by Mary Balogh
The most foolish of all his questions. Of course she would not have told him.
But where was she? England was rather a large country to search, not to mention the possibilities of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and perhaps even France and the Continent, he thought in somewhat of a panic when he discovered a week later that indeed she was not with the cousin in Yorkshire, and had not been there at all.
Cavendish Square? Portman Square? But no, she would not go to London. Bruce’s home in the country? No, her brother would be the last person, she would turn to under almost any circumstance, certainly the particular one he imagined she was in.
There was only one hopeful sign. She had left her house in Bath open and functioning, with all the servants. Surely she must come back at sometime if only to settle her affairs. He could only hope it would be soon. Surely she would not stay away for the full nine months and then return alone, as if from Yorkshire. Would she?
Surely she would not do that. No, Allie would not do that.
He spent the following two months moving restlessly back and forth between Westhaven Park and Bath, with one brief journey to London to instruct his man of business to call regularly at Cavendish Square just on the chance that she would go there.
He happened to be at Westhaven Park when a short letter arrived from Andrea Potter to say that Alice was back and planning to leave again within a week in order to make her permanent home with her husband’s cousins in Yorkshire.
The following day he took his usual suite of rooms at the York House hotel.
***
It was strange that she had not wanted to come back, Alice thought, but that now she had, she felt reluctant to return to her seaside cottage. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that it was late summer and the days were unusually sunny and warm. Or with the fact that she had established this home after leaving Chandlos and built up a circle of friends whose acquaintance she valued. Or with the fact that her home in Bath was filled with furnishings and possessions that had been with her during her marriage and before, and everything could not go with her to Devonshire. Or with the fact that Piers had been with her in Bath and the place was filled with memories of him.
However it was, she did not particularly like the thought of going back. Yet she knew she must, and soon. Even the temptation to linger for a few weeks or a month must be resisted. As it was, she had waited almost too long. Her first comment to Andrea three days before, after kissing her and greeting her, had been a laughing one about how well her cousin’s cook had fed her in Yorkshire and how she must look to her figure when she returned.
Andrea, bless her heart, had shown remarkably little curiosity about her three months spent in Yorkshire. Alice had been prepared with a whole arsenal of lies, but it was a relief not to have to use many of them.
She had visited all her friends, including Sir Harold Dean, who had been ailing for a few weeks, and had attended the theater with the Potters and Mr. Horvath the evening before. But she had been busy most of the time and thankful for the necessity of keeping herself so.
On the fourth morning after her return she had been to the Pump Room, drawn there more by the bright morning sunshine and the craving for exercise and company than because she had nothing else to do. But the rest of the morning had to be spent overseeing the packing of the trunks that were to accompany her. She was wearing her oldest morning dress. Her hair had come somewhat awry since its morning dressing.
It was Mr. Horvath, she thought, looking down at herself in some despair when her housekeeper announced that there was a gentleman belowstairs to see her. She had said the evening before that she might walk with him in Sidney Gardens for an hour during the afternoon if she could get all her packing done first. But why had he come during the morning?
She hesitated only long enough to decide that she would not return to her room to change her dress and re-comb her hair. After all, he knew that she was in the middle of her packing.
She hoped it was Mr. Horvath. Her feet faltered on the stairs at the thought that perhaps it was someone else. Sir Clayton, for example. She had forgotten to ask Andrea if he was back from London, though it seemed strange that she had not seen him if he were. And no one had mentioned him to her.
She hoped it was not he. She entered the salon rather cautiously. And closed the door with a bang behind her and extended both hands.
“Piers!” she said. “What a delightful surprise! What on earth are you doing in Bath? I thought you would be on your wedding journey by now. But perhaps you are? Is Miss Borden—I mean, is Mrs. Westhaven—with you? Are congratulations now in order?”
“Am I permitted to answer your questions in reverse order?” he asked, taking her hands and squeezing them tightly before releasing them. “Yes, definitely. No, she is not. No, I am not.” He was checking the answers off on his fingers. “And what was the first? Ah yes. Visiting you. You would never believe me if I said taking the waters, would you?”
“Not for a moment,” she said, laughing. “But I have forgotten my questions, you provoking man.”
“Congratulations are definitely in order, Allie,” he said. “I have been jilted in favor of a gentleman who has more to offer than I in terms of future assets, it seems. And perhaps you should sit down while I break a particularly nasty piece of news to you.”
“What?” she asked, continuing to smile, and not taking a seat.
“You have been jilted, too,” he said. “Lansing has absconded with the fishy heiress.”
“What?” she said. “Piers!”
“True,” he said. “Do you need me to send for your smelling salts, Allie?”
“No,” she said. “But if you had a feather, you could knock me down with it, Piers.”
“A shocking humiliation, is it not?” he said. “What are we going to do about it, Allie? Marry each other as a consolation?”
