by Mary Balogh
The notice was to be in tomorrow’s papers? Was it too late to stop it? Surely not. But . . .
He had been pacing the living room floor. He halted in the middle of it now, his hands clasped at his back, his eyes closed. Suddenly he felt overwhelmed. Everything had slipped from his grasp. His resolutions of a few months ago were in tatters, his dreams transformed into nightmares. He had decided to step out into his own life and take charge of it, to make something meaningful of it, forge his adult identity, become the man he could be proud of being. He had hoped for a little happiness along the way. Perhaps a lot of happiness.
He might have known it would not be possible. He might have known that his mother, given the smallest chance, would shape his life as she wanted it to be—something that would reflect favorably upon her, something she could control and bring into her own orbit.
Except that . . . His arms dropped to his sides and he clenched his fists. His eyes were still closed.
Except that he did not have to let it happen.
As far as he knew, no one had ever fought against his mother and won. Was there any reason to suppose that he could be the one exception?
Was there any reason to suppose he could not?
At the same moment he knew very well what had been happening with Elizabeth—or rather with her reputation. Perhaps he had suspected it from the start and had known it almost for sure as soon as he had learned from Alexander that Sir Geoffrey Codaire had left town the very day of their confrontation at White’s. Now he knew it for certain.
Was he going to go down in defeat without even a fight?
Was he going to allow Elizabeth to suffer the sort of vicious character assassination that was almost impossible to fight against because it was being orchestrated by an expert who never lost?
No, he was not. By God, he was not!
* * *
• • •
Elizabeth went out during the morning when Wren invited her to go with her to see the new display of her Heyden glassware at a shop that regularly sold it.
Elizabeth was glad of the outing. Despite her resolutions of the day before yesterday and yesterday morning, she was unnerved by the ferocity of the stories that were being told about her. She was bewildered too. Why was it happening? Who could hate her so much. Geoffrey? But despite his unexpected jealousy and the spite with which he had spoken to her in Avery’s library, she could not believe he would so relentlessly set out to blacken her name and make it impossible for her to remain in London.
She had not been out since yesterday morning, when she and Anna had each bought a bonnet and Jessica had bought two. They went and looked and admired and were made much of by the shop owner—at least, Wren was. He assured her that her pieces were more sought after by his customers than any others. They met absolutely no one Elizabeth recognized. They arrived home late for luncheon and almost late for Nathan’s feed.
“He is just beginning to think about being cross,” Alexander said, bouncing the baby, who was cradled in the crook of one arm. He kissed Wren on the nose as she gathered Nathan in her arms and took him up to the nursery. Alexander turned to Elizabeth, frowning.
“What?” she asked. “There is more, I suppose.”
“I do not know where whoever it is finds his material,” he said, tight-lipped. “All sorts of stories from the years of your marriage to Overfield. Stories from last year and this year and even Christmastime. Some of them are even partially recognizable. Someone is finding these stories and twisting them quite maliciously.”
“I really do not want to hear any more,” she said. “I am sick of the whole thing. The very worst thing I ever did in my life was accepting Geoffrey’s proposal.”
“It is not him,” he said. “He left town the day after the ball.”
She was right, then. But who was doing it? Or was it a whole group of people who were feeding off one another’s nastiness? But why?
“I suppose we can expect a family gathering this afternoon,” she said.
“It would not surprise me,” he said.
But soon after luncheon, before any of the family descended upon South Audley Street, Colin was announced.
Elizabeth was in the morning room, explaining in a letter to Araminta Scott, the friend of hers who had recently lost her father, that she was no longer betrothed and was very happy to be single again. She put her pen down in some haste and got to her feet. Colin was the last person she wished to see at the moment. Her emotions were ruffled enough without having to confront her painful feelings for him.
And he was not looking happy. Or boyish. Only very handsome and attractive to boot. She wanted him to go away.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, smiling at him and clasping her hands at her waist. “I daresay you came to see Wren. I believe she is in the nursery with Alex.”
“No,” he said. “I came to see you.”
“Did you?” she said. “I suppose you have heard all the gossip. It would be strange if you had not when all the rest of the world must have done so. You must not worry about me, Colin, if that is what you have been doing. Perhaps someone will be obliging enough to murder his grandmother soon and there will be another conversational topic to distract from me. In the meanwhile I will not run away. I positively refuse to do so. And you must not worry about me.”
“I am so sorry, Elizabeth,” he said, and for the first time she noticed how pale he was. “It is all my fault. At least, it is all on account of me. It is not Codaire. It is my mother. It has to be. Only she could do something like this.”
She gazed at him, uncomprehending. “Lady Hodges?” she said. “But that is absurd. Why?”
