by Mary Balogh
“I am scarcely hard to avoid, my lord,” she said. “It is not as though I put myself deliberately in your path every hour of every day. Or ever, in fact. You did not need to go away for five whole days in order not to see me.”
“Counting, were you?” It was his lazy, slightly bored voice.
“Lord Ponsonby.” She stopped walking altogether and turned toward him. She hoped he could see the indignation in her face. “You flatter yourself. I have a life. I have been too busy—too happily busy—to spare you a thought. Or even to notice that you had gone.”
His back was to the moon. Even so, she could see the sudden grin on his face—before she took a sharp step backward and then another until the wall was behind her and there was no farther to retreat. He advanced on her.
“I did not know you could be p-provoked to anger,” he said softly. “I like you angry.”
He lowered his head toward hers, and she expected to be kissed. She even half closed her eyes in expectation.
“But I did need to go away,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper of sound and breath, “so that I could come back.”
“On the assumption that absence makes the heart grow fonder?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Does it?” he asked her. “Are you fonder of me now than you were f-five days ago, Agnes Keeping?”
It was hard to speak with the proper indignation when one had a man standing so close that one could feel his body heat and when, if one moved one’s head forward even an inch, one’s mouth would collide with his.
“Fonder implies that I was fond to start with,” she said.
“Were you?”
He was a rake and a libertine and a seducer, and she had always known it. How dare Dora aid and abet him by offering her own cloak because it was warmer than Agnes’s? Dora ought to have leapt to her feet and forbidden him to take her sister one step beyond the door of the room.
Agnes took her hands away from the wall behind her and braced them against his chest instead.
“Why did you go?” she asked him. “And, having gone, why did you come back?”
“I went so that I could come back,” he said, and he covered the backs of her hands with his palms. “What sort of wedding would you prefer, Agnes? Something g-grand with b-banns and all sorts of time to summon everyone who has ever known you and all your relatives s-stretching back to your g-great-grandparents? Or something quieter and more intimate?”
That weak thing happened with her knees again, and she licked dry lips.
“If it is the f-former,” he said, moving his head back just a little so that he could look down into her face, his eyelids lazy, his eyes keen beneath them, “then there is all the t-trouble of deciding upon a venue. St. George’s on Hanover Square in London would p-probably be the most sensible choice because one can invite half the world, and a g-good half of that number already has a town house there or knows someone who does, and the other half will have no bother in f-finding a good hotel. If it is elsewhere—your f-father’s home, mine, here—one has all the h-headache of deciding where everyone will stay. If it is the l-latter—”
“Oh, do stop,” she cried, snatching her hands away. “There is to be no wedding, so it does not matter which type I would prefer.”
He ran the backs of his fingers lightly along her jaw to her chin and up the other side to cup her cheek.
“In five d-days with nothing much to do but drive a curricle,” he said, “I did not compose an affecting marriage proposal. Or even an unaffecting one, for that matter. But I do know that I w-want you. In bed, yes, but not just there. I want you in my life. And p-please do not ask your usual question. Why is the h-hardest question in the world to answer. Marry me. Say you will.”
And suddenly it seemed ridiculous to say no when she ached to say yes.
“I am afraid,” she said.
“Of me?” he asked her. “Even at my worst, I n-never physically hurt anyone. The w-worst I did was fling a glass of wine in someone’s face. I lose my t-temper at times, more than I did before, but it does not last. It is all just sound and fury—am I quoting s-someone again? If I ever yell at you, you may f-feel free to yell b-back. I would never hurt you. I can safely promise that.”
“Of myself,” she said, fixing her eyes on the top button of his coat and leaning her cheek a little into his palm despite herself. “I am afraid of me.”
He gazed deeply into her eyes. It was strange how she could see that in the darkness.
“Even tonight,” she said, “I was angry. I am angry. I had no idea I was going to be, but it has happened. You play with my emotions, though perhaps not deliberately. You find me and talk with me and kiss me and then—nothing for days, and then it all starts again. You made me promise five days ago that I would not say no, and then you left and gave me no chance to say either yes or no. You did not tell me you were going away. You did not need to, of course. I had no right to expect it. And now I have a premonition that this is what marriage with you would be like, but on a grander scale. Life as I have known it for years, including the five years of my marriage, would be turned on its head, and I would not know where I was. I could not stand the uncertainty.”
“You fear passion?” he asked her.
“Because it is uncontrolled,” she cried. “Because it is selfish. Because it hurts—other people if not oneself. I do not want passion. I do not want uncertainty. I do not want you yelling at me. Worse than that, I do not want me yelling back. I cannot stand it. I cannot stand this.”
His face was closer again.
“What has happened in your life to hurt you?” he asked her.
Her eyes widened. “Nothing has happened. That is the point.”
But it was not. It was not the point at all.
“You w-want me,” he said, “as much as I want you.”
And his eyes blazed with a new light.
“I am afraid,” she said again, but even to her own ears her protest sounded lame.
