Mr. Fairclough's Inherited Bride

by Georgie Lee

  A soft blush spread across her cheeks at his praise. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are you sure you wish to go?’ He didn’t want to think that he’d somehow forced her into this decision, that he’d made her do something that would make her unhappy in the end.

  She shook her head, her gold earrings shivering like the curls at the back of her head. ‘I can’t keep running from my past and I’ll have you beside me. That’s all that matters.’

  He laid his hand over hers where it rested in the crook of his arm, determined to live up to her expectations and belief in him and not disappoint her.

  Behind her his mother came down the stairs, the small smile turning up the corner of her lips telling him she’d had a part in Mary’s change of heart. He whispered ‘thank you’ over Mary’s shoulder and his mother nodded, the pride and happiness in her expression one that he had not seen for a very long time. She loved him even if neither he nor she always had the words to express it. Perhaps there was a chance she would forgive him for what he’d done and through her he could find some peace with what had happened between him and his father. Yet tonight wasn’t about regrets or the past, but Millie and Lord Falconmore’s life together. With Mary on one arm and his mother on the other, Silas escorted the women to the carriage, eager to arrive at the ball.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lord Falconmore’s Grosvenor Square house with its white stucco front, tall columns and black wrought-iron fence flanking the front door was awash in light and noise. A flood of people spilled in from the carriages outside to promenade up the front walk and enter the entrance hall that was adorned with a curving staircase and marble statues tucked in scalloped niches in the walls. From somewhere deep in the house, the high notes of a string quartet punctuated the chatter and laughter of the guests while footmen moved silently between the revellers with trays of delicacies and flutes of champagne.

  Mary stood with Silas in the receiving line, flicking her fan nervously in front of her, watching every face that went by as they stood there waiting to greet Silas’s sister and her new husband. So far, none of the earth-shattering events that she’d imagined on the carriage ride here had happened. The entire entryway had not fallen silent at the sight of her and no one had pointed and hissed at her in an attempt to drive her out of the house.

  Instead, the slights had been more subtle. The eyes of many people she recognised from her past had gone wide at the sight of her and a number of older ladies had ducked behind their fans to whisper and speculate why the fallen daughter of Lord Ashford was at the Marquess of Falconmore’s wedding ball. If any of them wondered about Silas, she didn’t notice. He meant nothing to them compared to her sudden social resurrection. Every time another jaw dropped at the sight of her, she braced herself, waiting for them to say something or comment overtly. She guessed it was the presence of the lord of the house at the front of the receiving line that kept people from making a scene. She wondered how long his invisible protection would last and how far past this entrance hall it might extend.

  ‘Look at this house,’ Silas marvelled as he craned his neck to take in the frescoes overhead, oblivious to the two of them being the real centre of attention. ‘We’ll build one like this in Baltimore. It’ll make even Mr Penniman jealous.’

  ‘No, I want something cosy, a real family home where children can be themselves, not some mausoleum.’ She tried to match his mood as she imagined their future abode, to focus on this and not the gaping people around them, but it was difficult.

  ‘That’ll be our country house,’ Silas teased, eliciting a smile from Mary. ‘The one in town must be designed to impress.’

  ‘We’ll have a country house by the seashore where the children can breathe fresh air.’

  ‘Is there something you’re trying to tell me, Mrs Fairclough?’

  ‘Not at all, I’m only thinking ahead.’ His suggestions shocked her more than Lady Tiltbury nearly spilling her champagne when she caught sight of Mary. Mary did a quick calculation, Silas’s words sparking a thought that she could not shake. She wished she had a calendar. With all the travel and the distraction of being in London she’d lost track of when she’d had her last courses and whether or not they would arrive at any moment or if they were late. A new fear began to creep in under her concerns about the crowd as the receiving line shifted forward, bringing them closer to the Marquess. She was married, she shouldn’t be afraid of pregnancy, but the uncertainty of Silas’s reaction to a possible child scared her. Preston had abandoned her when she’d needed him most. She clasped Silas’s hand tighter. He would never do that to her.

  The line moved forward again and Silas and Mary found themselves face to face with the Marquess and Marchioness. Millie exuberantly embraced them both while her husband stood stoically beside her as Millie made the introductions. Mary heard not a word of what she said, waiting for the Marquess to recognise her, to throw her out of his house or look down his very handsome and aristocratic nose at her. She wanted to believe Lilian’s assurances that Lord Falconmore would not cut her or demand that she leave while cursing his wife and her brother for daring to bring a shameful woman into his home, but it was hard. She clutched her fan to her chest while she waited, determined to have the same faith in him that Lilian possessed, very aware that she was not the only one waiting for his response. It was as if the entire room had stopped breathing while they watched.

  Lord Falconmore didn’t order her out of his house or cut her, but bowed to her as she curtsied to him. Either he hadn’t heard the story about her and Preston or he didn’t care. Mary couldn’t say which, but she hoped it was what Lilian had said, that the Falconmores had decided to stand beside her, that some people of her former rank and class had hearts and were worthy of trust and genuine affection.

