Loving Lady Marcia (37 page)

“Really?”

Mama didn’t look happy about the idea. “I don’t know, darling. It’s something we could consider. It would be costly, I’m sure.”

“I wouldn’t want you and Daddy to do it unless you were overjoyed to, Mama. I can’t ask you to commit to something as huge as that on my behalf. It has to be for the girls, the teachers, and—”

The bedchamber door flew open. Janice stood there, her face red, her hands clenched in fists.

“And Oak Hall,” Marcia finished quietly.

“What—have—you—
done
?” Janice said, her voice shrill.

Mama and Marcia stood at the same time.

“Janice,” Mama said. “Come in.”

Janice stayed in the door, breathing hard. “You’ve ruined my life,” she said to Marcia, her eyes full of hostility and confusion. “I thought you loved me.”

“I do,” said Marcia, taking a step toward her.

Janice put up a hand. “Stay back.”

“Janice,” Mama said firmly. “Get in here
now
.”

Janice’s lips thinned. She threw back her shoulders, pulled the door shut behind her, and came to stand in the middle of the room. Her expression was shuttered.

“Janice—”

She inhaled a breath as if Marcia had hit her with an arrow.

“I know you’re hurting,” Mama said.

Janice winced.

Mama went to Janice and put an arm around her. “Go sit next to your sister.”

“I can’t,” Janice said, her voice breaking.

Mama didn’t wait for her to acquiesce. She literally put her hand on Janice’s lower back and pushed her to the bed, one step at a time.

Janice sat down gingerly, never looking at Marcia.

Marcia didn’t force the issue and sat next to her.

Mama stood in front of them both, her delicate arms crossed. She paced back and forth slowly for about thirty seconds, and then she stopped and turned to Janice. “Your sister saved you from marrying a scoundrel.”

Janice punched a fist on the bedclothes. “He’s
not
—”

“He
is,
” Mama said. “I know you’re hurting, but I’m thankful as your mother that soon that hurt will turn to relief. Heartbreak is hell. All three of us in this room know that now.”

Janice shook her head slowly and dug her fingers into the bedclothes. “What are you talking about?” she asked Mama. She still wouldn’t look at Marcia.

But Mama did.
May I?
her expression said.

Woman to woman.

Marcia’s heart warmed at the new connection, and she nodded.

Mama sent her a grateful smile then collected herself by lacing her fingers together and looking up at the ceiling for a few moments. Finally, she looked back at Janice. “Finnian Lattimore seduced your sister years ago, when she was still young and vulnerable.”

Janice’s mouth fell open, and she looked at Marcia. “He—he did?”

“Yes,” Marcia said loud enough to be heard.

“Oh!” Janice put her hand to her mouth and stared at the window. Then at Mama. Then back at Marcia. “I’m so sorry.”

And she burst into tears.

Marcia and Mama knew she was sorry about losing her romantic ideal
and
sorry about what had happened to her sister.

Marcia tapped Janice’s shoulder and embraced her. Janice let herself be held while Marcia rocked her back and forth for a long time.

“It’s okay,” Marcia said over and over. Then, “We’re okay. Both of us.”

Mama got on her knees and wrapped her arms around both of them. “We’ll always have each other,” she said. “Always.”

Janice shuddered once or twice more, but then her tears subsided. The way she slumped gave the impression she was weak and tired—and her expression was sadder than Marcia had ever seen it.

Mama ordered tea.

Marcia and Janice got under the covers and leaned against the pillows. Kerry brought them a tray of buttered toast and sent Marcia a secret, loving look. Marcia winked at her, so she wouldn’t worry.

Mama poured, adding extra lumps of sugar, the way she always had when they were little and got a scraped knee or found a dead bird. She sat on the edge of the bed, and they all cradled their cups and sipped.

After a few minutes, Janice let out a long sigh, her eyes clear now—but still sad. “So what will this mean?”

Marcia knew she wondered how Finn would be held accountable.

“Daddy had a conversation with Lord Chadwick,” Mama said, and inhaled a breath. “Marcia is to marry him.”

She let the news sink in.

Janice handed her cup to Mama without a word. Mama placed it on the tea tray.

Janice turned to Marcia. “You’re—you’re getting married?”

