The Byram Succession (14 page)

Aunt Maria stared at her in frank surprise. “But my dear child! Of course he must do so. Perhaps your memory is still a little clouded. I know it was so when they brought you home—indeed, I believe you were scarcely conscious. But
his
recollection was perfectly clear, and even had he wished to repudiate his obligation to you he could not have done so, for you were seen, you know.”

Alethea was feeling more and more bewildered, but she was determined to solve the puzzle. “Who saw us? And when?” she demanded.

“Why several people, I believe,” said Aunt Maria, puzzled in her turn, but anxious to be helpful. “There were the Ingesters. His lordship had you carried to their house as soon as he was able to summon help. And
they
sent for their doctor, so he saw you, too, of course. But I am sure they are all perfectly to be relied upon not to tattle. And the others who saw you were quite inferior persons who either would not dare or would not be believed. Don’t look so anxious my love. The announcement of your betrothal will make all smooth, I promise you.”

“But what is there to tattle
about
?” demanded Alethea desperately. “Surely there is nothing shameful in being involved in a carriage accident?”

Her aunt stared again, then broke into an indulgent smile. “I see you
don
’
t
remember,” she said. “Even if you did, you are such an innocent little puss that you would scarcely credit the significance that evil-minded persons might read into your little adventure. My dear, it was
not until next day
that his lordship was able to summon assistance. What with the storm, so that there was no one about, and his own injuries, which made it impossible for him to walk, it was as much as he could manage to get you to shelter. Indeed, your uncle vows that his efforts must have been positively
heroic
.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial note. “But the fact remains, my love, that you spent the whole of the night alone with him in the Ingester’s hay barn. Of course he must marry you. You would be utterly ruined else.”

FOURTEEN

Lord Skirlaugh,
calling in Berkeley Square punctually to the appointed hour, was received by a young lady outwardly composed, inwardly distracted to breaking point by her own conflicting feelings. Aunt Maria had reasoned, argued, pleaded, scolded and finally wept at finding her gentle biddable niece irrevocably set on a course that could only bring
her
to social ruin and make life extremely uncomfortable for her family. Alethea remained unmoved. She was truly sorry that her conduct should bring discomfort upon her kind aunt but, she pointed out soothingly, they would be removing from Town almost at once and by next season it would all be forgotten.

“Scandal is
never
forgotten,” said Aunt Maria gloomily. “Just when you think you have lived it down it rears its ugly head again. You are ruining Tina’s chances you know, as well as your own.”

With true nobility Alethea refrained from pointing out that in that case Tina would be well served. “Any girl as lovely as Tina will always have chances,” she said gently.

“If only she would hold by her determination to marry Sir John,” sighed Aunt Maria, momentarily diverted. And then, perceiving another line of attack, “But if you persist in bringing scandal upon us all, I daresay he will withdraw his suit.”

“Not if he truly loves her,” consoled Alethea. “As for me, surely you would not have me marry where there is no love, just to satisfy convention?”

“The love would come after marriage,” urged her aunt eagerly, proffering the familiar placebo as though it were wisdom fresh-minted. “And you would have a position of the first consequence. Think how well suited you are—your principles—your tastes—oh—it would be the happiest of marriages, I promise you!”

If only they would leave her alone to think things over calmly! If only she knew more about the girl whom his lordship had planned to marry! Perhaps he was only substituting one marriage of convenience for another which had suddenly become more necessary. If that was the case, why not accept the suggestion that love would come after marriage, snatch at the chance that was offered her, and make the best she could of it afterwards? In the recesses of her troubled mind she heard a voice—it might have been Papa’s—say quietly, “Because it would not be an honest bargain.”

At that her aching heart flared into passionate resentment. “Perhaps not. But it is I who would be the loser by it. I would give all my heart in exchange for dutiful kindness. Oh, yes! He would be kind. His pride would ensure that I was well treated. A hollow mockery of the warmth of love that can permit two people to argue and differ and squabble and yet be so truly one that they can laugh at themselves as they do it.”

“Love can be an embarrassment, a heavy burden to a decent man, if it is given unasked,” said the voice dispassionately.

