Mary Balogh

by A Counterfeit Betrothal; The Notorious Rake

  “Afraid of you?” she said. “Pooh, why should I be afraid of you?”

  “Because I am your new husband, perhaps,” he said. “Because we are right in the very middle of a wedding.”

  “We are not,” she said. “The wedding is all over. And we are on our way on our wedding journey at last.”

  “Only the ceremony and the breakfast are over, Soph,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers and trying to draw her toward him. “The rest of the wedding—the most important part—is still to come. We are not married until that part is completed, you know.”

  Her cheeks flamed, and she resisted the pull of his hand.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  “Afraid?” she said with a brave attempt at scorn. “Of course not, Francis. The very idea.”

  “Shall I tell you what I am going to do to you tonight?” he said. “Would it make it easier if you knew what was in store?”

  “I know,” she said quickly. “And I don’t want you to say a word. You want to do it only to embarrass me.”

  “Not a word?” he said. “This sounds distinctly promising. Shall I show you, then, Soph? A sort of rehearsal in the carriage?”

  “Don’t touch me!” she said.

  “Er,” he said, “why are you clinging to my hand, Soph, if I am not to touch you?”

  “Francis,” she said, “don’t do this. Let us quarrel tomorrow, shall we? But not today. Today I do not feel up to it.”

  He chuckled and leaned across the carriage, taking her by surprise by scooping her up into his arms and depositing her on his lap.

  “Admit that you are afraid,” he said, “and I will have mercy on you, Soph.”

  “Never,” she said. “I have never been afraid of you even when you made me climb that tree because there were wild dogs loose and then went for help so that you could hide in the bushes and bark. I was not afraid.”

  “Soph,” he said, tucking her comfortably against him, “did I do that to you?”

  “Yes, you did,” she said, burrowing her head against his shoulder. “But I was not afraid, Francis. And I am not afraid now.”

  “I can’t tease you any longer, then,” he said. “What a dull journey this is going to be.”

  “But is it not dreadfully embarrassing?” she said, hiding her face against him. “I think it must be. I shall die of embarrassment.”

  “Not before I will,” he said. “In fact, Soph, I can hardly contain my trembles even now.” He shook, convulsively. “I shall be sure to extinguish every light tonight and draw every curtain, including the ones around the bed so that you will not see my blushes. It is the most embarrassing thing ever imagined. We might both not survive it. Indeed …”

  Sophia punched him sharply on his free shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me,” she said. “You have no sensibility at all. You are quite horrid and I hate you.”

  “This is better,” he said. “Perhaps I am going to enjoy the journey after all.”

  “You have done nothing but laugh at me ever since we drove off,” she said. “I wish I had not let you talk me into this three days ago. I wish I had held firm. You are horrid, Francis, and I wish heartily I had not married you.”

  “Kiss me,” he said.

  “I am not going to kiss you,” she said. “Ever. I hate you. I would rather kiss a toad. I would rather kiss a …”

  “Snake,” he said. “Kiss me.”

  “… rat. No.”

  “Kiss me, Soph,” he said softly. “Kiss me, my wife.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” she said.

  “Almost, yes.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “Kiss me.”

  She kissed him.

  16

  AFTER THE NEWLYWEDS HAD BEEN WAVED ON their way late in the afternoon, the guests from the neighborhood began to order their carriages brought around and took their leave. The duke and duchess withdrew to their private apartments with their family for an hour’s breather, as the duke put it, before dinner and the informal dancing that was to follow it in the drawing room. The other houseguests, too, withdrew to some private and quiet activity, all the excitement of the wedding breakfast at an end.

  Olivia abandoned everyone and fled to the hidden garden. It had been such a turmoil of a day, she thought, closing the wooden door gratefully behind her. She desperately needed some peace. And it was there waiting for her, the air inside the rose-draped walls and the surrounding trees of the wood still and heavy with summer, the only sounds the chirping of birds and the droning of unseen insects.

  She felt heavy with desolation. Sophia was gone and would be gone for several months. And even when she returned, she would no longer be living at Rushton but in the home of her new husband. There would be only the occasional visit to look forward to.

  She sat on her favorite stone in one of the rock gardens and feasted her eyes on the flowers all about her. She breathed in their scents. She felt guilty about being depressed on Sophia’s wedding day. Despite the girl’s confession of the morning, she had been brilliantly happy and very obviously was deeply in love with Francis. And he with her. They would be happy together. She hoped. Oh, she hoped. It made her nervous to see a bride and groom too deeply in love, especially when the bride was her own daughter.

  But it was for herself she felt depressed, Olivia realized. Everything seemed at an end. Her marriage had ended long ago. Now Sophia was gone. And there was Marc to leave all over again the next day. Endings. All endings. No beginnings. And yet she was only thirty-six years old.

  No beginnings. Unless … But it could not be. Not now. Not at her age. Not when they had tried without success for all those years after Sophia was born until they separated. It would be too ironic. And too bizarre. She had a married daughter who might herself expect to be a mother within a year.

