by Mary Balogh
She thought about Mr. Munro. She hoped he would not leave before she had had a chance to see him again. It would have been far better if he had done what she had suggested and allowed her to come by stage from the nearest town. Her arrival had been horribly embarrassing, and she was sure that he must have felt the embarrassment too. But all seemed to have ended well.
The thought of not seeing him ever again saddened her in a strange way. He had been kind. He had been a gentleman, even if he had felt temptation when it had presented itself and had shown signs of being willing to give in to temptation. But after he had understood the misunderstanding, he had been the perfect gentleman. She hated to think of such a man going out of her life forever. She had met with so little kindness in the last several years. Perhaps things would change, of course. She was an heiress now—except that she had to marry within four months, and she had already made up her mind not to accept the suitor who was there and ready to oblige her.
The opening of the door heralded the return of Cousin Horace with Mr. Watkins. Stephanie looked eagerly beyond them for Mr. Munro, but he was not there. She hid a stabbing of disappointment. Had they not even invited him to tea? Or had he refused? There were still a few hours of daylight left. He could be well on his way to London before darkness fell.
Mr. Watkins cleared his throat. “Miss Gray,” he said, bowing to her with at least a decent show of respect, “would you care to join the, ah, the gentleman below stairs? He would like a word with you. He is in the library. The servant in the hall will show you the way.”
She jumped to her feet, a smile on her lips, and realized too late that her reaction had perhaps seemed too eager a one, considering the suspicions the other four occupants of the room must have about her and Mr. Munro. But she did not much care.
“Horace—” Cousin Bertha said, also getting to her feet.
But Cousin Horace held up a staying hand. “No, Bertha,” he said. “It is quite all right.”
Stephanie left the room without a word and ran lightly down the stairs. She felt a fluttering in her stomach again at the realization that this was all hers—or would be hers if … But she did not spare much thought for that little problem. Her eyes sought out the servant, who was standing across the hall before a large doorway. He opened the door as she approached him and smiled at him. She stepped inside the library.
He was standing with his back to the fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. He was not smiling, but then he had not smiled a great deal during their journey. He looked more—oh, what was the word? He looked more imposing than he had during their days together, though she remembered the impression she had had of him at first as a haughty, rather bored gentleman. She remembered his gloved hand tapping rather impatiently on the window of his carriage before he had decided to take her up.
If she were seeing him for the first time now, she thought, she would be a little afraid of him. But she was not seeing him for the first time. She hurried across the room toward him, both her hands outstretched. He took them in his.
“Mr. Munro,” she said, “I am so glad you did not slip away before I had a chance to speak with you. You cannot know how grateful I am to you. Words are not always adequate vehicles for the expression of feeling. You cannot know, perhaps, what it is like to be a woman stranded without money or friends far from either her place of origin or her destination. Frankly, it is terrifying. I might have died—or worse. I will repay you. I swear it. I will find a way. But I will not offer you money. It would be vulgar, would it not?” She smiled brightly at him.
“It would be vulgar,” he agreed. “Miss Gray, you are in need of a husband—very soon. Sir Peter Griffin is, I believe, the man to whom you referred during our travels?”
“Yes.” She would say nothing to make him feel the burden of her problem.
“He would make you a miserable husband,” he said. “He would make you feel like some inferior insect. I do not doubt he would beat you.”
She had not thought of that. But it might well be true. “He has not stopped frowning since he set eyes on my gorgeous plumes,” she said, laughing. “Poor man, he was quite disconcerted by them, was he not? I will be kind to him. I will refuse his offer.”
“Good,” he said. “Then I have no rival. You will marry me, Miss Gray, if you will be so good.”
At first she felt only incredulity. Then she understood. She laughed again. “Oh dear,” she said, “have they been threatening you? Have they backed you into a corner? Have they persuaded you to do the honorable thing, sir? What nonsense. I shall say no. No, thank you very much. There. Now they must be satisfied. You have offered, and I have refused. I daresay they will find someone else for me within four months. I do believe I must be far wealthier than even I thought if this house and park are anything to judge by. I will attract fortune hunters if no one else.”
She smiled reassuringly at him. How unpardonable of her cousin and her grandfather’s solicitor to make him feel that he had compromised her and must offer her marriage. When he had been so very kind. When he had come out of his way in order to make sure that she arrived safely. When he had saved her life.
“Miss Gray.” He had tightened his hold on her hands. “I think it unlikely that in four months you will find a husband to love—that one and only mate created for you in whom one is tempted to believe from time to time. You said yourself that you were prepared to accept an arranged marriage, that almost any marriage was preferable to you than the alternative. You have known me for only three days. It has been a very brief acquaintance, though the fact that we have spent every moment of each day together has perhaps made it seem longer. Do you have any violent objection to me as a husband? Can you not bring yourself to accept me?”
She could feel herself flushing. She was suddenly almost overwhelmed by temptation. In three days she had not once thought of him in terms of matrimony, except perhaps to envy the Mrs. Munro who clearly did not exist. But now that she did think of it, she could see that it was a very attractive idea indeed. Almost irresistibly so.
