by Mary Balogh
As you said a short while ago, your son did not choose to be born of a married lady and her rescuer and lover. He is a child, as valuable as a king's child. In the future when you refer to him, call him your son." He was surprised into smiling at her. "The neighbors would be scandalized," he said. "It would have to be our secret." She clucked her tongue. "Will you never learn your lesson?" she asked him. "Your neighbors doubtless know of the scandal. And so they will be very suspicious of you when you return, perhaps even hostile for a while. You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, then. We will make open reference to the fact that the child who is coming to Woodbine Park to live with us is your son. We will both show without any artifice at all that we love him as if he were ours. Your neighbors may react as they wish, but if I know anything about neighbors in a country setting – and I /do/ – I can feel perfectly confident that almost everyone will soon forgive you and accept your son and get on with their lives." He sat back in his seat and regarded her in silence for a while.
She was formidable indeed. He wondered if after all he would come to dislike her intensely after he had lived with her for a while. Or if he would come to love her.
If the latter were the case, he suspected that he might love her with a passion to end passions.
Though where /that/ thought had come from he did not know. "Are you quite sure?" he asked.
She stared back at him. "I think," she said, "I must believe in fate. I have never thought much about it before now, but I think I must believe in it. The last few days have been bizarre. Ten days ago I was still at Warren Hall – I left there late in the morning to come to town. Four days ago I was planning to attend Lady Tindell's ball and hoping to meet the Marquess of Allingham there and rekindle our friendship. Four days ago I had not even met you.
And then a whole series of strange things happened at the ball that led up to my colliding with you – and a string of events had happened to you that had brought you there in search of a bride. So much has happened since then that sometimes I think I have crammed a whole year's worth of living into a few days. All this cannot possibly have happened just by chance or for nothing. If I send you on your way this morning and return to my former life, I will forever suspect that I missed the whole point of my life. This /has/ to be the point, or why has it all happened?
There have been so many coincidences that I cannot escape the conclusion that it has not been coincidence at all. Perhaps fate intends that I be a mother to your little boy, Lord Sheringford." "And a wife to me?" he said.
She hesitated and then nodded. "Yes," she said. "Strange, is it not? I hope I am not wrong. I hope we do not all end up living unhappily ever after." He got to his feet and extended a hand for hers. She set her own in it and rose to stand before him. "I will do my very best," he said, "to see that you do not regret your decision but that rather you will rejoice in it. I said that Toby must come first in my life. But you will not be second, Maggie. I do not believe life and relationships work that way." He raised her hand to his lips and turned it to kiss her palm.
His heart was aching. She had persuaded him to bring the secret out into the open when they returned to Woodbine – and he had capitulated because he knew she was right. Toby had been hidden in the shadows for too long.
But he was well aware that what he had really agreed to was the opening of a Pandora's box. It had started last evening, in fact, when he had told her about some of the events surrounding his elopement with Laura Turner. It would not end at Woodbine, though. Woodbine was not a world unto itself. Word of its doings sometimes spread beyond its boundaries – especially if they were unusual and interesting doings.
Toby needed freedom. But what might be the cost of that freedom? "I had better take my leave," he said. "I may return this afternoon as planned, then, may I, and we will go to face the lion in his den?" "We will," she said. "I look forward to meeting the Marquess of Claverbrook. No one ought to be allowed to inspire as much fear as he appears to do." "I worshipped him as a child," he said. "He used to frown and harrumph and look ferocious whenever I saw him, and then he would invariably feel around in his pockets until he came out with a shilling. He would always look surprised and comment that /that/ was what had been digging into him before tossing it my way and telling me to spend it wisely on sweets." She laughed.
He bowed to her and took his leave.
And wondered if she was right.
Was this all fate?
Had the whole of his life been leading him to that strange meeting with Maggie Huxtable?
It was a dizzying thought.
