First Comes Marriage

by Mary Balogh

  Something in her eyes and her tone told Elliott that she had overheard at least a part of his conversation with Con. And, being one as usual to jump to conclusions, she was annoyed with him.

  Merton came over to join them as she was leaving, obviously too restless to remain by the fire.

  “I say,” he said, looking out the window with bright, intense eyes, “there is a magnificent view from up here, is there not?”

  “I believe it must have been this very view,” Con said, “that impelled my father to build the new house on the exact site of the old.”

  The window faced south. From it one could see out over the terrace and the formal gardens below and across rolling parkland in every direction—lawns and woods and lake—to the distant patchwork of the fields of the home farm.

  “Perhaps,” Merton said, “you will ride out with me tomorrow, Cousin, and show me everything.”

  “And the house too,” Katherine Huxtable added. She had come to join her brother. “Will you show it to us and describe all its treasures? You must know them so well.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” Con said. “Anything to please my cousins. What an abomination family quarrels are, as your sister has just observed.” His eyes came to rest on Elliott, and one of his eyebrows rose mockingly “They are frequently about nothing at all of any moment and can drag on for generations, depriving cousins and second cousins of one another’s acquaintance.”

  Theft and debauchery were of no moment? Elliott held his gaze until Con looked away at something in the garden at which Katherine Huxtable was pointing.

  Mrs. Dew was standing by the tea tray, cake plate in hand, conversing with her sister and George. She smiled at something George said and turned in the direction of the window with the plate. Her still-smiling eyes met Elliott’s, and he looked back at her, tight-lipped.

  Why did he find himself looking at her far more frequently than he looked at either of her sisters? They were far easier on the eyes than she was, after all. Though it was not in appreciation that he looked, was it? He was invariably irritated by her.

  He wished, as he had a dozen times since leaving Throckbridge, that she had remained behind. He had the uneasy feeling, as he had there, that she was indeed going to be a constant thorn in his side.

  She was going to court Con’s friendship, he suspected, merely to spite him.

  What an abominable woman she was.

  7

  VANESSA had always been of the opinion that conflict did not bring out the best in people.

  There was definitely some sort of conflict between Viscount Lyngate and Constantine Huxtable. And while she might have been inclined to believe that the viscount was probably to blame simply because it was in his nature to be arrogant and bad-tempered and Mr. Huxtable was an illegitimate son of a former earl and was therefore beneath him socially, she was no longer sure that Mr. Huxtable was entirely blameless.

  She overheard a part of what they said to each other as she approached with the tea. She did not feel guilty about overhearing what had not been meant for her ears. The drawing room—Stephen’s drawing room—at teatime was not the place to be conducting a private feud if one wished to keep it from the other people present.

  But while Viscount Lyngate was being his usual obnoxious self, Constantine Huxtable was showing a different side to his nature than he had demonstrated thus far. He was sneering, and he was goading the viscount, clearly enjoying the fact that he had him rattled.

  He had been told to leave Warren Hall before their arrival but had stayed.

  Because he had wanted to greet Stephen and his sisters, long-lost cousins, and welcome them to the home that had been his until now? Or because he had known it would annoy Viscount Lyngate to find him still here?

  If the latter had been his motive, she could still feel some sympathy for him though it would be a bit lowering for them. Why should he leave, after all, just because Viscount Lyngate had told him to?

  But really the whole thing appeared to be petty Good heavens, the two men were adults and they were cousins. They looked enough alike to be brothers except that the one cultivated an almost perpetual scowl while the other cultivated charm and smiles, revealing just how handsome he was despite his crooked nose. Though in truth he was not quite as handsome as Viscount Lyngate.

  Vanessa did not care what their quarrel was about. Well, she did—most people, after all, feel a natural curiosity about such things. But she did not believe that she and Stephen and her sisters ought to be drawn into it today of all days. Today was probably one of the most exciting of Stephen’s life. The two men might have the good manners to keep their quarrel for another time and place.

  But Stephen’s was a good fortune, after all, that had been achieved as a result of the misfortune of another. And during dinner Vanessa noted that Mr. Huxtable was clothed all in black, as he had been earlier when he was still dressed for riding. Like her, he was in mourning, though for him it was still full mourning. What must it be like to lose a brother? Her mind touched upon Stephen, but she firmly cut short her imaginings. It did not bear thinking of.

  “Tell me about Jonathan,” she said to Mr. Huxtable after they had all removed to the drawing room.

  Meg had been saying something to Viscount Lyngate and Stephen, but they must all have heard her question and paused to listen to the answer.

  Vanessa thought he was not going to reply He gazed into the fire, a slight smile on his lips. But then he did speak.

  “It is usually impossible to describe someone with one word,” he said. “But with Jon only one word seems really appropriate. He was love. There was no one and nothing he did not love.”

  Vanessa smiled her sympathy and encouragement.

  “He was a child in a young man’s body,” Mr. Huxtable continued. “He loved to play And sometimes he loved to tease. He liked to hide even if it was perfectly obvious to the searcher where he was hidden. Is that not so, Elliott?”

