by Mary Balogh
Vanessa just stared at her.
“I hope you did not expect that this visit would be a purely social occasion in which we would both mouth meaningless platitudes,” the viscountess said. “You are to be my son’s bride, Mrs. Dew What is your Christian name?”
“Vanessa, ma’am.”
“You are to be my son’s bride, Vanessa. You are to supersede me as Viscountess Lyngate. And one day you can expect to be the Duchess of Moreland. You must be brought up to scratch, then, and there is no time to lose. I found you and your sisters —as well as your brother—quite delightful two afternoons ago, but you will not do for London society, you know. Your manners are pleasing and unaffected, and I believe the ton will find your countrified airs charming, but you must learn to dress differently and carry yourself with a more confident deportment and know about ton etiquette and the expectations of polite society and the rules of precedence and so on. You will be entering a new world and must not give the appearance of gaucherie. Are you capable of doing all this?”
Vanessa remembered her first meeting with Lady Dew after she became affianced to Hedley Lady Dew had hugged her and kissed her and wept over her and assured her that she was an angel sent from heaven.
“I have been married to a baronet’s son, ma’am,” she said. “But Sir Humphrey rarely leaves home—he loves it too much. And I had never been farther than a few miles from Throckbridge until I came to Warren Hall. I am not ashamed of the way I am—or the way Stephen or my sisters are. However, I fully recognize the necessity of adding different qualities now that my circumstances have changed and are to change further. I will be eager and delighted to learn all you are willing to teach me.”
Lady Lyngate regarded her steadily while she spoke.
“Then I see no reason why we cannot deal well together,” she said. “I will be taking Cecily to town next week to have her fitted for all the new clothes she will need for her come-out Season. You will come with us, Vanessa. You will need bride clothes and a court dress — you will, of course, be presented to the queen soon after your marriage. And I shall spend every available moment of every day instructing you in all you will need to know as my son’s wife.”
“Will he be coming with us?” Vanessa asked.
“He will certainly escort us,” Lady Lyngate said. “He wishes to interview a few of the candidates George Bowen will have found for the positions of tutor to your brother. But he will return almost immediately—he has duties both at Warren Hall and here. We will not need him, however. Men can only get in the way at such times. You will not need him until your wedding day”
Vanessa laughed.
“You must know,” Lady Lyngate said, looking sternly at her, “that I am going to hold you to your promise to make Elliott happy, Vanessa. He is precious to me. After sowing some very wild oats indeed for a number of years, he has assumed the duties of his rank with diligence and without complaint. Do you have an affection for him?”
“I—” Vanessa bit her lip. “I esteem him, ma’am. I will do my best to make him a good wife. And I will expect an affection to grow between us.”
Lady Lyngate gazed at her in silence for a few moments.
“I do not believe I misunderstood when Elliott went to Warren Hall yesterday to make his offer,” she said. “I believe his intention really was to offer for your elder sister. He will not admit it, of course, and I do not expect you would either if I were to ask you directly. For some reason he changed his mind—or was talked into changing it, which does not happen often with Elliott. However, I trust that you have spoken the truth about your feelings for him and your intention to make him happy It is your best hope of keeping him. Would you get to your feet and pull on the bell rope, if you please? Cecily will be waiting impatiently to be summoned. She wishes to pay her respects to her future sister-in-law.”
Vanessa did as she was asked.
“I hope,” she said, “she was not too disappointed.”
“Not at all,” the viscountess assured her. “She is supremely uninterested in people as elderly as her brother and even you. What does please her is that Elliott will be marrying the sister of Miss Katherine Huxtable, to whom she has taken a great liking.”
And so one giant hurdle had been surmounted, Vanessa supposed as she sat down again and awaited the arrival of Miss Wallace. She had been accepted, at least tentatively, by her future mother-in-law It was now up to her to win full approval.
And next week she would be off to London to be transformed into a lady of the ton, into a future viscountess and duchess.
Whoever could have predicted all this just a little over two weeks ago?
And then she heard the echo of words that had been spoken just a minute or two ago.
After sowing some very wild oats indeed for a number of years…
And of course he had told her yesterday that he was very experienced indeed—even though he had never been married.
Was that when he had learned to kiss …
But this was certainly not the time or place to be remembering the way Viscount Lyngate had kissed her.
Her future mother-in-law had said something else too.
I trust that you have spoken the truth about your feelings for him and your intention to make him happy. It is your best hope of keeping him.
Had he still not quite finished with those wild oats, then? Was there a chance that he would stray from her if she did not make him happy?
How terribly naive she was. She knew so little about this world she was entering. Surely society did not condone infidelity in its married members.
She would not be able to bear it if…
But how would she ever compete if…
Elliott spent almost the entire month before his wedding traveling between Finchley Park and Warren Hall. Normally he would have spent at least a part of March in London, replenishing his wardrobe, reestablishing himself at his clubs, exchanging news and views with his friends and acquaintances, attending any parties that had been organized this early in the year—and putting a glad end to an overlong celibacy with Anna.
