Someone to Care

by Mary Balogh

  “Your mother-in-law will be happy with me,” he told Cunningham with a glance at Riverdale. “I will see to it.”

  They looked far from convinced. He ought to have left it at that.

  “I fell in love with her fourteen years ago,” he added, embellishing the story he had told earlier at the cottage, “and she with me, though she was far too dutiful a wife to admit any such thing at the time. She sent me away before our attraction could ever be put into words or deed, and I went. She was a married lady—or so we both thought. Sometimes, however, if it is real, love does not die. It only lies dormant.”

  “From what I know of your reputation, Dorchester,” Riverdale said, “your definition of love is not mine.”

  “Ah,” Marcel said, “I have another word for my dictionary, then. I plan to write one, you know, though Viola is skeptical, since until now I have had only one word to go in it—the verb to jollificate. Now I can add love with all its myriad meanings and shades of meaning. Just the one word should be good for several pages, do you not think?” He was becoming angry. He deliberately drew a few slow breaths.

  “I would settle for your assurance that you will treat her honorably,” Cunningham said.

  The anger almost broke through his control—until he realized what was happening here. He was in the presence of very real love. Here were two men, neither of whom had any blood relationship to Viola but both of whom cared. Because she was a member of their family, and family mattered to them. Family stood together and defended its own.

  For a few moments he felt unutterably bleak. What had he squandered in the name of guilt and self-loathing and staying out of the way of what he was not worthy to claim as his own?

  “You have my assurance,” he said curtly. “I suppose you speak of fidelity. You have my assurance.”

  “Perhaps,” Riverdale said, “you should add the word fidelity to your dictionary too, Dorchester. It has far more meanings than the obvious one.”

  Marcel got to his feet. “I must rescue my son from the taproom,” he said, “and the chance that he is sampling the ale too freely.”

  They made no move to follow him.

  He could cheerfully break a few chairs and a few tables and smash a few windows, Marcel thought. But as it turned out he could not even relieve his feelings by scolding Bertrand or berating André. His son was drinking water.

  “Bert never touches alcohol,” André said, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “or intends ever to do so. I think it is time, Marc, that you rescued him from the clutches of his uncle and aunt.”

  Marcel looked at his son, whose nostrils were slightly flared, though he said nothing. Marcel agreed with his brother—or did he? And he wished André had not picked up Estelle’s pet name for her twin.

  “Bertrand is seventeen years old,” he said. “Almost eighteen. Old enough, I believe, to make his own decisions.”

  His son flashed him an indecipherable look before picking up his glass. He must have looked just like Bertrand when he was seventeen, Marcel thought. And yes, old enough to make his own decisions, good or bad. His anger had been converted to melancholy.

  But he still wished he could smash a few chairs.

  * * *

  • • •

  The evening at the cottage was long and unutterably tedious, though somehow civility was maintained. Perhaps, Viola thought when it was over, that was because they were all ladies and had been brought up to deal with even the most awkward of social situations.

  Though there could not be many more awkward than this one.

  Mrs. Morrow was icily civil. But Viola could not blame her for the hostility that obviously seethed just below the surface of her good manners. She had been forced into the company of a woman she must consider beneath contempt. And despite the fact that she showed no real emotion, it seemed to Viola that the woman cared for her young niece, whom she had brought up almost from the girl’s birth. Lady Estelle Lamarr’s modest, docile manners in the presence of her elders were testament to her aunt’s training.

  Viola’s training and long experience as a society hostess stood her in good stead too. She was able to rise to the ghastly situation of being hostess at a cottage that belonged to her lover. She was able to organize dinner and refreshments and converse with practiced and apparent ease.

  Elizabeth, as usual, was a gem of warm amiability and sensible conversation. She was able to find common ground on a number of topics dear to Mrs. Morrow’s heart, and she was able to draw Lady Estelle into some conversation. It was Elizabeth who pointed out to her that she and Abigail would be sisters after the wedding of their parents. Estelle, who had been stealing glances at Abigail all evening with obvious interest and admiration, looked suddenly pleased.

  “Oh yes,” she said, addressing Abigail. “And you will be coming to live with us, of course. We will perhaps be special friends. I have cousins at Redcliffe, but none of them have ever felt like a sister or brother, apart from Bert, of course. I have often thought I would have liked having a sister if only my mother had not died.”

  Abby was kind, though she was obviously very unhappy. “It is lovely having a sister,” she said. “I have always been close to Camille, my elder sister. But she is married now—to Joel, whom you met earlier—and I do not see as much of her as I would like. And I have a half sister, whom I met for the first time only a couple of years ago. She is Anna, the Duchess of Netherby.”

  “It is going to be a great pleasure to meet and get to know them all,” the girl said. “I have wished—oh, for years and years—that Papa would marry again and come home to stay.”

  Viola went to bed feeling more wretched than she had felt in two years. And her bed looked so very vast and empty. She expected Abigail to come for a private talk, but it did not happen. And that made her feel even more wretched. Abby was too hurt, it seemed, even for confrontation.

