The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (20 page)

“My brother is not my keeper,” he said.

“You see?” Her voice was accusing. “You cannot say that he liked it, can you? You cannot say that he gave his blessing. What did
Papa
say?”

Her father had surprised him—pleasantly. He was not in any way vulgar. On the other hand, despite his wealth and his newly won status as a landowner, he was not pretentious. He was candid, down-to-earth, forceful. After a very brief acquaintance with the father, it had
been easy for Lord Francis to know why the daughter was as she was. The brother had been a little trickier to deal with. Also a man without pretensions, he was indistinguishable in manner and appearance from a born gentleman. He was a handsome devil, Lord Francis had noticed, and also a rather hostile one. He had not thought that marriage into the aristocracy would suit his sister.

“Corey does not take well to rules and restrictions,” he had said with eyes that had the same directness as his sister’s. “If she has fallen afoul of the
ton
this time, it will happen again. I will wager she does not even know that it has happened. She will never know because she does not deal in petty intrigues or gossip. It will happen over and over again. Corey is a walking disaster.”

Lord Francis had been unable to stop himself from grinning. “I have noticed,” he had said, “that farce seems to dog her footsteps.”

Rather than offending the younger Downes, he had seemed somehow to have pleased him. Relations between them had thawed somewhat after that.

“She needs someone who can find humor in her disasters,” Edgar Downes had said. “My father and I can—usually. We are extremely fond of her, you know.”

It had been both statement and warning. If he ever treated Cora badly, Lord Francis had understood, he could expect to be squashed to a pulp between the two of them. The father had questioned him just as closely about his means and prospects and had driven as hard a bargain on the marriage settlement as if he had been any Tom, Dick, or Harry who had stepped in off the street demanding to marry his daughter. He had not given his blessing lightly.

“He interrogated me for all of an hour,” Lord Francis told Cora now, “and then agreed to give his blessing to our union
—if
you would agree to it. He warned me that
you would be in no way influenced by the fact that you could become
Lady
Francis. Your brother looked as if he was about to hoist me with one hand and squeeze all the air out of me until I promised always to laugh at your disasters.”

“You saw Edgar too?” she said. Then she bristled. “He has called me a walking disaster ever since I was a girl. That is most unfair. How dare he say it to you? What will you think of me?”

He leaned down slightly until his eyes were on a level with hers. “Do you care what I think of you, Cora?” he asked. “I will tell you if you like. I think you are a woman who has been unspoiled by life—by your father’s wealth, by your privileged upbringing, by your unexpected fame as a heroine, by your introduction to the
créme de la créme
of society, even by the chance that has presented itself this morning to elevate yourself permanently to almost its highest ranks. I think you are a woman who thinks her own thoughts and is unafraid to be herself no matter what society demands of her. You are a woman I like, Cora Downes, a woman I respect.”

He was rather surprised to realize that he meant what he said. He had never really considered what he thought of her until this moment.

“Oh,” she said. She looked unusually forlorn. And even as he watched, her eyes filled with tears. “Please, will you go away now? I will always be grateful to you. I want you to believe that. This is the greatest kindness of all, what you have done during the last four days, what you are doing now. But I cannot marry you. I could not do that to you. You are too kind.” She lifted a hand that was noticeably shaking and set her palm lightly against his cheek. “Thank you.”

He should have left at a run. He should not have stopped running until he had put the breadth of London
between them. Instead he stood where he was and felt very like crying himself.

“And what about you?” he asked. “You have not said that I could not do that to you. Would marriage to me be quite abhorrent to you?”

“No,” she said softly. Her fingertips were caressing his cheek. She was going to say it in a moment, he thought in something of a panic, and then he would be forced to say it too and lie to her for the first time.
Don’t say it
. “No, not abhorrent. I like you excessively. But—” She bit her lip for a moment. “But I am a romantic, you see. I have always thought that when I married, it would be for love. I want more than companionship and laughter. I want—oh, togetherness. I want children. Half a dozen children. Don’t laugh.” He was very far from laughing. “I want—well, the moon and every one of the stars. We could never have that, you and I, because we only like each other. I have always thought that I would not settle for less than my dream. But I suppose it is too much of a dream. It is too unrealistic.”