But they gave her no peace—no time to refute that argument—to settle in her own mind what was best to be done. They never left her alone. Aunt Maria, Hetty, Hebe, neither of whom dreamed that she would refuse so magnificent an offer. Each in her own way brought pressure to bear. The two abigails, not knowing of her dilemma, fretted her with their assiduous attentions. They were careful not to mention the expected caller or his business, but their barely suppressed jubilation as they went about their duties all too plainly betrayed their knowledge. Wearily she allowed Hetty to fuss over her with a cup of supporting broth, question which slippers she would wear, sprinkle her handkerchief with scent; agreed that Hebe might curl her hair, “Just this once, miss, to help hide the bruise.” By the time that she was dressed and ready to go downstairs to the Green Saloon (“I chose it especially, because it is on the ground floor and would spare his lordship the trouble of climbing the stair with his bad leg,” Aunt Maria had said reproachfully) she had not been allowed so much as five minutes for quiet reflection. She felt more like a mechanical puppet with a set part to perform than a living, breathing girl, and the headache that the doctor had warned of had returned in full force. Yet if she admitted to it, the whole thing would be to face again. Better to go through with it now and have done.

She seated herself in one of the elegant gilded chairs which were a feature of the room and gazed blindly at the pages of a journal which Hetty had thoughtfully placed in her hands until the sound of the door bell, followed almost at once by the approach of halting footsteps set the colour flaming briefly in her white cheeks. Then, as Ponting announced her visitor, the painful colour subsided and she steeled herself for what she must say.

Alas! In her miserable turmoil of indecision, she had not allowed for Damon’s injuries. He did his best to minimise the limp, little dreaming that it served him far better than his normal free-striding arrogance, but he had resigned his stick into Ponting’s keeping, feeling it to be slightly incongruous to a proposal of marriage, and walking without its support was both painful and difficult. So Ponting was able to report, to such of the domestic staff as he judged worthy of the confidence, that miss had flown to meet her lover like a bird to its mate.

If the butler’s sentimental heart had caused him to slightly overstate the case, it was so far true that Alethea had briefly forgotten her own anxieties in her concern to install her visitor in the only comfortable chair that the room offered. This he accepted and sank into gratefully, though he declined her further offer of a footstool to raise the injured limb, saying gravely that he was not yet so far sunk in decrepitude. He was a little amused by her solicitude, but it seemed to him an odd way to welcome a suitor. Was it possible that Miss Forester was unaware of his purpose?

Then he saw the suddenly downcast eyes, the quivering lips, and promptly absolved her of all duplicity. She knew. And she had acted in innocent good faith at sight of his awkwardness. Poor child! Small wonder that she was embarrassed.
This
was not how he had planned to woo her.

He said wryly, “We make a pretty pair, do we not? And all thanks to your ingenious cousin! You have been told the whole tale of it, I trust, and will absolve me from the crime of negligence where your safety was concerned?”

“Yes, indeed, my lord,” she returned gravely. “And though I remember very little of the events that followed, I understand that I have to thank you for getting me to shelter before I had caught my death of the lung fever. That, at least, is my maid’s view of the case. And Uncle Matthew describes your efforts in my behalf as truly heroic.”

“Your uncle exaggerates,” he said curtly. “You have little to thank me for. In fact I daresay it was my curst clumsiness that caused you to suffer so many bruises and scratches. The physician whom the Ingesters summoned asked if you had been dragged through a quickset hedge. The thing was, you see, I could not walk and I had to get you into shelter somehow.” He laughed, though ruefully, at the humiliating memory. “Believe me, ma’am, a man loses much of his self-esteem when he can no longer go upright. I made what shift I could, but I fear you were dragged to that barn rather than carried. It was, perhaps fortunate that you were barely conscious.”

“Was that when you put your coat on me? For I do remember that.”

“I thought it might afford you some protection. That bank seemed to be entirely given over to thistles and brambles.”

The thought of his care for her induced a strong desire to throw herself into his arms and burst into tears. Deliberately she fought it down. “It seems very odd that no one came to our assistance. That is usually quite a busy road.”

“We were singularly unfortunate,” he explained—his phrasing unfortunate, too, in the circumstances. “The storm came up very quickly. Such vehicles as might have been on the road had sought shelter, for the rain was a positive deluge, the thunder and lightning almost tropical in their intensity.”

“And no habitation in sight? No belated labourer homeward bound?”

He was apologetic. “None, ma’am, to my vast regret.”

Were ever words so innocently spoken more ill-chosen? He had been thinking only of her comfort and safety, of the soaking she might have escaped. To Alethea they conveyed only his bitter distaste for the situation in which he found himself.

But at least the sting of them braced her failing courage. “So you carried me to this hay barn, where we sheltered until morning,” she said bluntly, anxious, now, only to have done with this painful interview.