His mouth, hot in the chill of the late evening, covered hers, and her arms went about his neck, and his about her waist, and she leaned into him, or he drew her against him—it did not matter which. And she knew—ah, she knew that she could not let him go, even though she was afraid. It was going to be like stepping off the edge of a precipice blindfolded.
He had said nothing about love. But neither had William. What was love, after all? She had never believed in it or wanted it.
He raised his head.
“We could marry tomorrow,” he said. “I was thinking of the d-day after, but that was when I did not expect to s-see you until the morning. And the vicar is here at the house. I could have a word with him tonight. We could marry tomorrow morning, Agnes. Or would you rather that g-grand wedding in St. George’s? With all your family and mine in attendance.”
She braced her hands on his shoulders and laughed, though not with amusement. She was more afraid than ever before in her life. She was afraid she was about to do something she would forever regret.
“There is the small matter of banns,” she said.
He flashed a grin at her.
“Special license,” he said. “I h-have one on the table beside my bed upstairs. It is why I went to L-London, though it struck me when I was on the way there that I c-could probably have got one somewhere closer, maybe even Gloucester. I am not v-very knowledgeable on such things. No matter. I managed to avoid everyone I know except an uncle, who was not to be avoided by the time I s-spotted him. He is a g-good fellow, though. I informed him that he had not seen me, and he raised his glass and asked who the devil I was anyway.”
Agnes was not listening.
“You went to London to get a special license?” she asked, though he had been perfectly clear on the matter. “So that you could marry me here without the benefit of banns? Tomorrow?”
“If it were done,” he said, “then ’twere well it were done quickly.”
She stared at him, speechless for a moment.
“Macbeth was talking about murder,” she said. “And you missed when ’tis done in the middle—If it were done when ’tis done . . . Those words make all the difference to the meaning.”
“You have this disturbing effect upon me, Agnes,” he said. “I s-start spouting p-poetry. Badly. But—’twere well it were done quickly. I stand by that.”
“Before you can change your mind?” she asked him. “Or before I can?”
“Because I want to be s-safe with you,” he said.
She looked at him in astonishment.
“Because I w-want to make l-love to you,” he added, “and I cannot do it before we are m-married, because you are a v-virtuous woman, and I have a rule about not seducing v-virtuous women.”
But he had said, Because I want to be safe with you.
Yet she was afraid of not being safe with him.
“Lord Ponsonby—” she said.
“Flavian,” he interrupted her. “It is one of the m-most ridiculous names any parents could possibly inflict upon a son, but it is what my parents d-did to me, and I am stuck with it. I am Flavian.”
She swallowed.
“Flavian,” she said.
“It does not sound so b-bad spoken in your voice,” he said. “Say it again.”
“Flavian.” And, surprisingly, she laughed. “It suits you.”
He grimaced.
“Say the rest of it,” he said. “You spoke my name, and there was m-more to come. Say the rest.”
She had forgotten. It had something to do with whether they would be safe together or not. But—safe? What did it mean?
Tomorrow. She could be married tomorrow.
“I think my father and my brother would find it an inconvenience to travel all the way to London,” she said. “Especially for a second marriage. Do you have a large family?”
“Enormous,” he said. “We could fill two St. George’s and still allow for s-standing room only.”
It was her turn to grimace.
“But what will they all say?” she asked him.
He threw back his head, his arms still about her, and—bayed at the moon. There was no other way of describing the sound of triumph that burst from him.
“Will say?” he said. “Not would say? They will be as cross as b-blazes, all s-seven thousand and sixty of them, at being denied the fuss and anguish of having a say in my w-wedding. Tomorrow, Agnes, if it can be arranged? Or the day after tomorrow at the latest? Say yes. Say yes.”
She still could not understand. Why her? And why the complete turnaround from the time, not long distant, when he had told her he would never have marriage to offer anyone? What sort of attraction did she hold for a man like Viscount Ponsonby?
Because I want to be safe with you.
What could those words possibly mean?
She slid her hands behind his neck again and raised her face to his.
“Yes, then,” she said in exasperation. “You will not take no for an answer anyway, will you? Yes, then. Yes, Flavian.”
And his mouth came down on hers again.
12
Flavian was feeling as fresh as a daisy—or some such idiotic thing. He had gone to bed at midnight and had awoken at eight o’clock only because his valet was bumping around in his dressing room with deliberate intent.
And then he had remembered that it was his wedding day.
And that he had slept all night without a hint of a dream or any other disturbance.
Good Lord, it was his wedding day.
He had gone back up to the drawing room with Agnes Keeping last night, and no one would have shown they had noticed the two of them had gone or returned—until he cleared his throat. That had got an instant silence. And he had told them that Mrs. Keeping had just done him the honor of accepting his hand in marriage. Yes, he believed he really had used pompous words like those. But they had got the message across.
