Mary Balogh (4 page)

Perhaps he should not have summoned her at all. Perhaps he should merely have invited her opinion and advice by letter. He had done so several times over the years. Her letters were invariably lucid and sensible.

He felt like a gauche schoolboy again, the Earl of Clifton thought later in the evening as he completed the third hand of cards opposite the duchess. He should be
more like his wife. She had been a calm and unruffled hostess all evening and was at present conversing quietly at the other end of the long drawing room with Weymouth and Sutton and Sophia and a few of the other guests.

His wife! It seemed impossible, he thought, glancing across the room at her. His wife of almost nineteen years. Livy. A stranger.

“They make a charming couple, do they not, Marcus?” the duchess said as he took her elbow and steered her in the direction of the tea tray. She was smiling fondly across the room. “Such a lovely and prettily behaved girl. Better than Francis deserves, I must confess, though he is a dear boy and will appear so to all the world once he has sown his wild oats, as William puts it. And I do believe that perhaps they are already sown. Sophia is having a steadying effect on him.”

“It seems a long time since they used to play and quarrel interminably,” the earl said, avoiding the basic issue. Sutton had offered for Sophia already, but had been given no final answer. He had been told that the matter must be discussed with Lady Sophia’s mother. He had been told that there was the serious matter of Sophia’s very young age to be considered. And yet the earl’s friends, the Weymouths, were behaving as if the delay in consent was a mere formality.

“And he is closer in age to her than Claude would have been,” the duchess said, “or Richard or Bertie.”

“The christening of Claude’s son went well?” the earl asked, trying to turn the subject.

It was a fortunate question. The duchess, accepting a cup of tea from his hands, seated herself, summoned about her a court of younger ladies with a gracious smile, and proceeded to entertain them with an account of the christening of her son’s heir. Lord Clifton stood watching her politely.

Sophia, he saw, had moved with several of the young people and seated herself at the pianoforte. Sutton was behind her, leaning past her to set a piece of music on the stand before her. His arms were on either side of her so that when she turned her head to smile warmly at him they almost kissed. The earl felt his jaw tightening. If that young puppy ever laid so much as a single finger on Sophia without his personal say-so, he would …

He looked toward his wife. Olivia must help. She would doubtless know what to do to put an end to such an undesirable connection. Just as she had known how to persuade a much younger Sophia to spend Christmas with him that one year when the girl had wished to return home to her mother, with whom she had always lived for most of the year. And when the time came, she had known how to talk their daughter into going to school, although Sophia had been angry and rebellious. She loudly exclaimed that Mama would take her part and not insist that she be packed off to an institution just as if she were not wanted.

It was not easy having a daughter, he had found, with no wife close by to advise him on how best to bring her up. He had never asked Mary’s advice, though she was a woman of sense and doubtless would have been willing to give it. Mary and Sophia belonged to quite different aspects of his life.

His wife was talking with Weymouth and smiling. She looked quite at her ease until she glanced his way, catching his eye. She turned sharply away, and seemed discomposed for a moment.

He had wondered if he would recognize her. And perhaps he would not have, if she had not been alone and in Sophia’s arms. Perhaps he would have passed her on a crowded street. Though he would undoubtedly have turned his head for a second look. She had been very
pretty as a young woman—unusually lovely, in fact. She had had a slender, pleasing figure and a bright, expressive, smiling face surrounded by masses of almost blonde curls.

She was beautiful now, quite extraordinarily beautiful. Her figure was fuller, more alluring, her long hair combed smoothly back from her face and coiled at the back of her head—there was no sign of gray in it. But her face was the part of her that had changed most. Although she smiled now, and had smiled through dinner and most of the evening, it appeared to be an expression she had deliberately assumed. The animation, the brightness had gone, leaving behind only beauty and serenity.

Livy! She had been only seventeen when he had first seen her. Her parents had had no intention of marrying her off so young. She was making her come-out only because an older cousin of hers was also to be presented and the two families had decided to make it a joint occasion.

They had spent most of the evening on opposite sides of the ballroom. He had been very young himself, just down from Oxford, just about to embark upon the life of a man about town. He had been eager to acquire some town bronze, some town swagger—until he had seen her and known all through the evening that she had also seen him, though their eyes never quite met.

But their eyes had met and held, after he had arranged an introduction to her and danced with her after supper. And her cheeks had flushed and her lips had parted, and he had been smitten by a whole arsenal of Cupid’s darts. Poor foolish young man, believing that young love could last for a lifetime.

The earl returned his attention to the Duchess of Weymouth in time to make an appropriate comment on something she had said. Sophia must be prevented from making the same mistake, he thought. She must be protected
from coming to the same fate as her mother. And yet he himself had not even been a rake—not as Sutton was with his large array of ladybirds and just as large a following of respectable young ladies sighing for his favors. He himself had been an innocent. A dangerous innocent, who had made one mistake and had not had the sense to keep quiet about it.

Livy!

He bowed and turned away from the ladies as the conversation turned to other topics. He strolled across the room in the direction of his wife and Weymouth. And he remembered how she had been as a young bride and how he had been. A pair of young innocents deeply in love and eager to consummate that love, the one as virginal and unknowledgeable as the other.

He had been fumbling and awkward. He had hurt her dreadfully and had been forced to finish the consummation to the sound of her smothered sobs. And yet she had turned in his arms afterward and looked at him with that eager young face and consoled him, one hand smoothing his hair.
She
had consoled
him
! It did not matter, she had assured him. She was his wife now and that was all that mattered.

