by Mary Balogh
If raw terror could ever be a tangible thing, then she was it.
The journey seemed endless and was over far too quickly. She felt Maude’s cool fingertips patting the back of her hand as the carriage turned onto the driveway leading to Brambledean. “You look lovely, Miss Wren,” she said. “If you would just believe that, your whole life would turn around.”
Wren opened her mouth to snap back yet again. Instead she startled herself and her maid by leaning closer and kissing her cheek. “I love my life just as it is, Maude,” she said not quite truthfully, “and I love you.”
Her maid had no response but to gape.
The Earl of Riverdale must have been watching for her. The main doors opened as the carriage drew to a halt, and he came down the steps and reached the carriage door before her coachman could jump down from the box. He opened it, set down the steps, and extended a hand to help Wren alight, a smile on his face. But she would be willing to wager he was feeling far less at ease than he looked. What man would look forward to introducing her to his mother, after all? Had he been hoping she would lose her courage and not come?
“You have made good time,” he said. “Happy Easter to you, Miss Heyden.”
“And did you notice today?” she asked him almost defiantly when she was down on the terrace beside him.
His smile deepened, and his eyes seemed to turn bluer, and she wondered what on earth she was doing even considering marrying him. He could have any woman on earth, even a few as rich as she or richer. He could not possibly want to marry her.
“I have noticed the elegance of your dress and the vividness of the color, which suits you perfectly,” he said. “I have noticed that your straw bonnet suggests summertime, as the weather itself does. I have noticed that there is no veil in sight. And—ah, yes, now that I look more closely I notice that you seem to have some slight blemish on the left side of your face. The next time or the time after that I daresay I will not notice it at all.”
Some slight blemish indeed. And the next time or the time after that, indeed. “And happy Easter to you too, Lord Riverdale,” she said rather sourly, though she had been warmed by his humor.
“Come and meet my mother and sister.” He offered his arm. “They are in the drawing room.”
She wondered if they knew, if he had warned them. She told him as they made their way upstairs, just because she was unnerved by their silent progress, how lovely the church had looked this morning with all the lilies, and he told her that there had been as many daffodils as lilies in their church.
“Golden trumpets of hope,” he said, and she grimaced.
“I felt very foolish after saying those words aloud when we were on the daffodil bank,” she said.
“But why?” he asked her. “I will always see daffodils that way from now on.”
The butler had gone ahead of them and was opening the drawing room doors, both of them, with something of a flourish. Wren felt her knees turn weak and heard a voice in her head—her uncle’s. He had spoken the words when she was ten years old and her aunt had taken her to his house in London and lifted the heavy veil from her face and he had looked at her for the first time. Straighten your spine, girl, he had said, not unkindly, and raise your chin and look the world in the eye. If you are cringing or dying on the inside, let it be your secret alone. All her life until then she had hunched and cringed and tipped her head to one side and tucked her chin into her neck and tried to be invisible. Now she straightened her already straight spine, raised her already lifted chin, and looked directly at the two ladies who were standing a short distance apart halfway across the room.
Everything seemed unnaturally bright. But of course, there was no veil between her and the harsh, real world.
“Mama, Lizzie,” the Earl of Riverdale said, “may I present Miss Heyden? My mother, Mrs. Westcott, and my sister, Lady Overfield, Miss Heyden.”
“Oh, my dear.” The older lady clasped her hands to her bosom and took a few hurried steps closer, frowning in concern. “You have burned yourself.”
“No,” Wren said. “I was born this way.” He had not warned them, then. She extended her right hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Westcott?”
The lady took her hand. “I am very relieved that you did not suffer the pain of a burn,” she said. “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Heyden. I have never been to Brambledean before even though my husband’s cousin owned it all my married life and it has been Alex’s since last year. It was a pleasure to meet some of his near neighbors at church this morning and it is a pleasure to have the chance of a longer visit with you this afternoon. Friendly connections are very important when one lives in the country, are they not?”
She was a slight, dark-haired lady with an amiable face and a gracious manner. She was of medium stature and must have been a beauty in her day. It was easy to see where her son had got his looks, if not his height. Her daughter was taller, though still more than half a head shorter than Wren. She was fairer of coloring too and pretty without being dazzlingly lovely. She was probably a few years older than her brother. She offered Wren her hand.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance too, Miss Heyden,” she said. “And may I offer condolences on your double loss just a little over a year ago? It must have been quite devastating.”
“It was.” Wren shook her hand. “Thank you.”
The earl directed her to a chair and they all sat down. The tea tray and plates of food were carried in almost immediately, and Mrs. Westcott poured while Lady Overfield passed around the drinks and pastries. Wren took two of the latter, struck by the thought that she was free to help herself to food today since there was no veil to make eating near impossible.
