by Mary Balogh
They found the library without any trouble, and Agnes paid her subscription and spent some time happily browsing among the shelves. There were books of poetry here, and novels and plays, and the main problem was going to be choosing just one or two to take with her. Though she could come back anytime, of course, to exchange them for other books. What a wonderful invention a library was. There was a positive wealth of knowledge and entertainment here.
“Lady Ponsonby?” a light, sweet voice asked. “Yes, it is you.”
Agnes turned her head in surprise. No one knew her, and she knew no one.
Ah, but yes, of course she did.
“Lady Hazeltine,” she said, taking the gloved hand that was being offered.
The countess was dressed in varying light shades of blue and in what Agnes already recognized as the first stare of fashion. Shining waves of her blond hair curled on her forehead, and trailed over her ears and along her neck beneath her fetching poke bonnet. Her blue eyes smiled, her cheeks were pink tinged, her teeth were pearly white, and her chin was ever so slightly dimpled. She was the very picture of beauty and warm amiability.
“I am so glad you spoke to me,” Agnes said. “I was absorbed in the books and did not see you; I am sorry. How do you do?”
“I am very well, I thank you,” Lady Hazeltine said. “And all the better for seeing you again. I was disappointed that you did not come with Flavian when he called yesterday.”
Agnes clasped her two chosen books to her bosom and somehow held her smile.
“I am sorry to have missed the visit too,” she said. “I was out shopping with my mother-in-law and Lady Shields for the third day in a row. I had no idea I needed so much, but they have both insisted that this is just the start.”
The countess’s eyes flicked down her person, and her eyes danced with merriment.
“I have only recently left off my widow’s weeds,” she said. “I know all about feeling dowdy.”
Flavian had called upon the countess yesterday—and presumably upon Sir Winston and Lady Frome too—without her. And without even mentioning it to her when she had asked about his day last night.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she said, “even if it was more than a year ago. I know that grieving does not end as soon as the mourning clothes are put off.”
“Thank you.” Lady Hazeltine’s smile was tinged with melancholy. “You need not be sorry for me, however. Hazeltine and I lived virtually apart for the last two years of our marriage. We entered into it with unconsidered haste, in order to comfort each other for a mutual grief, and we lived to regret it. I ought to have waited longer to see what would happen with—well, with my first and only true love. But I did not, alas, and it is forever too late now.”
Agnes was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. How did one respond to such a confidence from a near stranger?
“I am so sorry,” she said again. “Did you love him very much after all, then? Viscount Ponsonby, I mean?”
The countess’s blue eyes widened, and she looked suddenly stricken. She set a gloved hand on Agnes’s sleeve.
“Oh, has he told you, then?” she asked. “How very naughty and cruel of him. But impetuous behavior rarely brings lasting happiness, as I might have informed him from personal experience if he had waited to ask. Especially when it leaves one with no choice but to live with the consequences. But maybe they will not be as dreadful in this particular case as they were in mine. Maybe . . . Well, I hope all will turn out well. I most sincerely do.”
She rested a hand on Agnes’s arm again and squeezed, smiling with warm, melancholy sympathy.
Agnes was not sure she understood just what was being said. Yet she had the strange feeling that Lady Hazeltine was choosing every word with great and deliberate care.
“I told Mama I would be in here for the merest moment,” she said, dropping her hand to her side, “while I picked up the latest novel from the Minerva Press. Do you read them? I swear I am addicted, silly as they are. Mama will be awaiting me in the carriage, and the drivers of other conveyances will be very cross if it stands there half blocking the road for much longer. I do hope I will see you again soon, Lady Ponsonby. We are to be neighbors and . . . friends, I trust.”
“Yes.” Agnes clutched her books even more tightly. “Yes, I hope so too.”
She watched the countess weave her way to the front of the library and stop for a moment at the desk to present her book. Madeline was still standing patiently just inside the door, looking about herself with interest.
What had that been about?
Oh, has he told you, then? How very naughty and cruel of him.
What had been said before that? Agnes frowned as she tried to remember.
I ought to have waited to see what would happen with—well, with my first and only true love. But I did not, alas, and it is forever too late now.
Agnes had assumed she was talking about Flavian’s older brother, for whom she had been intended. But she could not have waited longer to see what happened to him. He had already been dead when she married the earl. Flavian’s elder brother had been Viscount Ponsonby. But so was Flavian now. He must have had the title before the marriage of the Earl and Countess of Hazeltine.
I ought to have waited to see what would happen with—well, with my first and only true love.
. . . It is forever too late now.
And Flavian had called upon the countess yesterday without a word to her.
There was nothing so strange about his calling on the Fromes, though, or upon their daughter, was there? They were his neighbors in the country, after all, and perhaps he had felt he ought to offer some apology for the awkwardness of their meeting at Arnott House a few days ago.
But without Agnes?
And without even telling her about it?