What he felt mostly was relief. She was not in love with him, then? But it was too late to feel relief about such a thing. She must marry him, and it would be desirable that she love him, would it not?

He covered her hand against his cheek and turned his head to set his lips against her palm. There was nothing dainty about her hand, he thought irrelevantly. Although smooth and well manicured, it was a hand that looked capable of doing a good day’s work.

“Let us settle for as much of the dream as we can make come true, then, shall we?” he asked her. “Marry me, Cora, will you?”

“I cannot see the need,” she said. “They were such stupid incidents, both of them—the one at Lady Fuller’s ball and the one at Vauxhall. Good heavens, did no one
else but you and me
see
that child? Why should we let them force us into a marriage neither of us wants?”

“Why?” he asked. “Because something like this has the unfortunate habit of following one about, Miss Downes. Not so much me. Doubtless I will be seen as one devil of a fellow for a while. It is not an image of myself I cultivate, but it will do my reputation no real harm. But you may find that even in Bristol and Bath society there will be whispers to the effect that you are
fast
. It is not a pleasant word for a lady to have attached to her name.”

“It is a silly word,” she said.

“Silly and unpleasant,” he said.

There was a light knock on the door and it opened almost immediately. The Duchess of Bridgwater stepped inside without hesitation, though she looked rather apologetic.

“This interview is still in progress?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

Lord Francis frowned. Was Cora Downes a green girl that she could not be left alone with him for longer than the ten or fifteen minutes they had been allowed? Had her grace feared that she would find them locked in a lascivious embrace?

“Yes,” he said.

“I shall take Mr. Downes and Mr. Edgar Downes upstairs to the drawing room, then,” she said. “You will find us there when you are finished.”

Ah, yes. They had said they would follow him to London. He had not expected they would come before hearing from Cora. But he had understood from his meeting with them that they were very fond of her indeed.

“Papa?” She was close enough for her shriek to feel as if it was doing damage to Lord Francis’s eardrums. “And Edgar? Here? Now?
Where?
”

They would have had to be stone deaf not to have
heard her even if they had been waiting in the attic. They appeared in the doorway behind the duchess, and her grace had to step smartly out of the way to avoid being bowled over by Cora Downes, who hurtled past her, still shrieking. Her father caught her in a bear hug that would surely have crushed every bone in the body of a lesser woman. Her brother did likewise when her father was finished with her, but he also lifted her off the floor and swung her in a complete circle.

The duchess looked vaguely amused. Lord Francis’s nerves were too taut for humor.

“Well?” the elder Mr. Downes asked, looking from his prospective son-in-law to his daughter and back again.

S
HE HAD BEEN
missing them dreadfully. She had not known quite how dreadfully until she heard they were just outside the door. Seeing their dear faces and the blessedly solid bulk of each of them—Papa and Edgar could actually make her feel
petite
—made Cora almost delirious with happiness.

All would be well now. They had come.

And then Papa asked the single word question—“Well?”

They had come to see if she would have Lord Francis. They had come for the wedding. She understood suddenly that if there was a wedding, it would be soon. There was a scandal to be squashed in the bud. They had come to buy her bride clothes and to give her their love and support. Papa had come to lead her tottering form down the aisle of some church so that she would reach the altar in time to say
I do
or
I will
or whatever it was a bride said to change her life forevermore.

It all seemed very real suddenly.
They expected her to marry Lord Francis
. Papa and Edgar avoided London
whenever they could. It was not a place they would visit purely for pleasure. They had come for a wedding.

