by Mary Balogh
“I have a little boy,” Meg said when the child was on her lap, “but he is older than you. And I have a little girl who is younger. And another boy who is a tiny baby.”
“What are their names?” the child asked.
“Tobias,” Meg said, “though we call him Toby. And Sarah, whom we call Sally. And Alexander, who is Alex. What is your name?”
“Belinda,” the child said. “What else could you call me?”
“Hmm, let me see,” Meg said, making a show of thinking. “Belle? I have a niece who is Belle, short for Isabelle. Lindy? Linda? Lin? None of them sound as pretty as Belinda, though, do they? I think maybe your name is perfect as it is.”
Roger had settled on the floor across Stephen’s boots. Kate had turned her attention to Miss Haytor. Stephen was smiling at Cassandra, who was biting her lip and looking back, an answering smile surely lurking in her eyes.
He was glad he had come. He was glad Meg and Kate had come with him. And he was glad about that faulty catch on the drawing room door. This was so much better than last night despite the sensual pleasures the night had brought him. This was a new beginning and a good one. Cassandra was seeing the best of his family, and he was seeing the best of hers.
A new beginning …
Did he really want one?
A beginning of what?
But before he could either ponder the question or enter the conversation again, there was a tap on the drawing room door and the horrified face of the thin maid appeared around it.
“Oh, my lady,” she said with a gasp, “I am so sorry. I was getting the clothes in off the line and Belinda and Roger went inside. I thought they was in the kitchen, and then I couldn’t find them anywhere. Belinda!” she said in loud, urgent whisper. “Come out of here! And bring the dog with you. I am sorry my lady.”
“I believe both of them have been entertaining our visitors, Mary,” Cassandra said, finally looking fully amused. “And Belinda has been able to show off her new shoes.”
“Belinda and I are becoming friends, Mary,” Meg said. “I do hope you will not scold her for coming in search of the dog. She is a delight, and I have been happy to meet her.”
“Roger has been keeping my feet warm,” Stephen added, smiling at the maid.
“You must be very proud of your daughter,” Kate said.
Belinda slid off Meg’s lap and wrapped her arms about Roger’s neck. He lumbered to his feet and bobbed out of the room ahead of her. The maid closed the door, and Stephen heard her give it an extra tug until it clicked shut.
“That was all very embarrassing,” Miss Haytor said with a little laugh. “You will not be accustomed to mingling with the children of servants and with household dogs, Lady Montford, Lady Sheringford.”
Meg laughed.
“Oh, you are quite wrong,” she said, and she proceeded to describe their upbringing in Throckbridge. “When you spend all your days in a small village, Miss Haytor, you become quite accustomed to mingling with people of all stations in life. It is a healthy way to grow up.”
“I still miss that life on occasion,” Kate added. “I used to teach the very young children at the village school. We used to dance at assemblies that were for everyone, not just for the gentry. Meg is very right. It was a healthy way to grow up. Not that either of us is complaining about the good fortune that befell us when Stephen inherited the Merton title, of course.”
“I am certainly not complaining,” Stephen said. “There is much privilege in the position. There is also much responsibility and much opportunity to do good.”
He looked at Miss Haytor as he spoke. Perhaps it was not a wise thing to say, as she might well be thinking that his position also gave him much opportunity to do ill, but he smiled at her, and it seemed to him that she had lost much of her prunish look in the half hour they had been there.
And Rome, to use the old cliché, had not been built in a day.
It was time to leave. He could see Meg preparing to stand up. But before she could do so, there was a knock on the front door, and they all turned their heads to look at the sitting room door, as though it offered a window through which they might see who the new caller was. After a few moments the door opened and the maid appeared again.
“Mr. Golding, my lady,” she said, “to call on Miss Haytor.”
Miss Haytor jumped to her feet, her cheeks suffused with color.
“Oh, Mary,” she cried, “you really ought to have called me out. I will come—”
But it was too late. A gentleman came past Mary into the room, and then looked acutely embarrassed to find it occupied. He stopped abruptly and bowed.
Cassandra got to her feet and hurried toward him, both hands outstretched, her face glowing.
“Mr. Golding,” she said. “It has been a long time, but I do believe I would have known you anywhere.”
He was a small, thin, wiry man of middle years and unprepossessing appearance. His dark hair had receded from his forehead and thinned to an almost bald patch on the crown of his head and silvered at the temples. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles halfway down his nose.
“Little Cassie?” he said, setting his hands in hers and looking as delighted as she. “I would not have known you except maybe for your hair. But you are Lady Paget now, are you not? Miss Haytor told me that when I met her yesterday. I am sorry about your husband’s passing.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she turned to present him to her other guests, her face still bright and happy and quite incredibly beautiful. She explained that he had been her brother’s tutor for a short while when they were children, though now he was secretary to a cabinet minister.
“I came to pay my respects to Miss Haytor,” Golding said after he had made his bows. “I did not intend to walk in on you and your visitors, Lady Paget.”
“Do have a seat anyway,” Cassandra said, “and a cup of tea.”
But he would not sit down, clearly intimidated by the company.