“One thing you need to understand about my mother,” he said, passing the fingers of one hand through his hair and turning away from her so that he would not have to look into her eyes, “is that she always has to have her own way. No matter what. And she always does get it. There is no standing up against her. Though I do intend to do just that. But what is going on now is that she has heard that I am in search of a bride this year, and she has taken it into her head that I must marry Miss Dunmore, whom she considers to be the most beautiful of the eligible young ladies making their debuts this year. My mother has always surrounded herself with beauty and she has decided to add my wife to her court—and me too. She will not compromise on that now she has decided on it. I have explained to her that I have not chosen anyone yet and that when I do, it will be someone who suits me. After what happened a few evenings ago, she is clearly afraid that I will marry you. She is doing everything in her power to prevent it. And she has considerable power. I have never quite understood it, but she does.”
Elizabeth gazed at him, aghast. “She sees me as a threat?” she said.
He turned his head to look at her. “But she is right,” he said. “I did ask you to marry me. And thus subjected you to this.” He gestured with one hand as though all the gossip hung in the air about them. “It is not enough for her to nudge me in the direction she wants me to take or even to trick me. She has to destroy you to make doubly sure.”
Elizabeth licked lips that were suddenly dry. “You must be exaggerating,” she said. “You are speaking of your mother, Colin.”
“And a son must speak no evil of his own mother,” he said, striding across the room until he stood at the window, looking out. “Do you think it is easy for me to say these things to you or even to think them? She decided upon her campaign and is carrying it out with ruthless intent—but with no personal involvement whatsoever. No one would ever be able to accuse her of spreading even one word of the gossip. No one would ever find proof that she was behind it. But I know as surely as I am standing here that she is behind what has happened to you during the past few days.”
“But how,” she asked him, “would she know about things that happened during my first marriage?”
“Oh, she w
ould know,” he told her, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. “And what she does not know she will make up. The truth and lies are all the same to her. There is only one unassailable truth in her universe. She is the center of it, and everything and everyone else exists to praise and adore her. Only the young and most beautiful are allowed to inhabit her inner orbit.”
He turned his head sharply away again and tipped it back. She guessed his eyes were closed and that perhaps he was trying to hold back tears. She felt a bit as though she had walked into someone else’s nightmare. But it was all so ridiculous.
“One thing she obviously does not know,” she said, “is that you did indeed offer to marry me and I refused. She could have saved herself a lot trouble if she had discovered that. Perhaps I should simply write and tell her so.”
“Good God, no!” he exclaimed, turning sharply from the window.
She moved closer to him. “What are you going to do about your courtship of Miss Dunmore?” she asked him. “Do you want to marry her, Colin?”
He closed the distance between them and took both her hands in his. He held them tightly, almost to the point of pain. “My mother, probably with some sort of acquiescence from Lady Dunmore, has sent a notice of our betrothal to the morning papers,” he told her. “To be published tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she said, her heart plummeting to come to rest somewhere in her slippers. But—his mother had sent the notice?
“Blanche was awaiting me in my rooms when I returned from the Lords earlier,” he said. “She had come to warn me. She has never done anything to help me like that before. I am not sure why she did it today. Perhaps she does not want the sort of competition Miss Dunmore would represent for herself. Or perhaps I do her an injustice. Perhaps she thought that this time our mother was going beyond the pale.”
“You are going to be forced into marrying, then?” she asked him. “Oh, Colin. Are you sure it is what you want?”
“I am very sure it is what I do not want,” he told her. “And there is time to put a stop to it. I will be doing that shortly. But what I really want to do, Elizabeth, is put another notice in the papers in its stead. I want to put in a notice of our betrothal.”
He tightened his hold on her hands even further.
“Ours?” She stared blankly at him. “Yours and mine?”
“Yes,” he said. “It is the only way, Elizabeth. You must see that. Only by marrying me can you put an end to the lies and the gossip. Only by marrying you can I protect you as I ought.”
She frowned. “I do not need the protection of any man,” she told him.
“I know,” he said. “But I feel the need to offer you the protection of my name. And only by marrying you can I avoid the matrimonial traps my mother will keep on setting until I have married the woman of her choice and been brought firmly into the web of her influence. If I marry you, I will be free of her and break the pattern of a lifetime. I have evaded it for eight years, but this is the only way I can truly escape it.”
He gazed at her eagerly and anxiously. He wanted to marry her so he could free her from his mother’s spite and so he could free himself from her determination to choose a wife for him and dominate his life.
He was afraid, she realized. And she could rescue him. They could rescue each other. Oh, it was not a good basis for marriage. Not on either of their parts.
There had been no mention of fondness or love.
But she knew he was fond of her. And she, God help her, was far more than just fond of him. She could not do it, though. Could she?
She needed to think. But she had thought and thought about her decision to marry Geoffrey. She had thought about it for months. And where had thinking got her?
“I have brought that look to your face again,” he said softly. “You are looking stricken, Elizabeth. Do you really, really not want to marry me? Because of my youth? My immaturity? My mother?”
“Oh, Colin,” she said, and she had to blink her eyes so that she could see him clearly.
He released her hands in order to fold her in his arms, crushing her against him as he did so and holding her head against his shoulder, her face turned in toward his neck.
“I cannot bear what you are being made to suffer,” he said, his breath warm against the side of her face. “I cannot bear that it is all on account of me. It makes me seem no better than Codaire. Forgive me, Elizabeth. Please forgive me.”