There was a sudden, taut silence. Then he said levelly, “Yes, ma’am. Which is one reason why I have called upon you this afternoon. I had intended to wait until you had returned to your own home before approaching your Papa for permission to pay my addresses, but the circumstance you mention rather forced my hand. It would be idle to deny that it might give rise to malicious speculation, speculation that would be distasteful to both of us. It therefore seemed best to post into Kent forthwith and acquaint your parents with the whole story. Your father was so good as to approve both my action and my plea. Miss Forester, will you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?”

She heard him out patiently to the end, her eyes lowered, her lips pressed tight together to conceal their traitorous trembling. If only she could say, “Yes.” He was doing it so kindly, trying to convince her that he had meant all the time to ask for her instead of, as he put it, having his hand forced. She was all the more determined that he should not suffer for his generosity.

“My lord, you do me great honour,” she said steadily, if a little huskily. “I regret that my cousin’s folly should have put you to so much trouble in my behalf and am deeply appreciative of the great kindness you have shown me. But I do not believe there is any need for such extreme measures as you suggest. Whatever the appearances, we are both of us wholly innocent. I do not see why we should be pushed into matrimony merely to satisfy convention. So while I thank you from my heart for your very obliging offer, I feel myself obliged to decline it.”

You could always rely upon Miss Forester to take an unexpected line, thought Damon, divided between exasperation and amusement. Though he scarcely knew what he
had
expected. Certainly not a refusal based on the principle of resisting coercion! But somehow, although he could not help knowing that society held him to be a matrimonial prize of the first order, he had
not
expected her to drop willingly into his arms at the first time of asking. He looked curiously at the tightly composed little face and wondered how best to set about persuading her to see things in a different light.

“I must ask you to bear with me a little longer on this head,” he said politely. “Your cousin’s meddling, the attitude of society, did not
prompt
my proposal. They only caused it to be made rather prematurely. So could you not bring yourself to ignore those factors? At least encourage me to hope that if I am patient a little longer, as I had meant to be, you will give me a different answer.”

This was unbearable. He was behaving so beautifully, almost convincing her that he really meant it, though well she knew that it was only his chivalry. Not daring to trust her voice, she shook her head dumbly.

“No? Yet I had thought we were good friends,” he said persuasively. “Have you not enjoyed the hours we have spent together? To me they have been delightful. I have felt that we had a good deal in common and would suit very well.”

There was no help for it. Somehow she managed to force a choked little voice out of her desperation. “My lord, I
cannot
.”

He stiffened. Slowly the old bitterness crept back about his mouth. The grey eyes were bleak. “I see,” he said, his voice suddenly so harsh that she was startled out of her own misery and stared up at him, uncomprehending. “Do you know, I had actually forgot? Of course you could not contemplate marriage with so grotesque a caricature of a man. You can give him your pretty smiles, your animated interest, as you have done so generously. But marriage is different, isn’t it, Miss Forester? Not even to save your good name could you bring yourself to conquer your repugnance. I should be grateful, I suppose, for your honesty. Your cousin would have been less squeamish.”

The sheer injustice of the bitter words was the last straw. Alethea’s hard-held control snapped at last. She forgot all about proper conduct and maiden modesty and sprang up from her chair in a fury that out-matched his own. Before he could rise, hampered as he was, she had set both hands on his shoulders and half shaken, half pushed him back into his chair. “Do you think I would care for a few paltry scars if I loved you?” she flared at him. “How dare you insult me so? You’re
obsessed
with your scars. No one else notices them one half as much as you do. If
I
were your wife, I’d be proud of scars so nobly, so bravely won.
This
is what I’d do to your silly old scars!” Her hands released his shoulders and came up to frame his face, their touch gentle, now. She tilted his head so that the scars were fully exposed, noting, almost impersonally that a new, jagged cut, deep and angry looking had been added to them, and then stooped and gently kissed his cheek, smoothing her lips lightly and tenderly over the seared and puckered skin.

For a long moment they rested so. Then, as fury faded, realisation dawned, and she sprang back, her hands going to her shamed face as she half sobbed, “Oh! What have I done? Please, oh, please, don’t tell Aunt Maria.” And then, with a touch of her usual spirit, “But you
did
provoke me so!”

There was an odd little smile from Damon for that. And shall do again, my darling, he thought; deliberately and often. But instinct warned him to tread warily. There was something here that he did not understand. And since, in the last two minutes, he had suddenly discovered not only that there was, after all, such a thing as true love but also that there was only one wife in the world who would do for him, it behooved him to discover why she would have none of him and set about mending matters.

“
I’ll
promise not to tell Aunt Maria, if
you’ll
agree to forget the foolish things that I said,” he suggested coolly.