“I merely came,” he said, “to see if Miss Haytor would care to join me for a drive out to Richmond Park tomorrow. I thought we might take a picnic tea.”
He looked at Miss Haytor, clearly uncomfortable.
“Just the two of us?” she asked, the color still high in her cheeks, her eyes bright. She looked really quite handsome, Stephen thought. She must have been a pretty girl in her day.
“I suppose it is not quite the thing, is it?” he said, turning his hat in his hands and looking as though he would be glad of a hole opening at his feet to swallow him up. “I just do not know who else I could ask to accompany us. I suppose I could—”
Beginnings needed middles before they could find endings, Stephen thought, whether in this potentially budding romance between two middle-aged people who had been a governess and a tutor together in a long-ago past, or in his new relationship with Cassandra, his new friendship with her that might lead anywhere as far as either of them knew now. But he wanted to discover where that anywhere was.
“If you have no great objection,” he said to Golding, “and if Lady Paget has no plans for tomorrow afternoon, perhaps she and I could join the two of you on your picnic. The ladies could be each other’s chaperone.”
“That would be very decent of you, my lord,” Mr. Golding said, “though I do not wish to impose.”
“It is no imposition at all,” Stephen said. “I only wish I had thought of it for myself. Now all we need, Golding, is to have two ladies agree to accompany us.” He looked inquiringly from Miss Haytor to Cassandra and back again. “I ought to have asked you first, Miss Haytor, if you mind my being one of the party. Do you?”
He shamelessly smiled his most charming smile at her.
But he could see from her eyes that she very badly wanted to go.
“You are quite correct, Lord Merton,” she said sternly. “If Cassie is with me, I will be able to chaperone her and see that she comes to no harm. Mr. Golding, I would be delighted to come.”
They all looked questioningly
at Cassandra.
“It seems,” she said without looking at Stephen, “that I am going on a picnic tomorrow.”
“Splendid,” Golding said again, rubbing his hands together, though he still looked horribly embarrassed. “I will have a hired carriage outside the door at two o’clock, then.”
“Perhaps,” Stephen said, “since you are presumably supplying the tea, Golding, you will allow me to supply the carriage?”
“That is decent of you, my lord,” Golding said, and he bowed himself out of the room without further ado.
“It is time we all took our leave,” Meg said, getting to her feet. “Thank you for tea and your kind hospitality, Lady Paget. And it has been very pleasant to meet you, Miss Haytor.”
“It has indeed,” Kate said. “I wanted us to share some teaching stories, Miss Haytor, but we have not had a chance, have we? Perhaps next time.”
“I will look forward to tomorrow, ma’am,” Stephen said, making her a bow before following the others out of the room. Cassandra was with his sisters.
He let Meg and Kate go out to the waiting carriage while he lingered in the hall to take his leave.
“I have always had a weakness for picnics,” he said. “Fresh air. Food and drink. Grass and trees and flowers. Congenial company. They are a powerful combination.”
“The company may not be very congenial,” she warned him.
He laughed.
“I am sure,” he said, “I will like Golding very well indeed.”
She half smiled at his deliberate misunderstanding of her meaning.
“I meant myself,” she said. “You must know that I do not want to go, that this new … relationship you spoke of last night is doomed to failure. We cannot be friends, Stephen, having once been protector and mistress.”
“Lovers cannot be friends, then?” he asked her.
She did not reply.
“I have a need to make amends,” he told her. “Instead of bringing some joy back into your life, I did the opposite, Cass. Let me make amends.”
“I do not want—”
“We all want joy,” he said. “We all need it. And there is such a thing, Cass. I promise you.”
She merely stared at him, her green eyes almost luminous.
“Tell me you will look forward to the picnic,” he said.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “If my doing so will make you feel better, I will say it. I will not sleep tonight for eager excitement to have the picnic begin. I shall say my prayers for good weather every hour on the hour.”
He smiled at her and flicked her chin with one finger before hurrying outside and climbing into the carriage to take his place opposite his sisters, his back to the horses.
“Oh, Stephen,” Kate said when the door had been closed and the carriage rocked into motion, “I did not understand this morning. Or perhaps I chose not to understand. Are none of us to have a smooth road to matrimony and happiness, then?”
“But it was a rough road that led three of us to happiness, Kate,” Meg said quietly. “Perhaps a smooth road does not do it. Perhaps we should wish this rough road on Stephen.”
But she did not smile or look particularly happy. Neither did Kate. Stephen did not ask them what they meant—it was all too obvious.
They were wrong, though.
He was merely attempting to set right a wrong.
He was merely trying to bring some joy to Cassandra’s life so that his conscience could rest in peace.
They rode on in silence.
13
CASSANDRA spent the following morning on Oxford Street. She was not shopping for herself, however. She had asked Mary if she might take Belinda with her in order to buy her a sunbonnet for the summer to replace the quaint hat that had once belonged to a stable boy. She did not offer to buy more clothes for the child. One had to be careful with Mary. She was very proud. She was also very protective of her daughter, whom she adored.
The task was accomplished at the very first shop they entered, and Belinda came out wearing a pretty blue cotton bonnet with a slightly stiffened brim and a frill to shield her neck and shoulders from the rays of the sun. It was tied beneath the chin with sunshine yellow ribbons, which were attached to the bonnet with clusters of tiny artificial buttercups and cornflowers.