“Do you spend much time at your home in the country here, Miss Heyden?” Mrs. Westcott asked. “Withington House, I believe Alex called it. Wiltshire is a particularly scenic county, is it not?”
“It is,” Wren agreed. “My uncle chose it after some deliberation and much consultation with my aunt when they decided a number of years ago to buy a country home. There is another house in Staffordshire, close to the glassworks I inherited, but it is in a more urbanized area than Withington House and not as attractive. I do spend time there, however, sometimes for weeks at a time. I run the business myself, you see, though admittedly the manager there, who was with my uncle for years as his trusted right-hand man, could proceed very well without me. I do not subscribe to the notion, however, that a woman must remain at home and rely upon men to take care of everything beyond its bounds.”
There. She was speaking with what even to her own ears sounded like belligerence, like throwing down a gauntlet, as though she needed to make clear to them that she was not out to snare their son and brother merely in order to cling to him for the rest of her life. That had never been her intention. She wished to wed, yes, but marriage could never be all in all to her, as she guessed it was for most women of her class. Perhaps they did not think she was out to snare him at all, however. He was, after all, an earl and an extremely handsome man, while she was . . . Well. Some people had described her uncle a little contemptuously as a cit despite the fact that he had been a gentleman. Members of the upper classes often frowned upon alliances with such people.
“Oh, I do applaud you, Miss Heyden,” Lady Overfield said with a laugh that had a pleasant gurgle to it. “But how you must scandalize the ton.”
“I know nothing of the ton,” Wren said. “My uncle was a gentleman, and my aunt was a lady. I am a lady. But though my uncle had a home in London before he married my aunt, he sold it afterward and always declared that he did not miss the life he had had there. I have never craved it. We divided our time between Staffordshire and here.”
“You never had a come-out Season, then?” Mrs. Westcott asked.
“No,” Wren said. “I never wanted one or any entrée into high society. I still do not. I am quite happy with my life as it
is.” Except that I proposed marriage to your son because I want someone to wed.
She was being a bit obnoxious, Wren realized, and more than a bit stiff in her demeanor. Miss Briggs would be tutting and shaking her head and making her practice a relaxed, gracious social manner again and again and yet again. She was feeling hostile for no apparent reason, for neither lady was looking at her disapprovingly or with any haughty condescension. They were very polite—as all ladies were trained to be. But surely they must have been inwardly cringing as they asked themselves why their son and brother had singled her out for this invitation to tea. They must have come to the inevitable conclusion, and they must have been horrified. They would surely pour outrage into his ears when she was gone.
“What is your impression of Brambledean?” Wren asked the ladies in an attempt to turn the conversation away from herself. Though even that choice of topic was probably unwise since they could hardly pretend rapture over the house and park, and their very dilapidation would remind them that he was too poor to do anything about it while she had riches untold.
“Clearly it was once a stately home of great splendor,” Mrs. Westcott said. “It may be so again in the future now that Alex is here to pay attention to it. But our focus since we arrived on Thursday has been upon enjoying our time together as a family and taking Alex’s mind off the challenges that lie ahead of him here.”
Wren felt rebuked as the conversation limped onward. The two ladies were perfectly well-bred, but the conviction that their good manners must mask disapproval, even dislike, grew upon Wren. And it was at least partly her fault. She was unable to relax or to cast off the defensive, faintly hostile demeanor with which she had begun the visit. She wished she could go back and start again, but would she behave any differently? Could she behave differently? She found it quite impossible to smile or to sit back in her chair and at least look relaxed. The Earl of Riverdale by contrast was warm, charming, and smiling. It did not seem at all fair.
When she estimated that half an hour had passed, the requisite duration for a polite visit—one of the many social graces her governess had taught her—Wren got to her feet to take her leave, assuring the ladies as she did so that she was delighted to have made their acquaintance. She thanked the earl for the invitation and the tea, and felt a huge surge of relief that it was over, that she had done it, however badly, something she would not have thought even possible just a couple of weeks ago—or even this morning. And it really was over. All over. No one could doubt that, least of all Wren herself. Yet despite her relief, she felt a dull ache of disappointment too.
It had seemed such a simple scheme when she had first devised it.
The ladies made polite noises back at her—she did not really listen to exactly what they said. The Earl of Riverdale accompanied her downstairs in silence and gave the order to the butler to have her carriage brought around in half an hour’s time.
“Half an hour?” she said, frowning at him as he led her out onto the terrace.
“You traveled all this way by carriage,” he said, “and have been sitting in my drawing room since then. Now you have the long journey home ahead of you. At least take a little time for some air and exercise first. Shall we?” He offered his arm.
