by Mary Balogh
The girl would be disappointed, though. She was the only one among the eight of them who had seemed unreservedly delighted to learn that her father was about to marry. She had assumed, of course, that if he was married he would settle down at Redcliffe and give her the sort of home life she had probably always craved. Viola could cheerfully shake Marcel for that alone. It was hard to forgive fathers who took no responsibility for their children except—in some cases—a monetary one. As if that were in any way adequate.
But she could not marry him just to please his daughter.
Harry did not know yet, though she had written to him. She had considered withholding the news of her supposed betrothal in the hope that he might never have to know. But she was not the only one who wrote to him. Camille and Abigail wrote frequently. So did young Jessica and probably a few of the aunts and one or both grandmothers. It would be impossible to keep him in the dark. There had been one letter awaiting her when she returned home, and another had arrived two days later. She called them letters, but they were his usual brief, cheerful notes, in which he claimed to be enjoying himself immensely and meeting a lot of capital fellows and seeing a lot of impressive places. One would hardly guess that he was in the very midst of a vicious war. But there was no point in worrying.
Or, rather, there was no point in trying not to worry.
“I think this must be it, Mama,” Abigail said, and sure enough, the carriage was making a sharp turn just short of a village onto a wide, treelined driveway partially carpeted with fallen leaves, though there were plenty more still on the trees.
They wound through woodland for a couple of minutes before emerging between rolling, tree-dotted lawns stretching in both directions. The grass had been cleared of all but freshly fallen leaves. Viola could see the marks of rakes on its surface.
And the house. She glimpsed it for a moment before the driveway bent away from it. It was a massive classical structure of gray stone with a pillared portico and a flight of wide stone steps leading up to massive front doors. It had been built to impress, even perhaps to inspire awe in visitors and petitioners. Viola could feel her heart beating faster. She was very glad of the long years of experience she had had of dealing with situations she would rather avoid. She remained outwardly calm and aloof, while Abigail sat with her nose almost touching the window as she gazed ahead.
“We must have been seen approaching,” she said. “There is the Marquess of Dorchester. And Lady Estelle. And Viscount Watley.”
For a moment Viola could not recall who Viscount Watley was. But of course it was Bertrand’s courtesy title as his father’s heir.
And then the carriage turned before slowing and coming to a halt below the portico. She could see for herself that there was indeed a reception party awaiting them.
She saw only one of them.
Her stomach clenched tightly and tried to turn a somersault all at the same time, leaving her breathless and nauseated. He was dressed as immaculately as he might be for a reception at Carlton House with the Prince of Wales. He looked austere and was unsmiling. It would be ridiculous to say she had forgotten just how handsome he was. Of course she had not forgotten. It was just that . . .
. . . ah, she had forgotten.
It was he who stepped forward to open the carriage door and let down the steps. He reached up a hand to help her alight and . . . oh, she had forgotten the dark intensity of his eyes. And the breath-robbing feel of his hand closing about hers.
“Viola,” he said in that light, quiet voice she could always feel like a caress down her spine. “Welcome to Redcliffe.” He was still not smiling. Neither was she. When she was standing on the cobbled terrace before him, he raised her hand to his lips, and oh . . .
She knew him intimately. She knew his body, his voice, his mannerisms, his likes and dislikes. Even his mind. Yet it was like a dream, the knowing of him. The austere aristocrat standing before her was a stranger. She did not know him at all.
“Thank you,” she said.
His son, she was aware, was handing Abigail down from the carriage. His daughter was flushed and bright eyed and bursting with suppressed energy.
“Miss Kingsley,” she said, hurrying to her father’s side and smiling warmly at Viola. “At last. I thought the three weeks would never go by. They have seemed more like three months. You are the first to arrive, of course. I was sure you would like a day or so with just Papa and us before all the excitement.”
“That was thoughtful of you.” Viola smiled at the girl. “I hope you have not gone to too much trouble.”
“Aunt Annemarie and Uncle William will be arriving tomorrow,” Estelle said. “And so will everyone else if there is no bad weather to delay them.”
Everyone else?
“I cannot wait to meet them all,” Estelle continued. “Your other daughter and her children, your mother, the Countess of Riverdale, the Duke and Duchess of Netherby, the . . . oh, everyone.”
Viola’s eyes met Marcel’s, which were hooded and blank—with perhaps a hint of mockery in their depths.
“From the look on Miss Kingsley’s face,” he said, “I would guess this is all news to her, Estelle.”
“Oh, Abigail.” Estelle turned to hug Viola’s daughter. “How lovely it is to see you again. I cannot wait . . .”
Viola had stopped listening. She stared into Marcel’s eyes.
“This was your doing?” she asked.
“Oh, not at all,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “It seems I have a daughter who has stepped out of the schoolroom and out of her cocoon and has not waited to grow accustomed to her wings before spreading them and taking flight.”