  ‘Welcome to my home, Lady Mary. Millie tells me you were a great help to her in planning this party,’ Lord Falconmore complimented, his piercing blue eyes fixing on Mary with nothing but warmth and welcome. He was tall and well muscled, with a force of presence many of his class did not possess beyond their exalted titles.

  ‘I wouldn’t have known where to start in planning the menu if it hadn’t been for my new sister-in-law,’ Millie announced and Mary clasped Silas harder, fighting the desire to shush Millie, to tell her not to say her name or the family connection so loudly while everyone was still watching.

  ‘Mary is certainly talented.’ Silas raised her left hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it, offering a glimpse of her impressive diamond wedding ring to everyone who was looking. He did it as much to aggrandise them both as to remind her of who she was instead of allowing her to wallow in who she had been. She squeezed his hand tight, glad that he had finally noticed that they were the unofficial centre of the room’s attention.

  ‘Not at all, I only offered her some advice. The rest was all Lady Falconmore’s doing,’ Mary complimented, amazed Lord Falconmore had placed so much credit on her for the magnificence around them. Mary had only offered suggestions and little more, but Millie had taken them to heart and employed them well.

  ‘And she’s done a fine job of it.’ The Marquess flashed his wife a loving smile, one Mary had never witnessed before between a man of his rank and his wife. All the aristocratic marriages she’d ever seen had been contracted along more practical lines. It was obvious that theirs was the rare love match and she was glad. With Lord Falconmore’s love and support Millie could face any of the trials sure to test her during her time as his wife, just as Silas was holding up Mary through hers.

  She slid a sideways glance at her husband who spoke to Lord Falconmore, flattering the Marquess as much as possible without coming off as too enamoured. She and Silas might not have gone to the altar in love, but she could feel it building between them, so much so that she did not fear it as she had before nor want to run from it or dismiss it. She wanted to embrace and enjoy it. It had been such a rare thing in
her life for far too long.

  Restlessness in the line behind them forced them to say their goodbyes to Millie and her Marquess. Silas escorted Mary through the house towards the ballroom at the back, gathering more curious and surprised looks as they went. Mary held her head high as she walked beside him, pretending like Silas did that the amazed people didn’t exist, confident in a way she hadn’t been in ages.

  ‘Mary, you look gorgeous,’ Lottie squealed, rushing up to her and offering Mary a big hug that caught the notice of the more restrained men and women around them. ‘Isn’t this grand, all of us here together? Who could have imagined it? Think of what Christmas and all the other holidays will be like with us all together now that you’ve returned.’

  ‘They won’t be here for good, Lottie,’ Lilian gently reminded her daughter from where she stood on Silas’s other side, she and Lottie seemingly oblivious to how many people were pretending not to watch them.

  ‘But with Mr Cunard’s steamships they can come whenever they like. Since Silas has finally returned for the first time, it won’t be difficult to persuade him to come again.’

  ‘Or for you to visit us,’ Silas countered. ‘I can’t wait for you and Mother and Millie to see the railway.’

  ‘Neither can I.’ Lottie clapped her hands together in glee. ‘In the meantime, you must come to dinner at our house. I want you to see it and to dine with us every week while you’re here.’

  ‘We wouldn’t miss it for anything,’ Mary promised, Lottie’s enthusiasm, like Silas’s, infectious and easing the weight of the room’s attention.

  ‘I have to see if Millie has been relieved of her receiving-line duties. I need to remind her that she may be a marchioness, but she’s still my sister and not too good to eat at my table. Come, Mother, let’s find her.’ Lottie took Lilian’s arm and pulled her off towards the entry hall where Millie had last been.

  Silas and Mary continued on through the house until they reached the large ballroom at the back. Unlike Mrs Penniman’s, the ballroom had tall rectangular windows set in fine panelled walls trimmed with gilt and a ceiling of plaster from which hung a number of chandeliers. Mary’s newfound confidence threatened to desert her when they stepped into the ballroom and a few couples nearly stumbled at the sight of them. More than one matron’s jaw dropped when they spied her before they dipped behind their fans with their friends to speculate if this was really Lord Ashford’s daughter brazenly entering a ballroom as if she had every right to be there. It almost made Mary turn and flee until Silas’s steadying hand on the small of her back stilled her.

  ‘Ignore them. They don’t matter to our lives and soon we’ll be in America with a whole ocean between those scowls and us.’ It was the first time he’d openly acknowledged that her past was following them as much as the skirt of her dress.

  She took in the people watching and whispering about them and something in her rebelled at their scorn. None of them were perfect and she was sure that many of these people had enough family skeletons in their manor closets to make them ashamed of casting aspersions on her. Silas was right. Tonight was simply a moment in what would be a long lifetime in a different country. She refused to allow their disapproving looks to ruin her time with her husband and this small taste of the life she’d once known before she’d been forced to abandon it, except this time she would gladly walk away from it and embrace the future offered to her by Silas and Baltimore.

  ‘Shall we dance?’ Silas asked.

  ‘Please.’

