“This is not about Diana, Mother,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “It is only you and I here, so let us speak frankly with one another about the real reason you are asking Lady Katherine to Holcombe so close on the heels of Miss Pembroke’s departure.”
His mother, for all her faults, had always spoken straight with him. She took the letter back and folded it carefully, her face tense.
“As you wish, Gerard. I will be honest with you that if I am to consider what I wish in the next Lady Colbourne, I see a woman like Lady Katherine – elegant and refined, accomplished and beautiful. In fact, the mystery to me is not that I should arrange such a meeting, but that you should be so averse to it. Surely you can see that she is far more appropriate than your Miss Pembroke.”
“Miss Pembroke has been nothing but kind to this family,” Gerard said tightly. He thought about all they had shared together over the past few months, and in his mind pictures of Nora’s slim form walking arm-in-arm with his sister. Nora bending over the fire with one of the tenant women. Nora curled up against the back of a mossy tree with her painting…it all overwhelmed him with a remembrance of her gifts and talents. “She is elegant, beautiful and kind,” he said. “How you persist in ignoring those facts is beyond me.”
“Elegant? She’s a child. Lady Katherine was raised to be a woman, while Miss Pembroke spent her days gallivanting about in her brothers’ shadows. It’s evident when you spend time with the two of them together –”
“Is that it, Mother? You would like me to compare the two ladies? Is that why you have brought their meetings so close one upon the heels of the other.”
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a benefit of the current situation,” Lady Colbourne said. “Tell me this, Gerard, were you ever seriously considering marrying Miss Pembroke? I half thought it was a flight of fancy to humour your friendship with William.”
“Perhaps it was, once,” Gerard said slowly. “But our courtship is entirely real now, and there is an understanding between us. You would not have me go back on an understanding, would you mother?”
“If you feel so strongly about the matter, then why did you not offer her marriage yet?”
Gerard took a step back, trying to gather his thoughts. What was it that he’d told Nora? He wanted time to be certain before the bans were read. And yet, try as he might, he could find no real doubts in his heart. Every minute he spent with Nora had made her more dear to him, and now he could think of no sustainable reason to leave her in favour of Lady Katherine, no matter how talented and elegant she was.
“I am not going to tell you who you can and cannot invite to Holcombe,” he said after a pause. “But I will have you know, Mother, that I am courting Nora, and Nora alone. I do not intend to end that courtship to humour a situation you have contrived to arrange between Lady Katherine and myself.”
Lady Colbourne set her lips firmly. “I think you will come to regret this decision.”
“Perhaps,” Gerard said, turning to go. “But at least I will be a happy man in my regrets.”
Chapter 26
Dearbrooke welcomed Nora back like an old friend. She had grown to love Holcombe, but the familiarity of the riotous gardens of Dearbrooke, the horses she’d always known, the sounds of her brothers arguing in the parlour, and the halls hung with the pictures of her youth were comforting. She settled in quickly enough, answering the prying questions of her mother with vague and careful responses.
“You must tell us if a proclamation of any sort was made,” Fanny said the first morning after she’d returned. “Are you to keep us in suspense?”
“No,” Nora said with a laugh. “Have I ever been the sort to keep it a secret if a handsome lord asked me to marry him? No, Mother. There is nothing to report, and you can be sure you would hear it in full if there was.”
Yet her brothers knew her better, and it was William who pulled her aside after the meal and asked her in confidence if she was really being quite straightforward about affairs.
“There is more of an understanding than there was,” Nora said with a smile, feeling the warm blush rise into her face. “I know that you had a hand in arranging this affair, and so you are one of the only people who understood that it was a ruse. Still, I do not believe it is a ruse any longer.”
William was pleased, although not surprised, and for two blissful days Nora was able to think about Gerard the way she’d always dreamed about him, as a person who had her heart, and whose heart she had as well.
It was at the end of the second day that Katherine’s letter came in the mail. The whole family was gathered together in the parlour after dinner. It was dark, and the post never arrived after dark, and so they were quite surprised when the butler reappeared with a tray and the letter upon it.
“I’m ever so sorry for the interruption,” he intoned, bowing, “but it seems one of the maids responsible for gathering the mail misplaced this letter yesterday. It’s a bit late in the coming, but I hope the contents were not much injured by the delay.”
David fetched it and, reading the note on the front, gave it at once to Nora. She opened it and read it in the flickering firelight.
My dear Nora, it began. I have thought how to write this letter for a full day’s time, composing missives over and again and crumpling them when I reach a part that seems too uncomfortable to share. I think, however, that under the circumstances it would be better for you to receive the information I have to share at once, rather than perfectly and too late.
