by Mary Balogh
“There is a crest on the side panel,” she said. “I would recognize it in a moment if I were a quarter of a mile closer to it or if these eyes were fifty years younger. Lorgnettes are perfectly useless for anything more practical than intimidating the presumptuous. Whose carriage is it, Ralph?”
“The Duke of Stanbrook’s,” he said, after moving up beside her.
“I suppose,” his mother said, “he will expect to stay here. You must have him informed, Mother, that only family is to stay. Or I shall do it if you find it difficult. I have never warmed to the man.”
“I shall go down and meet him,” Ralph said, and he turned to Chloe with a curious light in his eyes. “Come with me?”
The Duke of Stanbrook, he explained briefly as they made their way down to the terrace, was the owner of Penderris Hall in Cornwall, where he had spent three years recovering from his wounds.
Chloe held back while Ralph strode across the terrace to open the carriage door himself and set down the steps. The duke was considerably older than her husband, tall and handsome in an austere sort of way, with dark hair silvering at the temples. He came quickly and wordlessly down the steps and caught Ralph up in a tight hug. She saw both their faces before they broke apart and was startled to see raw emotion in both.
Then they turned back to the carriage and Ralph held out a hand to help someone else alight—a lady. She was small and blond and very pretty, and she set her hands on his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on his good cheek and murmur something Chloe could not hear.
Another person followed her down, a great giant of a man with close-cropped dark hair and a face that was all frowns and ferocity as he caught Ralph up in a hug even tighter than the duke’s.
“Ah, lad,” he said after a few silent moments, “we came with George as soon as we heard.”
Chloe found them even more intimidating than her in-laws for some inexplicable reason. For she sensed immediately that they were of a world shared by her husband, a world from which she was excluded. Ralph had been transformed before her. The deadness had gone from his eyes. And instantly, unreasonably, she resented these people. She was his wife, yet she had never until this moment glimpsed any of this . . . animation in him.
They all turned together, rather as his family had done yesterday, suddenly aware, it seemed, of her silent presence a short distance away. Ralph extended one arm toward her, his fingers slightly beckoning, putting her somehow in the wrong for not having approached of her own volition. His eyes held hers, and they were blank and unreadable again.
“Chloe,” he said, “let me present the Duke of Stanbrook and Lord and Lady Trentham. My wife, the Duchess of Worthingham.”
The two men regarded her gravely. The outsider, they seemed to be thinking. Lady Trentham smiled with unaffected warmth, however, and she came limping toward Chloe and took both of Chloe’s hands in hers.
“Duchess,” she said, “what a wretched honeymoon you are having, you poor thing. And how sad that we cannot celebrate your new marriage with you just yet. I am delighted for you both, nevertheless. All the Survivors are dearly fond of one another, as I am sure you know, but they have opened their close circle to welcome each of the newly acquired wives. Hugo and I have been married for not quite a year, and there have been four other marriages since, counting yours. I do hope you will be as happy as the rest of us once this very sad occasion is behind you.”
The survivors? But Chloe did not ask.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling back and then looking from one to the other of the men. “And welcome to Manville Court.”
The Duke of Stanbrook was holding out a hand for hers. “Duchess,” he said, taking it in both his own as he looked directly into her eyes, “I strongly suspected when Ralph left London a few days ago that I would be meeting you soon, though I did not suspect it would be under such sad circumstances. I am sorry about that. But I am glad Ralph has you to bring him some comfort.”
“Let me look at you, lass,” Lord Trentham said, his amiable voice at variance with the fierceness of his facial expression. He took her right hand in his large one. “Someone said you had the reddest hair of anyone else they had ever seen, and I can see they did not exaggerate. Ralph has found himself a rare beauty. Have I said something wrong, Gwendoline?”
But his wife merely shook her head slightly and laughed as she linked an arm through his.
Ralph gestured toward the steps and the main doors. “You will, of course, be staying here,” he said. “All the guest rooms have been prepared.”
“We would not dream of imposing,” the duke said. “We will stay in the village or wherever there is room for us.”
“But we would not dream of allowing you to stay anywhere else but here,” Chloe said. “You are my husband’s friends.”
And it was not so much resentment she felt against them, she realized, as jealousy pure and simple, for clearly they were his friends while she was not. She was merely his wife, to whom he had promised respect but never affection.
She led the way inside and paused to have a word with Mrs. Loftus before following them upstairs.
And then, less than an hour later, Graham arrived with Lucy and Mr. Nelson. Ralph accompanied her downstairs again to greet them.
Lucy came tumbling out of the carriage first, squealing with a quite inappropriate display of high spirits. She rushed into Chloe’s arms.
“Chlow,” she cried, “you are married. To a duke. But why did you not wait to have a grand wedding and invite us to it, you horrid thing? I will never forgive you. You do look fine in black, I must say. But I remember remarking on that fact after Mama died. You have the coloring to carry it. Does she not, Freddie? I look a perfect fright in black myself. I simply fade away behind dark, dreary colors. But I ought not to run on so, ought I? You have suffered a bereavement, and I daresay you are quite sad about it even if the duke was an old man.”
