Mary Balogh (6 page)

“Though it will be straight in and out again,” she had said. “I want to play bowls with the others.”

Several of the guests were with the earl on the bowling
green at the back of the house. Sophia had been invited to accompany her friend Rachel and Mrs. Biddeford and had looked inquiringly at her mother. The countess had nodded.

But there was no sign yet of the returning carriage. It was really too beautiful a day to be indoors, Olivia thought, looking out beyond the fountain and the formal gardens before the house over the rolling miles of the park in the distance. She had fallen in love with Clifton Court during her very first visit there, though on that occasion her room had been the small Chinese one at the back of the house, overlooking the kitchen gardens, greenhouses, and orchards, and the lawns, bowling green, and woods to the west.

The woods. And the hidden garden. She wondered if it was still there: a small and exquisite flower garden in the middle of the woods, entirely enclosed by an ivy-covered wall and accessible only through an oak door that could be locked from the outside or bolted from within.

It had been designed for and by the crippled sister of Marcus’s grandfather, long deceased by the time Olivia first came to the house. Marcus had taken her there the day after their betrothal became official and one month before their wedding—a time when it was deemed proper for them to be alone for short spells without a chaperon.

It was there that he had kissed her for the first time.…

T
HE COUNTESS GOT
abruptly to her feet and walked restlessly about the room, straightening a picture, shaking a cushion before moving through the open door into her bedchamber and beyond it to her dressing room. She checked her appearance in the mirror, applied more perfume
to her wrists. And looked at the closed door opposite the open one leading back into her bedchamber.

She had been curious about it since her arrival the previous afternoon. She was really not sure. Her apartments had been the former countess’s. But perhaps his rooms were elsewhere. She set a light hand on the doorknob and listened. Silence. It was probably locked, anyway.

She turned the handle slowly and felt the slight give of the door. It was not. She pushed it inward, her heart pounding uncomfortably, feeling like a thief. It was probably an unoccupied room.

A shaving cup and brush were on the washstand, brushes and combs and bottles of cologne on the dressing table. A blue brocade dressing gown had been thrown over the back of a chair, a pair of leather slippers pushed carelessly beneath. There was a book on the seat of the chair.

She looked unwillingly beyond the room, through the open door leading to a bedchamber equal in size to her own, though its high bed, richly canopied and curtained, was more elaborate than hers. There was another book on the bed, visible through the side curtains, which were looped back.

The only other part of the room she could see was a side table that held a single, framed picture. It was turned away from her. It was doubtful that she could have seen it clearly, anyway, from the connecting doorway between their dressing rooms.

Would it be
her
? she wondered. She had been told that Lady Mornington was a lovely woman. But perhaps it was someone different by now. Someone younger. Someone no older than Sophia, perhaps. Either way, she did not want to see. It was one thing to know of his debaucheries, to think of them occasionally when she could not force her thoughts to remain free of him, to
imagine the woman with whom he was currently involved. It was another to see. To see the face of the woman—of one of the women—with whom he committed adultery.

She did not want to see. And yet she was already in the doorway to the bedchamber, looking nervously at the hall door, half expecting it to crash open at any moment. She listened again. Again silence.

The picture was turned so that he would be able to see it from his bed. Was he so little able to live without her, then? Was he longing to have this business with Sophia settled so that he could go back to her? Olivia hoped she would not be very young or very pretty, as she reached out an unwilling hand and turned the picture.

She was indeed very young. And smiling and happy. And pregnant, though the painter had omitted that detail. But she was not in her best looks, she had protested to Marc. She had begged him to wait until after she had given birth. But Marc could be as stubborn as his daughter was now. He wanted her likeness, he had told her, so that he could always have her with him, even when she was busy visiting and gossiping with her friends. She could remember realizing with some shock that he was afraid to wait in case she died in childbed. And so she had consented.