  He looked at Viscount Lyngate, and for a moment the mockery Vanessa had seen in his face earlier was back. It was a pity. It was an expression that did not suit him.

  The viscount—of course—frowned.

  “You must miss him dreadfully,” Vanessa said.

  Mr. Huxtable shrugged.

  “He died on the night of his sixteenth birthday,” he said. “He died in his sleep after a busy, happy day of play. We should all be so fortunate. I did not wish him dead, but now at least I am free to seek my fortune elsewhere. Sometimes love can be almost a burden.”

  It was shocking to hear the words spoken aloud. Vanessa could never have been so honest. But she felt a shiver of recognition in them. Was it not callous, though, to think thus? Though he had said almost. She knew all about the pain of loving.

  “I say,” Stephen said, breaking a short silence that everyone else might have been finding embarrassing, “I hope you are not planning to leave here soon, Cousin. There is much I wish to ask you. Besides, there is no reason to stop thinking of this as your home just because it is legally mine.”

  “You are all kindness, lad,” Mr. Huxtable said, and the faint suggestion of mockery was there again in his voice and in one slightly arched eyebrow.

  Was he a pleasant man hiding behind a mask of seeming carelessness, Vanessa wondered, or an unpleasant man hiding behind a mask of charm and smiles? Or, like most humans, was he a dizzying mix of contradictory characteristics?

  And what of Viscount Lyngate? She turned her gaze on him and found him looking back at her. The blue-ness of his eyes was always a slight shock.

  “It is not just kindness, Mr. Huxtable,” she said, still looking at the viscount. “We are really very happy to find a cousin we did not even know we had. No one told us about you.”

  The viscount’s lip curled ever so slightly at one corner, but the expression could not by any stretch of the imagination be called a smile.

  “And since we are cousins,” Mr. Huxtable said, “I beg you will all call me by my first name.�
��

  “Constantine,” she said, turning her attention back to him. “And I am Vanessa, if you please. I am sorry about Jonathan. It is hard to watch a young person die, especially when one loves him.”

  He smiled back at her without making any verbal comment, and she decided that he was at least partly a pleasant man. No one could fake that expression. It told her that he had loved his brother—though Jonathan had taken the title that might have been his.

  “You told me at dinner, Constantine,” Kate reminded him, “that you would teach me to ride. That cannot be done all in a day or so, I daresay. You must certainly stay longer.”

  “It may possibly take a week if you are a slow learner,” he said. “Though I will wager you are not. I shall stay at least until you are an accomplished rider, then, Katherine.”

  “That will please us all,” Meg said.

  Vanessa wondered if Viscount Lyngate realized that the fingers of his right hand were beating a rhythmic tattoo against his thigh.

  Why were he and Constantine enemies? she wondered. Had they always been?

  Elliott had intended taking Merton in hand the very morning after his arrival at Warren Hall. He had business of his own to attend to at Finchley Park, his own home five miles away And even apart from that, he was eager to be home again, though he would, of course, have to ride over to Warren Hall quite frequently for the next month or two. There was much to be done.

  He had intended to introduce Merton to his steward, Samson, a competent man Elliott’s father had hired two years or so ago. He had intended spending the morning indoors, going over a number of things with the boy in Samson’s office. And then during the afternoon the three of them would go out riding to see the home farm and other places of importance to the new earl.

  He had intended being busy all day long with the boy There really was no time to lose.

  But after breakfast Merton informed him that Con had agreed to take him and his sisters on a tour of the house and inner park.

  It was a tour that lasted the whole morning.

  And after luncheon Merton informed Elliott that Con had promised to take him riding about the outer park and home farm and to introduce him to the laborers and some of the tenants.

  “It is very decent of him,” Merton said, “to be willing to give up his whole day for my benefit. Will you come with us?”

  “I’ll stay here,” Elliott told him dryly “But tomorrow you will need to spend some time with Samson, your steward, Merton. I’ll be with you too.”

  “But of course,” Merton said. “There is much I need to know.”

  The next morning, though, Elliott had to go in search of him and found him in the stables with Con and the head groom, getting acquainted with all the horses and looking as if he was enjoying himself immensely. And then, of course, he had to go and change before coming to the office.

  “Meg never likes the smell of horse in the house,” he explained. “She fusses if she smells even a speck of manure on me.”

  He did apply himself to a whole pile of information in the office for a few hours before luncheon, and he showed an admirable eagerness to learn and asked a number of intelligent questions. After luncheon, though, he announced that Con was to take him to meet the vicar and the Graingers and one or two other of the more prominent families of the neighborhood.

  “It is decent of him to be willing,” the boy commented. “He might have resented me, I suppose. Instead, he is making every effort to make himself agreeable. He is going to take my sisters boating on the lake tomorrow if the fine weather holds. I daresay I will go too so that we can take out two boats. Come and join us if you will.”

  Elliott declined the offer.

  Each evening after dinner Con conversed with a charm that was all too familiar to Elliott. He had always been able to wind people of all ages and both genders about his little finger whenever he chose. They had used to laugh over it. He had always been more skilled at it than Elliott had.

