Stratford’s polished manners covered over his frustration at the news of her absence, but Daniel noted the lines pulling at the edges of his mouth and thought for an instant of pleading a sudden bellyache. He gave it up and was soon rolling along with the Lawrences in the viscount’s elegant coach, listening with resignation to Susanna explain just which combination of restoratives had enabled her to make this excessively exerting and, to her view, decidedly dangerous outing.
Rose watched the progress of the carriage from her bedroom window until it could no longer be seen. She then took herself to her nephews’ room, where she passed an agreeable hour playing the damsel in distress for her two heroic knights. After tucking the boys into bed with a story and a kiss, Rose tried to while away the hours with a book. When she found herself reading the same page for the third time, she set it down and took up her needlework. When she pricked her finger while pulling out a set of badly placed stitches, however, she gave up all attempts to occupy herself and went to her room. There she spent a considerable amount of time sitting before her mirror. But at last she decided with regret that there was nothing of a mysterious misty morning about her eyes and, with a melancholy sigh, climbed into bed.
Moonshadows slid across her face as she lay remembering each word, each look his lordship had given her that day. She vividly brought forth the timbre of his voice, the light in his ebony eyes, the tilt of his dark head, and she burned with a longing to show him how well she could read him. She would not tremble at the passionate promise of those full lips!
Slipping a hand beneath her cheek, she turned on her side and tried resolutely to put such thoughts away. But they would not refrain from popping out of the darkness with haunting clarity. She felt her only hope lay in his rapid removal to London and yet she desired nothing less. She pictured Stratford whirling through the squire’s ballroom with her beautiful sister in his arms and did not even bother to wipe away the tears as they rolled silently onto her hand.
Those who attended the Henleys’ party found it, for the most part, sadly insipid. The country dances were nearly as boring, remarked the viscount to his cousin, as the belles dancing them. Nothing met with his approval. And when he had raised a disdainful brow for the fifth time to some encroaching guest, Helen could barely control her increasing anxiety. It was an unhappy fate that led Stratford to decide it was time to settle upon a wedding date. When he mentioned the matter as they were sweeping the room together in a waltz, his fiancée fell to stammering nervously, forgetting all the modish airs she had been trying desperately to wear all evening.
“I—I have not thought of it,” she replied miserably in answer to his demand for her to name the day.
“Well, my dear, it must be thought of,” he said in a cutting tone. “See if you can bring yourself to do so by morning. We shall discuss the matter then.”
She thought him very annoyed with her and all attempts to hide her wretchedness withered. She barely got through the last of the waltz and later wondered how she managed the rest of the evening. Though nothing had yet been announced, she had been forced to endure the sly congratulations and knowing looks from their neighbors and to receive them with some semblance of happiness. Helen longed only for her bed throughout it all and she fairly flew up to her room, with only a hurried goodnight whispered to his lordship, as soon as they returned home.
She crept as quietly as she could about the room, trying not to disturb Rose in the next bed. But Rose was still fully awake. She lay silent, however, not wishing to hear about the evening, not wishing to reveal her own depressing thoughts. It was not until she heard a muffled sob emerge from the other bed that she sat up. On the second such sob, she slipped from her bed to the edge of her sister’s.
“Helen, dearest, whatever is wrong?” she asked softly.
“N-nothing,” Helen claimed, giving way to tears in earnest.
“Shh, you silly babe,” Rose murmured. She gathered the quivering girl into her arms and held her firmly until the weeping died away. “Now, tell me what happened to make you cry.”
“It is the viscount,” Helen said on a hiccough. “He—I—I made him most monstrously angry with me!”
“Well, that, let me assure you, is nothing to cry over! It is his lordship’s habit to lose his temper with everyone. Why, you must know he was very angry with me just this afternoon.”
