Mary Balogh (45 page)

She began to fear that she would never be free of him.

M
ARY HAD SENT
an invitation to Lady Eleanor to attend her next—and last—literary evening. The Season was over and London was emptying fast of people of
ton
. Many people were removing to one of the spas or to the seaside or to their country estates. Lady Eleanor sent an
acceptance and the added assurance that she was vastly looking forward to the evening.

Perhaps her nephew would accompany her, Mary thought, and hoped not and tried not to expect such a thing. He would not come, surely, after keeping his promise for almost a whole week. Unless he wanted to see what effect the week of his absence had had on her, of course.

Lady Eleanor came alone. She sat and listened to one of the two poets who had accepted Mary’s invitation, and joined in the lengthy and vigorous discussion that followed. And then she sought out Mary.

“A splendid evening, my dear Lady Mornington,” she said. “It is a while since I enjoyed myself so much. What a pity that Edmond is not here.”

“I have not seen him for almost a week,” Mary said.

“He went into the country the day after my garden party,” Lady Eleanor said. “Did you not know? I would normally have been glad, since he does not spend a great deal of time on his estate and needs to be there more often. But I must confess I was sad to find that my guess must have been wrong. I thought that the two of you had a
tendre
for each other, my dear.”

“Oh,” Mary said, flushing. “No.”

“It is a great pity,” Lady Eleanor said. “You are just exactly the woman for him, my dear, if you will excuse me for saying so. You are someone who might have brought him back to himself.”

Mary looked at her warily.

“And the sort of atmosphere that is here tonight might have brought him back, too,” Lady Eleanor said. “If he is to be brought back at all. It has been a long time. Most people, I would imagine, think that he is unreclaimable. What do you think, Lady Mornington?”

“Ma’am?” Mary frowned.

“I was under the impression that you were quite
closely acquainted with him,” Lady Eleanor said. “Perhaps I was mistaken? Perhaps you know very little of him? I do beg your pardon, but I assumed, you see, that you probably would not have been with him at all if you had not known him well. He does have a deservedly shocking reputation, I am afraid.”

“My acquaintance with Lord Edmond is slight, ma’am,” Mary said.

“Ah,” Lady Eleanor said. “I shall say no more, then.” But she sighed and continued anyway. “As a young man, Edmond would have been very much at home here, Lady Mornington. He would quite possibly have been one of your poets, though doubtless his poems would have been written in Latin or Greek and almost no one would have understood them.”

Mary stared at her.

“He was too bookish,” Lady Eleanor said. “His head was never out of a book. My brother and sister-in-law were worried about him. He would never be able to live in the real world, they used to say. His only ambition was to study for the church, and he was doing so, even though he had not been destined for the church. That was to be his elder brother’s position in life—my brother always believed that Richard’s sweetness and gentleness would make him an ideal clergyman, though I had my doubts. But it was the life Edmond chose for himself.” She chuckled. “He would not have made a good clergyman, either, though. He knew nothing of life. Poor Edmond. He was always my favorite, Lady Mornington, though Richard was almost everyone else’s.”

Mary listened in disbelief. Was the Edmond Lady Eleanor was talking about the same Lord Edmond she knew? He could not be. There must be some mistake. But how could there be? Lady Eleanor was his aunt.

“At the time, I used to wish that he were a little more worldly,” Lady Eleanor said. “And yet now I look back
and long to see that quiet, serious, studious boy again. If only the accident had not happened. Do you know about the accident, Lady Mornington, or is everything I am saying mystifying you?”

“The death of his brother?” Mary asked.

“Ah, you do know,” Lady Eleanor said. “But I must be boring you, dear, if you have no more than a passing acquaintance with my nephew. And I am keeping you from your guests.”

But Mary set a hand on her arm as she turned away. “Please,” she said, “you called it an accident. Are you merely being diplomatic? Or is that how you would really describe it?”

Lady Eleanor looked at her for a moment and clucked her tongue. “I suppose Edmond has been telling you the usual story,” she said, “and the one that seemed to take root here in town. About his killing Richard and all that nonsense? He is quite as bad as my brother and my eldest nephew. The truth is, Lady Mornington, that Richard was not the best of riders, but rode anyway and took a foolish and unnecessary risk and died as a result. It was everyone’s fault and no one’s. It was an accident. But it changed Edmond’s life—totally and unbelievably. And I suppose I am unrealistic to hope that he will ever come back to himself again.”

