Only Enchanting: A Survivors' Club Novel

by Mary Balogh

  “Was it just coincidence?” Agnes asked.

  “I thought so,” he said. “She was always so s-surprised to see me and so full of apologies for disturbing me. But she always stayed to stroll or sit with me. Sometimes she spent so long with me that she never did get to the house to see David. Whenever she did, though, he would send immediately for a m-maid to sit with them and then for a groom to accompany her back to Farthings. She told me she liked David, even l-loved him, that she l-longed to be old enough to m-marry him so that she could look after him.”

  He could remember being annoyed the first few times she had found him and not simply ridden on and left him to his own company. But he had been fifteen, for God’s sake. It had not taken him long. . . .

  “And then I started touching her,” he said, “and kissing her, even though she used to cry afterward and tell me we absolutely must not do it ever again. Because of D-David. Then one afternoon we went farther than kisses. Considerably farther, though not . . . all the way. And that was the end of it. She cried and t-told me she loved me. I told her I loved her too but that it was over, that we m-must not meet like that again. And I m-meant it. I could not do such a thing to my brother. I knew he adored her. I d-don’t think I set foot outside the house for a week, and then I went to stay with another school friend who had been p-pestering me to visit him. It meant l-leaving David alone, but I was having a hard time looking him in the eye anyway.”

  “And all this you have just remembered?” Agnes asked him.

  He frowned. Velma had come to Candlebury that summer because his mother and Marianne were away, and David was more or less housebound, and Len was home in Northumberland. She had come to see him. David could have held little attraction for a fifteen-year-old girl, not when he had a more robust brother, and not when that brother would surely be Viscount Ponsonby of Candlebury Abbey in the not-too-distant future.

  But could she be blamed for such conniving?

  “No,” he said. “This I remembered, and the apparently random meetings during the next three years, and the t-temptation. She was a lovely girl, and I was a l-lusty boy. But the date for their betrothal was coming c-closer, and D-David was happy, though he once confided in me that he thought p-perhaps it was selfish of him to hold her to a promise made by our parents and hers so many years ago. She was always so f-fond of him, though, whenever they were together.”

  “What have you remembered, then, Flavian?” she asked.

  He swallowed once and then again. She was holding the back of his hand against her cheek, he realized.

  “When Velma turned eighteen,” he said, “and plans were being made for a betrothal party and an announcement to be sent to the London papers, David suddenly refused to marry her. He said it would be unfair when he was not w-well enough to give her the life she deserved. He set her free to find someone else. He hoped she would go to London for a Season and make a b-brilliant marriage. She was inconsolable, and he was heartbroken. And all this I remembered too.”

  She set her lips against the back of his hand.

  “Our families immediately devised an alternate plan,” he said. “It seemed almost as if they were r-relieved, as if they were far h-happier with the idea of Velma’s marrying me. And then D-David s-spoke privately with m-me.”

  He shivered and got to his feet to go and stand close to the window again. His hands found the pockets of his dressing gown and shoved inside.

  “He asked me if it was t-true,” he said. “And he asked me if I l-loved her. And he t-told me that I had his blessing anyway, and that he would not stop loving me. Though he did add, as a sort of j-joke, that if he only had a bit more energy, he m-might challenge me to pistols at d-dawn.”

  He opened and closed his hands inside his pockets. Agnes said nothing.

  “She had told him—and sworn him to secrecy,” he said. “She had told him that she and I had l-loved each other p-passionately for three years and were l-lovers, and that I had assured her we would s-still be lovers after she married David, but that she had decided she could not c-continue with the deceit. She had b-begged him to set her free to m-marry the man she loved.”

  He could hear Agnes draw an audible breath.

  “He believed her?” she asked.

  “She was sweet and without guile,” he said. “Or so we both thought. And perhaps her motive was understandable. She was more or less l-locked into a marriage plan in which she had had no say. But what she did was . . . cruel. He would have set her free if she had but asked.”

  Her arms came about his waist from behind, and her cheek came to rest against his back.

  “Did you explain?” she asked.

  “I d-did,” he said. “I told him everything, as I have told it to you. I t-told him I did not w-want to marry her. And he told me that I would have little choice, given the determination of our families to bring about the match. And she would surely see to it that she got her w-way. I b-begged him to purchase a commission for me, and he agreed, even though I was his heir and ought not to have put myself at risk as a soldier. Worse, my going away to war for an indefinite time made it l-likely that we would never see each other again.”

  “You did not love her, then?” Agnes asked.

  “I was eighteen,” he said. “I had barely tested my wings.”

  “Did she love you?”

  “I cannot answer for her,” he said. “She was always ambitious, though. She always talked quite openly about the time when she would be a viscountess and half the world would have to curtsy and bow to her and obey her every bidding. Her father is a baronet, but he is not particularly well off. She m-might not have done so well on the marriage mart. Though, as it happened, she married an earl.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Len,” he said. “Hazeltine. Yes.”

  He must have fallen in love with her, though, he thought, when he was home on leave the year David died, must he not? He had left his brother on his deathbed in order to dash off to London to celebrate at the lavish betrothal ball the Fromes gave in their honor. Unless . . .

