by Mary Balogh
“Yes,” her brother agreed. “She is fighting, is she not?”
“Oh yes,” Alexander said. “This ballroom is her battleground.”
“I have engaged Miss Parmiter’s hand for the next set,” Hodges said. “I must go and claim her. It is a waltz and she has only this week been approved by one of the patronesses of Almack’s to dance it.”
Wren had been granted no such approval, though several of the patronesses were present this evening and doubtless would oblige if asked. But she was almost thirty years old and the Countess of Riverdale and did not need anyone’s approval for anything. She had already waltzed this evening with her brother, and it had pained Alexander not to partner her himself. But etiquette decreed that he dance with his wife no more than twice this evening and he had preferred to wait for the waltz later in the evening—now, in fact. He had danced every set with different partners, but this was the one for which he had waited. He had reserved it with her. It would have been disastrous to arrive at her side only to discover that someone else had claimed it.
She smiled when she saw him come. To a casual observer it would have seemed that her expression had not changed, for she had smiled all evening. But he could see a greater depth to her eyes, a warmth of regard she reserved for him alone. And it was time, surely, for both of them to acknowledge what had happened since that first ghastly meeting at Withington, since her withdrawal of her offer on Easter Sunday, since his sensible, rational offer in Hyde Park. For something had happened. Everything had happened, in fact, and he was sure it could not have happened just to him.
“Ma’am,” he said, reaching for her hand and bowing over it as he kept his eyes on hers, “this is my dance, I believe.”
Elizabeth, beside her, was fanning her face and looking amused.
“Sir,” Wren said, “I believe it is. And I can almost promise,” she added after he had led her onto the floor, “not to tread all over your feet. I did not tread on Colin’s even once earlier.”
“Wren,” he said as one of the violinists was still tuning his instrument and other dancers gathered about them, “you have done it. You have stepped out fearlessly into the world and proved that you can do anything you choose to do.”
“Ah, not fearlessly,” she said.
“Courageously, then,” he said. “No courage is needed if there is no fear, after all, and you are the most courageous woman—no, person—I have ever known.”
“And I do not believe I could swim across the English Channel to France,” she said.
“But would you choose to try?” he asked.
“No.” They both laughed.
And the music began. They waltzed tentatively at first, concentrating upon performing the correct steps and finding a shared rhythm. Then he twirled her into a spin and she raised a flushed, smiling face to his. Her spine arched inward with the pressure of his hand at her waist. Her left hand rested on his shoulder while her right hand was clasped in his. And the world was a wonderful place, and happiness was a real thing even if it welled up only occasionally into conscious moments of joy like this one. His family—and hers—and friends and peers and acquaintances danced around them with a shared pleasure in this celebration of life and friendship and laughter. And his wife was in his arms and they were at the very beginning of a marriage that would, God willing, bring them contentment and more on down the years to old age and perhaps even beyond.
Other couples twirled about them, candlelight wheeled above them, flowers gave off their heady perfumes, and the music seeped into their very bones, or so it seemed.
She smiled at him and he smiled back and really nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but her—and him. Them.
“Ah,” she said on a sigh when the music finally came to an end, “so soon?”
“Come,” he said. He did not know if she had promised the next set. He did not really care. He led her out onto the balcony beyond the French windows and down the steps to the garden below. It was lit with colored lanterns strung among the trees, though not many people strolled there. He stopped walking when they were beneath a willow tree beside a fountain, out of sight of the house. “Happy?” he asked.
“Mmm,” she said, clinging to his arm. “It is beautifully cool out here.”
“I suppose,” he said, “you are still going to insist that we wait to go home to Brambledean until after the parliamentary session is over.”
“Yes,” she said. “Because your duty here is important. To you. And therefore to me.”
“We will leave the very day after,” he said. “At the crack of dawn. I want to be home. With you.”
“It does sound heavenly, does it not?” she said.
“Wren.” He turned to face her and cupped her face in his hands. “I am guilty of a terrible deception. Of myself as much as of you. I surely suspected when you insisted upon ending things between us at Brambledean. I surely knew when I saw you again by the Serpentine. The truth must have been staring me in the face and knocking on my brow when I offered you marriage on that woodland path. It has been clamoring for my attention ever since.”
She raised both her hands and set them over the backs of his. “What?” she half whispered. Lamplight was swaying across her face in the breeze.
“I love you,” he said. “I wish there were a better word. But maybe it is the best after all, for it encompasses everything else and reaches beyond. I love you more than . . . Well, I am really not good with words. I love you.”
Her smile was soft and warm and radiant in the dim light. “Oh,” she said, her voice hushed with wonder. “But you have chosen the most precious word in the English language, Alexander. I love you too, you see. I think I have known my own feelings since the moment you walked into my drawing room at Withington and looked so disconcerted not to find it full of other guests. I have certainly known since Easter Sunday. It broke my heart to let you go, but it would have been worse to continue—or so I thought. After we met again I chose to settle for the hope of affection, and it has been good knowing that you do indeed care. I have tried to tell myself it is enough. I have tried not to be greedy. But now . . . Oh, Alexander, now . . .”