“No, silly,” she said. “Oh, Piers, have you really been released from that dreadful betrothal? I am so glad.”
“So is my mother,” he said. “She told me to go out and find myself someone more sensible.”
“A very commendable idea,” she said, “And have you started to do that, Piers?”
“Yes,” he said.
She smiled. “How coincidental that you have come just this week,” she said, “I have been away for three months, you know. No, I suppose you do not know. I have been in Yorkshire with Web’s cousin and his family.”
“Ah,” he said. “With Oscar. Charming fellow.” His brow furrowed in thought. “What is his wife’s name?”
“Cecily,” she said.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “They have three children?”
“Four,” she said. “Two sons and two daughters.”
“Ah,” he said. “Far more sensible than three and one. Or four and nothing, for that matter. You enjoyed yourself, then, Allie?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am going back there next week. Indefinitely. They want me to live with them.”
“Yes, I can imagine they would,” he said. “They are enormously hospitable people. Web and I almost did not get to Scotland when we called on them. They wanted us to stay forever.”
“Yes,” she said. “I can believe it. You were not in the Pump Room this morning, Piers?”
“No,” he said. “I was all tired out from the journey yesterday. I am very thankful to find you here at the end of it, though. I would have hated to make the trip for nothing.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am glad I did not miss you.”
“Been romping with the mice in the attic, have you, Allie?” he asked. “You look charmingly rumpled.”
“Oh.” She could feel herself flush and had to concentrate on keeping her wide smile intact. “I have been directing the packing of my trunks. I am closing the house, you see, and putting it on the market.”
“Ah,” he said. “A good idea. Will you come driving with me this afternoon, Allie?”
“Oh,” she said. “I am so sorry. I
have half promised to walk in Sidney Gardens with Mr. Horvath. I did not know you were here, Piers.”
“No matter,” he said. “What about this evening?” She grimaced. “I have promised Miss Dean that I will sit with her father and read to him while she takes tea at the Upper Rooms,” she said. “He has been quite unwell.”
“And will I be interrupting a tête-à-tête if I accompany you?” he asked. “It would be embarrassing to find myself a third party to a proposal of marriage or anything of that nature.”
“Piers.” She laughed. “How absurd you are. It will be a dreadfully dull evening for you.”
“You must have changed, then,” he said. “There must be more changes about you than just the disheveled appearance. I have never found your company dull before, Allie.”
“Come, then,” she said. “But don’t be surprised if Sir Harold nods off to sleep just when you are in the middle of what you think to be a particularly fascinating anecdote.”
“Good Lord,” he said. “Does he do that? I shall be sure to waste none of my best stories on him, then. But he sounds like the ideal chaperon, Allie. A rakish gentleman’s dream come true. Unless he makes a habit of waking up at the wrong moments, that is.”
She laughed again.
“I shall allow you to return to your trunks and your mice in the attic, then,” he said. “One hates to interrupt a lady when she is having fun. I shall take you up in my carriage this evening, Allie, and hope fervently that Miss Dean does not neglect to give her father his sleeping draft before taking herself off in pursuit of tea.”
He made her a half bow and held the door open for her to precede him into the hallway. His mouth was pursed in that way he had always had when he was entertaining some private and amusing thought about someone else.
Alice made her way upstairs and into the drawing room, where she sat down, glad of the privacy that she would not have had in her room, where both Penelope and her housekeeper were busy packing. Her legs were shaking, she noticed with some surprise as she took her weight off them.
Piers was the last person she had expected to see. She had thought never to see him again. And he was unmarried, unbetrothed, unattached.
She wished and wished that he had not come. She had thought all that turmoil behind her. She had achieved a hard-won measure of tranquility in the past three months. She did not want it all destroyed. She did not want another few days with him. And then the inevitable parting again.
She did not believe she could hold on to her sanity if she had to go through all that again.
If! She was already going through it. She was already wishing poor Mr. Horvath a million miles away, and already wondering if she could squeeze all her business into a few hours a day so that she would have time to spend with Piers.
She did not want it. She did not want all this again. How she wished he had not come. What a cruel fate that he had chosen this of all weeks during which to pay her a call.
Web’s cousin was Oscar. She had forgotten that. What a blessing that Piers had mentioned the name first. She had been planning to call him Claude. She hoped Piers would not remember the real name of the wife. She had felt a moment of panic when she had realized that he knew of the Yorkshire cousin. She must steer the conversation away from that particular topic during the evening.
She looked down at the faded blue of her muslin dress and raised her hands to her hair. Oh, what a mess she was. How dreadful she must look. How obnoxious and how typical of Piers to give her no warning that he was coming.
***
Allie was always impeccably neat and elegant, Piers thought as he rode out into the hills beyond Bath that afternoon. He could not remember seeing her before that morning with even a hair out of place. Except for one occasion, he supposed.