  And that poor child, his daughter, whom he had neglected so shamelessly all her life. Whom he had neglected just recently after sending word that he was on his way home. She was going to be hurt even more when she discovered that there was to be no wedding after all and that her father was not going to go home to stay. And the boy too. He looked achingly like a very young Marcel—and he called him sir.

  I am glad you said it first, Viola. I never like to hurt my women.

  It was what he had said down on the beach when she had told him she needed to go home.

  My women.

  Reducing her to nothing more than a temporary mistress, just like all the others who had preceded her.

  As, of course, she was. As she had known from the start. But putting it into words that way had been a deliberate insult. And, fool that she was, she had allowed it to hurt.

  Only an hour later he had announced their betrothal.

  Well. He would not have things all his way. There was no betrothal and there would be no wedding. She would be very clear on that and quite immovable. She would put a dent in his pride, perhaps, even though he would also feel an enormous relief.

  He did not want the marriage any more than she did.

  It was the last thing she wanted.

  Fourteen

  At least, Marcel thought during the long journey home, he had his own carriage in which to travel, though André insisted upon bearing him company.

  “It is dashed trying to be confined to close quarters with Jane Morrow,” he explained. “A more Friday-faced female it would be hard to find, Marc. Every time she so much as glances at me it is with a look that says I am no better than a toad about to wriggle out from under a stone and that if she had her wish I would stay under it for the next eternity or so. How Estelle and Bertrand stand it I do not know.”

  “They have been given no choice,” Marcel said curtly.

  “You are in a blue mood,” his brother observed cheerfully. “Feeling lovelorn already, are you, Marc, after bein
g parted from your lady for all of an hour?” He grinned. “Or are you merely feeling the noose tighten about your neck?”

  “Let me make one thing clear,” Marcel said. “You may talk about the weather if you must talk at all or about your own health or that of any or all your acquaintances. You may talk about politics or the war or art or religion or all the books you have never read or the man in the moon. You may even talk about my betrothal and the state of my heart—if, that is, you enjoy talking to yourself as you trudge along beside an empty road or dash along it to try to catch up to the other carriage. What you may not do is talk upon either topic inside this carriage or anywhere else within my hearing. And I have excellent hearing.”

  André continued to grin, but he held his peace.

  Another fortunate thing about the journey was that Jane was as bent upon completing it as Marcel was and was therefore just as eager to press onward each day until the light was too poor to make for continued safe travel. She insisted that Estelle travel with her, and Marcel did not argue. Bertrand chose to remain with his sister. Perhaps he would have chosen the other carriage anyway.

  The birthday-turned-betrothal party was to be held in three weeks’ time, well after Marcel’s actual birthday. He was not sure if Estelle had noticed that no one else felt an enthusiasm for the occasion anywhere near matching her own. She had pressed on with her plans even after Viola had informed her that she would come and bring her younger daughter with her if Abigail wished, but that no one else from her family could be expected to attend.

  “They have all recently spent a few weeks in Bath for my grandson’s christening,” she had explained gently enough. “Christmas will be upon us before we know it and they will all wish to go to Brambledean. It would be too much to expect them to travel to Redcliffe Court too.”

  Estelle had been disappointed, though she had brightened when Abigail assured her that she would indeed accompany her mother. “I will have you all to myself for a short while, then,” his daughter had said, “and will have a chance to get to know you better before we become sisters.”

  Marcel knew very well what Viola was up to, of course. Amid all the bustle of departure after the men had returned to the cottage soon after breakfast, she had insisted that they talk in private. They had walked a little way down the hill among the ferns before he stopped and crossed his arms.

  “This is a waking nightmare,” she had said coldly. “While I appreciated your gallantry yesterday, it was unnecessary and it very much complicates the situation. It was an embarrassment to be found here together, especially by our children, but no one was going to make a fuss. Oh, there were rumblings from Alexander and Joel about a duel, but I would have put an end to that silliness in a matter of moments. Good heavens, the very idea! None of these people were going to spread the story, and if any of them did, so what? I have no great reputation to lose, and you have a reputation that would only be enhanced.”

  “You believe that you lost your reputation along with your marriage two years ago, then?” he had asked.

  She had made an impatient gesture with one hand. “It does not take much when one is dealing with the ton,” she had said, “and when one is female. I do not care. And if my family and even the Westcotts—who are not my family—cannot accept the fact that at the age of forty-two I am free to take a little time for myself and to spend it in any manner I choose and with whomever I choose, then they have a problem. It is not mine.”

  “I believe, Viola,” he had said, “you deceive yourself.”

  “If I do,” she had said, “it is none of your concern. I am none of your concern. I am not going to marry you, Marcel. It would be kinder, especially for your daughter, if everyone were informed of that fact now before we leave.”

  Yet she had not threatened to go and do it herself. He wondered if she had realized that. And he wondered why he had not stridden back up the hill to do exactly what she demanded. He had no wish whatsoever to tie himself down in matrimony again, after all, and to live in tame domestication at Redcliffe for the rest of his life, pretending to himself that she had not grown tired of him even before they were betrothed.

