The Suitor (8 page)

That last memory drew tears from all of them, for now Viscount Darleigh would never win any race or bowl at any cricket game or look handsome—or perhaps even smile at anyone. He would not even be able to dance at the assembly. They could conceive of no worse fate than that.

Vincent would have been horrified to know that, in fact, his arrival in Barton Coombs had been expected. Or, if that was too strong a word, then at least it had
been looked for with eager hope and cautious anticipation.

For Vincent had forgotten two overwhelmingly significant facts about his mother and his sisters. One was that they were all inveterate letter writers. The other was that they had all had numerous friends at Barton Coombs and had not simply relinquished those friends when they moved away. They might not be able to visit them daily, as they had been used to do, but they could and did write to them.

His mother had not been reassured by the two notes that had arrived, scrawled in the inelegant hand of Martin Fisk. She had not sat back and waited for her son to come home. Rather she had done all in her power to discover where he was. Most of her guesses were quite wide of the mark. But one was that Vincent might return to Barton Coombs, where he had spent his boyhood and been happy, where he had so many friends and so many friendly acquaintances, where he would be comfortable and would be made much of. Indeed, the more she thought of it, the more convinced she became that if he was not already there, he would end up there sooner or later.

She wrote letters. She always wrote letters anyway. It came naturally to her.

And Amy, Ellen, and Ursula wrote letters too, though they were not as convinced as their mother that Vincent would go to Barton Coombs. It was more likely that he had gone back to Cornwall, where he always seemed to be so happy. Or perhaps to Scotland or the Lake District, where he could escape their matchmaking clutches. All three of Vincent’s sisters rather regretted the aggressive manner in which they had pressed Miss Dean upon him. She obviously was not for him—or he for her. It had not escaped their notice that rather than looking
mortified when it was discovered that he was gone, she had been hard pressed not to look openly relieved.

However it was, long before Vincent actually did arrive in Barton Coombs, there was scarcely a person there who did not know for a near certainty that he would come. The only question that had caused any real anxiety was
when
.

Everyone, almost without exception, was enraptured as the news spread through the village and beyond that the wait was at an end. He was here.

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MARY BALOGH

A mesmerizing story of PASSIONATE
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Mary Balogh’s new novel unites a war hero
consigned to darkness with a remarkable woman
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