by Mary Balogh
“And did your winter also turn to spring?” Elizabeth asked. But she sensed it had not. The pain in his voice was not just for Wren.
“It had not felt like winter before she left,” he said. “I was told she had gone away to be made better, and was unutterably sad because I had lost my playmate. I hoped and hoped she would be home soon, healed and able to run about outside with me and play with me. And then I was told she was dead and I cried until I was empty of tears. How is it possible for a child to be so deeply hurt that he cannot be consoled? I had kissed her better a hundred times or more but she had not got better. Our aunt had taken her away so that a doctor would make her better, but she had died. The injustice of it struck me then, at the advanced age of six. Not the injustice of the way she had been isolated, but the injustice of . . . fate. I might have called it God if we had been a godly family. We were not. I asked my nurse why there was no funeral. I knew somehow about funerals. She told me not to be troublesome, so I was not. But I mourned Roe for the rest of my childhood. Mourning her became a part of me. She had not had a chance to live, yet I seemed to have no choice but to live.”
Elizabeth listened to him, aghast. One child in his family had been locked away because she had an unsightly deformity, and another—himself—had had his emotional needs ignored or perhaps not even detected. And why had they lied to him?
He was looking into her eyes, frowning. “Why did they lie to me?” he asked.
Oh, God. What answer was there? “She had been taken to another home,” she said, “where she was the only child and could be given the full care and attention of your uncle and aunt. Your parents probably thought you would forget about her more easily if you thought her dead.” It was a ridiculous answer. The real answer was obvious. When Wren had been taken away, they had been happy to consider her dead.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I ought not to have asked such an unanswerable question. For a few minutes I reverted to that little boy. Why do so many people uphold the myth that childhood is the happiest time of one’s life? It is not true, is it?”
“Not for everyone,” she said.
“Was it for you?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes, it was. I was fortunate.”
“And then you married a bounder,” he said.
She drew a slow breath. “I do not like to hear him called that,” she said. “He was ill. I am convinced he was ill. I loved him.” And hated him for the unforgivable—which she had not yet confronted and perhaps never would.
“I am sorry,” he said. “And I do understand. My brother was a drunk too. Life is not simple, is it?” He grinned suddenly and looked boyish again. “Maybe I ought to write a book. A profoundly philosophical work entitled Life Is Not Simple.”
Elizabeth laughed. “But remember the original analogy,” she said. “Winter does turn to spring, Colin, and spring turns to summer. Wren speaks with the warmest affection of her aunt and uncle and her years with them. She became a strong and independent woman even if she did hide behind a veil until last year. And then she met Alex and is clearly happy with him. Best of all, as it relates to your story, she did survive and you found out about it. You found each other again and have a close and loving relationship.”
It was not a happily-ever-after situation, of course. There was still the rest of his family, or its surviving members at least, who had treated both Wren and Colin so cruelly. And who knew what else had happened during his boyhood that had led him now to live in rooms in London when he owned a town house there and to spend Christmas with the Westcott family rather than his own?
He was smiling into her eyes, his face still close to her own. “You have a very soothing presence, Elizabeth,” he said. “Thank you. But I have kept you standing here too long. You must really be feeling like a block of ice by now.”
Strangely, she was not.
“Not quite,” she said. “I believe I still have the use of my limbs.” He was so close. He was smiling. He was very . . . lovely.
“You are very beautiful,” he said. His eyes dipped to her mouth and his head moved a fraction of an inch closer to hers. But instead of kissing her, he looked back into her eyes and smiled again. And she was relieved and disappointed. “If it is indeed your intention to choose a husband during the Season this year, some man is going to be very fortunate indeed.”
She had never been beautiful or even more than ordinarily pretty, but the compliment warmed her anyway. And it was not the first time he had paid it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“But at every ball you attend,” he said, his lips almost touching hers, “I must ask that you reserve one set of dances for me.”
As if her dance card would be crowded to capacity. “It is a promise,” she said.
“Preferably a waltz, as the Duchess of Netherby suggested on Boxing Day,” he added, and something happened to both her breathing and her knees at the thought of waltzing again with Colin. “In fact, definitely a waltz.”
“That can be arranged too,” she said. She was almost whispering, she realized. “But I believe there will be plenty of young ladies in London to compete with me for your attention.”
“Ah,” he said, “but none of them will be Elizabeth, Lady Overfield.”
He might have kissed her then. She sensed that it was about to happen. She drew away sharply from him and busied herself pulling up the muffler to cover her mouth before she dug her hands into her muff.
He had taken a step back and watched her, his hands clasped at his back. “I’ll race you up,” he said.
“I do not for a moment doubt it,” she agreed, but she took the slope at a run anyway and arrived at the top, panting and laughing, only just behind him. He stretched out a hand to haul her up the last few feet.
They walked back to the house without talking, but it was a companionable silence.
Almost.