“But …” Mary said. She was interrupted by the viscount, who came up behind her and took her by the elbow. He was smiling.

“Ma’am?” he said to Lady Eleanor. “I hope you are enjoying the evening. You have outdone yourself this time, Lady Mornington. Everyone seems eager to be a part of both groups at once.”

Mary smiled at him.

“Goodrich?” Lady Eleanor said. “I always discover good things when it is almost too late. But no matter. I
shall be a frequenter of your salon next year, Lady Mornington, my dear.”

“Supper must be ready,” Mary said. “I should go and see.”

“Allow me,” the viscount said, squeezing her elbow before striding from the room.

“So that is the connection,” Lady Eleanor said, smiling at Mary. “And a very eligible one, too, my dear. I wish now that I had not thought of you in association with Edmond. I find myself disappointed that it is not so. But no more of that. You are staying in town for the summer?”

“I have no plans to remove anywhere else,” Mary said.

“Then I shall see you again,” Lady Eleanor said. “I shall send you an invitation. Perhaps I will include Goodrich in it. That would not be out of line?”

Mary blushed. “I think not,” she said.

Lady Eleanor nodded and turned toward the group whose conversation she had not yet sampled.

It was later that evening that Viscount Goodrich kissed Mary for the first time and asked her to marry him. He stayed until everyone else had left, even Penelope, who looked from Mary to the viscount in some amusement, shrugged her shoulders, and bade them a good night.

They were in the hallway. Mary turned to look at him inquiringly. He was not, surely, about to renew his offer of the week before. He took her by the elbow, guided her back into the salon, out of the sight of her servants, and closed the door behind them.

“Lady Mornington,” he said, possessing himself of one of her hands, “you cannot, I think, be insensible of my feelings toward you.”

She looked up at him and said nothing.

“I hold you in the highest regard,” he said. “In the deepest affection, I might make so bold as to add.”

“Thank you,” she said, curling her fingers about his. “Thank you, my lord.”

“And if you are in any doubt about my intentions toward you,” he said, “let me clarify them without further delay. They are the most honorable. I wish you to be my wife, ma’am.”

She stared at him. He was going to be her husband. She was to grow as familiar with him—with his appearance, his speech, his habits—as she was with herself. She was to live with him in the daily intimacy she had known with Lawrence. Her mind felt satisfaction, even elation. It would be a good match. It was what she had wanted for several years. It was what she had never been able to have with Marcus.

“Will you?” He had her hand in both of his. “Will you do me the honor, Lady Mornington?”

He was too bookish … He wanted only to study for the church … He knew nothing of life. Poor Edmond … that quiet, serious, studious boy
. The words, in Lady Eleanor’s voice, had been revolving in Mary’s head since before supper. She had not been able to rid herself of them. She could have wished Lord Goodrich’s timing had been a little better.

“I … I don’t know,” she said.

But she did know. She did. She wanted to marry him. She wanted to be married. She wanted to be a mother if she could.

“Ah.” He squeezed her hand. “I have spoken too precipitately. You need more time.”

“Yes.” She smiled at him in relief. She needed time to rid her head of the strange and bizarre images of Lord Edmond Waite that his aunt had put there. “A little more time, if you will, my lord.”

“I can wait,” he said, “as long as you can assure me
that there is hope, Lady Mornington. May I have the privilege of calling you by your given name?”

“Yes,” she said, and when she swayed slightly toward him, she realized that she had done so almost deliberately. She wanted the images gone from her head. She wanted to be convinced that Lord Edmond meant nothing to her. “Do call me Mary.”

“Mary,” he said. And he released her hand, set his hands on her shoulders, lowered his head, and kissed her.

It was not close enough. He made no move either to open his mouth or to draw her closer. It was not close enough. She wanted to feel him against her, holding her close. She wanted to feel his mouth over hers. She wanted desperately to feel the same sensations she had felt the week before. She needed to be convinced that it was a man she needed physically. Not just one particular man. She wanted to be able to choose her man with her mind and know that the physical was very much less important because it was the same with every man.