Belinda was wide-eyed with the splendor of it and turned when they left the shop to admire her image in the glass.
They strolled along the street, hand in hand, until they stopped outside a toy shop. Soon Belinda’s nose was pressed to the glass as she stared silently through it. She showed no visible excitement, no expectation that anything in the window or the shop would ever be hers. She demanded nothing. But she was obviously lost to the world around her.
Cassandra watched her fondly. Just having the chance to stand and gaze was probably enough to make this the high point of Belinda’s day. She was a remarkably contented child.
She was gazing, Cassandra realized, not at everything in the window, but at one particular toy—a doll. It was not the largest or fanciest. Indeed, it was just the opposite. It was a baby doll, made of china and wearing only a simple cotton nightgown as it lay on a white woolen shawl. After gazing and gazing, Belinda lifted one hand and waved her fingers slowly.
Cassandra blinked back tears. As far as she knew, Belinda had no toys.
“I think,” she said, “that baby needs a mama.”
“Baby.” Belinda pressed her hand against the glass.
“Would you like to hold him?” Cassandra asked.
The child’s head turned and she gazed up at Cassandra with big, solemn eyes. Slowly she nodded.
“Come, then,” Cassandra said, and took the child’s hand again and led her inside the shop.
It was a foolish extravagance. She was no longer Lord Merton’s mistress, was she? And she had already bought the bonnet. But food and clothing and shelter were not the only necessities of life. Love was too. And if love must cost her some money this morning, then so be it.
It all seemed worthwhile when the shop assistant leaned into the window and lifted out the doll and placed it in Belinda’s arms.
Cassandra would not have been surprised to see the child’s eyes pop right out of her head. Belinda gazed at the china baby with slightly open mouth and held it stiffly for a few moments before cradling it in her arms and rocking it gently.
“Would you like to take him home and be his mama?” Cassandra asked gently.
Again Belinda’s eyes turned upward, and she nodded.
Behind them a smartly dressed little girl was petulantly demanding the doll with the long blond ringlets, not the stupid one with the velvet dress and pelisse. And she needed the baby carriage because the wheels had come off hers. And the skipping rope because the handles on the one she had had for her birthday last week were an ugly green.
The baby doll came without clothes, Cassandra discovered. She bought the nightdress to go with it and then, because Belinda kissed the baby’s forehead and promised in a whisper to keep him warm, she bought the blanket too.
She had had no idea children’s toys were so expensive.
But as they walked out of the shop she did not regret the extravagance. Belinda was still virtually speechless. But she did remember something of the persistent teachings of Mary. She looked up at Cassandra, her baby held close in her arms.
“Thank you, my lady,” she said.
There was nothing careless about her gratitude. It was heartfelt.
“Well,” Cassandra said, “we could not just leave him there without a mama, could we?”
“She is a girl,” Belinda said.
“Oh.” Cassandra smiled, and looked up into the smiling faces of Lady Carling and the Countess of Sheringford.
“I thought that was you, Lady Paget,” Lady Carling said. “I told Margaret it was, and we crossed the road to make sure. What a charming child. Is she yours?”
“Oh, no,” Cassandra said. “Her mother is my housekeeper, cook, maid—my everything.�
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“She is Belinda,” the countess said, “and I see that she is wearing her smart new shoes. How do you do, Lady Paget? It looks as if you have a new baby, Belinda. May I see her? Is she a girl?”
Belinda nodded and moved the blanket back from the doll’s face.
“Oh, she is lovely,” the countess said. “And she looks warm and contented. Does she have a name?”
“Beth,” Belinda said.
“That is pretty,” the countess said. “Beth is usually short for Elizabeth. Did you know that? But Elizabeth is far too big a name for such a tiny baby. You are wise to call her Beth.”
“Margaret and I are on our way to the bakery for a cup of tea,” Lady Carling said. “Will you join us, Lady Paget? I am sure there will be at least one cake there to take Belinda’s fancy. And surely they serve lemonade.”
Cassandra’s first instinct was to say no. But it could do her no harm to be seen in public with such ladies. If she could become gradually more and more accepted in society, perhaps eventually she would be able to find some elderly or sickly lady who needed a companion and would trust her enough to employ her. It was not a happy prospect, and she did not know what would happen to Alice and Mary when the time came, but …
Well, it did no harm to accept any olive branch that was freely extended to her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Belinda, would you like a cake?”
Belinda, saucer-eyed again, nodded and then remembered her manners.
“Yes, please, my lady,” she said.
The ladies sat talking for almost an hour while Belinda sat quietly at the table, first eating the white cake with the pink icing that she had chosen with meticulous care, then holding her cup with both hands to drink the lemonade, and finally wiping her mouth and hands carefully with her linen napkin so that she could rock her doll again. She murmured to it and kissed it as the ladies talked.
“It is a lovely day for your picnic in Richmond,” the countess said.
“A picnic?” Lady Carling looked at Cassandra with interest. “How lovely for you. There is no better way to spend a summer afternoon, is there?”