He had a /son/. Margaret did not know why she had been taken so much by surprise. He and Mrs. Turner had been together for almost five years before her death, after all. In a sense, it was surprising there had not been more than one child.
He had told her on a previous occasion that he had never loved Mrs.
Turner – not in any romantic sense. All this was very reminiscent of Crispin. Was love impossible for men? Or /romantic/ love, anyway? It was a depressing thought.
It was a good thing she was no longer looking for romantic love.
Vanessa arrived soon after Lord Sheringford had left. She had come to rejoice with her sister over the fact that he was not after all the villain everyone thought him to be. But she did not stay long. She had promised the children an outing – indeed they were outside with their nurse in the carriage waiting for her – and would not disappoint them.
Half an hour after Margaret had waved them on their way, Katherine came.
She had been at the library when Margaret's note had been delivered, but she had read it with such delight even before taking off her bonnet that she had come without delay to hug her sister and even shed a few tears over her. But Jasper was expected home at any moment, and she wanted to be there to share the good news with him. "Oh, Meg," she said when she was leaving, her eyes shining with tears, "your marriage is going to turn into a love match. Just wait and see." Margaret did not say a word to either of them about the child.
Tobias – Toby. She wondered what last name he bore.
They would know soon enough, though, she supposed. She was determined that the little boy would not be hidden away in some dark corner with an assumed identity, as if there were something shameful about him.
Everyone in the neighborhood of Woodbine Park would know who he was.
There were scores of gentlemen, she was well aware, who had illegitimate children, most of them hidden discreetly from the view of wives and polite society with their mothers or at some private orphanage or school.
It was not going to happen with the Earl of Sheringford's son. And let anyone try to sympathize with her at having to endure such an indignity.
She would give that person an earful!
Margaret dressed with care for the visit to the Marquess of Claverbrook.
It was important that he approve of her, though he would surely have no reason /not/ to unless he was playing games with his grandson and intended to disapprove of anyone who was presented to him. Well, she would give /him/ an earful too if that were the case.
She left her room as soon as she heard the door knocker. She was feeling quite martial, perhaps because inside she was quaking with nervousness.
She paused at the top of the stairs when she saw that Stephen was in the hall with her betrothed. He was shaking his hand. "I will not apologize," he was saying, "for the manner in which I have received you during the past few days, Sheringford. My primary responsibility is to my sisters, especially Meg, who lives under my roof and to whom I owe more than I can ever repay. I would do anything in my power to protect her from harm or lasting unhappiness – and all the available evidence suggested that you might well bring her both. But she told me something this morning, in strictest confidence, that has convinced me I have misjudged you. I do hope that if I were ever called upon to make a decision as excruciatingly difficult as the one you faced five years ago, I would have the courage to make the
same choice you made – and to keep it a secret too, according to the lady's wishes.
Indeed, I honor you." "Nothing has changed, you know," the earl said. "Miss Huxtable will still be marrying a social pariah. I am still guilty of jilting one woman and stealing another from her lawful husband. I take it your sister also informed you that she has accepted my offer?" "She has," Stephen said, "and I must confess that I still felt it my duty to caution her, as marriage to you will /not/ be easy. I respect her decision, though. Meg is nothing if not courageous." "I will do my utmost – " the earl began, but Margaret cleared her throat at that point and made her descent.
Lord Sheringford bowed to her. "Maggie," he said. "Lord Sheringford." /"Maggie/?" Stephen said with a laugh. "That is a new one." "A new name for a new life," she said, "as Lord Sheringford pointed out a few evenings ago. I believe I rather like it. It makes me seem less dull and staid. I am ready." "/Dull/?" Stephen said, laughing. "/Staid/? You, Meg?" He kissed her cheek and waited to see them on their way. It still seemed strange to realize that he was all grown up, that he was the one now who felt responsible for /her/.
She felt a rush of love for him.