Her light tone calmed Helen considerably and she was able to continue with some composure. “He asked me to set a wedding date and when I told him I hadn’t thought of it, he—he looked at me with his lids drooping over his eyes as if—as if I were—oh, some contemptible toady! And he said—oh, so coldly!—that I must give it thought and that we should discuss it in the morning!”
Recalling her promise not to again tease her sister about the folly of this match, Rose squeezed Helen tightly and said, “You must not let him frighten you so. You must simply give him the direct stare and tell him to quit being so nonsensical.”
“B-but he was quite odious! He looked like a very d-devil!”
“He is no more of an ogre than Freddy! He is just a spoiled, impatient boy, much used to getting his own way.”
“Now it is you who are being nonsensical!” Helen returned, achieving a tremulous smile.
Rose could do naught but privately agree.
Chapter 8
The occupants of the crowded breakfast room at Appleton were silent. Esmond’s attention was, as usual, riveted upon the tome propped up before his plate, his unattended food growing cold. Rose sat beside him watching Helen’s food progress slowly from side of her plate to the other as her fork nudged it listlessly along.
Rose’s own sparse breakfast—a cup of tea and a slice of buttered bread—joined the forces of the ignored as she pondered the latest developments in what promised to be Helen’s calamitous courtship.
The melancholy of the night before had lifted as Rose’s calm good sense reasserted itself. She might suffer from unrequited love, but she would not, like some heroine in a Minerva novel, fall into a decline because of it. She had her family to occupy her and though her future might be termed clear, it was by no means bleak. It was Helen’s future that darkened her normally bright eyes.
At the head of the table, Griffen did nothing to spur conversation amongst his family. He alone was busily downing his breakfast with a vigor that more than made up for the disinterest of the others. His wife was eating with his mother (whose habit it was to break her fast in bed), leaving him free to devote himself to his meal. Ham, eggs, fish and bread were swept rapidly from his plate to his mouth.
Thus, coming upon the scene some minutes later, Sarah Charville found her family very much self-absorbed and not at all social.
“You might be rehearsing for one of Shakespeare’s tragedies! Whatever is the matter with you all?” she asked cheerily as she came in. She was surprised when her sisters both started at her quip. She was even more so when she saw the color fade from Helen’s face.
“Hullo,” Griffen said between gulps. “What brings you here?”
Slipping into the chair opposite Esmond, Sarah cast a surreptitious glance at Helen as she explained, “I’ve brought Joseph over for the day. I trust you shan’t mind, but Anna had the fever all last night, and though she seemed more fussy than ill this morning, I thought it better to remove the baby. You know how the least little sickness overcomes him.”
“Oh, poor Anna! Is there anything we can do for her?” Helen asked with genuine concern.
“No, she’s already on the mend. I’ve no doubt Anna will be her usual pert self by evening.”
“Have you got time for a cup of tea?” Rose asked, rising.
“Yes, thank you, though I cannot stay too long. John will be anxious, you know, for he has not the least notion of how to go about settling Anna when she fusses.”
“Well, I’m very sorry Anna is poorly,” Rose said as she moved from the scarred mahogany sideboard to place a steaming cup before Sarah. “But I shall be glad
to have the baby. I was amazed at how well he is walking! The next thing you know he will be dancing,” she added teasingly.
“Speaking of dancing,” Sarah said over her teacup, “it’s a great pity you weren’t at the Henleys’ last night to see the stir the viscount caused.”
“I can well imagine it,” she murmured without inflection.
“His dress, his elegance, his air all set the neighborhood talking. Helen was the most envied person there, I can tell you.”
Helen bowed her head in embarrassment, but before she or Rose could make a response, Esmond astounded them all with one of his abrupt observations.
“I’d not have thought that one of Homer’s Cimmerians would have suited Helen,” he pronounced precisely as if he were discoursing upon some abstract subject and not his sister’s fiancée. Without waiting to see the effect of his comment, Esmond retreated once more into his book.