Her eyes focused on Lord Francis from across the room, where she stood with Edgar’s arm about her waist. And she tried to see him through their eyes. She was surprised that they had approved his suit—especially Edgar. Edgar had one weakness if he had any at all. He could be rather cutting about men whom he deemed less than fully masculine. Edgar, unlike herself, could not adopt the philosophy of live and let live.

What she saw surprised her a little. Lord Francis was, as usual, dressed quite immaculately. He must have gone home after his long journey to bathe and change his clothes before paying this call. But he was dressed uncharacteristically in a dark green superfine coat with buff breeches and sparkling Hessians. His neckcloth was tied neatly, with no suggestion of flamboyance. Suddenly he looked a fine figure of a man by anyone’s standards. And handsome. Except for his blue eyes, she had never really thought of him before as handsome. Or ugly either. She just had not passed any particular judgment on his face or his dark hair.

If he had dressed like this at Mobley, Papa and Edgar would have had no reason to
know
.

She felt something else too as she gazed at him in the few seconds that elapsed between Papa’s question and Lord Francis’s answer. She felt a sudden and unexpected and almost fierce protectiveness. She did not
want
them to know and sneer. He was a very precious person. If he chose to wear pink or lavender or turquoise coats at a time when most men were turning to more sober black, then that was his concern. Personally, she found black rather tedious and hoped that the fashion would not last long.

Lord Francis smiled at her and then looked at Papa.

“You were quite right, sir,” he said. “She is by no
means easy to persuade. I was almost at the point of trying a little arm-twisting when you arrived.”

Good heavens! Papa and Lord Francis had become well enough acquainted to
joke
with each other? For Papa threw back his head and uttered a short bark of laughter.

“She has not been dazzled by the prospect of a title, then, has she?” he said. “Well, I warned you she may not have you. She has not been willing to have anyone else yet, including a few eligible men at home and a few more here, I have heard.”

“You do not have to have anyone you do not want, Corey,” Edgar said, giving her waist a little squeeze.

“I think perhaps she wants to devote herself to her father in his old age,” Papa said, chuckling. “But we are much obliged to you, my lord, for being willing to do the decent thing by my daughter. We will look after her from this point on.”

“We certainly will,” Edgar said. “We will take you home tomorrow, Corey.”

There were several points about the conversation that unexpectedly irritated Cora. For one thing, she was being spoken of in the third person—by three
men
. As soon as two or more men got together, of course, the superiority of their gender made a woman quite insignificant. Even if they loved and cherished her, she was merely a fragile toy to be protected. For another thing, she did not like to hear Lord Francis being lumped with all those other silly suitors whom she had rejected. There was no comparison whatsoever. And for another thing, much as she loved her father, there was something distinctly chilling about the prospect of devoting herself to him in his old age—no romantic love, no marriage, no home of her own, no children, none of
that other
, about which she was avidly and embarrassedly curious.

Of course, even if she married Lord Francis she would
never know most of those things. But
some
of them—surely she would be able to expect some of them. Would
some
be enough? How much physical aversion did he feel for women? She squashed the very improper thought.

Oh, dear, she was so confused.

“Miss Downes?” Lord Francis was addressing her, ignoring Papa and Edgar for the moment, though in their usual manner they were proceeding to take charge. “You have not given me a final answer. Can you give it now? Or would you prefer that I return—perhaps tomorrow? Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said. As meekly as that.

And
that
was that, she thought a few moments later while she was being subjected to hugs again—including one from the Duchess of Bridgwater.

Gracious heaven, what had she done?

Papa was slapping Lord Francis on the shoulder and pumping his hand at the same time.

And if his paleness had not been occasioned by illness, she thought suddenly when it was far too late to think at all, what
had
it been caused by? By the fact that he felt compelled to marry her?

Oh, the poor gentleman. The poor, dear man.

T WAS A SURPRISINGLY LARGE WEDDING, CONSIDERING
the fact that it took place only two weeks after the incident in Vauxhall that had precipitated it.