15
"STEPHEN wishes to host a wedding breakfast for us," she said as they walked. "Will it be appropriate, do you think? More to the point, will anyone come?" "Appropriate?" he said, glancing uneasily up at the sky. It was surely going to rain in the not-too-distant future, and she was wearing a pale blue walking dress and spencer and a straw bonnet trimmed with cornflowers. He had had the forethought to bring an umbrella with him, but even so it was infernally inconvenient to be without a carriage. "There is to be a wedding, is there not? Why not a wedding /breakfast/, then?" He had not actually thought of their nuptials as a /wedding/. Which, of course, had been extremely shortsighted of him. There were still ten days left before his grandfather's birthday, plenty of time in which to organize something that resembled, well, a wedding. It was a ghastly thought, but he supposed he owed her that. All ladies liked to have a proper wedding, did they not? Of course, her misgivings might prove to be justified. The /ton/ might well decide overwhelmingly that such a wedding in London itself was in the very poorest taste. Though perhaps not. "And I would wager," he said, "that the whole of the fashionable world will come if it is invited. How could anyone resist going to the church to discover at first hand whether I will turn up for my wedding this time? There is a wager in at least one of the club betting books that I will not." "Oh, dear," she said. "I would have been just as happy if you had not mentioned that." "They will lose their bets," he said. "I know," she agreed. "My mother will be ecstatic," he said, "at the prospect of a wedding.
She will wish to help plan it."
He winced inwardly. "So will Nessie and Kate," she said. "I believe I might safely leave all the details to the three of them. Though I fear it is not in my nature to be passive." "As long as you do not expect /me/ to help," he said, "I will be entirely happy." She laughed, and two unknown gentlemen who were passing on the pavement turned their heads and regarded her with identical looks of admiration.
They arrived at Grosvenor Square a few minutes later, and Duncan rapped on the door of Claverbrook House with the knob of his umbrella.
Forbes opened the door. "Good afternoon," Duncan said briskly, ushering Miss Huxtable inside and following her in. "Lord Sheringford and Miss Huxtable to see the Marquess of Claverbrook. Inform him we are here, Forbes, if you would be so good." Forbes looked from one to the other of them as if to assure himself that they were not impostors. "I will see if his lordship is at home," he said.
Duncan raised his eyebrows and looked down at Miss Huxtable as the butler made his unhurried way up the staircase. "He has been at home for the past twenty years at the very least," he said.
She smiled. "But in all that time," she said, "he has reserved the right to refuse admittance to unwanted guests – as every man and woman is at liberty to do in their own homes. Has he ever refused to admit you?" "No," he said. "He has always been glad of yet another chance to give me a thorough scold on some subject or other." "Then I daresay," she said, "he will admit you today. I suppose he reads the morning papers." She was quite right, of course. No sooner had Forbes disappeared from the head of the stairs than he reappeared there to make his way back down. "Follow me, my lord, miss," he said when he reached the bottom instead of simply hailing them from the top. And he turned to trudge upward again. Perhaps it was his way of keeping reasonably fit, Duncan thought.
Nothing in the drawing room had changed in five days. It would not surprise Duncan to learn that his grandfather had not moved from his chair in all that time. And he was looking in no better a temper. His eyebrows almost met over the bridge of his nose again. "The Earl of Sheringford, m'lord," Forbes announced, "and Miss Huxtable." "You will forgive me, Miss Huxtable," the marquess said, both hands on the head of his cane, which was braced between his legs, "for not getting to my feet. The getting is a slow and rather painful business these days." He ignored Duncan. "But of course, my lord," she said. "Please do not even think of it." "Step forward, young lady," he said.
She stepped forward. "Another step," he commanded, "so that you are in the light from the window. It is infernally dark in here. I suppose it is raining outside.