Oh no, it was not companionable at all. It resonated with a kiss that had not happened and with words that had been spoken.
But at every ball you attend, I would ask that you reserve one set of dances for me.
Preferably a waltz . . . In fact, definitely a waltz.
Six
Colin returned to London after Easter, reluctantly admitting to himself that he would not make his permanent home at Withington after all. He definitely needed to settle at Roxingley. While he had been neglecting it, his mother had had the run of it, and if the complaints of his one neighbor were anything to judge by, that was not a good thing.
His mother had always liked to host lavish house parties, but while Colin’s father was still alive, perhaps there had been some check on what happened at them and even upon who was invited. Now there was no such restraint. He knew that his mother held parties in the London house too during the Season. Sleazy was one way they had been described in his hearing on one occasion before someone had shushed the speaker.
It was more than time he did something about the situation.
If only Justin had lived . . . But he had not, and the repetition of that thought was becoming tedious.
He left Withington after Wren’s child was born—a chubby, healthy, dark-haired little boy, whom they named Nathan Daniel Westcott, Viscount Yardley. Mrs. Westcott had returned to Brambledean to help Wren through the final weeks of her confinement, but Elizabeth had remained at Riddings Park. The father of a friend of hers was dying, and she had stayed to give help where she could. Colin was disappointed and hoped she would be free to go to London for the Season as she had planned. Perhaps he ought not to hope for it, though. He really ought to turn his mind to the serious task of choosing a bride from among the eligible young ladies who would be brought to town in search of husbands at the annual marriage mart that was the Season.
He wondered if Elizabeth remembered promising to waltz with him at every ton ball they both attended.
He settl
ed in his old rooms close to White’s Club. Until last summer he had lived there year-round since coming down from Oxford at the age of twenty-one, though most members of his social class fled the heat of summer to return to their country estates. He had stayed even during the winter when company was sparse.
He resumed the life with which he was familiar. There were his parliamentary duties and the regular communications with his bailiff at Roxingley Park and his man of business in town. There were his clubs and conversations with his peers. There were his close friends of long standing. There were his boxing and fencing clubs. There were rides in the various parks.
But this year he was going to have to give closer than usual attention to the numerous invitations that were delivered to his rooms daily. He had always attended a variety of entertainments—private concerts, soirees, garden parties, Venetian breakfasts, among others. He had generally avoided balls whenever possible, however. He enjoyed dancing. He even liked mingling with crowds. But it had always seemed to him that balls, more than any other type of social event, were for courtship. It was to the grand balls of the Season that hopeful mamas took their daughters in search of husbands. He was a baron, a peer of the realm. He was also young and wealthy, and his glass told him, all vanity aside, that he was passably good-looking. He had always been unwilling to take the risk of somehow being snared by a young lady determined to land herself a titled husband or, more likely, by her even more ambitious mama. He knew men who had been the victims of such aggressive husband hunting.
He would avoid the grand balls no longer.
He lined up four such invitations on his writing desk one morning, considered them carefully, and found himself wondering—of all things—which of them, if any, she would attend. Elizabeth Overfield, that was. He knew she was back in London with Mrs. Westcott. Wren had mentioned the fact in her last letter. But he had no idea how many ton balls she was in the habit of attending. Probably not very many. She was no young girl fresh upon the marriage mart, after all. And she already had her beau, the man with whom she was considering marriage this year.
He just hoped the man was worthy of her—if there was such a man. He hoped the man would appreciate her, at least, and cherish her. And love her. And make her laugh. And take away the remnants of her winter. And . . .
Well. It was none of his business really.
He looked from one invitation to another, not really seeing them, but seeing Elizabeth sputtering and clawing snow out of her eyes and then challenging him to a snowball fight and setting about choosing her team. He must give her lessons sometime in how to throw accurately. Oh, and he had lied when he had told her that particular snowball had been intended for her shoulder. It had not. He had made the snowball deliberately soft, and he had aimed it just where it had landed. He wanted to dance with her again—to waltz with her, as he had on Boxing Day. He wanted to waltz with her at every ball of the Season.
Would she be married by the end of the Season?
Would he?
He dipped his quill pen into the inkwell and set about accepting all four invitations.
* * *
• • •
Mr. Scott died just before Easter—one week after Wren and Alex’s baby was born, in fact. Araminta Scott, his daughter and Elizabeth’s friend, was free to recover both her health and her spirits after tending him with great devotion through a lingering illness. Araminta had insisted, when Elizabeth offered to postpone her visit to London and stay at home longer, that her friend get on with her own life.
“You have already missed the birth of your nephew on my account, Lizzie,” she had said. “I will not have you also miss your second—no, third—marriage proposal from Sir Geoffrey Codaire.”
Elizabeth had protested that she was expecting no such thing, but Araminta had threatened to bar her door against her friend if she insisted upon staying.
