Children? Not a marriage in name only, then, but a shared bed and all that went with it. “But to marry purely for reputation’s sake…”
“I know it’s not what you’ve dreamt about. I’m not a dashing officer or a great ladies’ man or even particularly eloquent. But we’re friends and neighbors, are we not? We could build something out of that. And you would want for nothing. I’d do my best to be a good husband to you and make you happy—”
She cut off his surprising rush of words. “For goodness’ sake, Ayersley. You don’t owe me anything.”
He took his seat again. “I’m convinced I do.”
“But you don’t. It isn’t your fault I was upset that night, or that I stupidly ran to your library. And no matter how rash that kiss may have been, we should hardly be required to pay for it for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m a single gentleman, Miss Langley, and not likely to suffer overmuch from malicious gossip. But you’re an unmarried girl living in a country parish full of talkative, opinionated neighbors. What will you do if society here proves unforgiving?”
Roxana tensed. “I don’t know. This is all so confusing.”
“Then marry me. We wouldn’t live in each other’s pockets, I promise you. For the most part, your time would be your own. You could involve yourself with the running of Broadslieve as much or as little as you like.”
At least he hadn’t claimed to love her. Roxana was glad of that. After George, the last thing she wanted was more empty words.
He made it sound strangely tempting, an answer to all the uncertainties that had sprung up in her life. With her dreams of marrying George shattered, would she end up a spinster aunt? Alone? A social outcast, whispered about and gossiped over? She didn’t have to be any of those things. Instead she could be the Countess of Ayersley. It wasn’t just a safe future, it was a splendid one.
She stopped herself. What was she doing, considering marriage to the earl? He was her brother’s old friend, a neighbor she had scarcely seen in the past few years, and nothing more. This business with George must have addled her brain.
Roxana rested her forehead in her hand and laughed weakly. “If Mama only knew what you were saying to me right now.” She shook her head. “She would be in alt. She adores you, you know.”
“Heaven bless your mother. But it’s your opinion that really matters. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think. This is all so sudden.”
“I’m not being noble,” he said, nobly. “This is not a sacrifice on my part. I’m sure we could be happy. I know it’s the right thing to do.”
She didn’t know what to say. How could she marry him? She didn’t love him. She could only shake her head.
Sliding to the edge of his seat, Ayersley leaned in closer. “You would have a great deal of freedom as a married woman, as well as position and security. Once married, I would spend more time here in Derbyshire than I have in the past. You could be near your mother and Harry.”
“You don’t drive a very hard bargain,” she protested faintly, having trouble grappling with it all. “I stand to gain a great deal. I would salvage my reputation. I would have wealth, rank, family. You’ve said only that you need an heir. Surely you must want more than that from marriage.”
“There is one thing.”
She waited.
He seemed almost reluctant to go on. “It’s a rather old-fashioned requirement, but it matters to me.”
Dear, staid Ayersley. Of course his requirements would be old-fashioned. “Yes?”
“Your time would be your own,” he said haltingly. “It’s not the fashion for husbands and wives to be too greatly involved in each other’s lives. Many married women enjoy—flirtations, if you will. But I would expect you to be faithful to me. Even after you’ve given me an heir. Even after twenty children, if it should come to that.”
Roxana’s cheeks grew hot. She wondered if she had understood him correctly. Just because she might show curiosity in vulgar gossip didn’t mean she’d lost all sense of right and wrong. “I see nothing old-fashioned in that. Of course I would not betray you.”
He smiled an apologetic smile. “I felt it needed to be said.”
So he had meant just what she’d thought—no love affairs. She examined him with detached awareness. Something told her he would apply his edict against taking lovers equally to himself. There would be no ugly surprises with a man like Ayersley. He might have feelings for another girl, that London beauty he had spoken of, but he was thoroughly honorable. If she married him, he wouldn’t play her false.
“Very well,” she said. “Yes.”
“Yes? Your answer is yes?” An almost dazed look—the shock of settling it, no doubt—transformed his face. He jumped to his feet. “I’ll see to everything. With a special license, we can marry right away.”
Had she really said yes? It didn’t seem real. For heaven’s sake, he was her brother Tom’s old playmate. How had yes slipped out? “Right away?” she said in alarm. “Shouldn’t we wait a decent interval?”
“What about the gossip?”
“But—people might jump to the wrong conclusion if we seem in too great a hurry. It’s more fashionable to marry by license, I know, but shouldn’t we publish the banns?”
He looked as if he wanted to object, but gave a grudging nod. “You’re right, of course. But you mustn’t worry. As you say, we’ve done nothing wrong. This will all turn out for the best.”
She mustn’t worry? She could remember trotting after him when she was a grubby eight-year-old with leaves and straw in her hair, hoping he and her brother would let her tag along as they walked to the village. Just this summer he’d caught her kissing George Wyatt in the church. He knew most of the foolish, shameful things she’d done in her life. And she was going to marry him? How could she let him be so noble?
“Are you certain?” she said. “We both know nothing happened. I’m willing to face down the gossip.”
“I’m certain.”