She was speechless.
He offered his arm and indicated the steps up to the front doors.
Even her mind was speechless.
Sixteen
It struck Marcel only after Estelle had taken the new arrivals up to their rooms and they had come back down to the drawing room half an hour later that he had been remembering Viola as she had been fourteen years ago—young, slender despite the fact that she had three young children, poised and coolly dignified. It was almost as if his heart had shut off all memory of her enjoying herself at that village fair, decked out in the gaudy jewelry he had bought her, waltzing on the village green, demanding that they stop for every castle, church, and market they passed on their leisurely journey to Devonshire, buying him a black umbrella only because the hideous gold tassels amused her, giggling in their inn room when his wooden staff cracked in two, running downhill through the ferns with her arms spread wide, pirouetting on the bridge, glowing with animation, making love with uninhibited delight.
It all came flooding back now along with her somewhat more mature figure and her less youthfully lovely face. And he remembered, and felt again, that he found her more attractive now than he had then, perhaps because he had aged with her. She was now, quite simply, beautiful. Even, perhaps, perfect.
And with his memories of those weeks came the full force of the realization that he was still not over her. He ought to have been happy to realize it. She was, after all, going to be his wife. But he did not want a marriage in which there was sentiment involved—on either side. A leg shackle was one thing. A loss of oneself was another, and it seemed to him that he would lose something of himself if he could not get over her. Lust would be acceptable. And lust was all he had felt for any woman since Adeline. For almost twenty years he had been free, safe, his own master and master of his world. He liked it that way.
He deeply resented the fact that Viola Kingsley threatened his world.
Everyone was gathered in the drawing room for a formal presentation to his intended bride. He met her at the door, made her a slight formal bow, and offered the back of his hand. She set hers lightly upon it and he conducted her first to his aunt Olwen, the marchioness, who was seated in state in her large chair by the fire.
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br /> “I understand, Miss Kingsley,” his aunt said, “that you had the misfortune to discover after the death of the Earl of Riverdale that your marriage to him had been bigamous.”
“It was a distressing thing to discover, ma’am,” Viola said. “For my children more than for me.”
That was all she—or anyone else—said on the subject. She did not wade into explanations and assurances that she had been an innocent victim. She was, in fact and to her very fingertips, still the Countess of Riverdale as he had known her. She appeared perfectly relaxed as he continued to take her about. She repeated the name of everyone to whom she was introduced—a device for remembering, of course—and said everything that was proper. Her manners were impeccable, her demeanor poised.
After all the introductions had been made, she seated herself between Charles Morrow on one side and Cousin Isabelle on the other, accepted a cup of tea from Ellen Morrow with a nod of thanks, and proceeded to engage both her neighbors in polite conversation.
Her daughter meanwhile had been led about by Estelle while his relatives had eyed her with a certain wariness, as though they feared her illegitimacy might somehow contaminate Estelle.
He was not over Viola. By God he was not. He wanted to run away with her again, but so far away this time that they would never find their way home or want to. He longed for those days and nights back when there had been nothing to think about, nothing to brood upon except each other. There was no point in wanting, though. He had felt her gradual withdrawal during their last day or two at the cottage even before that final confrontation on the beach. Pleasure had become less enjoyable to her. He had become less enjoyable. She had told him it was over, that she was going home.
He was not over her, but she was over him.
The atmosphere in the drawing room was stifling, the chatter intolerable. Margaret had joined her mother and was telling Viola about the plans for her wedding to Sir Jonathan Billings in early December. The other young people—the twins, Abigail Westcott, Oliver and Ellen Morrow—were in a group together and talking rather loudly and not always one at a time. André was holding a conversation with Irwin, Lord Ortt. And Jane’s tight-lipped silence as she sat behind the tea tray even after everyone had been served and most had even had a second cup was somehow as loud as any of the actual sounds in the room.
Marcel got to his feet rather abruptly. “Viola,” he said, “come for a stroll outside with me.”
She looked up at him in some surprise before her eyes strayed to the window.
“It is almost dark out there, Marcel,” Jane pointed out.
“It is only early dusk,” his aunt said, for the mere sake of contradicting Jane, Marcel suspected. He ignored them both.
“Thank you.” Viola got to her feet. “I shall go and fetch a cloak and bonnet.”
“Do dress warmly,” Isabelle advised. “Once the daylight goes at this time of year, it can feel like the middle of winter out there.”
“I shall,” Viola promised, and she left the room without another glance at Marcel. He followed her out without paying any attention to André’s grin.
She was wearing half boots when she came back downstairs five minutes later, and a long gray cloak of winter weight and a bonnet and kid gloves. Her eyes met his, but she did not smile. Neither of them spoke until the footman on duty in the hall had opened the door for them and shut it behind them.