  He led her out on to the dance floor and took her in his arms for the waltz. This was only the second time they’d danced together, but they moved as if they had been partners for years. If the matrons tutted and scolded, Mary didn’t see them, her attention entirely on Silas and his steady lead through the steps, his hand clasped tight to hers, the strength of his legs and his movements as they whirled in unison around the room mesmerising. Her dress rustled in all its silk fineness against the wool of his trousers, his arm firm beneath her gloved palm where she held on tight to him, grateful to be in the circle of his embrace, the troubles of the railway station and the guests watching the dance far behind them.

  ‘I’m glad you decided to come tonight,’ Silas said, his breath whispering across her cheeks. ‘It means a great deal to me to have you beside me in every endeavour.’

  ‘And for me to be with you. You don’t know how much your faith in me means, how different I feel because of it.’

  ‘I have some idea.’ He turned them past another couple before their steps led them to the outer circle of dancers and they slipped back into a steady pace. The surety of his lead didn’t change, but something in his face did, a seriousness that made him shift closer to her as his grasp on her hand tightened along with the pressure of his fingers on her back. ‘You see, I didn’t simply leave England five years ago.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me this, not here or tonight.’ She hated to break the spell of the dance, but she didn’t want to stop him from speaking either. She knew what it was to have the person closest to you hear the truth and pain and make the burden a touch lighter, even if it was only for a little while.

  ‘I want to be honest with you in the way you have always been honest with me.’ He flexed his fingers on her back, allowing a few strains of the music to drift between them before he spoke again. ‘I didn’t simply go to America. I slipped away, leaving behind nothing but the last bit of pay I’d received and a letter explaining where I’d gone. I never said goodbye to anyone and I never told them why I’d left. I didn’t think I could or that they’d listen to me even if I did. I was suffocating in Liverpool, aching to get out into the world and make my own way, to create my life as I saw it instead of the way others wanted it to be. I never should have run off.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be the man you are today if you hadn’t gone after what you wanted, the way you still do.’

  ‘I was a coward and it wasn’t the first time.’ The anguish in his face matched the one that had been in her heart when she’d thought of not coming tonight and not being here with Silas. He glanced across the room to where his mother stood with Lottie and Jasper watching the dancers and chatting together. ‘I left my father because he didn’t understand, I ran off instead of facing him and I never got the chance to apologise for what I said to him before I did. I caused a great deal of pain to many I loved and there’s nothing I can do with my father to make it better. Nothing.’

  ‘I know.’ She’d done the same, but her mistake had revealed her family’s true nature and the shallowness of their love for her. That had been a far more bitter pill to swallow than her exile from society. ‘Your family loves you and they’ll forgive you if you ask, but you have to forgive yourself first.’

  * * *

  Silas spun Mary around and she held on tight to him before easing her grip as they settled back into their steady pace. She was right, he needed to speak with his mother, but it was difficult, especially when every conversation they’d had in the last few days had been mere words from devolving into an argument. Years ago he hadn’t been able to tell her what was in his heart. He wasn’t sure how he could do it now, to stand before her and risk being vulnerable as he’d done with Mary and have her fail to understand him as she had before, but he couldn’t leave England with this rift unhealed either. Once he settled the bank issue he’d speak with her and return to America without this guilt and heartache hanging over him. He wanted a relationship with his family, the kind Lottie described of holidays together and visits, not the distance and awkwardness that had marked the last eight years since he left for Liverpool. They’d been left to think he’d forgotten about them. He wanted his mother to know that he had never forgotten her or stopped loving or worrying about her.

  The dance drew to a close and they stood still, their gazes locked as the last notes of the music drifted away. Silas studied Mary. In the face of her bravery in coming here to
night and facing all the busybodies standing on the edge of the dance floor he’d felt like a coward for keeping his truth from her. She hadn’t derided him for what had happened, but maintained the faith in him that she’d shown since the ball in Baltimore. They might not have linked their lives together because of love, but it was there between them—perhaps it had been all along and it had taken coming to England and facing down both of their pasts to bring it out. Whatever it was, he wanted her to know that from this moment forward this was more than a partnership or business investment, but a true marriage.

  ‘I love you, Mary.’ He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the satin-gloved back, the heat of her skin evident through the thin material.

  ‘I love you, Silas.’ She curled her fingers to hold on tight to his, each breath making her chest rise and fall with the anticipation and desire to truly be close to one another. The entire room fell away until it was simply the two of them, untouched by anything else except their love. Silas wanted to hold on to this moment for ever, the two of them out of reach of everyone and everything that threatened to intrude on their contentment, but the applause around them forced him to lower her hands, though he didn’t release her. She was his and he would never let her go.

  He escorted her off the dance floor to a quiet corner near the back of the room away from his family and anyone’s intrusion.

  ‘Why are you here with me instead of trying to win over the Marquess to come to America?’ Mary teased, her breath warm against his cheek as he tilted down to hear her beautiful voice over the music of a rousing reel.

  ‘All in good time.’

  ‘Mary?’ a female voice said over the dance music and Mary’s giggles.

  Mary’s face went white as she peered over Silas’s shoulder. He turned to see a woman with Mary’s blonde hair and brown eyes standing behind them.