by Abby Ayles
“I hope that you will not see any sign of ungratefulness in me. Indeed ungratefulness is the farthest thing from my mind. I foster nothing but kind feelings towards you.
“But you must allow me this, my lord. I hold you in high regard and know that you are a man of honor. But I must give back that which you offered me and I formerly accepted. I wish to end our engagement.”
Lord Ridgecleff looked thunderstruck. Natalie had heard and read the word before but had never seen it so perfectly acted out in real life before. The poor man’s face was the very definition of the word.
“You…” Natalie felt her voice failing her. “You are…surprised?”
“I confess so, yes,” Lord Ridgecleff replied.
“But…why, my lord?” Natalie asked. Now she was surprised. And confused. “Are you not relieved?”
“Why should I be relieved?” Lord Ridgecleff asked. His tone was so sharp that it reminded Natalie of their great argument. Natalie even inadvertently took a step back.
But then she stood her ground. She had not been afraid of him when she did not like him. She would not be afraid of him now that she loved him.
“You are free now,” she replied. “You can take your time. You can marry only when you wish, when you choose, and it will be a woman that you can truly admire.”
Lord Ridgecleff stared at her. He seemed to be quite at a loss for words.
Natalie continued on.
“You have previously accused me of selfish behavior. You were right in that. Well, you must admit you can think of nothing more selfish than a woman who retains a man in engagement knowing he will not be happy with her.
“I know that you may fear what will happen to me afterwards. I would not concern yourself. I have had many suitors before. I shall have them again, and this time I hope that my behavior is improved enough that I shall keep one.
“My sister Bridget as you know leaves for the Continent with Lady Dunhill after my youngest sister Regina marries. I can journey with them perhaps. See the world. Marry a man from over there.”
Natalie forced herself to smile, to seem nonchalant about it. “With two sisters married and one engaged and Bridget all settled…why should I panic? I have a year or two left.”
Or at least, she hoped that she had a year or two left. But that could be wishful thinking. Her time might have already come and gone. And who would want to take a chance on a lady who had already abandoned one fiancé?
No. She must not think in such a manner. It would be all right. She would be fine.
It was hard to keep looking up into Lord Ridgecleff’s face, but she forced herself to do so. She was not to be a cowed child who had to look at the ground while discussing a difficult subject.
“I wish you all the best in the world. I hope that you will believe that. My actions are not born out of ill will. I am glad, in fact, that I have been given this opportunity.
“As awful as your father’s death is…and forgive me for speaking of it when it is still so fresh. But it affords you an opportunity. You are no longer bound by his dictates.
“This means that you are the earl. Your inheritance does not ride upon being engaged already. You can take your time and be free. Do as you like.
“It would be unfair of me to stand in the way of that. And so I hope for you to find happiness. I shall have my things, and my sister’s things, packed up at once. We can leave first thing tomorrow.
“Of course we can leave sooner if you would like. I’m certain that we can have our things ready in time to set out and reach the nearest inn by nightfall. But I could finish helping you with funeral preparations today. If you would like.”
Lord Ridgecleff gave an odd little laugh. It was almost as though he were laughing at himself as much as at her. “You have this all quite worked out, don’t you?”
She was not sure what to say to that. It did not feel as though he was mocking her. But nor did it feel as though he was entirely serious, either.
“My lord?” she asked, confused. “If I have offended—”
Lord Ridgecleff held up a hand to stay her. “It appears to me as though you have forgotten one thing.”
“And what is that?” Natalie asked.
He took a small step closer. His eyes were warm on hers. “You have made a grave error in your assumptions. You have not asked me if I wish for you to end our engagement.”
Hope, sudden and warm and terrifying, burst open in her chest. It rose up within her like the dawn.
“Do you…not wish for it to end?” she asked. “But…I’m afraid that you have me in a great deal of confusion, my lord. Why should you not wish for it to end?”
Lord Ridgecleff sighed. “Do you truly not know?”
“What could I not know?” She felt a little as if they were talking in circles now.
Lord Ridgecleff looked out over the garden. “How I feel for you,” he said, very quietly.
Natalie’s breath caught in her throat. “And…if I may be so impertinent as to ask…how do you feel? For me? I was unaware that you had any feelings for me at all. Except perhaps—but I had hoped, the best I had decided upon was indifference.”
He gave a quiet laugh, almost as if he were poking fun at himself. “I’m afraid that I have behaved quite the buffoon in this entire affair.” He looked over at her. “Can you forgive me?”
“Yes, at once, if you will tell me what it is I ought to be forgiving you for.”
“For not telling you how I felt. For assuming that I knew how you felt and therefore keeping my own heart a secret. For not simply speaking of this to you as a sensible man would.”
He sighed. “But it is difficult when one is taught to be cautious in affairs of the heart. How can a man speak plain when he is lectured all his boyhood about being reticent? About not giving in to flights of fancy where young ladies are concerned?