She had looked knee-weakeningly beautiful that morning, faded old dress, untidy hair, smudged cheek, and all. Of course there was that new fullness about her face and breasts that perhaps would detract from her beauty to an impartial observer. But on him they had quite the opposite effect.
Oh, quite the opposite!
And so, he thought, dragging his mind free of his own-selfish elation, he had destroyed her after all. One night of indiscretion on both their parts and the whole of her life had been thrown into turmoil. Destroyed.
She would not now lose all her respectability, of course, as she would have done if Bosley had been a little more the gentleman and refrained from persuading Cassandra into eloping with Lansing. Despite the sunshine and the warmth of the day, he turned cold at the thought that he might have been married when he discovered the truth. If he ever had discovered it for certain.
But respectability was not all. Retaining it would bring her no happiness. For retaining it would involve marrying him. Allie was going to have to marry him.
Allie! The rector’s daughter with her young woman’s slender body and large, calm eyes and silky dark hair. The quiet girl turned woman, whom he had loved at a glance when the transformation was effected. And whom he had known himself unworthy of at the selfsame moment, for his youth had been marred by a wild debauchery that had even come near to putting a strain on his friendship with Web.
Allie. Web’s betrothed. Web’s bride. With the blushing cheeks and the luminous eyes, gazing at her bride-groom with a virgin’s wonder and timidity. Web’s wife. Serene and charming and gentle. A woman fulfilled. A woman in love.
And Allie limp and silent in his arms while he wept, numbed by her grief after Web died.
Allie, always beyond him, always worshiped, always loved from afar, even when he had suppressed the knowledge for a few years. And now, in one night of folly he had defiled her and left the mark of his possession on her. She would have to marry him.
There was no cause for elation in the thought. Any joy he had felt that morning as soon as he had set eyes on her and known beyond any shadow of doubt was a misplaced joy. Because it was for himself and not for the woman he would have died for sooner than trap into a joyless future.
But it must be done. He had no choices. And neither had she.
***
Time was going too fast and too slowly again, Alice thought later that evening during the carriage ride home. She wanted it over, over and done with. She wanted herself back in Devonshire, safe in her cottage, Bath and these days long behind her. And yet the evening was gone already. And she had only three more days until her planned journey. Piers had not said how long he was to stay.
So little time. And all the pain looming ahead again.
“To be mistaken for Lansing!” Piers said beside her. “The worst humiliation of my life, Allie.”
She laughed. “Poor Sir Harold, “ she said. “He was wandering in his mind even worse than when I saw him two days ago. But he did add that he had forgotten Sir Clayton was such a handsome devil, as he put it. There is your consolation, Piers.”
“Hm,” he said. “And I thought he was supposed to pop off to sleep, Allie. I left all my best stories at York House and had to listen instead to the reminiscences of almost eighty years of living.”
“You are wonderful with the elderly, Piers,” she said. “You need not pretend that you did not deliberately set out to give Sir Harold his happiest evening in a long while. Most people are impatient with his ramblings. You put on a great show of interest. And I do not believe for one moment that it really was all show.”
“Ah,” he said. “I did not have a moment for conversation with you, though, Allie.”
“I shall be at the Pump Room tomorrow morning,” she said with a smile as the carriage drew a halt outside her house.
“I am going to invite myself in now,” he said. “Will your housekeeper have a fit of the vapors, do you suppose?”
“No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “It is still quite early.”
“Yes,” he said, getting out of the carriage and turning to help her to the pavement. “And even if it were not, Allie.”
She preceded him up the steps and di
d not stop to try to interpret his strange words. She was concentrating on keeping her breathing even. She was concentrating on smiling.
“Shall I have tea brought in?” she asked when they entered the drawing room. “Or chocolate? Or something stronger, perhaps?”
“Nothing,” he said. He had crossed the room to the fireplace and stood with his elbow propped on the mantel. “Where have you been, Allie? “
“Been?” She frowned.
“When you were supposedly with Oscar and the mythical wife and four children,” he said. “Where were you?”
She flushed. “I do not understand your meaning,” she said.
“I met Oscar years ago,” he said. “With Web. He would not have let you over the threshold, Allie. But to be doubly sure, I went there to see. Two months ago.”
She stared at him. He did not look like Piers. All the humor was gone from his face.
“Where were you?”
She did not answer for a while. “Somewhere else,” she said. “I do not have to explain myself to you, Piers.”
“Maybe you will have to soon,” he said. “You had better marry me, Allie.”
“Don’t be foolish,” she said. She wished she had sat down when she came into the room. Now she felt stranded in the middle of the floor.
He looked at her for a long moment in silence. “We both know it is not foolishness,” he said.
“What do you mean?” She felt horribly out of control of the conversation.
“You have seen yourself in the mirror every day,” he said. “You would not have noticed changes. I have not seen you for three months.”