He touched his forehead to hers. “And it is at least a few weeks since I last noticed, you know,” he said. “Is it still there? I wonder.” He lifted his head and gazed with a frown of concentration at the left side of her face. “Indeed it is. The birthmark is still there. How could I possibly not have noticed?”
She was laughing. “Perhaps,” she said, “because you were noticing me instead.”
“Ah,” he said. “Undoubtedly that is it.”
They smiled at each other, and she pressed her hands warmly against his as he kissed her.
. . . because you were noticing me instead.
Ah, Wren.
Yes.
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN MARY BALOGH’S WESTCOTT SERIES,
Someone to Care
AVAILABLE FROM THE BERKLEY GROUP IN MAY 2018.
Marcel Lamarr, Marquess of Dorchester, was not at all pleased when his carriage turned abruptly into the yard of an undistinguished country inn on the edge of an undistinguished country village and rocked to a halt. He made his displeasure felt, not in words, but rather in a cold, steady gaze, his quizzing glass raised almost but not quite to his eye, when his coachman opened the door and peered apologetically within.
“One of the leaders has a shoe coming loose, my lord,” he explained.
“You did not check when we stopped for a change of horses not an hour ago that all was in order?” his lordship asked. But he did not wait for an answer. “How long?”
His coachman glanced dubiously at the inn and the stables off to one side, from which no groom or ostler had yet emerged to rush eagerly to their aid. “Not long, my lord,” he assured his employer.
“A firm and precise answer,” his lordship s
aid curtly, lowering his glass. “Shall we say one hour? And not a moment longer? We will step inside while we wait, André, and sample the quality of the ale served here.” His tone suggested that he was not expecting to be impressed.
“A glass or two will not come amiss,” his brother replied cheerfully. “It has been a dashed long time since breakfast. I never understand why you always have to make such an early start and then remain obstinately inside the carriage when the horses are being changed.”
The quality of the ale was, indeed, not impressive, but the quantity could not be argued with. It was served in large tankards, which foamed over to leave wet rings on the table. Quantity was perhaps the inn’s claim to fame. The landlord, unbidden, brought them fresh meat pasties, which filled the two plates and even hung over the edges. They had been cooked by his own good wife, he felt impelled to inform them, bowing and beaming as he did so, though his lordship gave him no encouragement beyond a cool, indifferent nod. The good woman apparently made the best meat pasties, and, indeed, the best pies of any and all descriptions for twenty miles around, probably more, though the proud husband did not want to give the appearance of being boastful in the singing of his woman’s praises. Their lordships must judge for themselves, though he had no doubt they would agree with him and perhaps even suggest that they were the finest in all England—possibly even in Wales and Scotland and Ireland too. He would not be at all surprised. Had their lordships ever traveled to those remote regions? He had heard—
They were rescued from having to listen to whatever it was he had heard, however, when the outer door beyond the taproom opened and a trio of people, followed almost immediately by a steady stream of others, turned into the room. They were presumably villagers, all clad in their Sunday best though it was not Sunday, all cheerful and noisy in their greetings to the landlord and one another. All were as dry as the desert and as empty as a beggar’s bowl in a famine—according to the loudest of them—and in need of sustenance in the form of ale and pasties, it being not far off noon and the day’s festivities not due to begin for another hour or so yet. They fully expected to be stuffed for the rest of the day once the festivities did begin, of course but in the meanwhile . . .
But someone at that point—with a chorus of hasty agreement from everyone else—remembered to assure mine host that nothing would or could compare to his wife’s cooking. That was why they were there.
Each of the new arrivals became quickly aware that there were two strangers in their midst. A few averted their eyes in some confusion and scurried off to sit at tables as far removed from theirs as the size of the room allowed. Others, somewhat bolder, nodded respectfully as they took their seats. One brave soul spoke up with the hope that their worships had come to enjoy the entertainments their humble village was to have on offer for the rest of the day. The room grew hushed as all attention was turned upon their worships in anticipation of their reply.
The Marquess of Dorchester, who neither knew the name of the village nor cared, looked about the dark, shabby taproom with disfavor and ignored everyone. It was possible he had not even heard the question or noticed the hush. His brother, more gregarious by nature and more ready to be delighted by any novelty that presented itself, nodded amiably to the gathering in general and asked the inevitable question.
“And what entertainments would those be?” he asked.
It was all the encouragement those gathered there needed. They were about to celebrate the end of the harvest with contests in everything under the sun—singing, fiddle playing, dancing, arm wrestling, archery, and wood-sawing, to name a few. There were to be races for the children and pony rides and contests in needlework and cooking for the women. And displays of garden produce, of course, and prizes for the best. There was going to be something for everyone. And all sorts of booths with everything one could wish for upon which to spend one’s money. Most of the garden produce and the women’s items were to be sold or auctioned after the judging. There was to be a grand feast in the church hall in the late afternoon before general dancing in the evening. All the proceeds from the day were to go into the fund for the church roof.