“I thought that to share my innermost feelings would be to earn your distaste. I thought that if I were to tell you how I felt it would only burden you. I see now that it would have cleared things up between us.
“So allow me, if you will, to speak plainly now.”
He turned to face her once again. Natalie felt caught, rooted to the spot.
“I admit that my first thoughts of your character were concerned ones. But the first moment that I saw you my impression was one of beauty.
“You took my breath away. And after we had…settled things between us and been frank with one another concerning the failings in our characters…I found that you were beginning to steal my breath away again.
“You were as beautiful in face and form as when I had first seen you at the masquerade. But now I was beginning to find that your character was just as beautiful.
“You had taken my chastisement as few women could and you had pointed out to me my own flaws in judgment and behavior. Through you I was humbled and bettered. And I was nothing short of delighted with the woman that I saw you becoming.
“I found that I had come to depend upon you. I looked forward to every moment you chose to be by my side. I was quite in the middle of loving you before I even realized that I had started.
“You started out as everything I had hoped against. But you quickly turned into everything that I had not even let myself wish for. When I first read my father’s orders…my plan was to find a woman that I could tolerate.
“On the contrary, I found myself engaged to a woman that I loved.
“I had not dared to hope that you might return my affections. I knew that I had made a bad impression upon you. We had argued. We were quite different in temperament.
“Often I wished that there was some way to free you from this tangle in which we found ourselves. Yet I could see no escape for what I believed to be a woman trapped.
“I had entertained some half-baked ideas of convincing my father that I did not need to be engaged just yet. But he cared greatly for you. I could see how well and how easily you handled him and how you delighted him.
; “How could I take that away from him? It became a matter of whom I would displease, the woman I loved or the father that I also loved. Both of you I had wronged through my proud and stubborn behavior.
“I saw no way out. It greatly upset me. I would have given you anything that you wanted. Laid my heart at your feet if that was what you had asked of me. And yet the one thing that I was convinced you wanted I could not give you.
“I started to concoct plans. Ways that you could spend part of the time in London. Ways we could host balls here at Mountbank. Anything to give you some reasons to be happy even if you were tied to me.
“And you know—I do not know if anyone said such things to you. But you must know that your sister said things to me. The eldest, Miss Bridget Hartfield. Others said things to me as well.
“They congratulated me on how you had changed. On how much lighter I seemed to be. It was awful in a way to know that my change in demeanor was so obvious. If they could see the ways my love for you shone out then certainly you did as well?
“I thought for a time that you must know and were simply ignoring it in order to be kind to me. I thought that you were only pretending when you seemed so delighted to see me when we were at a ball or at your sister’s wedding.
“People would come up to me and tell me all about how much better you were. And I thought that they must be exaggerating. Especially in their accounts of your esteem for me.
“I know, I know that you must think me a halfwit to have not believed the word of so many impartial strangers. But you must remember those ladies at the ball as well.
“They said unkind things about you that I refused to believe. You begged me to believe that they were not true of you anymore. And I did. I listened to you.
“If these ladies could be wrong in their judgment of you then surely these other men and women could be wrong as well? When they told me of how much you esteemed me and how much we balanced one another out?
“It was folly to me to hope. Pure folly.
“Yet every day I found myself more and more in love with you. It tears my heart out even now to say those words. I still fear the gentle rejection you might yet give me. I know you will be gentle about it, if it is rejection you will give. I always knew that.
“You were a lady who acted without thought at times. But you were never deliberately cruel. You would not purposefully lead me on. And if you knew how I felt I was certain that you would give my heart back to me with the softest words and gestures that you could muster.
“But rejection, soft or callous, is still rejection.
“I braced myself for an unequal marriage. A marriage in which I gave you all that I could to make you happy. A marriage in which you felt nothing but indifference while I felt the strongest of passions.
“It was unfair to both of us. But I knew of no other recourse.
“And then…well. As you well know. There came this whole business.”
Natalie nodded. It was still quite fresh in his heart and mind, she could tell. And why should it not be? It had taken her ages to get over her mother’s death. She had been younger of course. A child, really. But they were all children to their parents. One always felt young and vulnerable where they were concerned.
She wanted to fling herself into his arms. She wanted to declare her own feelings. She wanted to burst into tears from joy and relief.
But she waited. She sensed that he was not quite finished.
Lord Ridgecleff cleared his throat. She could see him visibly controlling himself and moving past the subject of his father.
He glanced away from her, and when his gaze drew back to her she saw that he was once again in control of himself.
“Circumstances had now changed. I was the earl proper now. My inheritance was not only secure, it was a moot point. I had already received it.
“This meant, of course, that I no longer needed to adhere to my father’s orders. He had threatened to change the will and papers regarding the estate but once I returned here with you he informed me that he had not yet done so.
“Without that threat hanging over my head, I was free to do as I wished regarding marriage. Which, in turn, meant that you were free.