“And it will be better next time,” she had told him. “It will be, I promise you. Marc?” Even in the near darkness he had seen the radiance of her smile. “I am your wife. Not just because of the church and the vicar and the ceremony and the guests. But because of this. You are my husband.”

“Forever and ever, Livy,” he had promised her, kissing her warmly and lingeringly. “Forever and ever my wife, and forever and ever my love.”

Poor fool. Forever had lasted not quite five years.

She looked up as he approached. The smile that she had imposed upon her face stayed in place.

“I have just been telling Olivia how good it is to see her again,” the duke said. “She is in good looks. We had some good times together, all of us, did we not, when the boys were small and Sophia a mere toddler?”

“Yes,” the earl said. “Bertie and Richard and Claude were always her champions against the various atrocities Francis devised to be rid of her.”

The duke laughed. “I think I had a permanently stinging hand that one time you all stayed with us for a month,” he said. “I doubtless gave myself far more pain than I meted out to Francis’s backside. Do you remember the orchestra pavilion, Olivia?”

The earl chuckled and looked at his wife to find that her smile had changed to one of genuine amusement.

“If it is possible for one’s heart to perform a complete somersault,” she said, “I think mine did when I saw Sophia sitting on the very peak of the dome, as cool as a cucumber, refusing to admit either that she was frightened or that she did not know how to get down.”

“And she was barely four years old,” His Grace said.

“I did not know,” the earl said, “that I was capable of shinning up smooth pillars and up an even smoother dome in less time than it would have taken me to run around the pavilion once.”

“And Olivia standing below admonishing you to be careful,” the duke said with a chuckle. “And holding out her arms as if she thought she could catch you if you fell.”

Lord Clifton met his wife’s amused eyes and felt his smile fade with hers.

“And Francis nowhere in sight,” His Grace continued, “after luring her up there. He had gone fishing, if I remember correctly. And it was Olivia weeping in your arms, Marcus, after it was all over, not Sophia. She was on her way to join the fishing party, I believe.”

“Yes,” the earl said. “I believe I was so shaken that I even forgot to spank her.”

“They were good days,” the duke said with a sigh, “when the children were all young and about us. But who would have thought that Francis and Sophia would ever develop an attachment? He would never let her play with him even when they got older. Is that not right, Marcus?”

“Fortunately,” Lord Clifton said, “they did not see much of each other once they were both off at school and Sophia was spending most of her holidays at Rushton. They have not met for four years before this spring.”

“And now it seems, Olivia,” the duke said, “that they want to make us related by marriage. How will you like it, eh? Do you fancy having my scamp of a youngest son for a son-in-law? I would not blame you at all if you were to say no.” He laughed heartily.

The earl looked at his wife.

“Marcus and I have had no chance to discuss Lord Francis’s offer,” she said quietly. “It would be unfair to give my opinion until we have done so, William.”

A good answer
, the earl thought, looking at her admiringly. Marcus? She had called him that earlier outside. Prior to that, she had not called him by his full name since before their marriage. It had always been Marc. But then he had been calling her Olivia since her arrival.

Which was as it should be. They were, after all, strangers. Strangers who happened to share some memories and a daughter.

“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss terms anyway,” the duke said. “Ah, the young people are leaving the pianoforte.”

Sutton was taking Sophia by the hand, the earl saw, and threading his fingers with hers. They were smiling at
each other as if they saw the whole world mirrored in each other’s eyes. And they were approaching.

“Your permission, sir,” Lord Francis said, bowing, “to take your daughter walking on the terrace outside. Miss Maxwell and Lady Jennifer, Mr. Hathaway, and Sir Ridley will be coming, too, if the ladies’ parents permit.”

“It is a heavenly night,” Sophia said. “We looked out through the windows a short time ago—did we not, Francis—and all the stars are shining and the moon is bright. Do say yes, Papa. It is too warm in here.”

She was looking very pretty, her father thought, her dark eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, the radiance of young love giving her a certain glow. She reminded him of her mother, although he had never before thought them alike. There was something in the expression. Olivia had used to glow like that.

“Mama,” Sophia was saying, “the fountain looks quite breathtaking in the moonlight. Do you remember that from when Grandpapa used to live here? You should come outside with us. You should come with Papa.” She laughed and turned toward him. “What better chaperons could there be, after all, than my parents?”

“I think your mother is probably tired from her journey, Sophia,” he said.

“And yet,” Lord Francis said with a bow, “there is nothing better calculated to lull one to sleep than a short walk outdoors before retiring. Is there, Lady Clifton? Won’t you come?”

There was a brief silence.

“Olivia?” the earl said and found himself almost holding his breath. “Would you care for some fresh air?”

“Thank you,” she said after another brief pause. “I think that would be pleasant.”

“I shall send up for your cloak, then,” he said.

“L
OOK BACK WHEN
you have the opportunity,” Sophia said. “Not now. Casually, just as if you are looking at the stars. I cannot look without seeming very obvious. Are they walking together, Francis? Are they talking? Don’t do it now or they will think I have asked you to do so.
Not now!
”

Lord Francis had turned his head over his shoulder without any attempt at casualness or subterfuge.

“She has her arm through his,” he reported. “They are not talking. At least they were not when I looked. But perhaps one of them had just stopped speaking and was pausing to draw breath while the other had nothing to say.”

“I said not now,” she hissed at him. “They will think we are spying on them.”