The church roof apparently leaked like a sieve whenever there was a good rain, and only five or six of the pews were safe to sit upon. They got mighty crowded on a wet day.
“Not that some of our younger folk complain too loud about the crowding,” someone offered.
“Some of them pray all week for rain on Sunday,” someone else added.
André Lamarr joined in the general guffaw that succeeded these witticisms. “Perhaps we will stay an hour or two to watch some of the contests,” he said. “Log sawing, did you say? And arm wrestling? I might even try a bout myself.”
All eyes turned upon his companion, who had neither spoken nor shown any spark of interest in all the supposedly irresistible delights the day held in store.
They offered a marked contrast to the beholder, these two brothers. There was a gap of almost thirteen years in their ages, but it was not just a contrast in years. Marcel Lamarr, Marquess of Dorchester, was tall, well-formed, impeccably elegant, and austerely handsome. His dark hair was silvering at the temples. His face was narrow, with high cheekbones and a somewhat hawkish nose and thin lips. His eyes were dark and hooded. He looked upon the world with cynical disdain, and the world looked back upon him—when it dared look at all—with something bordering upon fear. He had a reputation as a hard man, one who did not suffer fools gladly or at all. He also had a reputation for hard living and deep gambling, among other vices. He was reputed to have left behind a string of brokenhearted mistresses and courtesans and hopeful widows during the course of his almost forty years. As for unmarried ladies and their ambitious mamas and hopeful papas, they had long ago given up hope of netting him. One quelling glance from those dark eyes of his could freeze even the most determined among them in their tracks. They consoled themselves by fanning the flames of the rumor that he lacked either a heart or a conscience, and he did nothing to disabuse them of such a notion.
André Lamarr, by contrast, was a personable young man, shorter, slightly broader, fairer of hair and complexion, and altogether more open and congenial of countenance than his brother. He liked people, and people generally liked him. He was always ready to be amused, and he was not always discriminating about where that amusement came from. At present he was charmed by these cheerful country folk and the simple pleasures they anticipated with such open delight. He would have been perfectly happy to delay their journey by an hour or three—they had started out damnably early, after all. He glanced inquiringly at his brother and drew breath to speak. He was forestalled.
“No,” his lordship said softly.
The attention of the masses had already been taken by a couple of new arrivals, who were greeted with a hearty exchange of pleasantries and comments upon the kindness the weather was showing them and a few lame flights of wit, which drew disproportionate shouts of merry laughter. Marcel could not imagine anything more shudderingly tedious than an afternoon spent at the insipid entertainment of a country fair, admiring large cabbages and crocheted doilies and watching troops of heavy-footed dancers prancing about the village green.
“Dash it all, Marc,” André said, his eyebrows knitting into a frown. “I thought you were none too eager to get home.”
“Nor am I,” Marcel assured him. “Redcliffe Court is too full of persons for whom I feel very little fondness.”
“With the exception of Bertrand and Estelle, surely,” André said, his frown deepening.
“With the exception of the twins,” Marcel conceded with a slight shrug as the innkeeper arrived at their table to refill their glasses. Once more they brimmed over with foam, which swamped the table around them. The man did not pause to wipe the table.
The twins. Those two were going to have to be dealt with when he arrived home. They were soon to turn eighteen. In the natural course of eve
nts, Estelle would be making her come-out during the London Season next year and would be married to someone suitably eligible within a year or so after that while Bertrand would go up to Oxford, idle away three or four years there absorbing as little knowledge as possible, and then take up a career as a fashionable young man about town. In the natural course of events . . . There was, in fact, nothing natural about his twins. They were both almost morbidly serious-minded, perhaps even pious—perish the thought. Sometimes it was hard to believe he could have begotten them. But then he had not had a great deal to do with their upbringing, and doubtless that was where the problem lay.
“I am going to have to exert myself with them,” he added.
“They are not likely to give you any trouble,” André assured him. “They are a credit to Jane and Charles.”
Marcel did not reply. For that was precisely the trouble. Jane Morrow was his late wife’s elder sister—straitlaced and humorless and managing in her ways. Adeline, who had been a careless, fun-loving girl, had detested her. He still thought of his late wife as a girl, for she had died at the age of twenty-two when the twins were barely a year old. Jane and her husband had stepped dutifully into the breach to take care of the children while Marcel fled as though the hounds of hell were at his heels and as though he could outpace his grief and guilt and responsibilities. Actually, he had more or less succeeded with that last. His children had grown up with their aunt and uncle and older cousins, albeit at his home. He had seen them twice a year since their mother’s death, almost always for fairly short spans of time. That home had borne too many bad memories. One memory, actually, but that one was very bad indeed. Fortunately, that home in Sussex had been abandoned and leased out after he inherited the title. They all now lived at Redcliffe Court in Northamptonshire.