A foolish wish. It was not the same with every man. Lord Goodrich’s embrace was … pleasant.

“I had better take my leave,” he said, lifting his head away from hers and looking at her with smoldering eyes. “Or I will not be able to leave at all, Mary.”

She looked at him in blank surprise. Was he speaking the truth? Had he found their embrace arousing? She had not—not to even the smallest degree. She had not thought she was meant to.

“Mary?” He was looking at her intently. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Yes, please, my lord,” she said.

“Simon,” he said.

“Simon.”

He dipped his head and kissed her again briefly.
“Good night, then, Mary,” he said. “You will come walking in St. James’s Park tomorrow afternoon?”

“I shall look forward to it,” she said.

“And I, too.”

She walked out into the hall with him and saw him on his way. And she wondered as she climbed the stairs to her room why she was not now officially betrothed to him. No, she did not wonder. She knew the reason. How had Lady Eleanor phrased it? He had changed totally and … How? Unbelievably. He had been quiet and bookish, too unworldly for his own good. He had wanted to be a clergyman. He had been studying to become one. Lord Edmond Waite? It was impossible, surely. Oh, surely it was impossible!

He had written Latin and Greek poetry. Lord Edmond Waite!

He had gone into the country. That was why she had not set eyes on him since the day of the garden party.

He was the reason why she was not now officially betrothed to Viscount Goodrich—Simon. She could not shake him from her mind. And now it was far worse than it had been all week. Now she had begun to see that perhaps, once upon a time, there had been a totally different Edmond, that perhaps the Lord Edmond she knew had been shaped by guilt and rejection and grief and other factors that she knew nothing of.

But she wanted to see none of those things. She wanted to marry Lord Goodrich. She wanted to be quiet and contented with him. She wanted to have a family with him before she was too old. She did not want to be thinking of Lord Edmond Waite at all.

But try as she would to direct her thoughts toward the future that had been definitely offered to her that evening, she could think only of Lord Edmond as she tossed and turned on her bed. And she could dream only of him after she had fallen asleep—strange, frightening
dreams. In one of them he was on horseback and laughing at her as she soared over the high gate that he had just cleared. Except that she was not on horseback, and she was falling slowly, and he was running—on foot, not on horseback—slowly, much too slowly, to try to break her fall. She woke up before she touched the ground—or his outstretched arms.

T
WO WEEKS WENT
by, weeks during which the heat of the summer became more oppressive in the city. And yet they were not unhappy ones for Mary. Her friends Hannah and Penelope both left, one for the North, the other for Brighton. But the viscount remained and continued his almost daily attentions. He did not renew his marriage proposal during that time, but both of them behaved as if they had an understanding.

True to her word, Lady Eleanor sent an invitation to dinner for both Mary and Lord Goodrich, and they discovered that there was only one other guest, an elderly baronet of Lady Eleanor’s acquaintance, who had been invited to make up the numbers, she explained, without seeming to offend her friend.

It was a pleasant evening, followed by a pleasant drive home. And if Mary’s treacherous mind kept making comparisons, then she ruthlessly suppressed them. She was becoming accustomed to the unwelcome images and memories and was learning not to fight them too ruthlessly, but to patiently and determinedly replace them with others.

She was succeeding, she believed, until one morning when she was going through her mail—much diminished now that the Season and its flood of invitations was at an end. She looked more closely at a letter with unfamiliar handwriting, only to discover that it came from Hampshire, where he had his estate. She slit the
seal with impatient and shaking hands and spread the letter on the breakfast table before her. Her eyes went first to the signature, large and bold at the bottom of the page—“Edmond.”

Mary drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was not a long letter, she had noticed. She opened her eyes again.

“My dear Mary,” she read, and paused before reading on. “Contrary to what you may suppose, I did not arrange it. I knew nothing of it until my own invitation arrived this morning. I am inclined to accept because she is my aunt and has always been kind to me. And she will have only one sixtieth birthday, I suppose, unless she refuses to grow any older. However, if you have already accepted your invitation or want to do so and do not wish to see my face again, I will make some plausible excuse. All my tenants and servants can come down with smallpox or some such calamity. May I beg the favor of an immediate reply? Your obedient servant, Edmond.”