Did he feel obliged to tell her, then, to put into words what had been glaringly clear up in the drawing room? Well, perhaps he was right. At least she would not then be watching for his curricle or for the arrival of the post every day for the next fortnight or so while telling herself she was doing no such thing. Some things needed to be spoken aloud.
She set her hand in the crook of his arm and felt the pangs of what seemed strangely like deep grief.
Six
They took the opposite direction from the one they had taken the last time she was here. There was a stretch of lawn and then a thick copse of overgrown trees and beyond that what at one time must have been a magnificent alley lined with elm trees. Alexander thought it was still impressive with the trees stretching into the distance in two straight lines and a wide grassy avenue between. The trees needed pruning and the grass needed scything, though it had been done fairly recently. Wooden benches had been placed at intervals across the alley, and a summer house at the end, which from this distance looked to be in better repair than it actually was. He must have the benches removed, Alexander thought, as they were no longer fit to be sat upon, though he liked the idea of them and the suggestion they made of leisurely walks with rests along the way, surrounded by rustling verdant greenery and a sense of remoteness and peace. There were a few daisies growing in the grass in defiance of the gardeners’ scythes. He rather liked them and thought it a shame they were considered a weed.
“This is both pleasant and unexpected,” Miss Heyden said. “I assumed that the trees marked the eastern border of the park.”
“The park is vast,” he said. “Its size is just one more problem to add to the others, as it would take an army of gardeners working full-time to keep it pristine. But eventually it will serve the dual role of offering employment and giving enjoyment.”
“This alley reminds me of a vast church,” she said. “It arouses the same feelings of serenity and awe. But it is different from a church in that it is alive.”
“You favor nature over art, then?” he asked. “I have seen cathedrals that have rendered me speechless because of the artistry that has gone into every detail from flying buttresses to gargoyle heads among the rafters.”
“But there is room for both art and nature,” she said. “We surely impoverish our lives if we forever feel we must choose between apparent opposites. Why should we? I could spend hours in a church just looking and being. And I could spend hours outdoors just breathing in the life of it all and knowing myself part of it.”
This, he thought, was a different woman from the one who had sat on the edge of her seat in his drawing room a short while ago, making labored conversation with his mother and sister. That woman had been stiff, formal, not very likable. He thought of her telling his mother that she ran the glassworks herself, that she did not subscribe to the notion that a woman must remain at home while a man took care of her needs. And he thought of her telling him that she wished to be wed, and—on a different occasion—that she wanted to be kissed. He thought of her sudden laughter when he had briefly lost his temper with her and said damn your face. And he thought of her gazing at the daffodil bank at Withington and calling them golden trumpets of hope.
Here and there must both be appreciated in order to experience life fully, she had said once. This and that. Then and now. Art and nature. Daffodils and roses. The woman who had sat in his drawing room this afternoon and the woman who walked with him now.
Attraction and repulsion. There was another pair of opposites.
They strolled onward, not speaking for a while.
“Thank you,” he said at last.
“For?” She turned her head, eyebrows raised.
“I know it was incredibly difficult for you to come this afternoon,” he said. “I know it was especially difficult to leave your veil behind.”
“They do not like me,” she said.
He frowned. They were not usually either hasty or harsh in passing judgment upon people they had just met, but he knew they had not found the visit easy. She had seemed to have a wall erected about herself in the absence of the physical veil, and it had not been easy, or even possible, to get behind it. He had tried to set her at her ease by appearing to be at his ease. His mother and sister had tried to set her at her ease, and they were normally skilled at doing it because they were both naturally warm, affectionate ladies. But the conversation had limped along, sagging, sinking to banalities, never reaching the point at which it flowed without conscious prompting. It had really been quite ghastly, in fact. The half hour had seemed endless.
“Why would they dislike you?” he asked.
“Because they love you,�
� she said.
“I have not said anything to them about any possible connection between us except as neighbors,” he told her.
“Ah, but I do not believe either your mother or your sister is lacking in intelligence,” she said.
She was perfectly right, of course. “They want to see me happy,” he said. “I am an only son and an only brother, and we have always been a close family. But they are not possessive in their love. They are not predisposed to dislike anyone who might possibly end up as my wife. Indeed, they want me to marry. I am thirty years old.”
“But I am not anyone,” she said. “You cannot pretend to believe that this visit was anything but a disaster. And I am not blaming your mother and sister. They were very gracious. Neither am I blaming you. Or myself. I believe I ought to release you, Lord Riverdale. Not that you have made any formal commitment to me, but it is possible you are beginning to feel some sort of obligation now that we have called upon each other a few times and you have presented me to Mrs. Westcott and Lady Overfield. I assure you there is no such obligation. I think we should both forget the suggestion I made when you first visited me two weeks ago. You are a good man and a perfect gentleman, and I have appreciated your attempts to become acquainted with me. But it must end here.”