But impetuous behavior rarely brings lasting happiness, as I might have informed him from personal experience if he had waited to ask. Especially when it leaves one with no choice but to live with the consequences.
Whose impetuous behavior? And what impetuous behavior? What consequences?
“Pardon me, ma’am,” a gentleman said politely enough but with a hint of impatience in his voice.
“Oh,” she said, realizing that she had been standing in front of the same shelf for far too long. “I do beg your pardon.”
And she made her way to the desk, hardly remembering which books she had selected.
17
Flavian had called at Sir Winston Frome’s town house at Portman Place the afternoon before. The Fromes were his neighbors in Sussex, after all, and if he intended to spend time at his country home in future, as he surely must now that he was married, then he would inevitably meet them socially there. It would be as well to dispel any awkwardness caused by their last meeting.
If it could be dispelled.
And if Velma was going to be living with them again, as it appeared she was, then he would have to meet her again too—in the country as well as here in London. There could be no avoiding her forever. Len’s home had been in Northumberland, and he and she had stayed in the north of England after their marriage, where Flavian was unlikely to run into either of them ever again.
It was too bad Len had died.
Good God, it was too bad he had died.
They had met as young boys at Eton. Each had blackened an eye of the other when they came to fisticuffs the very first day. They had both had their backsides caned as a result, and they had been firm, almost inseparable friends thereafter. Len had even spent most of his school holidays at Candlebury, Northumberland being too far away for short visits. They had purchased their commissions at the same time and in the same regiment. Len had sold out six months before Flavian was wounded and sent home. Len had returned home on the death of his uncle and the acquisition of his title, as Flavian had not done on the acquisition of his. In retrospect, their differing reactions to the new responsibilities their titles brought was perhaps the first small herald of the rift that cam
e between them.
They would never see each other again now, never talk things through, never. . . . Well, there was no point in dwelling upon such thoughts. They were stranded on the opposite sides of death, at least for now, and that was all there was to it.
Flavian went to call upon the Fromes, well aware that perhaps his real purpose in going so soon and in going alone was to see Velma again, to try to sort something out in his mind, to try to put a tangled multitude of baggage behind him.
For a headache threatened whenever his mind touched upon that baggage. And that sense of panic he could never quite account for.
What there was to be sorted he did not quite know. She had broken off their engagement and married Len, and now, when she was free again, he had married. He was safe from any renewed matchmaking schemes of their combined families. And they would have been renewed. Why else had Velma and her parents been awaiting his arrival at Arnott House a few days ago? Just as if the marriage of his betrothed and his best friend had been a minor irritant of a delay in their nuptials.
He was still not sure exactly how he had he felt when he walked into his own drawing room to find her coming toward him, a look of glad welcome on her face. It did not matter how he had felt. He was married to Agnes. But what if he really had married her, as his mother and sister had accused him of doing, to punish Velma? And himself. What sort of a blackguard would that make him in regard to Agnes?
He needed to work out some answers. And so he went calling—alone.
There were only ladies present when he was shown into the drawing room—Lady Frome and Velma, two sisters, Mrs. Kress and Miss Hawkins, and a young child clad in her frilly best to be shown off to the visitors. She was dainty and blond and pretty, with a strong resemblance to Velma at that age, and also a disturbing resemblance to Len.
The other two visitors took their leave almost immediately, and the little girl was instructed to make her curtsy to Lord Ponsonby before her nurse took her away. Then Frome himself wandered into the room and inclined his head frostily to Flavian.
There was a sudden sag in the conversation, which had centered about the child for a few minutes.
“I a-am sorry,” Flavian said, addressing himself to Velma, “about L-Len, I mean. I really o-ought to have written. It was b-bad of me not to.”
Had he already said this a few days ago?
She smiled at him, her eyes filling with tears. “Almost his last thoughts were of you, Flavian,” she said. “He never forgave himself, you know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. We both thought it was something you would like us to do, and Mama and Papa and even your mother agreed. We did not believe . . . Well, your physician held out no hope for your recovery. But Leonard felt wretched from the first moment of our marriage until he drew his last breath. He believed he had betrayed you. We were a comfort to each other, but when we heard that you were recovering after all . . . Well, it was dreadful—for us. And wonderful for you. Leonard was so very happy for you. We both were. But . . . we had made a tragic mistake.”
Flavian had forgotten how soft and sweet her voice was. It wrapped about his senses, as it always had.
Len had never written to him. Perhaps he had found it as difficult to put pen to paper as Flavian had after Len’s death. He wondered how much his friend had been to blame for that marriage, and his mind blinked, as it had an annoying habit of doing from time to time, and then shut down again. There was the faint stabbing of pain above one eyebrow.
“You must not upset yourself, Velma,” Lady Frome said as her daughter raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes and blotted away tears.
“It was Leonard’s dearest wish as he lay on his deathbed,” Velma said, lowering the handkerchief again, “that you would forgive me, Flavian, and that you and I would . . .”
She bit her soft lower lip.