  And yet, she thought, clasping her knees and noticing the daisies dotting the lawns, despite a mower’s frequent care, it was not impossible. They had been together four times on three different occasions. And she was several days late. She was never late.

  She set her forehead on her knees and closed her eyes. She must not begin to panic. It would be foolish when there was no way yet of being in any way certain. Nor must she begin to hope. It would be foolish to invite all the corresponding disappointment when she discovered—as she surely would within the next few days—that it was not so.

  She must not begin to hope, she told herself. She must not begin to hope that there would, after all, be something—someone—to fill the emptiness. Some part of him to keep close to herself for a while longer.

  She was in the same position, drowsy, almost sleeping when he came. She had been expecting him, she realized when she heard the latch of the door. He would have known where she had come, and he would have come there himself to say good-bye. Tomorrow’s farewell would be public. Not that it would not have been better to keep it so, of course, but she had known he would come.

  “Olivia,” he said when she lifted her head from her knees. He was walking toward her. “They were happy, were they not? We did the right thing not to try to persuade her to cry off after she had told us the truth this morning?”

  “They were happy,” she said. “I don’t believe there can be any doubt of that, Marcus. She glowed. And he was looking at her with every bit as much pride as we were. And with every bit as much love, too, I am sure.”

  “It hurts to lose a daughter, doesn’t it?” he said. “Almost as if we really have lost her.”

  “Rushton will never be her home again,” she said. “Or Clifton, either.”

  “And yet,” he said, “it feels wrong to be dejected.”

  “Yes.”

  “She is happy and all we have ever wanted for her is happiness.”

  “Yes.”

  “Olivia,” he said, “she did it for us. To bring us together.”

  “Yes.”

  “And young Francis saw his chance and agreed to the foolish scheme,” he said.

  She laid her forehead back agai
nst her knees. She felt rather than saw that he came closer and set one foot up on a stone close to her, as he had done on a previous occasion.

  “She thought she had succeeded,” he said. “She saw us together. She had come into your room for something but only I was awake. She drew what seemed to her the only conclusion.”

  “Poor Sophia.”

  “You are still planning to leave with Emma and Clarence tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a craving to get my life back to normal again.”

  “You would not like to stay awhile?” he asked. “To relax here?”

  “I cannot relax here, Marcus,” she said.

  He said nothing for a while. “Do you have any regrets, Olivia?” he asked. “If you could go back, would you do anything differently? Would you perhaps forgive me—if you could go back?”

  She looked up after a long silence. “I forgave you long before you stopped asking,” she said. “I knew that you had given in to a momentary weakness and that you were truly sorry. But I could not just continue on as if nothing had happened, Marcus. I did not believe I could love you as dearly as I always had or trust you as implicitly or be as close a friend to you. Everything was spoiled and I did not see how it was to be put right again.”

  “And now it is very much too late,” he said. “We have grown whole worlds apart with only some appetite and perhaps a little affection left for each other. You have Clarence. It is too late, Olivia. Isn’t it?”

  She put her head back down again. And he had his Mary. “Yes,” she said. “Fourteen years too late. We both made a dreadful mistake, and now it is too late.”

  She thought of Lady Mornington, the small rather plain woman who had been his mistress for six years. The woman who had looked sensible and intelligent, an altogether suitable companion for Marc. Yes, it was too late. She had voluntarily given up her rights as his wife and now had no right even to try to burden him with a dilemma. He had known peace with his Mary, he had said.

  “Yes, it is too late,” she said again.

  “He is a good man,” he said. “Almost worthy of you, I think. I always wondered why he showed no particular inclination to marry. I did not see that he loved you, too. But his devotion has been rewarded. You are happy with him, Olivia?”

  She swallowed, tried to frame an answer, and said nothing. He would feel guilty, perhaps, if he knew the truth, guilty about his own liaison. And she no longer wanted him to feel guilt. She had burdened him with more than his fair share years before.

  His hand touched the back of her head lightly and briefly. “I wish I could set you free for him, Olivia,” he said. “But there would be too much scandal, for the fault would have to appear to be yours.”

  “I would not want Sophia to be the daughter of divorced parents,” she said.

  “No.” He lifted his hand. “And I do not want any more bitterness between us, Olivia. There has been enough. We will spend Christmas together, if Sophia and Francis are home from Italy?”

  “Perhaps they will go to William and Rose,” she said, looking up once again.

  “Sophia will want to be with us,” he said.

  “We must wait and see,” she said. “But yes, if she wishes it, Marcus.”

  He smiled and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Perhaps we will be grandparents before a year has passed,” he said.

  “Yes.” She swallowed.

  “I would like that,” he said. “To have a child in the family again. It does not seem long since Sophia was a baby, does it?”

  “People used to laugh at us and think us very eccentric,” she said, smiling, “because we would never leave her in the nursery with her nurse but spent almost all our days with her.”

  “And nights, too,” he said. “The little rascal would never sleep, do you remember? I think I wore a hole in the carpet of the nursery, walking back and forth with her for hours on end.”

  “You were always good with her,” she said. “My energy used to give out and you used to order me off to bed.”