Nora felt a cold feeling settle in her chest as she read on. I am writing you about Lord Colbourne. When you were in London this season, we spoke quite often of him, as I recall, and there was an understanding between the two of you. I am not certain if such an understanding still exists, but if it does, I would like you to hear the following information from me, and not from another unkind source. I have recently been invited by the Colbournes to attend to them at Holcombe. They have not specified a length of time, but I imagine it will be substantial as it is in the summer.
Events and several balls and dinner parties were mentioned in the contents of the invitation. I have wondered during our conversations exactly the depth of your feelings for Lord Colbourne, but you are always so careful with your emotions, and I am not certain that this letter is even necessary. If it is, however, I would like to tell you that I am planning on accepting the invitation for the reasons I mentioned during our last conversation on the topic – Lord Colbourne is a good match, Nora, whatever you think on the subject, and if the opportunity is provided to me I am afraid I would be remiss not to take it. Yours, Katherine Barrington.
Nora set the letter down slowly on her lap. The whole time she’d been reading it a subtle nausea had been taking root in her stomach, and now she felt as though the walls of the room were closing in around her. Of course, she thought to herself, it would come to this. The feeling of light happiness, the butterflies in her stomach, the hope that maybe Gerard could love her – it all slipped away at this new development. Lady Colbourne had played her hand, and in the end, it was a far more powerful one than a few weeks of Nora Pembroke at Holcombe. She knew that Gerard had meant what he said when he spoke with her in the wood, for he was not the sort of man to keep two women following him at a time, but she couldn’t blame him if a few weeks with Lady Katherine’s beauty and elegance were to sway his heart away from her.
“Is everything quite all right, Nora?” Fanny asked, eying the letter with interest. “What did Lady Katherine have to say?”
“Nothing,” Nora said, standing quickly. She felt tears already pricking at her eyes and didn’t want anyone in the room to see how greatly she was affected by the letter. “Only, I think I would like some time alone.”
“Nora,” David stood up, worry in his eyes. “You don’t look so well.”
The walls were getting closer. “Please,” she said quietly, hating the desperation that crept into her voice despite her best attempts, “move out of my way.
”
She hurried past him and into the dark hall outside, the tears finally coming hard and fast as she took refuge in her room.
***
The next day was worse, for the next day a lady from Lady Cecilia Barrington arrived for Fanny. This letter was received with much less subtlety and read aloud at the breakfast table with the entire family gathered around. Nora wanted to sink into the ground.
“She says here that she is planning on travelling to Holcombe tomorrow, isn’t that very odd Nora?” she stopped reading and looked up at her daughter. “Oh dear, do you think she expects you to be there? We should have communicated with the Barringtons that your visit ended a few days ago. They’ll be dreadfully disappointed.” She went back to reading. “’Katherine is of course accompanying me…’” she trailed off for a moment and frowned. “Now this is interesting, she says that she and Lady Colbourne have been in some communication about Katherine and…and…Lord Colbourne.” She stopped reading and looked up at Nora. “Was this what Katherine communicated to you the other day in your letter?”
Nora felt the eyes of everyone at the table, even her father who generally stood aloof from such things, fastened on her. She reached across the table and took a piece of toast in hand, buttering it. “That wasn’t the precise contents of the letter, no. But she did mention her visit to Holcombe.”
“And what do you think about this?” Fanny asked, clearly exasperated. “Surely you have some understanding with Lord Colbourne, and the idea of him bringing another young lady to the estate is truly shocking.”
“We don’t know that he was the one who invited Lady Katherine,” William interjected. “This seems like the sort of thing Lady Colbourne would initiate.”
Nora looked up, and was most disconcerted not by her brother’s pity, but by her father’s. He had laid aside his paper and was looking at her quite soberly. He said nothing, but she could see in his eyes a certain confusion that she felt in her own heart. Fanny went on talking, trying to make sense of the letter.
“No, it is very clear in this letter that Lady Katherine is expected to have some sort of connection with Lord Colbourne. Very clear. Look here, it says that –” she stopped short suddenly and looked up at Nora with a tenderness in her eyes, laying the letter aside. “I’m sorry,” she said with uncharacteristic sensitivity. “This is not the time, I see. I cannot imagine what you are thinking, Nora. Did Lord Colbourne give you some hint that this was going to happen? I only worry about you.”
Nora took a deep breath, pausing to sip her tea before speaking. “I do not think he knew of these plans. I will admit that they took me somewhat off guard, but I also know Katherine very well, and I do not think she is planning some sort of cruel manipulation – she is only going along with a proper invitation, and I cannot fault her for that.”