She frowned. “I told you so, did I not?” she said. “I warned you. I knew how it would seem if you brought me all the way here. But you were too gallant to allow me to travel the last short distance by stage, and I was too weak to insist. But you need not offer for me, you know, despite what Mr. Watkins and Cousin Horace may have said to you. Perhaps I have my chance to repay your kindness now, long before I expected to have any opportunity. I release you from any obligation you may feel, sir. You are free to leave and return to your life in London. There. It seems a small thing to do to repay such a debt, but it is really not so small, is it? Marriage is for a very long time—a lifetime. I once overheard one of Mr. Burnaby’s guests refer to marriage as a life sentence. He was right.” She tried to withdraw her hands from his, but he held on to them.
“Has it occurred to you, Miss Gray,” he asked, “that I did it all deliberately? That I have developed an attachment to you during the past few days, that I knew you must find a husband soon, that I maneuvered matters so that you would choose me?”
“But why?” She searched his eyes and found no answer there. “Do you mean that you fell in love with me?”
“I spoke of an attachment,” he said. “I have grown fond of you. Will you marry me?”
It was impossible. How could he have developed an attachment to her? She was a nothing, a nobody. Until a week ago she had been treated rather like dirt beneath the feet of her employers. It was six years since she had felt fully a person. How could he like her enough to wish to marry her? He was not obliged to marry within four months, after all. Then she had a thought.
“Are you impoverished?” she asked and then flushed painfully once more at the impulsive, dreadfully rude question. But she had the right to ask it of him under the circumstances, did she not? “Is it my fortune, sir?”
“I have made a tentative marriage agreement with your solicitor,” he said. “I have insisted that none of your property or for
tune will come to me in the event of our marriage. They are yours to enjoy while you live and to will to whom you choose. I have a quite adequate fortune of my own, thank you very much.”
“You really wish to marry me, then?” she said. “It is not because of the pressure they have put upon you?”
“There has been no pressure at all, Miss Gray,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
It was too wonderful to be true, she thought, feeling dazed. She had known him for only three days. Indeed, she did not know him at all. He had told her nothing about himself. But she had learned to like him, to trust him. And he was so—beautiful. She despised the thought, but she was honest enough with herself to know that it made a difference. She would have a handsome husband after all. And really, if she needed an argument to finally clinch the answer, she knew she was going to give anyway—there was no time in which to be cautious. Four months really was not a great deal of time at all.
“Yes, then,” she said. “If you are quite sure, sir. Because I owe you so much. Everything, in fact.”
He raised her hands one at a time to his lips. She felt his warm breath on her hands and realized something that self-discipline had kept from her conscious mind for three days. In addition to being handsome, he was attractive. He was going to be her husband. She was going to have an intimate relationship with him. She felt slightly breathless.
“It is time I introduced myself properly to you, then,” he said. “I have told you only half. Alistair Munro, Duke of Bridgwater, at your service, Miss Gray.”
Her stomach felt as if it whooshed up into her throat, whipped itself upside down, righted itself once more, and slid back down into its appointed position. The whole exercise left her breathless, wobbly-legged, and fuzzy-headed. She clung to his hands, which suddenly felt very much warmer than her own.
“No,” she said.
“Yes.” He half smiled. “I am afraid so. You will be nothing as mundane as Mrs. Munro, you see. You will be the Duchess of Bridgwater.”
“No.” She succeeded in freeing her hands. She turned her back on him. “Oh, no. That is quite impossible. I could not possibly be. I would have no idea—What would I even call you?” She turned to look at him in deep dismay. “What do I call you? My lord?”
He clasped his hands at his back. It was there plain to see now that she was looking for it. It was quite unmistakable. He was every inch the aristocrat.
“Other people address me—and will address you—as ‘Your Grace,’ ” he said. “You may call me Alistair, Miss Gray.”
“No,” she said. “Oh, no, sir … Your Grace. This is bizarre.”
“I am to be rejected, then,” he asked, “merely because I had the misfortune to be born heir to a dukedom? Have pity on me.”
“I grew up in a vicarage,” she said. “For six years I have been a governess in the home of people who have only a small claim to gentility. I believed a short while ago that Sir Peter Griffin was the only titled person I have ever met, and I despised myself for almost feeling awe. But you are a duke. It is impossible, sir. You and I have lived in different universes.”
“You are afraid,” he said, “that you will be unable to fit into my world, Miss Gray? And yet you own all this?” He lifted one arm to sweep in a wide arc that seemed to include the room and everything beyond it. “Your grandfather has already moved you into a new world. My mother will help you move comfortably in mine—and my sisters. They will be delighted.”
It was the first personal detail she had learned about him. He had a mother and sisters.
“I must return to London without further delay,” he said. “But I will have Mrs. Cavendish bring you to town within the week. She and my mother will take you shopping. We will have the announcement of our betrothal and imminent marriage announced in the morning papers. My mother will take you about to all the correct social functions. And soon—well within the four-month limit—we will marry at St. George’s, Hanover Square. Have you heard of it? It is where almost all the fashionable marriages of the Season are solemnized. And then you will be my duchess.”