  “The horses are champing at the bit,” he had said, “and so are all the humans in the cottage. We will resume this discussion, if we must, at Redcliffe.”

  “It will be too late then,” she had said. “It will be general knowledge that we are betrothed even if no official announcement has been made. Estelle will have planned her party and invited guests. Do you not care that her feelings will be more terribly hurt then than they would be now?”

  “It is because of my daughter and my son,” he had said, “and because of your daughters and your son too that we must do the decent thing, Viola, regardless of our own feelings on the matter.”

  “Since when,” she had asked him, all incredulity, “have you cared one iota for your children’s feelings?”

  It was a good question.

  Since Estelle had called him Papa the day before, perhaps. She had only ever called him Father before that, and all her life had rarely raised her eyes to his or spoken to him beyond largely monosyllabic answers to any direct questions he had asked her. He had often wondered if she was actually afraid of him or if she simply disliked him. He had almost always cut his visits shorter than he had planned. Bertrand was still calling him sir and was still behaving with stiff good manners.

  “It is a fair question,” he had said, forcing himself to speak with cool arrogance instead of allowing himself to lash out in bitterness. “Call it the autocrat in me, then, this insistence of mine upon not having my will thwarted. You will marry me, Viola—for your own sake and for that of your children. You may not care about the loss of your own reputation, though I am not at all sure I believe you—or even that your reputation has been lost. But I am very sure you care about your children’s. Do you want them to have to deal with yet another scandal to pile upon what they dealt with not so long ago? Do you wish them to hear their mother called a slut?”

  He had heard the sharp intake of her breath. “How dare you!” she had said.

  “You see?” He had raised his eyebrows. “I rest my case. I will see you in Northamptonshire, Viola. Every day between now and then will seem like a week.”

  “You do mockery awfully well.” She had not done as well as he. She could not hide the bitterness from her voice.

  He wondered what had happened to the man he had been just three weeks ago—the man who did not care a tinker’s damn for what anyone thought or said of him, the man who looked upon the world and its rules and conventions and judgments with cynical indifference. But his mind shied away from any answers that might have presented themselves.

  If only there had been a few more days—and a few more nights. He would surely have worked her out of his system and would no doubt have taken a different course upon the arrival of the search parties. He would have thought of every argument there was—and a few there were not—to avoid having to marry her. Or perhaps he would have used no argument at all. That would have been more like him. If he had been forced into a duel with either Riverdale or Cunningham, he would have shot contemptuously into the air and taken his chances on what they chose to do—and on the accuracy of their aim.

  Had he broken with his usual practice, then, and insisted upon marriage because of some leftover lust? He had missed her like a gnawing toothache since their last night together, and it kept occurring to him that the last time he had traveled this road she had been beside him, her hand often in his, her head sometimes upon his shoulder, the whole of their glorious escape ahead of them.

  He felt vicious.

  It was a feeling that was threatening to become habitual.

  * * *

  • • •

  Everyone had remained in Bath. It was the final humiliation. Even Michael, Viola’s brother, had stayed, though he had had to make hurried arrangements to have
another clergyman carry out his duties in his parish. For those staying at the Royal York hotel it was a huge extra expense they had not planned for.

  The carriage stopped at Joel’s house first before making its descent into Bath, and Camille, who must have been watching for it, came dashing out in her thin slippers despite the cold, Sarah balanced on one hip, Winifred close behind her. She grabbed her mother in a one-armed hug as soon as Viola’s feet touched solid ground.

  “Mama,” she cried. “Oh, Mama, I have been sick with worry. Oh, Mama. I have been so worried. Wherever have you been?”

  “Papa!” Sarah was exclaiming as she held out her arms and leaned away from Camille.

  And this was the daughter who had outdone her mother just a couple of years ago in very correct, icily controlled demeanor?

  There was a cluster of strangers out on the lawn, huddled inside warm cloaks before their easels as they worked on their paintings.

  “She did write, Cam,” Abigail cried, scrambling down from the carriage unassisted, as Joel had been distracted, first by Winifred, who wrapped an arm about his waist and raised a beaming face to his, and then by Sarah, who clasped her arms tightly about his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the lips. “To us and to Mrs. Sullivan. Somehow both letters were lost. Mama is betrothed, Cam.”

  And after all, Viola could not set the record straight, as she had intended to do the moment she arrived. Neither Camille nor the rest of the family when they all came to the house within the hour was thrilled by the announcement, especially when they knew the identity of her betrothed, but none of them protested loudly or demanded or even suggested that she change her mind before it was too late. For there was no hiding the fact that she and the Marquess of Dorchester had lived together for a few weeks before Alexander and the others had found her, though no one spoke of it. Everyone believed, or pretended to believe, the story that they had been betrothed before they decided to go to Devonshire for some time alone together and that therefore their behavior was less scandalous than it would otherwise have been.