Mary Balogh (19 page)

“A cup of tea will be most welcome,” Aunt Clara said.

The earl kept an arm loosely about his wife’s waist as they ascended the stairs. “We can release you from your duties at the tea tray this afternoon, Mama,” he said, “now that my wife is home.”

“Olivia will doubtless wish to freshen up after her journey,” the dowager said. “It will be no trouble, Marcus.”

“Then we will wait for her,” he said. “Olivia is never long about these things. Sophia, you had better go up with your mama, too.”

Oh, goodness, Olivia thought, there was a seductive warmth about the atmosphere of Clifton Court—a family atmosphere. And her husband had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the role they had both agreed to before her departure for London.
My wife is home
. Her feet felt heavy on the second flight of stairs.

“Mama,” Sophia said. “I am frightened. I am so frightened.”

Olivia looked in surprise at her daughter, whose face was suddenly chalky white.

“What have I done?” Sophia said. “All these people, Mama!”

Olivia took her arm. “Oh, Sophia,” she said, “it is overwhelming, is it not? When you first think of marriage, you imagine that it involves only you and your partner. And then you realize that so much more is involved. It seems to get beyond your control, does it not? Almost as if you could not stop it, even if you wished to do so.”

“And there are many more people yet to come,” Sophia said.

Her mother squeezed her arm. “You don’t want to stop it, do you?” she asked.

Sophia turned at the top of the stairs in the direction of her room. She gulped. “I am just terrified,” she said. “They are all so very happy, Mama.”

“It can be stopped, of course,” Olivia said. “You must never be in any doubt about that, Sophia. You will not be irrevocably married until the ceremony has been performed and the register signed. You must not feel as if all your freedom has been taken from you. But neither should you give in to panic for its own sake.”

Sophia drew in a ragged breath. “I did not know it would be like this,” she said. “And Mama, there are two trunkfuls of clothes.”

“Papa would have been disappointed if you had brought home less,” Olivia said. “Sit down, Sophia, before you fall down. Now, tell me.” She took her daughter’s hands in a firm clasp. “Everything else aside—the clothes, the guests, all the preparations that have been made—do you still love Francis? Do you want to spend your life with him as his wife?”

Her daughter’s eyes filled with tears.

“Do you, Sophia? Those are the only two questions that matter. The only ones.”

One tear spilled over. “But you did not spend all your life with Papa,” she said. “Only a few years.”

“Is that what you are afraid of?” Olivia asked. “That your marriage will not last? Your papa and I have been very foolish, Sophia. We threw away something very precious. You must learn from our mistake. You must learn not to love blindly, not to expect perfection from each other. You must not be alarmed if you occasionally quarrel. You must learn that your life together is more important than anything else.”

“Will you stay together now?” Sophia asked, withdrawing one hand from her mother’s in order to wipe away a tear. “You really are happy to be home, Mama, aren’t you? And Papa was happy to see you. You will stay together and love each other again?”

“We have discovered at least,” Olivia said, “that there is joy in being together with you again, Sophia. Your betrothal has accomplished that. Now that we are about to lose you to a husband, you see, we realize how important those times together can be.” She smiled. “Your marriage will bring us together at least occasionally. Neither of us will be able to resist seeing you whenever possible, and if that means seeing you together, then together we will be. Will that make you happy?”

“At Christmastime?” Sophia said. “And at christenings?”

“And for other occasions, too, I daresay,” Olivia said.

“If I marry,” Sophia said.

“If you marry.” Olivia smiled. “Have you recovered from some of your terror? There is some color back in your cheeks. Do you love Francis, Sophia? Do you want to be his wife?”

Her daughter stared back at her and licked her lips. “Of course I love Francis,” she said. “I always have, even though he used to be so horrid to me.” There were tears in her eyes again. “I have always,
always
loved
him, Mama. I wish I had realized that sooner. I would not have been so foolish.”

Olivia smoothed a lock of hair back from her daughter’s face. “Yes,” she said. “Love is terrifying sometimes, isn’t it? Sometimes it seems safer to run from it rather than face all the joys and heartaches it might bring. Don’t run, Sophia, if you truly love. You will always be sorry, believe me. Do you feel better now that you have answered the essential question? We must be going down. I am supposed to be pouring the tea.”