  “And Nurse was snoring in her bed,” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh, Marcus,” she said, “they were good times.”

  “Yes,” he said, “they were. Perhaps we will be able to recapture some of the pleasure with our grandchildren, Olivia. Though the thought is absurd. You a grandmother? You are only thirty-six years old and look years younger.”

  She smiled fleetingly.

  “Well,” he said, “that is all in the future. Perhaps far in the future. Tomorrow you have a long and tedious journey to face. Do you have everything you need, Olivia?”

  “I will have Emma and Clarence to keep me company,” she said.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “And at Rushton? You are comfortable there? Should I increase your allowance?”

  “No,” she said. “It is already over-generous.”

  “Well, then,” he said. “Everything seems to be settled.”

  “Yes.” She smiled at him. “Almost everyone is leaving tomorrow, Marcus? And William and Rose the next day? You will be glad of quietness again.”

  “I shall leave for London without delay,” he said.

  Ah, yes. Lady Mornington. Olivia found herself fighting tears.

  “It will be time for me, too, to get my life back to normal,” he said.

  Yes. She held her smile.

  He set one hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tightly enough to hurt. “I am sorry for what has happened here between us, Olivia,” he said. “Sorry if you found it distressing or distasteful. I ought not to have forced myself on you merely because you are still legally my wife.”

  “You did not use force,” she said. “But I am sorry, too. It feels almost like being unfaithful, does it not?”

  He squeezed her shoulder again and turned to walk back across the small garden. She watched him go. He stopped with his hand on the latch of the door and looked back over his shoulder.

  “Olivia,” he said, “I did love you, you know.”

  Did. I did love you. She stared at the door long after he had gone and long after tears had blurred her vision.

  Did. Past tense. All over and gone. All endings. It was too late for them now. Very much too late. It was what he had said and what she had agreed to. Doors closing everywhere. None opening.

  She dared not hope for the one glorious beginning that might yet compensate for all the other endings.

  She dared not hope.

  And yet she could not stop herself from hoping.

  HE HAD AVOIDED Clarence as much as he possibly could during his stay. They had once been the best of friends. And he could still not see any reason for not liking the man. He was amiable, courteous, always willing to fall in with whatever activity suited other people. But how could they still be friends?

  Was it possible, the Earl of Clifton wondered, to be friendly with the lover of the wife one still loved? And yet he could not blame either her for taking a lover or him for loving her. She had chosen wisely and well. Clarence had always been devoted to her. He could see that now, looking back. And faithful, too. They had been friends for longer than the fourteen years. And lovers for probably many years. He did not know for sure. They must always have been very discreet. He had never heard a whisper of scandal concerning them.

  He had been avoiding Clarence. But seeing him strolling alone from the direction of the stables, he paused and then redirected his steps so that they would meet.

  “You have been out riding?” he asked.

  “No, no,” Clarence said. “Just checking for myself to see that my horses will be ready for the journey tomorrow. Most of the people at the house seem to be resting.”

  “It was good of you to come so far,” the earl said. “I appreciate it, Clarence.”

  “How could I resist an invitation to Sophia’s wedding?” Clarence said. “I have always thought of her as a type of niece.”

  “It has been good for Olivia to have you and Emma here,” the earl said.
“And it will make my mind easier to know that she will have your company for the return journey.”

  “We will be making an early start,” Clarence said.

  “Clarence.” The earl spoke impulsively. They both stopped walking. “Look after her.”

  “I shall fight off any highwaymen with two guns blazing,” Clarence said with a grin. “And Emma will send them fleeing with her tongue. Have no fear.”

  “That is not what I meant,” the earl said. “I meant look after her for the rest of your life.”

  Clarence’s eyebrows rose. “What?” he said.

  “I don’t think we need to keep up this civilized pretense,” the earl said. “I may not have lived with her for many years, Clarence, and I may have had other women while she has had another man, but I still care for her, you know. I want her to be happy.”

  Clarence pursed his lips. “This other man being me?” he asked. “Is that what Olivia has told you, Marcus?”

  “I am sorry I mentioned it,” the earl said, “since I seem to have caused you some embarrassment. I suppose it is difficult to discuss openly such a matter with the husband of your mistress and your former friend to boot. I just … Well, never mind.”

  “What has she told you?” Clarence asked. “How long we have been lovers? How frequently we indulge our amours? Where? What degree of satisfaction …”

  Lord Clifton’s fist caught him a left hook to the chin at that moment and he fell awkwardly. The earl stood, feet apart, his fists clenched, waiting for the fight he fully expected. Clarence propped himself on one elbow and felt his jaw gingerly.

  “I don’t believe it is quite dislocated,” he said. “You might have warned me to defend myself, Marcus.”

  The earl’s shoulders slumped suddenly and he reached down a hand to help his former friend to his feet.

  “Devil take it, Clarence,” he said. “Forgive me, will you?”

  “You are a fool,” Clarence said, accepting the offered hand and getting to his feet, still feeling his jaw. “You still love her, don’t you? And yet you are going to let her go home tomorrow—with me.”