So here she was in town soon after the start of the Season. She and her mother were staying at the house on South Audley Street that had belonged to the late Earl of Riverdale and now belonged to his daughter, Anna, Duchess of Netherby. She had inherited her legitimate father’s wealth even as Alexander had inherited his title. Anna had persuaded Alexander to live there whenever he was in town, though she had been unable to convince him to accept it as a gift.
Wren and Alexander would be coming to town a bit later, after Wren had fully recovered from her confinement and it was safe for the baby to travel. Elizabeth could hardly wait to see him. Alex’s son! Her nephew. The first child of the next generation of their family. Neither of the two children she had conceived during her marriage to Desmond had reached birth.
Nathan’s arrival in this world made her more aware than ever of her advancing age, of the limited term of her fertility. She simply must at least try to make it possible to have a child of her own. There had been those few gentlemen last year, in particular Sir Geoffrey Codaire with his steady fidelity to her down the years, his proposal of marriage last year, and his expressed intent to renew his addresses at some future time. The future was now. She must hope that he would make his offer again, and this time she must not hesitate. He was a good man. He was someone she could trust with her person and her loyalty and affection. He was someone with whom she would feel happy to have a child before it was too late.
Elizabeth always enjoyed being in London. It gave her a chance to visit family and friends who lived far from her most of the year. And there were the shops and theaters, the galleries and libraries. There were concerts to attend and private dinners and parties, and sometimes grander entertainments, like garden parties and soirees. And there was the occasional ball, though Elizabeth did not attend many of them. Balls were intended for those very young ladies in search of husbands.
This year, however, she looked more closely at those invitations. Perhaps there was someone new to meet. Or perhaps . . . Well, perhaps he had not forgotten the promise he had extracted from her to reserve a set of waltzes for him at each ball. He being Colin, Lord Hodges, young and vibrant and achingly good-looking. How laughable that a woman of her age should be dreaming of dancing with him at a ton ball. And why did she always think of herself as a woman of advancing years when she thought of Colin? She resented it.
She wondered if he had made a definite decision to begin a serious search for a bride this year. If so, he would almost certainly have forgotten about an impulsive commitment made to her at Christmas.
It did not matter.
Maybe she would meet Sir Geoffrey Codaire at a ball. She really must hope to meet him somewhere this year.
Colin was in London. Alex had told her so in a letter from Brambledean. Would she be a little disappointed if he had forgotten the promise he had extracted from her?
How lowering that the answer was yes.
She spread out four invitations to balls as she sat at the escritoire in the morning room one day soon after the post had been delivered. All were sure to be well attended. Which would he attend? All of them? Some? One? None?
She sighed.
“Are there any interesting invitations we ought to accept?” her mother asked, looking up from her knitting. She was making Nathan a pair of booties.
“There are no fewer than four balls in the next two weeks,” Elizabeth said. “I cannot decide which we ought to attend. Perhaps all four?”
“Indeed?” Her mother raised her eyebrows. “Are you on the lookout for a husband in earnest at last, then, Lizzie?”
“Oh goodness,” Elizabeth said. “At my age, Mama?”
“My love,” her mother said, “if I were your age, I might well be shopping at every available ball myself.”
They both laughed, and Elizabeth picked up her quill pen to accept the invitations. All four of them. It felt a bit reckless.
* * *
• • •
Sir Randolph Dunmore’s house on Grosvenor Square was the site o
f the first grand ball of the Season—or so declared Lady Dunmore to a group of her friends, who passed on the word to their friends until they had collectively squashed the pretensions of any minor hostess who had tried to lay claim to the honor with any ball that had preceded it.
Lady Dunmore had a daughter to introduce to society and marry off—the second daughter. The first had married a wealthy baronet within three months of her come-out ball, and Lady Dunmore expected no less of Lydia, the accredited beauty among her five daughters. No expense had been spared. The ballroom floor had been polished to a high gloss. The chandeliers sparkled even before the candles were lit. Banks of flowers and hanging baskets made the room look and smell like an indoor garden. A small army of cooks hired for the occasion had been at work for three days producing every conceivable delicacy, both savory and sweet. An eight-piece orchestra had been engaged to provide the music.
Colin attended the ball in company with Ross Parmiter and John Croft, two of his closest friends. John had two sisters to provide for as well as a mother to support, all on a very moderate fortune, but he was nevertheless always ready and willing to add a wife to the household—if, that was, he should happen to fancy some young lady sufficiently and the same young lady should fancy him. He was ever hopeful of finding her, but his friends had noticed that he fell in and out of love with dizzying regularity and never did actually fix his interest upon any one candidate. Ross liked dancing and female company and could enjoy both without any great fear of being caught unawares in parson’s mousetrap. Though his father was well born and not by any means impoverished and made his only son a generous allowance, there was no grand fortune or ancestral property there, or even a title.
Colin Handrich, Baron Hodges, of course, fell into a different category altogether.