It was actually lighter outside than it had appeared to be from the drawing room. He gestured to the path on their left as they came down the steps. It meandered across lawns and among scattered oak and beech trees on its way to more dense woodland and the lake and the dower house beyond that. They would not go as far as the woods today, though. Darkness came rather early this late in the year, and darkness in the country could be quite total.
He searched his mind for something to say after she had taken his arm and they had set out along the path, but he could not think of a blessed thing. It was quite unlike him, and he resented it. He resented her, which was quite illogical and even more unfair. He almost hated her—at the same time as he was not over her. If he was not careful, he thought, he would be having a childish tantrum, throwing himself to the ground and drumming his heels and his fists on the path. And that would be more than a little alarming.
She took the responsibility for choosing a topic of conversation from him. “It is insufferable,” she said, and he could hear that her voice was vibrating with anger.
“It?” There were a number of its to which she might be referring.
“All my family and the Westcotts coming here tomorrow,” she said. “All? My mother? My brother? The dowager countess, my former mother-in-law, who is in her seventies? All of them are coming?”
“If their replies to their invitations are to be believed,” he said.
“It is intolerable,” she said again. “You ought to have forbidden it.”
“The invitations were sent and the acceptances received before I got wind of it,” he said. “Or anyone else for that matter. Jane was puce in the face when I came upon her—she had just intercepted a few of the replies. I am not sure Estelle told even Bertrand, which would be most surprising.”
“Then you ought to have put a stop to it as soon as you did know,” she said. “Have you no control over your children?”
He was getting a mite annoyed now too. “I imagine it would be beyond the pale even for the notorious Marquess of Dorchester to uninvite houseguests when they had already written acceptances,” he said. “And Estelle did it with the best intentions, you know. She wished to please you. Strange as it may seem, she actually likes you.”
She appeared not to have been listening to those last words. “Why did you not tell me you are the Marquess of Dorchester?” she asked.
Had they not dealt with this matter before? Perhaps not. “For some reason I have not quite fathomed,” he said, “people treat the Marquess of Dorchester rather differently from the way they treat Mr. Lamarr. I thought you might treat me differently.”
“You thought I might be frightened away?” she asked.
“Would you have been?” He could not see her face fully about the brim of her bonnet.
“Yes,” she said.
He was a little taken aback, though he had withheld the truth from her for precisely that reason. “Why?” he asked.
“I was not exactly a fallen woman when you met me again, Marcel,” she said, “but I was and am a tainted woman. I lived, albeit unknowingly, in a bigamous marriage for twenty-three years. I gave birth to three illegitimate children. I took back my maiden name when I learned the truth and retired to a quiet life, as far from the ton as I could get. The closest I have come to returning since then was this past spring when I went to London for Alexander and Wren’s wedding. I went to the theater with them one evening. It was not an enjoyable experience, though there was no gasp of outrage when I stepped into the Duke of Netherby’s box. I was glad to retire to my quiet life again. And then a few weeks ago I discovered that you are a marquess.”
“You ran away with me, not the marquess,” he said. “Just as I ran away with you, not with the tainted former Countess of Riverdale. But what a ridiculous word, Viola—tainted.”
“You made an informed decision,” she said. “I did not. You withheld pertinent information from me.” Her voice was shaking a bit again, a sure sign that she was still furious.
“You would not have enjoyed me so much if you had known you were making love with the Marquess of Dorchester?” he asked. They had stopped under the branches of a large beech. “He makes love in the same way as Marcel Lamarr does. If our love nest had not been discovered with the two of us more or less in it, would my title have made a difference, Viola? If you had discovered that fact after you had returned home? Would it have made a difference?”
“But that is not what happened,” she said. “We were disco
vered, and you made that stupid announcement that we were betrothed, and now look at the mess we are in.”
“Stupid?” he said. “And are we in a mess?”
“Yes, stupid,” she said, her eyes flashing too now. “We should have told the simple truth—that we had gone there for a week or two of relaxation and that we were about to return home. Let them make of it what they would. Good heavens, we are not children or even young adults. It was none of their business why we were there. And any unpleasantness and awkwardness would have blown over by now. We would both have been free.”
“And living happily ever after,” he said.
“And living separately ever after,” she said, “as we had planned and as we wished. We had reached the end, Marcel, but your stupid announcement complicated and prolonged it. And now this.” She gestured with one arm toward the house. “My own family and all the Westcotts arriving tomorrow to celebrate our betrothal in grand style. Do you understand how impossible you have made life for me?”
He gazed at her with narrowed eyes and a cold heart. “You would take pleasure from sleeping with me,” he said, “but not from marrying me?”
“Oh, stupid,” she said. “Stupid.” It seemed to be today’s favorite word.
“You will probably survive the ordeal of marrying a marquess,” he said. “It is actually quite a coup for you—or so the ton will be sure to say.”