“My dear sister,” Frederick Nelson said, making Chloe a flourishing bow as though he were on stage, playing to the highest gallery, “or my dear duchess, ought I to say? I suppose you will have to observe a bit of a mourning period, but as soon as you can, before the end of the Season, it is to be hoped, I shall be imploring you to set up your own salon in London and cut a dash entertaining all the best wits and artists and poets and, dare I say, playwrights?”
Chloe gave him a speaking glance. These two never changed. They absolutely deserved one other. Mr. Nelson inhabited his own eccentric world, seemingly unaware of the real one, while what had begun as mere youthful, impulsive exuberance in Lucy had become, with the removal of the refining influence of her father and mother, an amiable near vulgarity. But at least she was amiable. And family.
“Lucy, Mr. Nelson,” she said, “allow me to introduce you to my husband. My sister and brother-in-law, Ralph.”
“Ah, but the Duke of Worthingham and I have a long-standing acquaintance,” Mr. Nelson said effusively.
Ralph acknowledged him with a polite inclination of the head and bowed over Lucy’s hand. He had been shaking hands with and exchanging some pleasantries with Graham, though they had both been looking a bit stiff and awkward about it.
Graham hugged her. “Chloe,” he said for her ears only, “whatever have you done? And without a word to anyone?”
“There was no time to let anyone know,” she told him. “The duke was ailing, and the duchess was eager for us to marry without either fuss or delay. I am glad we did, but I am sorry there was no time for our two families to gather here.”
Mr. Nelson was delivering what sounded like a bombastic speech of condolence and Lucy was gazing at Ralph in some awe when someone else descended the steps of the carriage more slowly and hesitantly than the others. He looked at Chloe and raised his eyebrows, as though he was not sure of his welcome.
She looked back at him and felt as though her heart was breaking.
He held her away from him and looked inquiringly down at her.
“There was no time to ask for your permission,” she explained.
“You are of age, Chloe,” he reminded her.
“For your blessing, then,” she said. “The duke was ill, and the duchess feared the excitement of grand wedding preparations or even the delay for more modest ones would prove too much for him.”
“It is a brilliant match you have made, Chloe,” he said. “But will you be happy? It was all so very sudden. Was it because you had persuaded yourself you had no home of your own to which to return?”
But there was no time to answer him. Mr. Nelson had finished his monologue and Lucy for once was speechless. Chloe turned. “This is my husband, Papa. The Duke of Worthingham. My father, Ralph.”
The two men shook hands, sizing each other up. Neither smiled.
“I hope to make amends later, sir,” Ralph said, “for not having consulted you before I married your daughter. I thank you for undertaking such a long journey. It will be a comfort to my wife to have her family with her during the next few days.”
“I was in London when Chloe’s letter to my son was delivered,” her father said. “I was there to spend a couple of weeks or so with him and my younger daughter and grandchildren and my sister. I was glad to be able to avail myself of the opportunity to come here to offer my condolences.”
“Do come inside, sir,” Ralph said.
“I will have you taken up to some guest rooms,” Chloe said, slipping a hand through her father’s arm, “and then you must come back down to the drawing room for tea. I am sure you will wish to pay your respects to Her Grace.”
“You are Her Grace, Chlow,” Lucy said. “But I know who you mean. You mean the old duchess. I daresay I shall be awed speechless when I meet her. We are not received by many of the highest sticklers of the ton, you know, but everyone will have to be polite to us for the next few days, will they not? And to you too, Chlow. After last year, I expect—”
“I believe it would be wiser, Lucy,” Graham said, “to hold your tongue.”
“Oh, you are so stuffy, Gray,” she said, rolling her eyes.
But mercifully, she obeyed him.
10
The rest of the day proceeded in a bit of a whirl for Ralph. In a way he was thankful. For the past few days he had gone more than once to spend time with his grandfather, laid out in state for those who wished to pay their respects, and more and more each time he felt his loss. For his grandmother had been right on the morning of his death. His body was there, but he was not. Only memories of him remained.
Most of Ralph’s memories of his paternal grandparents were of pure, unconditional love, not unmingled with some pretty firm discipline when it had been necessary. His father had always been bookish and reserved in manner. His mother had always been distracted by her social obligations. Not that either parent had been cruel or unloving or even neglectful. But they had lacked a certain warmth that Ralph had found in his grandparents.
Which fact made him wonder what sort of father he would make to his own children. Chloe, he was almost certain, would be a good mother. She had told him on the morning she suggested her bargain that she would love any children they might have, and he believed her. The servants loved her. He did not believe that was an exaggeration. Servants had only ever respected him. Though maybe that was not strictly accurate. A number of the older ones had been party to some sort of conspiracy to protect him from his grandparents’ wrath whenever as a boy he had got himself into one of his frequent scrapes.
There were other arrivals later in the day—his eldest sister, Amelia, and her husband, an aunt and uncle, a few cousins, a few particular friends of his grandparents. And then three unexpected guests.
Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, a fellow Survivor, came with his wife from Candlebury Abbey, their country home some distance away though also in Sussex, where they had been hiding away on their honeymoon. And, very late in the evening, Vincent, Viscount Darleigh, the blind one of their number, arrived, having traveled all the way from Gloucestershire with his valet and his guide dog. They could not have lingered anywhere on the road to have arrived in time. Ralph was more deeply moved than he could say. The only two of their number who had not come were Ben, who lived in the farthest reaches of West Wales, and Imogen, who was in Cornwall.
Ralph was late going up to bed that night. Very late, in fact. Everyone had wanted to sit up and talk, as invariably seemed to happen in the face of a recent death. It was as though the living needed to assert their vitality against the great silencer. But his grandmother and his great-aunt had finally gone to bed, and almost everyone else retired soon after. Chloe, Lady Ponsonby, and Lady Trentham went up together, Ralph was pleased to see. They seemed all to like one another. Finally only he and his fellow Survivors remained in the drawing room—and Graham Muirhead. It was an annoyance to Ralph at first that Muirhead chose to intrude upon the closeness of their group, but it was unreasonable of him, for this was not a gathering of the Survivors’ Club. Graham was as much a guest in his house as the others were.
Ralph had always had a complicated relationship with Graham Muirhead, if it could be called by that name. At school Graham had always hovered on the edge of Ralph’s inner circle of four friends, but he had never become part of it. Ralph had liked him. Sometimes he had believed he would enjoy a closer, meaningful friendship with him, for Graham was intelligent and sensible and well read. At other times Ralph had found him so irritating that even his worst enemy would be a preferable companion, for Graham had a mind of his own and did not scruple to disagree with any idea or scheme that ran contrary to his beliefs. To be fair, Ralph had the feeling that Graham had felt the same way about him. Perhaps it was because they were both strong willed. But while Ralph’s strong will had made him a leader, someone other boys emulated and followed, Graham’s had shown itself in a quiet stubbornness, a total disregard for popularity or the approval of others. They had often clashed heads, even if only metaphorically. They had never recovered from the last time it had happened.
Graham was a clergyman now, but not just any clergyman. Not for him the quiet, respectable living he might have found in a country parish, with a wife to make the parsonage cozy and children about his knees, a wealthy patron to offer him security until he inherited his father’s title and modest fortune. And not for him the sort of ambition that would have sent him clawing his way up the ladder of the church hierarchy until he became a bishop or even an archbishop. Oh, no. Graham Muirhead had attached himself, by personal choice, to a poor parish in the very least desirable area of London, his parishioners being the slum dwellers, pickpockets, whores, drunks, moneylenders, ragged orphans, and other undesirables who filled its confines to overflowing. Not to mention the filth and stench of the streets.
And he had done it, he explained to an avidly interested George, Hugo, Flavian, and Vincent, not from any saintly sort of notion that he was going to bring the masses to the church pews, where they would fall to their knees in tearful penitence, but from his conviction that if his Lord had been born in early-nineteenth-century London instead of in Roman Palestine, then it was in that precise part of London he would have been found most often, consorting with the lowest of the low, healing them, eating with them, accepting them as they were, treating them with dignity, and rarely if ever preaching at them. Simply loving them, in other words.
“For that is what my religion is,” he explained without any suggestion of pious pomposity, “and what it impels me to do with my life. Simply to love and accept without judgment.”
Faradiddle, Ralph had wanted to say with great irritability at the same time as there was an ache of something—tears?—in his throat. For the word
s were not self-righteously spoken or designed to impress. They were merely Graham being Graham.
“Damnation!” Hugo exclaimed, slapping one large hand on his knee. “But you are right, Muirhead.”
“I would rather you than me,” Flavian said. “But you have my d-deepest admiration.”
“Is love enough, though?” George asked. “Love does not find homes for those orphans or respectable employment for those whores or comfort for those who are robbed.”
“No man can do everything,” Graham explained. “Each of us can do only what is within his power. If we dwell upon our inability to solve the world’s problems, our only possible recourse is to despair. Despair accomplishes nothing.”
A spirited debate followed, in which Ralph did not participate, though he listened and watched with interest—and with something he recognized as resentment. For these men all liked one another. Graham Muirhead fit right in as though he were one of them.
What was Ralph’s problem, then? Did he want to keep his friends to himself, unwilling to share? The possibility that that might be the case was embarrassing, to say the least. And childish.
“Ralph.” George’s eyes were resting upon him, and the others turned to look at him too, even Vincent. “We are keeping you up. And you need rest. One has only to look at your face to see that. You were very deeply attached to your grandfather. Tomorrow will be difficult for you.”
“I actually find it rather soothing,” Ralph said, “just to sit here and listen to you all talk. Thank you for coming. I really did not expect it. You too, Graham. It means a great deal to Chloe to have her family here with her.”
Hugo got to his feet, rubbing his hands together.
“Well, I am for my bed,” he said, a signal to them all, including Vince’s dog.
It was well past midnight when Ralph let himself into his wife’s room without tapping on the door, as he usually did. He expected that she would be asleep. He had even considered staying in his own bed tonight, but he found the prospect cheerless. He would not wake her, though, he had decided. Tomorrow was going to be busy for her too.