“There is n-nothing to f-forgive,” Flavian said.
“Ah,” she said with a sigh, “but obviously there is, or you would not have punished me so cruelly. It is cruel, you know, and perhaps to more than just me. Poor Lady Ponsonby. She does not know, I suppose? Who is she?”
“She is the daughter of a Mr. D-Debbins from Lancashire,” he said, “and the widow of a Mr. Keeping of the same county. And she is my wife.”
“Yes.” Velma smiled again and put her handkerchief away. “And I wish her well, Flavian. And you. I ought to bear a grudge, perhaps, but that would be unfair of me. I hurt you badly once, though that was never my intention.”
Frome stood at the window, his back to the room, his hands clasped behind him, his stance rigid.
“And I expect you will have a happy future, Lord Ponsonby,” Lady Frome said, “now that you are well again and now that you are settling down.”
Flavian had always liked her. She was a comfortable, amiable lady whom Sir Winston had married, or so it was rumored, because her father’s fortune had rescued him from the considerable financial embarrassment his love of the card tables was forever bringing upon him.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
Sir Winston turned from the window and looked steadily at him but said nothing. He was less forgiving of the slight against his family and his daughter, his expression seemed to say.
Flavian took his leave, not sure whether his visit had cleared the air or made matters worse. But it had gone better than he had feared. Although Velma had all but admitted being disappointed, she had behaved with dignity and some generosity of spirit toward Agnes. Perhaps there would be peace after all between Candlebury and Farthings.
What he ought to do now, he thought, was go home in the hope that Agnes was back from her day of shopping, and tell her everything. Get it all off his chest and convince her once and for all that he had married her because he had wished to do so. She would probably not be back yet, though, not if he knew his mother and Marianne, and he could not bear the thought of being at home and pacing the floor, waiting for them to return.
He headed off for White’s instead to fill in an hour or two in congenial male company.
By the time he arrived home later, just in time to dress for dinner, he had changed his mind. Telling Agnes everything would surely be quite the wrong thing to do. How would he ever convince her that his hasty marriage proposal to her and his impulsive dash off to London to procure a special license had had nothing to do with any need to punish Velma? He did not even know himself what his motive had been.
The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt Agnes.
The very last thing.
He ended up not telling her anything about his afternoon—not even that he had called upon his neighbors, the Fromes.
* * *
By the time Agnes arrived home from the library, two of the dresses she had purchased from Madame Martin had been delivered. They had been ready-made items, both of them evening gowns, and had needed only minor alterations. They were also, fortunately, up to Madeline’s exacting standards.
Agnes was ready to face the world, then, her mother-in-law declared, even if only in a minor way. They would have Flavian escort them to the theater that very evening after dinner. It would not be packed with many of the people who really mattered, of course, the ton not having returned to town in any great numbers yet, but it would be a start. And perhaps a wise start. Agnes would be able to ease her way gradually into society instead of being overwhelmed by it at her presentation ball.
Agnes felt more like crawling into her bed and drawing the curtains tight about it. But since that was impossible, an outing seemed preferable to an evening spent at home with only her husband and her mother-in-law for company.
She could not get Lady Hazeltine’s lovely face out of her mind—or her sweet, light voice telling Agnes that she ought to have waited for her only true love.
Agnes did not say much at dinner, but allowed Flavian and her mother-in-law to carry the conversation. She did not say much in the carriage or at the theater either. Fortunately there was a play to be watche
d—with great attention, though she would not have been able to say afterward what it was about. And during the intermission there were people to be met and greeted and conversed with—Marianne and Lord Shields and a few acquaintances of the dowager’s and Flavian’s.
It was a pity her mind was so preoccupied, she thought a few times in the course of the evening. She should have been overwhelmed by her first visit to a theater, by the splendor of her surroundings and by the excellence of the acting, as well as by the pleasure of wearing a new and flattering evening gown and of knowing that her hair looked elegant and becoming.
It was one of the worst evenings she could remember.
She waited for Flavian when the evening was over, standing at the window of her bedchamber and staring down on the square. There were still lights in several of the other houses. A carriage was drawn up outside the house next door. She could hear the distant sound of voices and laughter.
And then the voices were silent, and the carriage was gone, and most of the lights had been extinguished, and she realized she had been standing there for a long time. She shivered and realized that the air was chilly. She had not put a dressing gown on over her nightgown.
She went to fetch one from her dressing room. She looked at the bed on her return. Was he asleep in his own room? Were they to sleep apart for the first time since their wedding? And was that only a week ago?
Had he even come up to bed? She had not heard him.
She picked up the single candle that still burned on her dressing table and went back downstairs. He was not in the drawing room. She found him in the book room, which was lit only by the fire that burned low in the hearth.
He looked up when she came in, and smiled his hooded smile.
“Sleeping Beauty s-sleepwalking?” he asked.
She set her candlestick on the mantel and stared down into the fire for a few moments. She had not realized just how chilled she was.