But he had needed to spend only one day interviewing the prospective tutors George had lined up for his inspection and visiting his tailor and his boot-maker and dealing with a few other matters of business. There was little else for which to prolong his stay. Anna had chosen to be mortally offended when informed of his imminent nuptials. She had hurled words and a few harder objects at his head. And when she had broken down in tears after a few minutes and would have taken him to her bed, he had discovered that he was not in the mood after all and had made a lame excuse about a forgotten appointment.
He was still not in the mood even later in the evening, when he might have gone back to her—from the house where his mother and betrothed were in residence to his mistress’s house. It seemed ever so slightly sordid—a thought quite unworthy of his father’s son or his grandfather’s grandson.
Just two days after escorting his mother, his youngest sister, and his betrothed to town and settling them at the family town house on Cavendish Square, then, he left for the country again. He would have gone anyway, but his mother had made it clear to him that his presence would be decidedly de trop while she hurried to prepare two young ladies for the coming Season.
He was delighted to go. The conversation ever since they left home—the little he had heard of it anyway— had consisted of nothing but fashions and fabrics and frills and other such faradiddle.
Mrs. Dew’s eyes had laughed at him every time he looked at her. He had taken leave of her after those two brief days in London with a bow and very unloverlike haste.
And soon he was going to have to stop thinking of her and addressing her as Mrs. Dew, as if she were still someone else’s wife. But he would be damned before he would call her Nessie.
He had written to his grandfather and had a reply from his grandmother. They were coming to Finchley for the wedding.
It was beginning to feel disconcertingly real.
He rode over to Warren Hall most days, though it soon became apparent to him that he would not need to do so for all of the four years that remained before young Merton achieved his majority. The boy had been taken firmly under the wings of Samson and Philbin, the valet George Bowen had sent from London, a very superior gentleman’s gentleman, who was quite prepared to condescend to give his master advice on all matters of appearance and fashion. And Claybourne, the new tutor who would teach him all there was to know about politics and the British aristocracy and what was expected of a member of it took up a large portion of the boy’s time as did the thin, bookish, stammering Bigley the classics tutor. And Miss Huxtable still kept a firm maternal eye upon her young brother.
Perhaps after the Huxtables had been presented in town and had taken their rightful places in society, Elliott sometimes hoped, he would be able to settle back to his own life and find that the whole business of guardianship had become a minor inconvenience of his life.
Except that there was no such thing as his own familiar life to settle back into any longer. He was very soon to be saddled for life with one colossal inconvenience.
He waited for the return of his bride.
In his memory she became thinner and more shapeless, plainer, and more totally insignificant physically every time he thought of her. Her tongue became more impertinent, her frequent smile and her laugh more irritating. Her kiss became more like a child’s —or a nun’s.
She became less and less appealing.
And he had only himself to blame for the fact that he was to be shackled to her. Good Lord, he could have said no, could he not, as soon as she had asked her preposterous question?
When had he ever allowed any woman to dictate to him? And about something as major as the rest of his life!
And you are stuck with me.
Never had she spoken truer words.
The wedding invitations were sent out, the nuptials and the wedding breakfast organized in lavish detail.
The new facts of his life had taken on a momentum of their own and all he could do was watch helplessly and count down the days.
Easter approached at an alarming speed. His wedding was set for two days after Easter Sunday.
Every night when she went to bed Vanessa expected to lie awake, her senses overloaded with so many new sights and impressions, her mind with so much information. And every night she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion as soon as her head touched the pillow.
She was taken sightseeing and was awed by all she saw—the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St. James’s Palace, Carlton House, Hyde Park, and a whole host of other famous places she had heard of before but had only dreamed of seeing for herself. She was taken to dressmakers and glove makers and bonnet makers and jewelers and to dozens of other shops until she forgot where she had been and what she had been measured for. Even what had been purchased. She often looked in the drawers and wardrobes in her room at Moreland House and wondered whose nightgowns those were or whose satin slippers or whose paisley shawl.
She never wondered about her court dress—the one in which she would be presented to the queen after her marriage. That was impossible to forget. For some bizarre reason, the queen insisted upon the fashions of the previous century, and so the dress had to be huge-skirted with an equally huge petticoat and a stomacher and a long train and tall feathers for her hair and other ridiculous accessories.
And Vanessa had to learn to walk in it and back up in it without tripping and toppling backward over the train—one was not, of course, permitted to turn one’s back on the queen as one left her presence. And she had to learn to curtsy to the queen until her nose almost touched the floor—but with infinite grace.
She did a great deal of laughing—as did Cecily— while she practiced. Even Cecily’s mother sometimes let go of her exasperation at Vanessa’s frequent clumsiness and failures and laughed too.
“But you must promise—you absolutely must, Vanessa,” she said, “not to collapse with mirth if you make a mistake on the day itself, which heaven forbid you will do. But if you do, you must efface yourself and make your exit as quietly and unobtrusively as you possibly can.”