And, looking back, it seemed to him that everyone had collectively smirked, though that smug reaction had soon been followed by noise and backslapping and hand shaking and hugs and even tears. Miss Debbins had shed tears over her sister, and so had Lady Darleigh. And even George. Not that he had shed tears exactly, and certainly not over Agnes, but his eyes had looked suspiciously bright as he squeezed Flavian’s shoulder fit to dislocate it.
Flavian had followed up with the announcement that the nuptials were going to be in the morning, provided Reverend Jones was willing to perform the ceremony on so little notice.
“Tomorrow morning?” Miss Debbins and Hugo had chorused in unison.
The vicar had merely nodded congenially and reminded Lord Ponsonby that there was the small matter of banns to be considered.
“Not if there is a s-special license,” Flavian had said. “And there is one. I have just c-come from London with it.”
“Why, you old rogue, Flave,” Ralph had said. “This is the use to which you put my curricle?”
And there had been more noise and backslapping, and Lady Darleigh had rushed off to find her cook and housekeeper, and rushed back a while later with the news that the state bedchamber in the east wing was to be prepared for tomorrow night so that the bride and groom could spend their wedding night in luxury and privacy. George had offered to give Agnes away, but, after thanking him, she had said she would rather have her sister do that for her if there was no church law against a woman performing the office. And Flavian had asked Vincent to be his best man, which would be, Vince had replied, beaming with pleasure, a bit like the blind leading the blind.
And then, some time later, the outside guests had left, including Agnes Keeping, and it was close to midnight, and Flavian had felt drunk without the benefit of liquor and so exhausted that he could scarcely persuade his legs to carry him to his room, and might not have made it there if George and Ralph had not accompanied him to his door. He might not have got undressed either if his valet had not been waiting for him and insisted that he was not going to be allowed to sleep in his evening clothes.
But here he was, almost eleven hours later, as fresh as a daisy and waiting at the front of the village church for his bride to arrive. His friends and their wives were sitting in the pews behind him, and the vicar’s wife and the Harrisons were in the pews across the aisle.
Vincent was afraid he would drop the ring—Flavian had remembered to buy one, though he had had to guess the size—and then not be able to find it.
“But I would,” Flavian said, patting his friend’s hand. “I would like nothing better than to g-grovel about on the stone floor of a country church on my w-wedding day in my white knee breeches and s-stockings.”
“That is supposed to comfort me?” Vincent asked. “And wait a minute—it is supposed to be the best man soothing the bridegroom’s nerves, not the other way around.”
“A bridegroom is s-supposed to have n-nerves?” Flavian asked. “Better not warn me about it, old chap, or I m-might discover I have some.”
But he did not—unless it was a sign of nerves that he half expected his mother to appear in the doorway behind him, twice her usual size, forefinger twice its usual length as it pointed full at him while she ordered him to cease and desist.
He was feeling . . . happy? He did not know what happy felt like and was not sure he wanted to, for where there was happiness, there was also unhappiness. Every positive had its corresponding negative, one of the more annoying laws of existence.
He just wanted her to come. Agnes. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to be married to her. He still could not free his mind of the notion that he would be safe once he was. And he had still not worked out what his mind meant by that.
Some things were best not analyzed.
His valet was a wonder and a marvel, he thought. What on earth had possessed him to pack knee breeches, and white ones at that, for a three-week stay in the country with the Survivors’ Club?
Fortunately, perhaps, for the quality of his thoughts, there was a minor stir at the back of the church, and the vicar came stri
ding down the aisle, resplendent in his clerical robes, to signal that the bride had arrived and the marriage service was about to begin.
* * *
Agnes donned her moss green morning dress and pelisse with the straw bonnet she had bought new just last year. There was no time, of course, to purchase new clothes for her wedding. It did not matter. It was just as well, in fact. If she had had time to shop or to sew, then she would also have had time to think.
Thought, she suspected, was her worst enemy at the moment. Or perhaps it was the lack of thought that was the long-term enemy. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.
What on earth had possessed her?
But, no, she would not think. She had said yes last night because she had found it impossible to say no, and it was too late to change her mind now.
Besides, if she had said no, he would be going away tomorrow with everyone else, never to return, and she could not have borne that. Her heart would have broken. Surely it would have, extravagant and silly as the idea seemed.
The state bedchamber . . .
No, she would not think.
There was a tap on her door, and Dora stepped into her room.
“I keep expecting to wake up, as from a dream,” she said. “But I am glad it is no dream, Agnes. I am happy for you. I believe you will be happy. I like that young man, though I would still not trust that eyebrow of his any farther than I could throw it. And that image does not bear scrutiny, does it?”
“Dora.” Agnes clasped her hands very tightly to her bosom. “I feel dreadful. About leaving you.”
“You absolutely must not,” Dora said. “It was inevitable that you would remarry one day. I never expected that you would be here with me forever. All I ask is that you be happy. I have always loved you more than anyone else in my life, you know, which is a shocking thing to say when I have a father and a brother and nieces and a nephew. But you have always felt almost as much like a daughter to me as a sister. You were five when I was seventeen.”