“I will not stand for a young man pulling my daughter’s reputation and feelings around in such a way,” Fanny said. “If he is dealing carelessly with you, Nora, it would be prudent for you to end the relationship. Mr Pembroke, say something.”
Nora’s father looked at her gently. “I have only known Lord Colbourne to be a kind and honourable man,” he said quietly, “but if we have all been fooled in this, dear Nora, feel no anxiety in breaking off the attachment.”
This nearly brought Nora to tears, for during their time in London she had seen her father bond with Gerard over shared interests, late night conversations, and even the occasional walk. It had been one of the things that had blessed her the most – to see them together in such a comfortable way, and to now see such doubt and distrust in her father’s eyes saddened her.
“No,” she said firmly. “I don’t believe this arrangement was the work of Lord Colbourne at all. He is not the sort of man to do such a thing, and I believe we were not misinformed in our positive judgment of him. Let us not jump to conclusions. He is not dealing carelessly with me, and I do not want to end the courtship.”
Fanny looked down at her plate for a moment in silence and then shook her head. “So what then, dear daughter? Will you stay here in silence while Lady Katherine is paraded about in front of the gentleman you are supposed to be courting? Will you allow him to be thus dissuaded?”
“Lord Colbourne would be a weak gentleman indeed if he needed my guidance on the workings of his heart,” Nora said quietly. “I would not have him kept from every woman in the world and thus condemned to romance with me alone – I would have him choose me, despite the others.”
“But it is Lady Katherine,” James interjected.
“And what of it?” Mr Pembroke stood suddenly from his place at the head of the table, his chair squeaking across the floor with the suddenness of the move. “What if it’s Lady Katherine or the Queen of England? It’s our Nora we’re speaking of, and she’s bright and kind enough to go up against any woman in England. If the gentleman can’t see that, then he’s more a fool than I took him for.”
He turned and strode from the room, leaving a moment of strained silence behind him.
“I’ve never seen him like that,” Nora said after a moment. “I’m sorry to have caused so much worry.”
“I just don’t want you to be blind to the truth of the situation,” Fanny said kindly, but soberly. She stood as well, more sedately, and took her leave of the room.
William looked at Nora.
“He’s a good man,” he said kindly. “I couldn’t see him leading you astray.”
Nora nodded. She wasn’t concerned that Gerard, who had always been a gentleman to her, would pull her heart unkindly where his own could not go. But she also knew that it was possible he would write to her soon and tell her of the end of their agreement. As brave as she’d felt defending Gerard to her parents, she now felt a sinking suspicion that their fears were going to come true.
Chapter 27
William watched Nora leave the breakfast room with a heavy heart. He had arranged all this at first to save her embarrassment in society. And now that she had done everything right; now that she had made a genuine effort to court Lord Colbourne in an honourable way, she was being punished with the worst cost of all – a love that might not be requited.
He went directly to his study and pulled out a sheet of paper.
Lord Colbourne, he wrote, choosing the formal address, I write under strange circumstances. You have an understanding with my sister that I have since learned is a genuine understanding, not the original ruse we manufactured. At least, she seems to see it as such. Then, moments ago, I learned that you have invited Lady Katherine to your home and are intending to engage her affections as well. Am I to understand that you wish to keep my sister’s affections engaged in concordance with Lady Katherine’s?
He signed the letters and rang to have it posted at once, knowing that it would strike to aggressive a tone, and not caring. He couldn’t get Nora’s face out of his mind; the way she had looked at the breakfast table while their mother read Lady Barrington’s missive aloud. It had been humiliating for her, clearly, and yet just as clearly, he could see the love in her face when she talked about Gerard. He hoped that Gerard would be worthy of that love.
***
Gerard’s response came two days’ later, swiftly enough that William suspected his friend had received the first note and then, just as quickly, turned around and posted a response.
My dear friend, it read. It grieves me that this misunderstanding should carry on for even a moment. Lady Katherine and her mother are coming to Holcombe on my mother’s invitation only. There is no understanding between me and that lady while I share a very special understanding with your dear sister. I have no intention of courting Lady Katherine, and such a move would be only a loss to me. I can only imagine how your family must feel upon hearing such information, so I beg you to consider returning to Holcombe for a stay to help me handle the discomfort of our new guests and to assure your parents of our bond.
It was well-written and certainly seemed truly meant. William read it over twice and
then carried it downstairs to his father’s study. Mr Pembroke was poring over some books related to the business, but when he looked up at William, he had the same simmering frustration in his eyes that William had seen at breakfast two days before.
A Baron Worth Loving: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 16