“Colin,” she said against his neck. “Oh, do not do this to yourself. There is nothing to forgive. You do not have to sacrifice the rest of your life as an apology to me.”
“Is that what you think?” He took her by the shoulders and held her a little away from him. “That I see you as some sort of broken thing that can be mended only if I marry you? I do not know if you were broken for a while during your marriage to Overfield and after you had left him. I suspect you were. But you did what was incredible and mended yourself, and now you can be buffeted from all sides and made to suffer, but you cannot be broken. That has been evident in the past few days. And now you will continue to insist upon standing alone against all the fury and spite of my mother just because you do not want to be seen to lean on me in any way. I admire and honor you more than I can ever put into words. But I want to stand beside you. Not in front of you to shield you, despite what I may have implied a few minutes ago. I want to be beside you, Elizabeth.”
She could feel his pain as an aura about him that engulfed her. She knew he cared. She knew he respected her as a person who could stand alone if she must. She knew . . .
Oh, she knew she could trust him.
But . . .
“Elizabeth,” he said, and his eyes looked very blue as they gazed into hers from mere inches away, “will you marry me? Not for any other reason than that you want to? As I want to marry you?”
And he had spoken just the words that brought all her defenses crumbling down.
. . . for no other reason than that you want to. As I want to . . .
“Yes, then,” she said, and watched his eyes brighten with tears.
“Thank you.” She saw his lips form the words as his hands tightened on her shoulders but heard no sound.
God help her, what had she done?
“Yes,” she said again. “I will marry you, Colin. Because I want to.”
Sixteen
This felt all too familiar, Elizabeth thought a few minutes later as she stood outside the drawing room door, wondering if she should go in or escape to her room. She needed time to think. Or just to be cowardly. It was too late to think, if by thinking she meant reasoning out some question so she could come to a sensible decision. Far too late. And there was no point in hoping that Wren and Alex and her mother were up in the nursery with Nathan. She could hear voices from within. How many of them had come? The whole family? Were they not tired of trying to deal with her problems?
Anna and Avery were there, and Cousin Louise and Jessica. They must have all come together. And Josephine was there too, sitting on Wren’s lap, playing with her necklace.
“Elizabeth!” Anna exclaimed, coming toward her with open arms. “We came to cheer you up if it can be done and to assure you that it is all nonsense. All of it. I cannot believe what is happening. You of all people. You are kindness itself and all that I aspire to be as a lady.” She hugged Elizabeth and shed a few tears.
“A marvelous job you are doing of cheering her up, my love,” Avery observed. “We brought Josephine with us, Elizabeth, so that you could bounce her on your knee and forget all your woes.”
“We are going to organize a party to go to Vauxhall one evening,” Jessica said. “One night when there is to be music and dancing and fireworks and we can all believe we are in fairyland. Well, I daresay Mama and Anna will organize it. And Avery’s secretary. Mostly Mr. Goddard, actually. But you are to come with us and anyone else you would like us
particularly to invite. Abby and Estelle and Bertrand may be here to come too. Mama mentioned that you may want to invite Mr. Franck. I have met him and like him.”
“My love,” Cousin Louise said. “Allow poor Elizabeth to get a word in edgewise. But really, Elizabeth, unless you have decided to go home to Riddings, as Althea thinks you ought, all you can do is carry on as if life were normal until it is. And we will all stand by you, you may rest assured. No one is going to say anything cruel in my hearing. And Avery has only to raise his quizzing glass halfway to his eye and any would-be gossiper will melt into an ignominious puddle at his feet.”
“Dear me,” Avery murmured. “I hope my boots will not be splashed. My valet would not be pleased.”
Anna held Elizabeth’s hand tightly.
“Did you finish your letter to Miss Scott, Elizabeth?” Wren asked. “I would not let anyone disturb you because I know you particularly wanted to write to her today.”
“I did not,” Elizabeth said. “I barely got started. Colin came.”
“Colin?” Wren rescued the pendant of her necklace from Josephine’s mouth. “He was here? While we were upstairs with Nathan? But why did you not tell him you were busy and send him up? And he has gone away without seeing us? How vexing of him.”
“He had a rather urgent errand and could not stay,” Elizabeth said. Her lips were beginning to feel a bit stiff.
Before she could say more there was a tap on the door behind her, and the butler opened it to announce the arrival of the Dowager Countess of Riverdale with Lady Matilda Westcott and Lord and Lady Molenor.
“We have come,” the dowager announced rather unnecessarily. “I have never been more angry in my life. Well, rarely anyway. Who is spreading all these ridiculous stories? Of Elizabeth of all people. There is no one more worthy of respect and admiration. Elizabeth, who has long been the rock of cheerfulness and kindness for the whole family. Can a rock be cheerful? Or kind? Never mind. Matilda, if that is a vinaigrette you are withdrawing from your reticule, you may put it away again. When I am about to have a fit of the vapors, I will let you know.”