Marcia bit her lip. “Talk to Mama.”

“The engagement announcement will appear in the paper tomorrow,” Mama said. “And we hope to have the special license within a matter of a day or two. The wedding will take place at home. We’ll have only our family, Lord Chadwick’s cousin Richard and his family, and Marcia’s best friend from Oak Hall, if she’d like to have her.”

“Certainly I’ll invite Deborah,” Marcia said quietly. “She took over when I left. I miss her and will be happy to see her.”

Janice’s face twisted. “Marcia, is this what you want?”

Marcia didn’t want to burden her sister with guilt, but she had to tell her the truth. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life with someone who’s merely attached himself to me to settle a debt of honor. Would you?”

“No,” said Janice passionately. “But is that how it is with Lord Chadwick? I get the impression he admires you greatly. And you’ve brought Joe here several times. I thought that perhaps you and the earl … had a connection.”

Marcia pursed her lips. “I do like Lord Chadwick very much.”
Love,
a tiny voice inside corrected her. “Most of the time. But I don’t want him to marry me out of obligation. Not only that, our engagement means Oak Hall will close.”

“How so?” Janice asked.

Marcia took the time to explain.

Janice took her hand again. “I’m so sorry. And all this happened because of me.”

“Life’s complicated sometimes, dear.” Mama patted her hand. “You’re not responsible for this turn of events in any way.”

“Mama’s right,” Marcia said. “This started years ago and without your involvement, Janice.”

She could tell their reassurances were slim comfort to her sister. But the pink came back to Janice’s cheeks and she laid her head on Marcia’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” she murmured.

A delicate furrow formed on Mama’s brow. “It’s your duty not to wallow, girls,” she said in a gentle but firm manner. “We must strive to look on the bright side. Marcia can be happy, Janice, if she wants to be. Look how well she’s done these past few years.”

Marcia chose to say nothing. But she did ask for more tea and another slice of toast so that Janice wouldn’t think she was sulking or unhappy.

Mama could know. And no doubt she did, very well.

They would keep up the pretense together.

When Marcia was finished with her tea and had eaten every bit of her toast, Mama stood. “Tomorrow we’ll be inundated with callers,” she said. “Everyone will be coming to congratulate you. So tonight we’ll stay in and rest.”

Janice looked gravely at her. “I could sleep with you tonight,” she said.

Marcia smiled. “I’d like that.”

“You’ll have to see Lord Chadwick tomorrow, as well,” Mama told her. “At four o’clock.”

“But I’m—”

“You
will
see him.” Mama brooked no argument.

Janice grabbed Marcia’s hand and squeezed so hard that it hurt. But the pain was good. She focused on that instead of having to face the earl, who’d stepped up to be her knight in shining armor.

Too bad you can’t hug a knight in shining armor,
she thought.
All you’d get is the armor.

She could do without a knight.

But she wasn’t sure she could do without the hot-blooded man she’d lain with, the one who’d whispered sweet nothings in her ear as he’d loved her in a sweet little house in the tender light of a crackling hearth fire.

*   *   *

Lying next to Janice, Marcia dreamt of Duncan all night, disturbing dreams in which she’d been running from him alongside a hot, hot fire, afraid to get too close to it. In others, she’d been freezing and looking for him, desperate to find him, and crying his name.

Nothing mattered to her upon waking except the knowledge that she’d be forced to speak with him in the afternoon. She dreaded it, the way she dreaded getting the smallpox. But in a perverse way, she also couldn’t wait, the same way a moth is drawn to a flame.

She wanted to see his face again.

She loved him.

At the breakfast table, everyone was there, as if told to report by Mama and Daddy. And perhaps they had been. Today was a big day. A daughter of the house was to marry, and the whole world would know it.

The world who read the London papers, that was.

The boys, all of them bleary-eyed, were awkward with her, treating her as if she’d been taken ill.

Peter looked furtively at her and held out her chair.

“Thank you, Peter,” she said. “You’re very kind.”

He blushed. He was the most forgetful of the brothers when it came to pulling out chairs.

“Would you like me to get your eggs for you, Marcia?” asked Robert, who often took the last of the coddled eggs without asking if anyone else wanted one.

