by Mary Balogh
“Really, Viola?” His dark eyes were gazing into hers. “It really and truly is not just a job to you? You really—”
“Ferdinand.” She raised their clasped hands and brought his against her cheek. His uncertainty and vulnerability, in such contrast to the image he presented to the world, broke her heart. “You cannot believe that. Not after last night. Please don't believe that. Not ever.”
“No.” He chuckled. “I won't. I just don't like this setup, though, Viola, and I don't mind telling you so. You ought to be back in the country—Miss Thornhill of Pinewood Manor. Or my wife—Lady Ferdinand Dudley. You really ought. I don't care that you have no father or that you did what you did because you had to eat. And I don't care what people might say. I'm the sort of fellow everyone expects to get into scrapes anyway.”
“Marrying me would hardly be a scrape, Ferdinand,” she said past the great lump in her throat.
“Let's do it,” he said eagerly. “Let's just do it. I'll purchase a special license and—”
“No!” She turned her head to kiss the back of his hand before releasing it and standing up.
“It is what Tresham and Jane did,” he said quickly, getting to his feet too. “They just went off one morning and got married while Angie and I were devising schemes for getting him to offer for her. He announced their marriage in the middle of a ball that night. I don't think they have ever regretted it. I think they are happy.”
To be Ferdinand's wife. To be able to go back to Pinewood with him …
“It would not work for us, dear,” she said gently, and then was jolted by the realization that she had spoken the endearment out loud. “You must be on your way. You have things to do.”
“Yes.” He took both her hands in his and raised them one at a time to his lips. “I wish I had met you six or seven years ago, Viola. Before… well, before. What were you doing then?”
“Probably serving coffee at my uncle's inn,” she said. “And you were in the dusty depths of a library somewhere at Oxford studying Latin declensions. Go now.”
“Later, then.” He was still holding her hands. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. “I could become addicted to you. Be warned.” He grinned at her as he turned and strode from the room.
It was appropriate, she thought, that her final sight of him was almost identical to her first—or nearly the first. He had been smiling just like that when her eyes had met his across the village green at the conclusion of the sack race.
A handsome, dashing stranger then.
The love of her heart now.
She stood where she was beside the dining room table until she heard the front door open and then shut behind him. She closed her eyes tightly and clutched the back of her chair.
Then she took a deep breath and went in search of Hannah.
18
It was midmorning by the time Ferdinand set off for the offices of Selby and Braithwaite. Fortunately, Selby was free to see him no more than five minutes after he arrived.
“Ah, my lord.” The solicitor met him at the door of his office and shook his hand warmly. “Come up to London for the rest of the Season, have you? I hope you found Pinewood to your taste. I heard from his grace about the spot of bother you had when you arrived there, but that has all been cleared up, I trust. Have a chair and tell me what I may do for you.”
Matthew Selby, middle-aged, genial, woolly-haired, looked like everyone's image of an upright, respectable father figure. He was also one of London's toughest solicitors.
“What you may do, Selby,” Ferdinand said, “is transfer ownership of Pinewood Manor to Miss Viola Thornhill. I want it done legally and in writing so there can never be any argument about it.”
“She is the lady you found living there,” the solicitor said, frowning. “His grace mentioned her by name. She has no legal claim on the estate, my lord. Even though his grace insisted upon calling at Westinghouse and Sons in person, I did conduct my own investigation too, since you are a valued client of mine.”
“If she had a legal claim I would not need to come, would I?” Ferdinand said. “Draw up any papers that are necessary and I will sign them. I want it done today.”
Selby removed the spectacles that were usually perched halfway down his nose and regarded Ferdinand with paternal concern, as if he were a boy who could not possibly make a rational decision on his own.
“Might I respectfully suggest, my lord,” he said, “that you discuss the matter with the Duke of Tresham before doing anything hasty?”
Ferdinand fixed him with a stare. “Does Tresham have any claim on Pinewood?” he asked. “Is he my guardian?”
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” Selby said. “I merely thought he might help you reach a wise decision.”
“You are agreed,” Ferdinand continued, “that Pinewood is mine? You have just said so. You investigated the matter and discovered that there can be no possible doubt.”
“None whatsoever, my lord. But—”
“Then Pinewood is mine to give away,” Ferdinand told him. “I am giving it away. To Miss Viola Thornhill. I want you to do the paperwork for me, Selby, so that I will know everything is done properly. I don't want anyone else to ride up to Pinewood in two years' time, claiming to have won the damned property in a card game and kicking her out. Now, can you do it for me, or shall I go elsewhere?”
Selby looked across the desk at him with gentle reproach as he put his spectacles back on his nose.
“I can do it, my lord,” he said.
“Good.” Ferdinand sat back and crossed his booted legs at the ankles. “Do it, then. I'll wait.”
He thought about Pinewood and Trellick while he waited—about choir practice proceeding without him this week, about Jamie going without his Latin lessons, about the ladies straining their eyes sewing in the poorly lit church hall instead of in the drawing room at Pinewood, about the building of the laborers' cottages being delayed. About a certain spot on the riverbank where the river rushed past and daisies and buttercups grew in the grass, about a hillside down which a woman had run out of control, laughing and shrieking. About a village lass with daisies in her hair.