They all dissolved into laughter again then as they enumerated and exaggerated all the ghastly things that could possibly go wrong.
“Vanessa,” her future mother-in-law said, holding her side when they had finally run out of ideas, “I do not know when I have laughed as much as I have since you joined us.”
They laughed a great deal too over the dancing lessons that had been arranged so that Cecily could brush up on her skills but in which Vanessa joined too. She had to learn to waltz. It was a dance she had scarcely even heard of let alone seen performed. But it was not difficult once one grew accustomed to the fact that it was danced exclusively with one partner, whom one held—and who held one—the whole time.
Vanessa had her hair cut. At first the stylist intended merely to take off a few inches, but when he discovered that there was a heavy wave in her hair—though nothing as attractive as Stephen’s curls—he cut it short in the newest fashion and styled it in such a way that it bounced about her head and cheeks and could be teased with fingers and tongs into curls and even ringlets for special occasions.
“Vanessa!” the viscountess exclaimed when she saw it. “I knew your hair had promise. I told you so, did I not? But I did not fully realize what short, wavy hair would do to fill out your narrow face. It emphasizes the classical lines of your cheekbones and the size of your eyes. Smile for me.”
Vanessa smiled and then shook with self-conscious laughter. She felt bald.
“Yes.” The viscountess looked critically at her. “You really do look quite pretty. In a unique way. You are an original.”
Which Vanessa supposed was a compliment.
She felt bald even so.
All her new clothes were pastel-shaded. The dress she would wear for her wedding was pale green—a lighter shade than the dress Hedley had bought her for the summer fete.
If she had not been so busy every day and so exhausted every night, she might have shed tears over her memories, over the fact that Hedley was not with her to share all the excitement. As it was she ruthlessly suppressed the memories—and the guilt— except when they popped up unbidden.
She also tried to think as little as possible about Viscount Lyngate, to whom she would be married within a month.
In memory he became more arrogant, more supercilious, more morose, more everything that was negative every time she thought of him.
She was going to have to work terribly hard if she hoped to fulfill her promise to make him happy, to please him, to … What was the other thing? Ah, yes. To make him comfortable.
And to keep him faithful.
The month galloped along far too quickly She was not ready. She needed more time.
For what, though?
For everything!
But time would not, of course, stand still. The day inevitably came when she found herself in Viscount Lyngate’s carriage again with Lady Lyngate and Cecily, headed in the direction of Finchley Park and Warren Hall. Mr. Bowen rode beside them as an escort—he was to be the viscount’s best man at the wedding.
In just a few days’ time.
The guests would be starting to gather already.
They included Sir Humphrey and Lady Dew and Henrietta and Eva. And Mrs. Thrush.
And the Duke and Duchess of Moreland.
Very soon she would see her betrothed again.
Vanessa’s stomach performed an uncomfortable flip-flop, which she attributed to motion sickness.
12
THE ladies came home from London three days before the wedding. But very little time, not even the three days, was to be allowed him in order to get to know his bride better, Elliott discovered.
Perhaps it was just as well.
His grandparents had arrived from Kent. His aunts and uncles had come too and his cousins with their families. His paternal cou
sins, that was. Con, though invited at the request of the Huxtables, had declined. And of course his married sisters had come with their spouses and Jessica’s children. Finchley Park seemed very full.
Everyone was delighted with him. But it was his grandmother who put into words what they were all eager to agree with. It was after she had been over to Warren Hall with his grandfather to meet his bride.
“She is not a beauty, Elliott,” she said after her return—and in the hearing of all the rest of the family except Jessica’s children. “And that is a relief to me. You must have chosen her for qualities of character. She has an extremely pleasant disposition, though she was understandably nervous at meeting Moreland and me. I am pleased that you have shown so much good sense.”
“Or perhaps, Grandmama,” Averil suggested, “Elliott has fallen in love with her. I must confess I like her exceedingly well though I was rather surprised when I first saw her. She is not the sort of lady I would have expected to attract Elliott. But I could hardly catch my breath for laughing when she was describing her misadventures with the train of her presentation gown. I like someone who can laugh at herself.”
“I hope he is in love,” their grandmother said, looking hard at him. “Are you, Elliott?”
He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, very aware that every female eye was upon him. “I certainly have a regard for her, Grandmama,” he said carefully “Give me time, and I daresay I will fall in love with her too.”
“Oh, men!” Jessica tossed her glance at the ceiling. “Be careful that you do not kill her with your ardor, Elliott.”
She was not a beauty, his grandmother had said. No, she was not. But he was shocked nevertheless when he saw her again—in company with his grandparents and his mother and sisters. He scarcely recognized her.
She was no longer wearing mourning—not even the hideous lavender. Neither, he noticed when he glanced at her left hand, was she wearing her wedding ring. She was dressed in a simple but stylish high-waisted dress of pale lemon. Both the color and the design flattered her.