“Oh, no, thank you,” she replied. “Just bacon and toast for me today. And I’ll get it. I’m finicky about my bacon.”

“You like the crisp slices,” Gregory said. “Here, take these two. They’re the crispiest on the plate, I’d wager.”

And he slid some bacon off his own plate on to hers.

Robert and Peter looked resentfully at him.

Normally, Marcia would have been amused. But all she felt was an invisible gloom pressing down on her.

Mama and Daddy appeared and took their seats. Daddy’s paper was ready for him. Mama had her own special chocolate pot he’d given her as a wedding gift. There was some story to it none of the children knew, but Mama was inordinately fond of it.

“When is the wedding?” asked Peter between his locks of hair.

“Ugh,” said Robert with feeling.

Gregory squeezed Marcia’s shoulder rather hard. “I’ve always liked Chadwick. And he’s got excellent taste.”

“Thank you,” she told him, feeling a bit awkward.

“In horses, Gregory meant to say!” burst out Robert.

Peter punched him in the arm. “Not today,” he hissed.

“It’s all right, Peter,” Marcia said, and tried to look pleasant. “I was beginning to think I’d woken up in the wrong household.”

“Really?” Peter grinned.

So did Gregory and Robert.

And they dug into their meals, Gregory telling his brothers about the rout he’d attended the night before, where his friend Nathan had nearly fallen out a second-story window.

But Cynthia, who’d been lingering at the sideboard with her plate, was so excited when she came to the table, she could hardly sit still. “I can’t wait to see Lord Chadwick. He’ll be another brother. Perhaps one who’ll not tease any of us girls. What shall we call him?”

“Saint?” Gregory lofted a brow.

“You’ll call him Duncan, I suppose,” Marcia replied blandly, still doing her best to be noncommittal.

“And does this mean Joe will be our nephew?” asked Robert.

“Yes, it does,” said Janice stoutly. “I shall bribe him every day with sweets to elect me the best aunt.”

Marcia smiled, glad to see her sister in much better circumstances than she’d been the evening previous.

“You’ll be a stepmother,” said Peter with a grin to Marcia.

For the first time, she felt a stirring of interest in the situation which had spiraled beyond her control. “No child should be without a mother,” she said matter-of-factly. “And no child should be without friends.”

No matter what the circumstances of his birth,
was the implied rest of that sentence.

Mama got a little sheen of tears in her eyes, and Daddy squeezed her hand. She’d been a foundling, born to a young woman with no husband. Mama’s mother had died when Mama was five. She and Papa had never hidden her history from them.

So it was no wonder that when other families would have pretended Joe didn’t exist, the House of Brady welcomed him with open arms.

Daddy, Marcia noticed, wasn’t his usual chipper self. The twinkle he always seemed to wake up with in his eye was absent. His mood was quiet enough that Mama asked if he had a headache.

“No,” he said. “And it’s nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

Marcia stole a quick glance at him. Had he had a restless night, too?

He caught and held her gaze, his full of love—and a keen edge of worry. She couldn’t leave him thinking she hated him. “I hope you feel better, Daddy,” she said quietly.

His eyes grew a little brighter. “Why, thank you, dear.”

It was all they said to each other before he left them all to go to Whitehall, but it was enough. She could never
not
love Daddy.

But a moment later, he returned to the breakfast room.

“A message has come for you, Marcia,” he said. “I left it on my desk in the library.”

Her heart sank. “Do you know who it’s from?”

He hesitated. “The Duke of Beauchamp.”

Marcia wouldn’t look at anyone. She knew very well that Mama and Janice would be observing her with great concern. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“Why would a duke write
you
?” Peter asked. “And such an old one?”

“Perhaps he read about Marcia’s engagement in the paper this morning and wants to make a last-minute offer himself,” Gregory said.

“Ugh,” said Robert. “An old man and
Marcia
?”

“Would you like Mama and me to read the letter with you?” Daddy asked her gently.

She pushed back her chair and stood. “No, thank you. I’ll read it myself.” She smoothed down her skirts, and when she looked up, Daddy was still there at the breakfast room door. “Go ahead, Daddy. Really.”

He and Mama exchanged a look.

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked the general table.

“Nothing,” said Janice. “Finish your chocolate.”