“But I really don’t expect—”
“Roxana,” he said in a firm voice, “it’s the right thing to do.”
The sound of her name on his lips—not “Miss Langley” as before, but “Roxana”—drove the objection she’d been about to make right from her head. She’d said yes. After the short three weeks it would take to call the banns, they could marry. This serious, introspective gentleman would be chained to her forever, and she would be chained to him.
“I’ll handle everything,” he said. “As soon as I reach home, I’ll sit down and write your brother. Would you prefer a London wedding? St. George’s in Hanover Square is—”
“No.” She had already made herself an object of speculation and gossip among their neighbors. She had no desire to add London society to the list. “I want to marry here.”
Ayersley had by now possessed himself of his hat and gloves and was working his way toward the front door. His haste might almost have been comical, if the occasion had not been such a momentous one. But she understood his eagerness to go. He must have been suffocating with second thoughts.
He nodded. “Very well. I’ll stop on my way home and set things in motion with Mr. Spotterswood.”
“Already?” She trailed after him. “But don’t you want to talk this over? What about my mother—shall we tell her together?”
“You tell her, if you like.” He reached for the doorknob.
It was as if, having delivered his proposal, he’d exhausted everything that could possibly be said between them. He seemed in a positive lather to be on his way. He only repeated that she should not worry, and that he would handle everything himself. Then he was gone.
Roxana closed the door behind him and almost fell against it. Her legs had gone suddenly boneless. She walked, trembling, back into the drawing room and collapsed onto the closest chair, drawing a deep, shaky breath.
Dear Lord. What had she done?
Chapter Eight
Being asked wh
ether it was better to marry or not, he replied, “Whichever you do, you will repent it.”
—Diogenes Laertes
It took Alex five attempts to write a letter to Tom that struck the right balance between telling him too much and telling him too little. After all, how does a man inform his best friend he’s taken advantage of the friend’s only sister, doing such irreparable injury to her character and good name she’s been forced against her will to accept him? In the end, he resisted the urge to bare his soul and confess every ignoble impulse he’d ever harbored, and simply asked Tom for his blessing.
Meanwhile, he had other business to handle. Though he’d already stopped at the vicarage to arrange for the calling of the banns, he had to settle a thousand legal and financial details before the ceremony could take place—jointures, portions, questions of guardianship and dowry. When he wasn’t meeting with solicitors, he was writing to Rundell and Bridge’s to commission a suitably consequential wedding ring, or answering one of the many questions footmen carried back and forth each day from Lady Langley at Riddlefield. In addition, his mother insisted on moving to the dower house—”I want the two of you to have some time to yourselves,” she’d told him when he broke the news of his impending marriage—and that meant readying the place and arranging the transfer of her belongings. And, of course, he had all the usual political and estate matters to attend to.
But Alex was grateful to have so many demands on his time, because for once, he had no wish to see Roxana Langley. The less they saw of each other before the wedding, the fewer opportunities she would have to change her mind.
He kept his distance as best he could, confining their contact to Sunday churchgoing. The first time Mr. Spotterswood read the banns, Alex half expected Roxana to rise from her pew and object that they couldn’t marry because her heart belonged irretrievably to George Wyatt. But she only looked down at her lap, a faint blush on her cheeks, pretending not to notice that every gaze in the congregation had swiveled in her direction.
As for Wyatt himself, he didn’t come to church that Sunday, or any of the three weeks before the wedding. Alex never had the satisfaction of seeing his face when he learned Roxana had agreed to become the next Countess of Ayersley. Alex suffered a twinge of compunction at his churlish desire to gloat—and at his fervent hope that wherever Wyatt had disappeared to, he would stay there.
* * *
Roxana dreaded the end of the first church service after the banns were published for her marriage to the earl. If she were in her neighbors’ shoes, heaven only knew what she would think of a young lady who had gone from a broken engagement to a surprise betrothal in the space of a week.
Reaction was mixed, though not as bad as she’d feared.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so happy for you!” Mrs. Spotterswood’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she bore down on Roxana just outside the church door. “One has only to look at the two of you to know you were made for each other!”
But Dr. Massey, the neighborhood physician and one of the witnesses who’d seen her in the library with Ayersley, was rather less enthusiastic. “I wish you happy, Miss Langley,” he said in his usual pessimistic tone. He dropped his voice to a confidential rumble. “I’ve been worried about you, I confess.”
Mrs. Truitt practically elbowed him out of the way. “You clever child! Looks and all that money besides! Good thing you got rid of that swaggering major, eh?”
Ayersley, fortunately, could not hear any of them. He was halfway across the churchyard, speaking to several young gentlemen at once.
At least no one had cut her this week. But then, they couldn’t, could they? Not when, in less than a month, she was to become the new Countess of Ayersley. She wondered how many truly wished her happy, and how many were only obliged to be polite, in deference to Ayersley’s rank and consequence.