Though his comparison had completely mystified the majority of his audience, Rose, who was of a more bookish bent and had actually read many of the classics, was much struck with the aptness of the description. Seeing Helen’s stricken look, however, she decided the less said about the Viscount Stratford this morning, the better. So she turned to Sarah and asked whether she had yet seen Mama.
“Yes, I took Joseph to see her before handing him over to Mrs. Mosley. She and Nell were recounting last night’s social triumph. Mama positively gloated over paying off an old score with Mrs. Houston by refusing to make her an introduction to Lord Stratford.”
Rose laughed at this, though somewhat perfunctorily.
Sarah’s tone changed when she continued. “Dearest, why weren’t you at the squire’s?”
“I am well past the age of parties—”
“Nonsense!” Her sister shooed her excuse away with a wave of her hand. “You are no such thing. Why, Mr. Young asked specifically after you, Rose. And you know he would only need the merest encouragement to declare himself, for he has been dangling after you this age and more.”
“Please! I dare say I was not meant for marriage—”
“Pooh! You should be caring for your own babies, not mine.”
“What’s all this talk of marriage?” Griffen demanded, looking up from his plate to swivel his gaze from one sister to the other. “Has Young made you an offer, Rose? Why have I not heard of it?”
“No, no, it’s no such thing. It’s one of Sarah’s fancies, nothing more.” Rose pushed back her chair and stood, saying with a fixed smile, “Do not tax me further, Sarah, I beg of you. Though I dearly love you, not even for you would I consider a connection with a man whose nose continually drips. Send us word when all is well with Anna.”
She removed from the room before any could stop her and paused in the hall to compose her trembling. To speak of marriage and babies pierced her heart with a pain that was unendurable! Firmly pushing away the image of dark, troubled eyes in a strong, square face, she breathed deeply and went up to her mother.
“Ah, Rose, the very person we need!” Susanna exclaimed from amid her pillows as her daughter entered the room. “My dear, we cannot decide if the wedding should be at Willowley Church or St. George’s in Hanover Square. Which do you think it should be?”
After planting a kiss upon her mother’s proffered cheek, she said, “I think, Mama, that it is far too soon to be making such a decision. Helen and Lord Stratford need more time together before they settle their plans.”
“You surely cannot expect us to wait until the last moment to make all the necessary arrangements,” Nell objected sharply. “There should be nothing havey-cavey about this marriage!”
“Oh, I quite agree,” Rose said, undisturbed. “That is precisely why I do not think the marriage should follow the betrothal with undue haste.”
The pair before her seemed much struck with the force of her argument and Rose seized the moment to put forth a suggestion. “I’ve been thinking, Mama, that if you feel up to it, it would be no bad thing for you to take Helen on a round of morning visits. We shouldn’t want the neighbors to say she is already putting on airs and coming the grand lady.”
Her mother sat up, her ruffled peignoir spilling forward. “No, indeed we do not. Why last night I had to protect Helen from the most prying questions, though I nearly suffered megrim doing so. And though I shall no doubt find it excessively exhausting and not at all what my constitution needs, I would not have it said that I would not make the supreme sacrifice for my child’s future happiness!”
Since all of this had been said with a great deal of vigor, her daughter did not evidence the least concern for her health, but merely agreed, “No, of course you would not.”
Thus, within a mere two hours and amid all the flurry attendant upon one of her outings, Mrs. Lawrence set out with her youngest daughter and her daughter-in-law to pay morning calls. It was, she informed them all after a reviving whiff from her vinaigrette, a notion she had been happy to conceive for Helen’s sake, despite the no doubt dire consequences for herself. Sitting beside Susanna in the old phaeton, Helen looked quite pretty, if slightly pale, in a twilled morning gown of light blue cambric and a chip bonnet with blue ribbons to match. She was reluctant to accompany her mother, faring that Lord Stratford would be out of temper if he arrived to find her fine. But finally, she was persuaded to go by her eldest sister’s brisk arguments.