  Con, of course, did not care the snap of his fingers for his newfound cousins. Or if he did, it was certainly not affection he felt. Good Lord, they had come, perfect strangers, to oust him from his own home or at the very least to make him feel like a guest in it. He probably hated them with a passion.

  He had stayed only to irk Elliott.

  The trouble was that they knew each other too well. Con knew just what would annoy his former best friend. And Elliott knew just what was going on in Con’s mind.

  Elliott, standing at the window of his guest bedchamber early on the morning of the proposed boat rides, watched Con step out of the main doors below and stride purposefully across the terrace and down the steps to the flower garden.

  Elliott was already dressed. He had been contemplating an early morning ride, in fact. But it was time he and Con had a talk far away from the other occupants of the house. Merton was young and impressionable. His sisters were innocent and naive. Con had used poor Jon quite successfully to make Elliott’s task as guardian more difficult than it might otherwise have been. He was not going to be given the chance to use the present Merton for the same purpose.

  He went after Con. He had turned left out of the flower garden—Elliott had seen that before leaving his room. He had not been heading toward the lake, then, or the stables. But it soon became clear where he had gone.

  Elliott followed him to the private family chapel and the churchyard surrounding it. And sure enough, there he was standing at the foot of Jonathan’s grave.

  For a moment Elliott regretted coming. If this was a private moment, he did not want to intrude upon it. But almost immediately he felt angry For even if Con had loved Jonathan, he had also taken advantage of him in a most dishonorable manner, robbing him and making of his home a house of ill repute. It did not really matter that Jonathan had not known and would not have understood even if the facts had been explained to him. That was not the point at all.

  And then the moment for turning back unseen—if he had wanted that moment—was gone. Con turned his head and looked steadily at him. He was not smiling now There was no audience he might wish to charm.

  “Is it not enough, Elliott,” he asked, “that you must come prying into my father’s and brother’s home—and my cousin’s —and throwing your weight around there as if it were your own? Must you now invade even the graveyard where they are all buried?”

  “I have no quarrel with them,” Elliott said. “And fortunately for you, they have no quarrel with you. They are all dead. But it amazes me that you choose to stand on such hallowed ground. They would have a quarrel with you if they were alive and knew what I know.”

  “What you think you know.” Con laughed harshly. “You have become a sanctimonious bore, Elliott. There was a time when you were not.”

  “There was a time when I sowed some damnably wild oats,” Elliott admitted. “But I was never a scoundrel, Con. I never relinquished my honor.”

  “Go back to the house,” Con said harshly, “while you still have your health intact. Better yet, go home to Finchley The cub will prosper well enough without your interference.”

  “But with yours he would doubtless be stripped of what remains of his inheritance,” Elliott said. “I am not here to bandy words with you, Con. Leave here today. If you have a scrap of decency remaining, go away and leave these people alone. They are innocents. They know nothing.”

  Con sneered at him.

  “Fancy one of them, do you, Elliott?” he asked. “The eldest is an eyeful, is she not? The youngest is mouthwatering too. Even the widow is not without appeal. She has fine, laughing eyes. Which one do you fancy? I suppose you are planning to be a good boy and marry soon and set up your nursery It would be convenient to marry a Huxtable of Warren Hall.”

  Elliott took a couple of menacing steps toward him.

  “Just make sure that you do not take a fancy to one of them,” he said. “I would not stand for it, you know They are not for the likes of you.”

  Con sneered agai
n.

  “I ran into Cecily last week,” he said. “She was out riding with the Campbells. She is making her come-out this year, she was telling me. She told me to be sure to be at her come-out ball. She is going to reserve a set for me. Sweet little Cece— she has grown into quite a beauty.”

  Elliott’s hands balled into fists at his sides and he strode another few steps forward.

  “You are not about to swing one of those are you, Elliott?” Con asked, cocking one eyebrow and laughing. “It is an age since we last came to fisticuffs. It was when you broke my nose, I believe—though I also seem to recall that I drew a pint or so of blood from yours and blackened one of your eyes. Come on, then. If it is a fight you are spoiling for, I am your man. Indeed, I will not even wait for you to make the first move. You always were slow to get started.”

  And he closed the short distance between them and planted Elliott a facer—or would have if Elliott had not blocked the blow with the side of one arm before taking a swing of his own. The blow glanced off Con’s ear and his next blow caught Elliott on the shoulder instead of on the chin as intended.

  They backed up, their fists at the ready, and circled and weaved, looking for an opening. Ready for the real fight—without pausing to divest themselves of their coats.

  And this, Elliott thought, half exhilarated despite himself, was indeed what he had been spoiling for for a long time. It was time someone gave Con a good drubbing. And he had always been better with his fists than Con, who had indeed once blackened his eye and drawn blood from his nose, though not nearly a pint, by Jove.

  He saw his opening and—

  “Oh, please do not,” a voice said from behind him. “Violence never accomplishes anything. Can you not talk about your differences instead?”

  A woman’s voice.

  Uttering absurdly asinine words.

  Mrs. Dew’s voice.

  Of course.

  Con dropped his fists and grinned.

  Elliott turned his head over one shoulder and glared.