Fanny joined her on the church steps, looking more stunned than joyful. “Oh, Roxana, I don’t know what to say.” She leaned closer. “This all seems so sudden. Forgive me, but I can’t help wondering—please tell me you and Ayersley—”
Fanny’s brother had been among the knot of young men around the earl, but he came loping over to break in on her anxious question, shaking his head. “So you’ve accepted Ayersley. If it were any other gentleman, I could at least console myself by going into a sulk and bad-mouthing the fellow. George Wyatt, I confess, was easy enough to resent. But Ayersley! How can a man object to anyone so curst agreeable? Congratulations.”
“You mustn’t congratulate the bride.” Fanny glanced with a worried expression from her brother to Roxana. “He’s lucky to win her.”
“I know, I know. I’m just confounded.” He shook his head again, as if he suspected Roxana and the earl were playing a joke on everyone.
Roxana looked from one bewildered face to the other. Miss Penn and her mother had been guests of the Sherbournes. Fanny and her brother must have been among the first to hear the rumors about her and Ayersley. Behind the polite reactions, what were they really thinking? She was too craven to ask, afraid even her best friend might believe the worst.
* * *
On the Friday before the wedding, her brother Tom arrived from London. Roxana had been sitting in the window seat in the drawing room, lost in unhappy thought. As soon as she saw his horse trotting up the drive, she leaped to her feet and raced out to meet him.
He slid from the saddle and crushed her to his chest in a lingering hug, smelling comfortingly of snuff and saddle leather. “Well then, Dust Mop, it’s really true?”
She held tight to him without answering.
Tom grinned down at her. “You should have seen my face when I read Alex’s letter. I never had an inkling! My only sister and my oldest friend—who would have thought it?”
She leaned on his arm as they climbed the front steps together. It felt so good to have her practical, good-humored brother back—a link to everything normal and uncomplicated—she was afraid to let him go. “It’s still hard for me to believe myself.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “I only hope the two of you never quarrel. I would gladly have crossed swords with George Wyatt on your behalf, you know, but I can’t afford to lose a friend like Alex.”
Roxana smiled for the first time in days. “I can’t imagine quarreling with Ayersley about anything.”
Tom laughed. “Good.” He patted her hand where it rested in the crook of his arm. “Did you know he actually had the idiocy to ask whether I minded? Only Alex could be that stubbornly humble.”
“I’m glad you approve. I’m very fortunate.”
But she didn’t feel fortunate. She felt scared and sick with apprehension. The knots in her stomach grew worse with each passing day. She couldn’t tell Tom about them. She couldn’t tell her mother, either. As much as Lady Langley had disapproved of her engagement to George, what would she say if she knew Roxana had accepted a man she didn’t love?
Even Roxana couldn’t say why she’d agreed to marry Ayersley. The word yes had popped out in the oddest way, almost as if someone else had answered for her. Had she agreed merely to save her reputation? Had she been swayed by his money and rank? Or, worst of all, had she been grasping at straws, accepting Ayersley because he might be the only man still willing to have her? She lay in bed at night, gnawed by the most awful doubts.
After all, how could they possibly suit? She and Ayersley had next to nothing in common. He was a serious-minded politician, while she longed for excitement and glamour. He’d never taken much interest in her—in fact, he was in love with another girl. Though he might be prepared to set his feelings aside, he couldn’t be happy about it.
And Ayersley had only kissed her that one time, when she’d been sobbing and confused, so he didn’t know about her unaffectionate nature. He probably thought she was always the passionate, pliant creature who’d thrown herself on him in his library, while the real Roxana was nervous and shrinking and cold.
Just thinking about that aspect of marriage gave h
er the shivers. If she’d never enjoyed being kissed by George—George, the undoubted ladies’ man, the dashing hero she’d idolized for years—how could she possibly be a wife to Ayersley? She was afraid to imagine what kind of awkward, distressing business it would be. She was going to disappoint him. She knew she was.
Roxana wanted to warn him about her doubts, but he was always busy meeting with solicitors. She wasn’t marrying just anyone, after all. She was allying herself with a grand title and a substantial fortune. Learning of all the preparations underway made her even more miserable, for she could see exactly how much trouble she was causing.
The Sunday before the wedding arrived, and with it came her last chance to talk with Ayersley. Sitting in church, watching the earl’s staunch, carefully composed face as Mr. Spotterswood read the banns for the third and final time, Roxana wished with all her heart they weren’t in such a fix.
When the service ended, her mother made a beeline for the dowager countess, pulling Roxana and Harry along in her wake. Both ladies were all smiles as they compared notes on the wedding plans, but Ayersley, standing soberly behind his mother, never said a word.
Roxana wished she could read his thoughts. Was he dreading the coming ceremony, perhaps even resenting her for having left him with no choice but to offer marriage? She doubted he would utter a word of complaint, but it seemed unfair his sense of honor should cost him so dearly. Or was he trying not to think about the wedding at all, hoping if he refused to acknowledge reality, somehow it would all go away?
While she studied Ayersley, the dowager countess had been studying her. “You’re very quiet, my dear.”
Roxana’s mother answered for her. “She’s been like this all week. Bridal nerves. She’s barely touched her food since the day they settled it between them.”
Roxana looked up and met the earl’s eyes. They both knew that what her mother assumed was mere nerves was really a sickening sense of impending disaster.
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