“Don’t be a goose!” Rose said, and gave her a quick kiss. “He’ll be pleased to find you know your social duty. Such a quality is essential in a viscountess, you know.”
As it happened, his lordship did not appear for his promised morning call. After returning to his room at Adderbury Inn the previous night, Stratford, ignoring his cousin’s heavy protests, had broached more than one wine bottle with an intensity which precluded any early morning socializing. It was, therefore, well past noon when he rode over to Appleton with Baldwin to be met with the news that Mrs. Lawrence and her daughters were not at home. Grimly thanking Mrs. Mosley, he turned to leave when he was arrested by a young voice.
“Hullo, sir!” called out Master Frederick from the top of the landing where he stood looking over the banister, while beside him George stood peeping through the railings. “Have you come in your curricle?” he asked in a hopeful voice.
“I’m sorry, Freddy, but we rode over today,” the viscount answered. Suppressing his desire to laugh at the crestfallen look of disappointment which covered the boys’ faces, he added, “But it’s fortunate that you appeared, for Mr. Baldwin was just saying how much he’d like to take you and George for a ride on Thunderbolt.”
Baldwin had no time to protest. Freddy came flying down the stairs crying, “Oh, would you really?” before he could do more than send his cousin a glare. But he took it in good stead, answering in the affirmative with a ready smile. The boys were then ushered out, Master George riding on the viscount’s broad shoulders, and soon mounted on the back of Baldwin’s roan.
Stratford sent them off with a mischievous smile that was not lost on Baldwin. He then wandered aimlessly about the lawns of the cottage, feeling oddly out of sorts. He would not have thought the disappointment of not seeing Helen would be so great. Yet he had to admit he was disappointed, sorely so.
Rounding the corner of the house, Stratford saw Miss Rose Lawrence playing on the grass with her youngest nephew. Her laughter rang out warmly as the toddler took a clumsy step then collapsed, surprise stamped upon his round face. She tilted her head back as she laughed. Her white cap stood out against the brilliant blue of the sky like a suspended cloud. She caught Joseph in her arms and stood, revealing bright green grass stains smearing the front of her plain muslin gown. To his giggling delight, she swung the small boy around, causing her ridiculous mobcap to slide skew and escaping ringlets to tumble into her face. Sunlight rippled warmly over the flyaway curls as she spun.
Watching, the viscount reflected that he had never seen so charming a woman as Miss Rose Lawrence was just then—grass stains, crooked cap, tumbled cur
ls and all.
Twirling Joseph around once more, Rose caught sight of Stratford as he stood watching her. She jerked to a halt, her laughter dying. Caught unaware, she felt ridiculously vulnerable. She slowly set the child down and busied herself with adjusting her cap as she strove for composure. When he approached, she glanced over his muscular form, so well displayed in a buff riding coat and buckskin breeches, and then away.
“I trust you will excuse my lamentable appearance, Lord Stratford,” she said with the semblance of calm.
He noted the guarded expression in her eyes. “Your appearance, Miss Lawrence, is delightful.”
“Now you are pitching it much too strong, my lord!” she said on a laugh. “Having made your notions of a gentlewoman’s appearance well known to me, I am sure you are quite excessively shocked—but too much the gentleman to show it.”
“Ah, but you have made it very plain that you do not consider me a gentleman at all,” he returned with a wicked smile. “I therefore take leave to tell you again, Miss Lawrence, that you look charming.”
Puzzlement flashed through her gray eyes as she wondered just why he should want to turn her up sweet with pretty flattery, but she let it pass, turning the subject by saying, “I trust, too, that you will excuse Helen for having gone out, but you must know that it was essential she pay morning calls.”
“I must if you say so, but I confess I fail to know why.”
“Why, otherwise our neighbors would be saying Helen was too high in the instep and thinking herself too good for the likes of them. And that, you know, we could not let happen.”
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