“I resolved to speak to you about it as soon as the funeral arrangements were dealt with. I could not bear to do so while I was struggling to prepare for the aftermath of my father’s…passing.
“Especially when you were so kind. When you were extending yourself beyond anything expected of you. When you were already behaving as a member of the household. As its mistress.
“You cannot imagine the sheer joy that it gave me to see you behave so. Even dampened as it was by my utter conviction that you did not return my affection, it could not be completely snuffed out. Please believe me when I say you were my one comfort during this dark time.
“When I had to be strong for the sake of my father and my siblings, you seemed to know when I was weak. You knew what I needed. You were honest and delivered no pity. But you also continued to uphold that bit of joy.”
He smiled at her, warm and loving, and Natalie nearly burst into tears with happiness. He was looking at her with such unending love. Could it be that he had looked at her this entire time and she had not noticed?
She felt quite a foolish girl but oh, what a thing to be foolish over! It was so much better than the many other ways she had been foolish over the years and especially concerning him.
“I determined, then, that I had to let you go. I would find a time when all had quieted down. I would speak to you of the matter and encourage you to end the engagement so that you might find someone you could truly esteem.
“I knew the risk to yourself, of course. I fretted over that a great deal. If you had asked to stay by my side for security I would not have begrudged you for a moment. A lady must take care for herself and her future.
“I would have happily taken care of you. I would have been a loyal husband. Even if there was an unevenness in our regard for one another. I knew that you would never give me cause to regret our union. You would never make a laughingstock of me. Nor would you debase yourself, as some desperate women in unhappy marriages do.
“The choice would be entirely yours. But this decision was made in my mind the same way that your decision was made up in yours: without thinking to simply be honest with the other person.
“I was shown the error of my ways by my brother just now.”
“Your brother?” Natalie still did not know how Edward Ridgecleff came into the matter. He was the person at Mountbank with whom she had spent the least amount of time. How could he have read the pair of them so easily and swiftly?
“He told me that it was quite plain the measure of affection you held towards me,” Lord Ridgecleff explained with a small, amused smile. “And he warned me to ensure that you knew of your sacred place in my heart. It seemed he had picked up on how you feared I did not return your deep warmth of feeling.”
Natalie felt herself blushing. She couldn’t believe that she had been so obvious. Her fiancé’s brother, a man that she had only spoken to a few times, was able to figure out how she felt. She must have been wearing her heart on her sleeve this entire time.
“I should have been forthright with you in this,” Lord Ridgecleff said. “So much time has been wasted between us when we might have been united in our understanding.”
“You cannot blame yourself if I am not allowed to shoulder some of the responsibility as well,” Natalie replied.
“I cannot say that I know fully when I began to regard you as more than a mere person of respect. But it has been for some time. Louisa has been telling me that I ought to be honest with you and I am afraid I let fear rule me as you did.
“I was convinced that I had ruined any chance with you through my former childish behavior. I thought that any regard I saw was imagined. Or merely exaggerated by my own hopefulness.
“I was so certain that any chance with you was lost. I refused to listen to her and inst
ead kept silent. If I had been honest with you…” Natalie smiled, embarrassed. “Perhaps all of this might have been avoided, as you said.”
“I admit I am in shock that you did not guess,” Lord Ridgecleff replied. “I thought that I was painfully obvious. That nothing could hide how I felt. When I was so incensed after the way those ladies spoke of you at the ball…I thought that you had to know.”
“Well, I can easily say that I thought the same. I thought my admiration for you was apparent. I thought you were keeping quiet merely to assist me in retaining my sense of self-respect.”
“I have the distinct feeling that the two of us were discussed by your sister and my brother,” Lord Ridgecleff told her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “She accompanied him on his walk yesterday.”
“Yes, I suggested it. Louisa is very good at lending a kind ear when one is in distress.” Natalie realized what Lord Ridgecleff was aiming at. “Do you mean to say that she spoke to him of my feelings? And he to her of his own suspicions?”
“I think so,” Lord Ridgecleff said. “In which case I suggest that we find some way to pay them back again for their machinations.”
“I would be all for such a thing, for you know I dearly love a laugh,” Natalie replied. “But I find I’m rather…oh, I shall sound like one of those ridiculous heroines in those novels. But I find I am too happy to mind.
“If your brother had not said anything, and I had offered to end the engagement…” Her breath stuttered.
“Yes. I would have thought it was the nail in the coffin of proof that you did not care for me.” Lord Ridgecleff looked torn between frustration and sadness. “I would have let you go.”
“And then we both would have been miserable for entirely no reason whatsoever,” Natalie said. Oh, how close they had both come to heartbreak. She really ought to order a gift or something for her…
Her soon-to-be brother-in-law. For they were still engaged. They would be married.
She looked up at Lord Ridgecleff. It felt as though her smile would take over her entire face. She possibly looked unstable because of it. “Then we are to stay engaged. We are to be married.”