“Yes.” Sophia got to her feet. “I will wash my hands.”

F
OR THE REST
of the afternoon and most of the evening Lord Francis was called upon to give a full accounting of his days in London to his father, to listen to a detailed description by his mother of all the wedding preparations that had been made in his absence, to allow himself to be quizzed by his sisters-in-law about his courtship of Sophia, and to be teased by his brothers about his betrothal to the very girl he had named the Prize Pest as a child.

Sophia was faring no better, with two grandmothers and a grandfather to fuss over her, a great-aunt to kiss her and pat her hand, all her future sisters-in-law to want an exhaustive description of her bride clothes, and her future brothers-in-law to tease her.

“It is still raining,” Lord Francis said, staring gloomily from a drawing-room window late in the evening.

“The gardens are not very romantic at night when rain is dripping down your neck, or so I have heard, Frank,” Claude said. There was a general chuckle.

“And it is tricky to hold an umbrella and one’s betrothed at the same time,” Richard added.

“I am just remembering why I have envied Soph’s
being an only child,” Lord Francis said, not turning away from the window.

“When it rains, Frank,” the viscount said, “one has to improvise. The gallery is still where it used to be, Lord Clifton?”

“In the very same place,” the earl said, “complete with all the family portraits.”

“There you are, then,” Bertie said. “Problem solved, Frank.”

“Just remember that all of Sophia’s ancestors will have an eye on you,” Claude said.

“Don’t do anything to upset them,” Richard added. “Or anything I wouldn’t do, Frank.”

“And if he tries to hide from you, Sophia,” Claude said, “come and tell me and I shall tell Papa, and Frank can discover if his hand is as heavy as it used to be.”

“London was remarkably peaceful, was it not?” Lord Francis said, turning from the window. “No brothers to set up a predictably idiotic chorus. Did you spend all day yesterday rehearsing while we were still away, the three of you? Come on, Soph. Let’s go and stroll in the gallery. There will be no peace for us here if we do not.”

“Just make sure you keep him strolling, Sophia,” Richard said.

“Supper will be in half an hour’s time,” the earl said. “You will have her back down by then, Francis?”

“Yes, sir,” Lord Francis said, and ushered his betrothed out through the door and up the stairs to the long gallery on the top floor.

They walked side by side up the stairs after Lord Francis had picked up a candlestick with a lighted candle from a hall table. They did not touch or exchange a word.

“We have to keep up appearances,” he said when they reached the gallery, using his candle to light two set in wall sconces and setting his own down on a table. “We
could hardly have said we did not want to be alone after such brotherly concern, could we, Soph? We have hardly had a chance to exchange a word all evening.”

Sophia was examining a portrait next to one of the wall sconces.

“Oh, Lord,” he said, sinking down onto a cushioned bench against one wall, “what are we going to do next?”

“Mama and Papa like being together with me,” Sophia said. “Mama said so. After we are married, they will come together occasionally just to spend time with us. It is better than nothing, I suppose, but I don’t think they will ever live together again, Francis. Too much time has passed. Almost my whole lifetime.”

“After we are married,” he said.

“Yes.” She turned to look at him. “We ought to have thought more carefully, ought we not?”

“That sounds rather like the understatement of the century,” he said. “Lordy, Soph, a family gathering and all in their best wedding humor. And not a suspicion among the lot of them or a single expression of uneasiness about our possible incompatibility considering our childhood relationship. I am beginning to know what a trapped animal must feel like.”

“We have to end it now,” she said, her voice shaking. “Tonight, Francis. Right now. We have to go down and tell them all that we have had a dreadful quarrel and have put an end to our betrothal. In a few days’ time there will be many more people. It will be harder then.”

“Do you want me to slap you around a bit first?” he asked. “Do you want me to stand still while you rake your fingernails down one of my cheeks?”

“Don’t make a joke of it,” she said. “This is deadly serious, Francis.”