And the painting was now on the table beside his bed, turned so that he could see it from his pillow. Was it always there—from force of habit, perhaps—noticed no more than the rest of the furniture in the room? Or had he placed it there for the occasion, in case she should have reason to look into his room, as she did now?

That smile had been for him. He had never once left her during the tedious hours of the sitting. He had talked and talked and told endless funny stories until the painter had looked reproachfully at him because she had laughed so much.

The smile had been for him.

Marc!

She closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath.

Her eyes flew open at the distant sound of a door opening. She turned the picture back to its original position with hasty fingers and dashed back through both rooms, pausing only for a moment to set his slippers side by side beneath the chair. His valet must have missed them. Marc had never been renowned for tidiness. She closed the door between the two dressing rooms and leaned back against it, breathing with relief.

What in heaven’s name would she have said if he had caught her?

“Mama?” Sophia’s voice came from the bedchamber.

“In here,” the countess called, hurrying through from the dressing room. Her daughter was peering around the door from the sitting room. “I thought you had decided to stay in the village until nightfall.”

“Mrs. Biddeford remembered all sorts of things she wanted once we were there,” Sophia said. “And Rachel decided that she did not like the bonnet after all. But once we had left the shop and made all the other purchases and were back in the carriage, she changed her mind once more and nothing would do but we must descend again and go back for it. All the way home she entertained us with assurances that she should have waited until she returned to town.” She laughed.

“Sophia,” her mother said, “we have to talk.”

“Oh, dear,” the girl said. “I always know you are serious when you smile at me in just that way, Mama.”

“Sit down,” the countess said, ushering her daughter back into the sitting room.

“It is about Francis, is it not?” Sophia said, looking at her mother anxiously and standing in the middle of the room. “You do not like him, Mama? You are remembering him as he was as a young boy, are you, when he was
forever playing nasty tricks on me because I was always following him about? But that was just boyhood, Mama. All boys are like that, horrid creatures. Or you have heard bad things of him recently. He has been sowing his wild oats, Mama. It is what young men do. But that is all behind him now. And it is said, you know, that reformed rakes make the best of husbands.”

“Oh, Sophia.” The countess laughed despite herself. “Do you have any more platitudes to mouth? Come and sit down, do, and tell me how this all began. You have not seen Lord Francis for several years, have you? I cannot remember your having a single good word to say about him before now.”

Sophia sighed and sank down onto a sofa. “But all our aversion to each other has been converted into love,” she said. “He is so very wonderful, Mama. I did not imagine it possible to feel this way. Is this how you felt about Papa?”

“I daresay,” the countess said. “Sophia, I find this very difficult. Until the last year or so, it has been easy to deal with you. If we disagreed on any issue of importance, I would merely decide for you whether you liked it or not. Now it is not so easy to force you to do what I wish, even if my greater experience of life helps me to see reality more clearly than you.”

Sophia got to her feet again and crossed the room to one of the long windows. “You are not going to forbid me to marry Francis, then?” she asked. “But Papa is preparing to do so, is he not? And you wish to do so, do you not? But why, when he is the son of a duke, Papa’s close friend, and when he and I are so deeply in love?”

“Sophia,” her mother said earnestly, “you are so very young. So very sure that nothing will ever change, that there is such a thing as happily ever after. How am I to explain to you that life is just not so, that your future should be planned with your head and not your heart? I
know that such an idea will be quite beyond your comprehension and utterly abhorrent to you. It would have been so to me at your age.”

Sophia turned to look at her. “Must I fall out of love with Francis merely because you fell out of love with Papa?” she asked. “Must history always repeat itself?”

“Sophia.” The countess looked distressed. “I did not … that is not what happened between Papa and me. It is not because of that that I am advising you to think more carefully.”