  It frightened him to realize that there might still be great holes in his memory in places he did not even suspect. And he was beginning to wonder about those weeks of his leave. He was quite aware of the fact that he could not remember the whys of his behavior.

  He turned to Agnes and wrapped his arms about her and rested one cheek against the top of her head.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am s-sure the last thing any new wife needs to hear in the middle of the night is the story of her husband’s dealings with another woman.”

  “Part of the story,” she said softly. She tipped back her head and looked into his face, her own dimly lit by the light from the window. “This is not the whole of it, is it? You do not remember the whole?”

  His stomach churned slightly.

  “The trouble is,” he said, flashing her a grin, “that I cannot always remember what I cannot remember—or that I cannot remember. Perhaps there are still all sorts of gaps in my mind. I am a m-mess, Agnes. You have married a mess.”

  “We are all a mess.” He could see the flash of her teeth in the darkness, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I think it must be part of being human.”

  “But not many of us are walking around free and unfettered with heads like those cheeses with g-great holes in them,” he said. “You have married a man with cheese for a head.”

  She was laughing now. So, astonishingly, was he.

  “What an adventure,” she said.

  “Speak for yourself.” He lowered his head and brushed his nose across hers. Briefly, he thought about warning her of what had been buzzing about Lady Merton’s party the night before last. But there had been enough drama for one night. “Cold nose.”

  “Warm heart,” she retorted.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

  “I am not,” she told him. “Come back to bed and pull up the blankets. It is chilly.”

  “I
have something better to offer than b-blankets,” he said.

  “Braggart.”

  “If I cannot w-warm you more effectively than blankets,” he told her, “I will need to find a mouse hole somewhere and curl up inside it for the r-rest of my life.”

  “Come and warm me, then,” she said, her voice a soft caress.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He felt a dizzying sort of happiness, as though some great load had been lifted from his shoulders. What a relief to know he had not loved Velma.

  At least . . .

  But for the moment he was safe and even happy with his wife.

  20

  One of Flavian’s aunts and two of his female cousins came during the morning to meet Agnes, about whose existence they had learned late yesterday upon their arrival in town. They ended up bearing her off with Flavian’s mother for a drive in Green Park. It was his aunt DeeDee—a corruption of Dorinda, he seemed to remember—his mother’s younger sister, and his cousins Doris and Clementine, her third and fourth daughters. Or was it the fourth and fifth? Dash it, he should know. Clemmie was the youngest, anyway, and yet another cousin about to make her debut into society. She was a giggler, Flavian discovered during the few minutes he spent in her company, but then, most girls her age were.

  He wondered whether Agnes had been a giggler at that age, but would bet his fortune she had not been. She had married her William when she was eighteen, and if there had ever existed a duller dog and one less romantically inclined, he would be surprised to hear it. Not that he had known the man, of course, and not that Agnes had said much about him. But much was to be deduced. . . .

  If Flavian had the right of it, she had married Keeping because her father’s remarriage had made her feel like a stranger in her own home. She had married him because he was safe. Strange, that. For now he, Flavian, had married her for the same reason.

  He stood outside the front door of Arnott House after handing the ladies into the open carriage, all five crowded in together, and waving them on their way. He brooded for a few moments before going back inside.

  A family was a good thing to have, even if it sometimes seemed that its numbers must extend into the hundreds and that it was made up almost entirely of the noisiest, most talkative members of the beau monde, both on his father’s side and his mother’s. Yes, it could be a very good thing to have, for his family had always been close-knit. Every member pulled for every other member, even if there were sometimes squabbles among individuals, especially siblings.

  Every member of the family currently in London would surely have been invited to Marianne’s party this evening. And every one of them would go. Flavian did not know who else had been invited. And he did not know whether the little flaring of gossip about his wife at Lady Merton’s party had been fanned into flame, though he would wager it had been. He was going to be prepared anyway if any mention of it should be made tonight.

  Whether he would warn Agnes and so make her more nervous than she would be anyway of her first ton party, he had not decided.

  He turned and made his way back into the house.

  He reappeared dressed for the outdoors a short while later, after a groom had brought his curricle and pair up to the door. He shook his head after he had climbed up to the seat and taken the ribbons in his hands, and the groom, looking somewhat surprised, refrained from scrambling up behind. Flavian would rather not have any witnesses among his own servants to the visit he was about to make. Servants, even loyal ones, were always the worst gossips in the world.

  He drove himself out to Kensington, following vague directions to a house that Peter Jenkins had heard was quite invisible among an unruly forest of trees, though he had never seen it for himself. Jenkins also had no knowledge of whether the house was lived in or empty. He had had no dealings with his relative for as far back as he could remember. Havell might be in Kensington or in Timbuktu for as much as he knew—or cared, his tone had implied.

  Flavian found the house. Or, rather, he found the unruly forest and followed a bumpy trail into its midst until he discovered the house—larger and in somewhat better condition than he had expected, and surrounded by a small, well-kept, colorful garden. There was a thin trail of smoke coming out of the chimney. There was someone here, at least.