Well, he decided later as he strode away from the offices, there was no point in thinking about it all any longer. It had nothing to do with him. This time she would have to accept the gift. She would have no choice. He would take her the deed this afternoon. Of course—his footsteps lagged and some of the spring went out of his step—it would mean that she would no longer need to be his mistress. But that had been very much a last-resort offer on his part anyway.
He did not really want Viola Thornhill as his mistress. He wanted her… well, he simply wanted her. But he would damned well have to learn to do without her, wouldn't he? That was all there was to it. Of course…
“Wool-gathering, Ferdinand?”
He looked up to see his brother on horseback, riding along the street in the opposite direction from the one he was taking.
“Tresham,” he said.
“And looking decidedly glum,” the duke said. “She would not agree to terms, I suppose? Women of her sort are not worth brooding over, take my word for it. Do you want to come to Jackson's boxing saloon and try your luck sparring with me? Throwing a few punches can be a marvelous cure for bruised pride.”
“Where is Jane?” Ferdinand asked.
His brother raised his eyebrows. “Angeline took her shopping,” he said. “This will mean one new bonnet at the very least, I daresay. For our sister, that is. One wonders why Heyward is still complaisant enough to pay the bills. She must have a bonnet for every day of the year, with a few to spare.”
Ferdinand grimaced. “It is to be hoped that Jane will steer her away from her usual garish choice,” he said. “Our sister was born with the severe handicap of no taste whatsoever.”
“She was wearing a puce monstrosity today,” his brother said, “with a canary yellow plume at least a yard tall nodding above it. I made the mistake of looking at
it through my quizzing glass. I was thankful it was my duchess who was to be seen in public with her and not me.”
“I'll say,” Ferdinand agreed fervently. He continued without giving himself time to think. Tresham was not the most comfortable person in the world to be telling such things to, even though it was none of his business. “I called on Selby just now. I have made Pinewood over to Miss Thornhill.”
His brother looked down at him with an inscrutable stare. “You are a fool, Ferdinand,” he said at last. “But one must look on the bright side. She will return there and be out of your life. It is not wise, you see, to fall in love with one's mistress. Especially one of such notoriety.”
Something clicked in Ferdinand's brain. That room last night—the one with the pianoforte and the easel—and the embroidery frame. There was something about it that had teased at his mind. Tresham played the pianoforte. He also painted. But they had both been hidden, repressed talents until Jane had gone to work on him. Their father had brought his sons up to believe that art and music were effeminate pursuits. He had made his heir ashamed of indulging his talents. Even now Tresham rarely played for anyone but Jane. And he painted only when she was with him, sitting quietly in a room with him, working on her embroidery. She was wonderfully skilled with her needle. That room.
“But you did it,” he said, looking up with narrow-eyed intensity into his brother's eyes. “You fell in love with your mistress, Tresham. You married her.”
He found himself at the receiving end of one of Tresham's famous black stares.
“Who told you that?” Tresham's voice was always at its quietest and most pleasant when he was at his most dangerous.
“A certain room in a certain house,” Ferdinand told him.
But it was not just the one room. There was the bedchamber too, with its unexpectedly elegant green and cream colorings. He would bet a pony Jane was responsible for that room. She had exquisite taste in design and color. She had been Tresham's mistress. He understood now at least why his brother had not sold the house.
“I had better rent the house from you, Tresham,” he said while his brother continued to gaze at him, tight-lipped. “It won't be for long, I daresay. She will probably go back to Pinewood once she knows that it is hers whether she likes it or not. You will be able to relax then. Your little brother will be safe from the clutches of a notoriously wicked woman. Unlike you. Everyone thought your mistress was an ax murderer.”
“By God, Ferdinand.” Tresham leaned one arm across the pommel of his saddle and tapped his whip against one boot. “Are you deliberately courting death? Some advice, my dear fellow. Point a pistol between my eyes and pull the trigger if you must, but cast no aspersions on the good name of my duchess. It is not allowed.”
“And I, damn you, will have none cast on that of Miss Thornhill,” Ferdinand said.
His brother straightened up. “What is this all about, Ferdinand?” he asked. “Will it upset you so very much to see her go?”
Life was going to be empty without her, that was all. There was not going to seem much point to it. But he would soldier on, he supposed. One did not die of such a ridiculous malady as a broken heart. And when had he started to feel quite this way about her, anyway? After sleeping with her? It was probably just lust that was bothering him. Nothing more serious than that.
“The thing is,” he said, “that I can't help thinking that if I had not made over the property to her this morning or if I failed to hand her the deed, she would stay and be my mistress. I can't help being tempted. But it would be wrong. It would, Tresh. I don't care what she has done in the past. I daresay she had her reasons. But now, you see, she is Miss Thornhill of Pinewood Manor. She is a lady. And I can't bear it because I have already defiled her and because I want to keep on doing so when she belongs back there. And I damned well can't bear the thought of her going. And make one sneering remark about this babbling drivel that is spouting out of my mouth and I'll drag you down from your horse and punch out all your teeth. I swear I will.”
