prosper under his management.”
She had not been entirely wrong in her first impression of him, then. He was a businessman. A prosperous one, apparently. He was also a British gentleman.
“Why did you go to America?” she asked.
“For adventure?” he said. But he phrased his answer as a question, suggesting that that had not been his real reason.
She turned to glance at him and had to prevent herself from taking a step backward when she saw that he was looking very directly at her. She always found his eyes disconcerting. They were dark and intense and did not waver when she looked back into them. They were blue at their heart, she saw, but a deep navy blue on their outer edges.
“Why did you go?” she asked again, frowning.
“Let us say I had a falling-out with my family,” he said. “It is a common enough reason to send a young man scurrying off to seek adventure and fortune. I was nineteen.”
Her mind inevitably did the calculation. He had been away for thirteen years. He was thirty-two, then. Seven years older than she.
“And you did indeed find fortune,” she said. “Where? America is a rather large place.”
“Boston,” he said.
“Why did you come back?” she asked. “If you had a prosperous business, why did you not stay to run it yourself? After thirteen years, America must have seemed almost as much like home as England. You more or less said as much two evenings ago.”
“You are quite right,” he said. “I was happy there.”
“Then why return to England?” she asked again. This must not be just a brief visit. He wanted to marry her. He would hardly do so merely to take her back to America with him. There must be plenty of single young ladies there. And his American acquaintances were unlikely to be impressed by the daughter of a duke. Why should they?
“An inheritance brought me back,” he said, and his expression grew strangely hard. “And a family situation that necessitated my being here in person.”
“An inheritance,” she said. “In the form of property? And fortune?”
“Both,” he said curtly. “I am doubly wealthy, Lady Jessica. One might say I am the most fortunate of men.”
“A family situation?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Yes.”
In the distance, perhaps a little closer than before, there was a sudden burst of laughter. He was not going to explain, Jessica realized after a few moments of silence. He looked beyond her along the causeway.
“Shall we continue?” he suggested, and she turned to walk onward.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I began my questions in the wrong place, Mr. Thorne. You were nineteen when you ran off to America as the result of some falling-out with your family. What was your life before that? Tell me about yourself. And tell me why the heir to property and fortune would run away and stay away. Was it your father who died recently?”
“My uncle,” he said.
They had left the lakes behind before either of them spoke again. He had answered only the last of her questions. She should know better than to ask more than one and
expect to have them all answered.
Lawns of high-scythed grass rippled in the breeze to either side of them. An impression of slightly tamed wildness had been aimed at, and it had succeeded. There was another, smaller lake ahead to the left and a line of trees beyond the lawn on the right that hid the Queen’s Ride from view. It was an idyllic place in which to stroll. With anyone else she might have found her surroundings wonderfully relaxing. But there was still a mystery surrounding this man, and she needed to have it explained. Good heavens, he wanted to marry her.
“Start at the beginning,” she said. “Tell me about your first nineteen years, Mr. Thorne.”
“I lived with my father until I was nine years old,” he told her. “My mother died giving birth to a stillborn daughter when I was two. I have no conscious memories of her. My father was always inclined to be sickly. He was a clergyman, devoted to his books and his parishioners. And to me. He was far less devoted to his health. There was very little money, but I was unaware of being poor. I was never hungry and I was always adequately clothed. I had a happy enough early boyhood. He taught me all a boy should learn at a young age and gave me a lasting love of books. He died after neglecting a chill he had taken from visiting an ailing parishioner in a distant cottage during a rainstorm. After, I was taken to live with his elder brother, an uncle I had never met before he turned up for the funeral. I lived with him for the next ten years.”
“Just him?” she asked.
“And my aunt too,” he said. “All four of their children were considerably older than I. One of their daughters was already married and living some distance away. The other two married soon after I went there and also moved away. Then it was just my uncle and aunt and their son. And my aunt’s sister.”
“You had some companionship, then,” she said. “Were you close to your cousin, your uncle’s son?”
“No,” he said. “He was ten years older than I.”