  An elderly retainer, his dark coat shiny with age, answered the knock on the door. He looked openly surprised to discover that Flavian was not simply a traveler who had got lost in the woods and needed directions to find his way back to civilization. He showed the visitor into a parlor that was clean and tidy, if a little on the shabby side. The servant went to see whether his master and mistress were at home. His right boot heel creaked as he walked, Flavian noticed.

  They arrived together no longer than a few minutes later, both looking as surprised as their butler, as though they were not in the habit of receiving unexpected visitors—or perhaps any visitors at all.

  Sir Everard Havell was a tall man with receding hair that still retained some brown mixed in with the predominant gray. His face and figure were fleshy, the former florid, the complexion of a man who perhaps indulged rather heavily in the bottle. His blue eyes were pale and somewhat watery. He had the remnants of good looks, but he was not well preserved.

  Flavian could not see even the faintest resemblance to Agnes.

  Time had been a little kinder to Lady Havell, even though she was apparently older than her husband. Her figure was still good, though she must be close to sixty. Her hair was still thick and a becoming shade of silver gray. She was a handsome woman, though her face was lined. There was some animation in her dark eyes. She was pleased, Flavian guessed, to have a visitor, though obviously curious too.

  He could see nothing of Agnes in her either. On the other hand, she bore a more than passing resemblance to Miss Debbins.

  “Good day . . . Viscount Ponsonby?” Havell rather unnecessarily consulted the card Flavian had handed to the butler.

  Flavian inclined his head. “I have the p-pleasure,” he said, “of being Lady Havell’s son-in-law.”

  The lady’s eyes widened, and she pressed the fingers of both hands over her mouth.

  “I married Mrs. Keeping a little over a week ago,” he said. “Mrs. Agnes Keeping.”

  “Agnes?” the lady said faintly. “She married one of the Keeping brothers? Not William Keeping, surely? He was such an unappealing young man and years too old for her.”

  “Mr. William Keeping, yes,” Flavian said.

  “But he died?” she said. “And now she has married you? A viscount? Oh, she has done well for herself.”

  “Rosamond,” Sir Everard said, “you had better sit down.”

  She did so, and her husband gestured Flavian to another chair.

  She had no knowledge, then, of what had happened to her family after she left?

  “And Dora?” she asked. “Did she make a decent marriage after all?”

  “She has made no marriage at all, ma’am,” Flavian said.

  She closed her eyes briefly. “Oh, poor Dora,” she said. “She was very much looking forward to marriage and motherhood—as we all do at the age of seventeen. I suppose she felt obliged to stay home with Agnes. Or perhaps no one would have her after Walter decided to divorce me. That man has much to answer for.”

  It was a strange perspective on past events. Perhaps it was an understandable one, however. It was always easier to blame someone else than to assume blame oneself.

  Havell had poured two glasses of wine. He handed one to Flavian and drank from the other himself. Flavian set his glass down on a small table beside his chair.

  “And Oliver?” Lady Havell asked.

  “He is a clergyman in Shropshire, ma’am,” he told her. “He is married with three children.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Why have you come, Lord Ponsonby?” she asked him.

  Flavian sat back in his chair and eyed his glass. But he did not pick it up.

  “Agnes was told n-nothing, ma’am,” h
e said. “She was five years old, and I s-suppose the assumption was made that she would forget if she was not constantly r-reminded. She still knows virtually n-nothing. She does not want to know. She does not want to know who you are or where you are or even wh-whether you are. But her life has been shaped by your s-sudden and complete disappearance from her life. She has lived on the f-fringes of her own life ever since, afraid to feel too deeply, not lest she be hurt again, it seems to me, but lest she be tempted to do to someone else what you d-did to her.”

  “What I did to her,” she said softly. “Well, and so I did too, Lord Ponsonby, for heaven knows I fell deeply enough in love with Everard that summer and spent far too much time in his company. I had no business being so self-absorbed when I had a husband and three children.”

  She looked at her husband briefly and half smiled at him.

  “Poor Everard,” she said. “For very honor’s sake he was obliged to take me away when Walter denounced me quite publicly at a local assembly and announced his intention of divorcing me. We fled that very night, and only later did it occur to me that Walter had been drinking freely that evening, and it was common knowledge that he could not hold his liquor without making a cake of himself. I might have brazened it out, and our neighbors would have pretended that the whole nasty scene had not happened. But it seemed he had forced my hand, and then I forced his. Poor Everard was caught in the middle.”

  “I have never regretted that fact, Rosamond,” he said gallantly.

  She smiled at him. It was a sad, fond expression, Flavian thought.

  “I really did dislike Walter quite intensely,” she said. “But I loved my girls—and Oliver too. I ought to have gone back for their sakes. Even after a few days had passed I ought to have gone back. Everyone would have turned a blind eye. And Walter would not have carried through on his threat—not when he was sober. After a few days, though, I could not bring myself to leave Everard. I chose my personal happiness over my children, Lord Ponsonby. Agnes is perfectly justified in not wanting anything to do with me. You will keep this visit to yourself, will you?”