It usually is. Sheringford, open the curtains a little wider." While Duncan went to do so, his grandfather studied Miss Huxtable in silence. "There has been no official announcement yet," he said at last, addressing himself solely to her, "but the /ton/ has believed such an announcement to be imminent for the past several days. And I suppose it /is/ imminent if Sheringford has brought you here this afternoon. This is no mere social call, I daresay. He has brought you here for my inspection and approval before sending off the announcement to the papers." "Yes, my lord," she said. "That is correct." "Are you a fool, woman?" he asked.
Duncan took one firm step away from the window, but she did not look as if she were about to collapse in a quivering heap of vapors or hysterics. "I do not believe so," she said, her voice quite calm. "Then why are you marrying Sheringford?" he asked her. "Eh? You are not poor. You are not without looks. And your family disapproves – at least that young puppy of a brother of yours does. He told me so in no uncertain terms when he came to pry into my financial worth. He disapproves very strongly." "No longer," she said. "But the important thing is, my lord, that I have agreed to marry the Earl of Sheringford and have come here with him in accordance with your command so that he may keep Woodbine Park as his home and its rents and farm profits as his income after we marry. I have freely agreed to marry him. He has used no coercion whatsoever. My /reasons/ for agreeing concern no one but me – and Lord Sheringford himself." Duncan took another step forward. Good Lord! Had she really just told his grandfather in so many words to mind his own damned business?
There was a pregnant pause. "I daresay," his grandfather said, "it is because of your age. The shelf you are on must have been gathering dust for a number of years. How old are you?" "That also is my own concern, my lord," she said. "As is my practice of always returning courtesy for courtesy and courtesy for /dis/ courtesy.
May I have a seat? It will be more restful for you to look across at me rather than up." Duncan resisted the powerful urge to laugh. Though he might be laughing on the other side of his face in a moment, after his grandfather had dismissed her in his wrath and refused to endorse Duncan's marriage to her. But really, what a priceless setdown – /my practice of always returning courtesy for … discourtesy/. "Sit down," his grandfather commanded gruffly. "You have a saucy tongue, Miss Huxtable." "I beg to disagree, my lord," she said, gathering her skirts about her and seating herself on the edge of a large sofa that looked as if it had not been sat upon for a decade or more. "It is merely that I do not allow myself to be browbeaten." "I daresay," he said, "you have had some practice during the past few days." "They have not been easy days," she admitted. "I am not accustomed to attracting a great deal of attention and I do not enjoy it.
But I do not cower away from it either, when I have done no wrong and in no way regret anything I have done to draw that attention. The /ton/, I am sure, will recover its equilibrium after Lord Sheringford and I are married and living quietly and respectably at Woodbine Park. Gossip becomes tedious when there is no fresh scandal to feed it." Except that Toby would be there too and the plan to pass him off as the Harrises' orphaned grandson was to be abandoned. He had been mad to agree to that, Duncan thought. There was going to be no way of confining word of it to the neighborhood. "I understand," the marquess said, "that you are the daughter of a country parson, Miss Huxtable." "I am," she said.
There was a slight pause. "You are not about to rush in to remind me that he was also a descendant of a former Earl of Merton?" he asked her. "Since you knew about the country parson part of my heritage, my lord," she said, "I assume that you know the rest. And since you doubtless know that my brother is the Earl of Merton, I would assume you did not even have to dig very deep to uncover the information. The village was Throckbridge in Shropshire, but I suppose you know that too. If there is anything you do /not/ know and wish to be informed of, I will be pleased to answer your questions." "Except the one concerning your age," he said. "Except," she agreed, "any personal details that cannot concern you at all." "Your age /does/ concern me," he said, thumping his cane on the floor and looking irritable. "Sheringford is my heir, Miss Huxtable, and it is high time he produced an heir of his own. How am I to know that you are still in your breeding years?" Lord! Duncan felt stranded somewhere between the window and the sofa. He was rooted to the spot, if the truth were known – with a horrified sort of embarrassment. It took a great deal to embarrass him, but his grandfather had just succeeded in doing it. He had asked Miss Margaret Huxtable, sister of the Earl of Merton, if she was a breeder.