“Yes, it is,” Sophia said. “Every girl I know has made or is planning to make her come-out at the age of seventeen or eighteen. And all their mamas and papas are eager for them to make suitable marriages. It is the thing to do. Else, why is London during the spring known as the Marriage Mart? And who could be more eligible than Francis? It is true that he is a younger son, but he is the younger son of a duke and has a large portion, even without the inheritance he expects from his great-aunt. It is true that he has something of a reputation for wildness, but what gentleman does not? Most girls I know, and their mamas, too, would kill for an offer from Francis. Cynthia still blushes when she so much as looks at him. Why is it you and Papa alone who say I am too young? Is it because you were too young, Mama?”

“Yes,” Olivia said, sadly. “I do not want you to make the same mistake as I made, Sophia.”

“But other marriages work,” the girl said. “The duke and duchess are still together and Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell and Lord and Lady Wheatley and—oh, everyone but you and Papa. You are the only married couple I know who live apart. Why did you stop loving Papa?”

The countess felt horribly as if she had lost control of the encounter. It was not proceeding at all according to plan.

“That is not what happened,” she said, looking down at her hands.

“What, then?”

She looked up. “Oh, Sophia, he is my husband and your father. I did not stop loving him.”

“And yet you have not seen him since I was four years old until yesterday,” Sophia said. “Was it his fault, then? Did he stop loving you?”

“No,” the countess said, “I don’t know. I don’t know, Sophia. Something happened. It was nothing to do with you. I did not stop loving him.”

“You love him still, then?” There was a gleam of triumph in Sophia’s eyes. “You have not spent any time with him today, have you? But you are bound to feel strange together at first. You will be more at ease as time goes on.”

“Sophia,” the countess said.

“You are ten times lovelier than she is, anyway,” the girl said.

“She?” Olivia raised her eyebrows.

“Lady Mornington,” Sophia blurted. “You know about her, don’t you? She is Papa’s mistress. But not nearly so lovely as you and he must see it, too, now that you have come home.”

Olivia swallowed. Still Lady Mornington, then? After six years? His liaison had lasted longer than his marriage? He must love the woman, then. A more lasting love than his first had been.

“Sophia,” she said gently, “I am not here to stay. I am here only so that Papa and I can discuss your future with you and each other without the awkwardness of exchanging letters. As soon as everything is settled one way or the other, I shall be going home again. Rushton is my home. This is Papa’s home. But we have strayed a long way from the subject I wished to discuss with you.”

Sophia smiled radiantly at her. “No, we have not,”
she said. “When Francis and I are betrothed, you and Papa and I can discuss the wedding. It will be much easier than trying to do it by letter. And since we wish to have the banns read as soon as the betrothal is announced, you might as well stay for the wedding. It is too far to travel back here from Lincolnshire less than a month after you leave.”

“Sophia,” the countess said, “have you been hurt dreadfully by the fact that Papa and I have lived apart for most of your life? It has not been in any way your fault, you know. Papa and I both love you more than we love anyone else in the world. And I cannot call my marriage a mistake, you see, for without it there would not have been you. And I am as sure as I can be that Papa feels the same way. But what are we to do about you and Lord Francis? Do come and sit down again and let us talk about it sensibly.”

“We want to get married in the village church,” Sophia said eagerly, coming to sit beside her mother, “even though it will mean having only family and close friends as guests. I want to get married where you and Papa were married, and Francis says that he wants to get married wherever I happen to be the bride walking down the aisle.” She laughed. “He says the most absurd things. Tell me about getting married there, Mama. Did Papa kiss you at the altar? Did you cry? I was born less than a year later, was I not? I think you must have been very much in love.”

Olivia sighed. “Oh, Sophia,” she said. “Yes, we were. You were a child born of love. You must never doubt that.”

L
ORD
F
RANCIS
S
UTTON
,
STANDING BESIDE THE
bowling green, having completed his own game, drew Sophia’s arm through his. He smiled warmly at her, and strolled a little farther along with her, quite out of hearing of either the bowlers or the small cluster of spectators.

“It must be age that is coming upon me unexpectedly early,” he said, “or some strange malady that has struck me within the past couple of months and is proceeding apace. It must be the country air, perhaps, or the country foods. A strange deafness.
What
did you say?”