His brother stared broodingly at him for a few moments before dismounting to stand beside him. “Come to Jackson's,” he said, “and pound the stuffing out of me, if it will make you feel better—and if you can. Preferably not my teeth, though, if it's all the same to you. Strange—I did not think you were into the petticoat line, Ferdinand. But perhaps that is the whole point. Perhaps I should have guessed that when you eventually fell, you would fall hard.”
It was much later in the afternoon before Ferdinand went back to the house. He had gone home with Tresham after they had sparred to a stalemate at Jackson's. Angie had been there and had talked his ear off and forced both him and Tresham to view her new bonnet. He had played a vigorous wrestling game with his nephew, whom Tresham had brought down from the nursery for tea. Angie and Jane had vied for his company at dinner. Angie had won, though he had assured her that he would not go on to the Grosnick ball with her afterward—Heyward was to accompany her, she had explained, but Ferdie knew how much he danced, provoking man, which was absolutely not at all, while Ferdie was a divine dancer and would make her the envy of every other lady present.
Finally he arrived at the house. He was not really sure how he was going to proceed. Hand her the deed immediately and tell her Pinewood was hers whether she wanted it or not? Or keep the news until tonight? Perhaps they could go to bed this afternoon. Would it be dishonorable? Dash it, but honor could sometimes be a dreary killjoy of a weight on the conscience.
“Tell Miss Thornhill that I am here,” he instructed Jacobs after he had been admitted to the house. “Where is she?”
“She is not in, my lord,” the butler said, taking his hat and cane.
Damnation! He had not considered the possibility that she might be out. But it was a pleasant afternoon. She must have felt the need for some air and exercise.
“I'll wait,” he said. “Did she say when she would be back?”
“No, my lord.”
“Did she take her maid?” Ferdinand frowned. She was in London now. He would not have her walking about outside without a chaperon.
“Yes, my lord.”
He went into the room with the pianoforte and looked about him. How on earth had he not realized the truth yesterday as soon as he set foot in here? he wondered. It had Jane and Tresham-with-Jane written all over it. It was a strangely cozy room, even though the embroidery frame and the easel and music stand were all empty. He would enjoy spending time here with Viola. She would feel like his companion as well as his mistress in here. They would talk and read and be comfortable together. She would feel almost like a wife.
But he did not want a wife, he reminded himself—or mistress either. He wanted Viola to be back at Pinewood, lady of the manor again. Even if it meant never seeing her again, because that was what she wanted.
He wandered restlessly from the room and upstairs to the bedchamber. He sat on the side of the bed and ran one hand over the pillow where her head had lain last night. He hoped—he swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat—he hoped she would go back home. Perhaps after some time had passed he could go down there, stay at the Boar's Head, call on her, court her….
He wandered into her dressing room. It looked empty. She had brought only the one bag with her from Pinewood, it was true, but there surely should have been a comb or brush or something on the dressing table. All that was there, propped against the mirror, was a folded piece of paper. He crossed the room with hesitant steps, knowing very well what it was. It had his name written on the outside in the now-familiar neat handwriting.
It was as terse as the last one.
“We agreed that we were both free to end our liaison at a moment's notice,” she had written. “I am ending it now. Go back to Pinewood. It is where you will find the fulfillment for which you have been searching all your adult life, I believe. Be happy there. Viola.”
So she had escaped after all. She had intended it from the start, he realized. Now that he thought
about it, he could recall that she had never said explicitly that she would be his mistress, only that she would come here with him and must be free to go whenever she chose. She had disappeared into the vastness of London. Last night had meant nothing to her. He meant nothing to her. She preferred the life of a courtesan. It made no sense whatsoever to him. But did it need to?
Would he never learn?
He crumpled the paper and dropped it to the floor.
“Goddamn you,” he said aloud.
And then he surprised and embarrassed himself—almost as if there were an audience—by sobbing once and then again and finding it impossible to stem the flow of his grief.
“Goddamn you to hell,” he said between sobs. “What do you want from me?”
The silence answered him loud and clear.
Nothing at all.
Viola was going home. Home to her uncle's inn to see her mother and sisters. And to meet Daniel Kirby and come to some arrangement with him about her future. But even though she would not put herself through the agony of hoping, she intended to fight as far as she was able. Bag in hand, Hannah beside her, she made her way first in the opposite direction to the inn. She had a call to make.
She sat and waited stubbornly for three hours in a dingy outer office of Westinghouse and Sons, Solicitors, before being admitted for one whole minute into the presence of the most junior partner and assured that the late Earl of Bamber's will made no mention whatsoever of Miss Viola Thornhill.
“Well, Hannah,” she said as they were leaving, “I did not expect anything different, you know. But I had to hear it with my own ears.”
“Where are we going now, Miss Vi?”
Hannah had been disapproving of last night's destination. But this morning she had disapproved of their leaving. She had wanted Viola to throw herself upon Lord Ferdinand's mercy, to tell him everything, to beg him to lend her the money with which to pay Daniel Kirby. Ferdinand was more than halfway in love with her, according to Hannah. He could be brought to offer for her if Miss Vi just played her cards right.