“No,” she said. She was terrified—and terrifyingly excited.
“You said no to me on another occasion,” he said, “and I believed you and left you. Must I believe you now too? Will you not marry me? Would you prefer Sir Peter?”
She bit her lip.
“Say yes,” he said. “Please?” He smiled fully, an expression she had seen only once before. Usually he only half smiled, using his eyes more than the rest of his face.
“Yes, then,” she said. “You have been so kind from the start. You are the only one who has shown me respect and believed in who I am since I was forced to wear those embarrassing clothes.”
“Splendid.” His smile disappeared, and his manner became brisk and businesslike. “We will go to the drawing room, Miss Gray, and make our announcement and swift arrangements for your coming to London. I must be on my way then. You will find, though, I believe, that you will be treated here with considerably more respect than was accorded you on your arrival. If you are not, you must insist on it. And if you are still not, I will want to know the reason why of your relatives and your solicitor when they bring you to town next week.”
She felt suddenly like a child who had no control whatsoever over her destiny. He swept into command as to the manner born. It seemed for the next half hour as if she said nothing except “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir”—she could not seem to bring herself to call him “Your Grace.” And it seemed to her as if everyone else said no more than the same words, either, though they all addressed him correctly.
And then, long before she had worked the bewilderment from her brain, he had her back down in the hall, and he had both her hands in his again, and he was bowing over them and lifting them to his lips and reminding her that he would do himself the honor of calling upon her in London in one week’s time.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
His lips quirked briefly so that for a moment she was reminded of the man with whom she had traveled for the past three days. Her feeling of unease lifted. But then he straightened up and left the house without another word or backward glance.
Stephanie took a deep breath and held it for a long time. She felt as if she had been caught up in a whirlwind one week ago and was still spinning helplessly about, waiting to be dropped to earth again. She wondered if it would be a soft landing or if she would be dashed quite to pieces.
Somewhere along the way she seemed to have lost herself. It was a bewildering thought.
6
HE MARCHIONESS OF HAYDEN AND THE COUNTESS of Greenwald were sitting with their mother, the Duchess of Bridgwater, in the drawing room of her town house. The Duke of Bridgwater was present too, though he was on his feet, pacing more than he was sitting down. They were waiting for the arrival of Mrs. Bertha Cavendish and Miss Stephanie Gray to take tea.
“Do sit down, Alistair,” his mother said, looking up from her embroidery at him. “You remind me of a bear in a cage.”
“I beg your pardon, Mama,” he said stiffly, seating himself in the nearest chair.
“I still cannot believe what you have done, Alistair,” the marchioness said, frowning. “A parson’s daughter. A governess. And you a duke. You know very well that a duke rarely looks below an earl’s daughter for a bride.”
“But she is an heiress, Lizzie,” the countess said gently. “A very wealthy one, apparently. And she is a gentleman’s daughter. You speak as if she were entirely beyond the pale. I am sure she is quite lovely and quite refined. Else Alistair would not have offered for her.”
“Thank you, Jane,” the duke said dryly, getting to his feet again and taking up a brief stand before the fireplace.
“But we know very well, Jane,” the marchioness said, “that he offered because he felt he had compromised her. How can a duke compromise a governess? I would like to know. Hayden says—”
“I offered,” the duke said firmly, fingering the handle of his qui
zzing glass and looking rather haughtily at the elder of his two sisters, “because I wished to, Elizabeth. And I do not recall granting you—or Hayden—permission to question my wishes. Miss Gray is no longer a governess. She is, as Jane has pointed out, a considerable heiress, owner of Sindon Park. And she is soon to be the Duchess of Bridgwater. You will doubtless keep those facts in mind when she calls.”
“The only significant fact,” the duchess said, setting her embroidery on a small table beside her, “is that Alistair is betrothed to Miss Gray and that her cousin has brought her to town and is accompanying her here this afternoon to make our acquaintance. We will remember, all three of us, that within a month Miss Gray will assume my title as Alistair’s wife, that she will be the leading lady of this family, superseding even me. I will be merely the dowager duchess. We will treat her accordingly, both this afternoon and for the rest of our lives. I trust that is understood?”
“Yes, Mama,” the countess said, smiling. “I am sure I am going to love her. I have been despairing of you, Alistair.”
“Of course, Mama,” the marchioness said more briskly. “You can always count on me to behave with good breeding and to do what is correct. Hayden always says—”
“Ah,” the duchess said as the drawing room door opened, “here is Louise at last.”
Lady George Munro, the Duke of Bridgwater’s sister-in-law, hurried into the room, bent over her mother-in-law to kiss her cheek, and smiled a greeting at everyone else.
“I thought I might be late,” she said. “Caroline is cutting teeth and was fretting at being left with Nurse. But I would not have missed coming here for worlds. Alistair, you are looking positively green. George says he cannot understand what possessed you. You are always so very high in the instep—his words, not mine, I assure you.” She laughed lightly. “We thought perhaps you were waiting for an available princess, having judged every other lady beneath your notice.”