“A joke?” he said. “Have you ever had fingernails down your cheek, Soph, and the blood dripping onto your cravat?”

“We have to do it now,” she said.

“I can’t see your person very clearly in this light,” he said. “But if your body is shaking as badly as your voice, Soph, you had better come and sit down. I have told you of my difficulty with vaporish females before.”

“I am not vaporish,” she said, coming to sit beside him. “Just terrified. We had better do it without further delay, Francis. Let us not think about it longer or talk about it, either. Let us go and do it.”

“We have not had enough time for such a nasty quarrel,” he said.

She looked at him in incomprehension.

“If we go down now, two minutes after coming up here,” he said, “we can hardly expect them all to believe that we have quarreled so violently as to have called off the whole wedding.”

“Then we shall say we quarreled this afternoon,” she said. “Or yesterday.”

“Soph!” he said. “Why would we have waited until this evening, and smiled and received everyone’s congratulations in the meantime, if that had happened? Have some sense.”

“Then we must wait awhile,” she said. “How long? Five minutes? Ten? My courage will have given out by then.”

He took her hand in his. “Perhaps we should wait a few days,” he said. “Imagine how it would be, Soph. Carriages emptying themselves of smiling, festive guests every hour for the next several days. And we would have to greet each carriageful with the same story.”

She gulped noisily.

“It does not bear thinking of, does it?” he asked.

“Oh, Francis,” she said, “what are we going to do?”

“The very question I asked you a few moments ago,” he said. “Though I might have saved my breath. You have just thrown it right back in my teeth. And if you
gave an answer, it would probably be something corkbrained like suggesting that we stand up at the front of the church, the rector behind us, and make the announcement there.”

“Don’t be horrid!” she said. “I am the one who wanted to go down immediately and put an end to it.”

“Or you will be suggesting that it will be easier for all concerned if we get married anyway,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, jumping to her feet and standing before him, her hands on her hips, “I don’t know why I agreed to this stupid scheme in the first place, Francis. The scheme itself is bad enough. But I must really have had feathers in my brain to have agreed to do it with you of all people. Do you imagine that I am still running after you just because I was always stupid enough to do it when we were children?”

“The thought had crossed my mind, I must confess,” he said. “You aren’t wearing stays by any chance, are you, Soph? You are about to burst them if you are.”

“You toad!” she said. “You eel! You …”

“Snake?” he suggested.

“Rat! You conceited rat!”

“Quite so,” he said. “We’ll wait until everyone has arrived, Soph, and then make one grand announcement. Maybe by that time, your mama and papa will have decided that they cannot live without each other after all.”

“It is just not going to happen,” she said. “I was foolish to think it would. It was stupid to think I could bring them together when they have lived apart forever. This whole business has been stupid.”

“If we are to wait a few days,” he said, “we had better look when we go down as if we have been doing what everyone thinks we are doing.”

“Making love?” she said scornfully.

“Er, I think your papa might be up here with the proverbial
horsewhip if he thought that, Soph,” he said. “Kissing is what everyone is imagining us doing.”

“Well, there is no one to observe us,” she said, “so we do not need to feel obliged.”

“But there is definitely a just-kissed look,” he said. “Everyone will be looking for it when we return, especially my esteemed older brothers. For the sake of my self-respect, Soph, I can’t take you back down looking totally unkissed, you know.”

“How foolish,” she said. “Is this how rakes get ladies to kiss them, Francis? The ladies must be very stupid, I must say.”

“Rakes don’t usually kiss ladies,” he said, “unless they happen to be their betrotheds, and a roomful of brothers belowstairs are waiting to see that they have done their job thoroughly.”

Sophia clucked her tongue and took a step backward.

“We are fortunate, too,” he said. “There was a time, you know, Soph, when people used to do it on wedding nights. Flock into the bridal chamber after a decent time, I mean, to view the evidence that the groom had done his job.”

“Oh!” Sophia said. “They never did. You are making that up just to shock me. Papa would not like it at all if I told him that you had just told me that.”

“By Jove, no,” he said, getting to his feet. “He wouldn’t, would he? You had better not tell him, Soph. He might forbid the marriage or something like that.”