The Escape

by Mary Balogh

  “I have no idea,” he told his cousin quite truthfully.

  2

  Middlebury Park was indeed an imposing mansion, its gray stone central block flanked by long wings with tall round towers at each corner. There were formal gardens in front of it, a lake and island off to one side below undulating lawns dotted with ancient trees.

  It was all enough to strike terror into the most intrepid of hearts.

  “Oh, Philippa,” her mother said, her voice hushed with awe as the carriage made its way up the straight driveway toward the house. “You are to be mistress of this place.”

  “The offer has not been formally made yet,” her father said more cautiously. He turned his head to smile fondly at his eldest daughter and reached across the seat to squeeze her cold hand. “But there can surely be little doubt that it will.”

  Philippa’s two sisters and their governess were coming behind in a second carriage. Philippa felt an overwhelming longing to be with them again, back in the schoolroom, where life was dull but safe. She wondered fleetingly how she would be feeling at this moment if she had never met Julian. Would she be filled with excited anticipation, even if Viscount Darleigh was blind? But it was a question impossible to answer, for she had met Julian, and so her heart was in her shoes and heavy with dread.

  The front doors had opened and spilled out ladies by the time the carriages drew to a halt on the terrace. Philippa recognized Mrs. Pearl in their midst, Grandmama’s friend, the viscount’s grandmother. Soon they were engulfed in greetings and introductions, while the girls and their governess were whisked off indoors.

  Mrs. Pearl introduced them to Mrs. Hunt, her daughter and the viscount’s mother, and to his three sisters, whose names Philippa forgot the instant she heard them. She had a bright smile on her face, and they all looked back at her with identical smiles and frank curiosity. Mrs. Pearl called upon her daughter to agree that she had not exaggerated Miss Dean’s prettiness, and Mrs. Hunt declared that indeed she had not.

  And then they were taken up to the drawing room, a magnificent apartment overlooking the parterre gardens, where they were introduced to the sisters’ husbands, and there were more smiles and handshakes and curtsies and bows.

  And then everyone stood back, for there was another gentleman standing farther into the room, close to the windows. Viscount Darleigh. Philippa was painfully conscious of everyone’s attention focusing upon their first meeting.

  She curtsied and murmured his name.

  He bowed and murmured hers.

  He was of slightly above average height, slender and elegant. He had fair, wavy hair and a handsome, good-humored face. His eyes, large and very blue, were—sad irony—his best feature.

  Philippa felt her heart sink lower than it already was—if that were possible. She had hoped for an ugly, boorish, ill-bred, unkempt, bad-tempered man, even though Mrs. Pearl had described him quite otherwise. She would have felt pity for such a man, she supposed, for she could not imagine an affliction much worse than blindness. But at least then her mama and papa would have recognized his unsuitability as a husband for her and would have found a way of rescuing her. They loved her, after all. They wanted a happy marriage for her as well as an eligible one.

  He was not boorish. He proceeded to converse with her parents, asking them about their journey, hoping it had not been tedious. He apologized for bringing them away from London at a time when they—and Miss Dean—must have been enjoying the social entertainments of the Season. He hoped their stay at Middlebury Park and the company of friends would atone for what they would miss in town.

  Viscount Darleigh was charming as well as handsome, and he had the uncanny ability to look in the direction of the person who was speaking almost as if he could see that person. He moved about with the aid of a cane but with surprising confidence. It was clear that he had learned how to cope with his blindness at least within the confines of his own home.

  If circumstances had been different, Philippa admitted through the rest of the day, she might well have been happy to fall in love with Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh.

  But her heart was already taken.

  She noticed a few interesting things about him, perhaps because she was observing him so closely, desperately hoping to find a way out of having to marry him.

  He did not like being treated as a blind man. The solicitude with which his mother and sisters treated him annoyed him. She was not quite sure how she knew it, for he was careful to smile at them and thank them each time they did something for him. But she did know it, just as she knew that he was irritated by the way their voices changed when they spoke to him. They spoke gently, as one would speak to a child or an invalid. They tended to use the same phrases rather frequently—I understand and I do not mind—to assure him that tending to him was no trouble at all. But Philippa could see his lips slightly thinning each time. It was bothersome to him, if not to them.

  And the suspicion grew upon her as that first day and then the next went by that the idea of finding him a bride, of bringing her here for his approval, had not been his. He had five close female relatives—mother, grandmother, and sisters—all of whom clearly adored him and would give their lives for him if such a sacrifice were ever called for. They were smothering him. And now they wanted a wife for him so that she would smother him with love and care too.

  Poor gentleman!

  How could she escape becoming that wife?

  How could she get back to London before Julian arrived there and left again? Had her letter reached him in time, before he left home? What if it had not? What would he think if he arrived in London and she was not there? They had waited two years. And happiness had been so nearly within their grasp at last. But nearly was not close enough. There is many a slip twixt cup and lip. She wished her grandmother had not always been so ready with those old adages.

  The trouble was that the stay at Middlebury Park really was pleasant. It was pleasant to be treated as an adult at last, to be included in conversations, to have her comments and opinions both solicited and listened to.

  But all too often she was pushed into Viscount Darleigh’s sole company, even if they were in a room with others, as they almost always were. Mama was always punctilious about her being properly chaperoned. But everyone, Mama included, contrived ways of allowing them to conduct an almost private conversation.

  She was tongue-tied and breathless with him, as she was not with everyone else, and unable to think of anything but the most banal things to say to him. She found herself simply agreeing with whatever he said. Was her problem that he was blind? Or that she did not want to encourage his addresses? Or that she would surely have liked him if she did not also have to marry him? But the great discomfort she felt in his presence eventually gave her an idea. A rather dishonorable idea that nevertheless developed into a definite plan.

  Of course, she could have dispensed with a plan altogether and simply told him the truth. She was almost sure he would be relieved, that he did not wish to marry her any more than she wanted to marry him. But was being almost sure enough?

  What if she was wrong?

  And so she made her plan.

  She started to agree with him on purpose and upon everything. She began to speak breathlessly and to use a tone of quiet attentiveness, as his mother and sisters did. Whenever possible, she lent him a helping hand when she knew he did not need one.

  She felt dreadful.

  But she had not been wrong in her understanding of him, she soon realized. His gentle, smiling courtesy was largely a shield behind which he hid the frustrations, even perhaps the anger, of a man who could not meet his world quite on a par with other men. She wondered that everyone else had not noticed.

  She could have tried to be his friend. A friend was what he needed in this house. But she dared not. She dared not risk being misunderstood and forced into marriage with him. Not that she was sure she would not be anyway.

  Oh, if it came to the point, she would have to
tell him. He needed more than a friend in a wife, and how could she be even that when her heart belonged to another man?

  Matters came to a head on the afternoon of the third day, when they were sent out to the parterre gardens, the two of them, while Philippa’s maid stood unobtrusively on the terrace beyond for appearance’s sake. She would be willing to bet that there was more than one pair of eyes surreptitiously watching them from the drawing room above. She did not look up to see.

  They were seated, though there was a crisp breeze blowing. They were surrounded by tulips and irises in freshly turned soil. It was tragic that he could not see such beauty. They had conversed politely on a number of topics, or at least he had said a few things and she had agreed with him. She was feeling mortally depressed, for his family had been exceedingly kind to her and her parents, and even to her sisters, who had been invited to tea in the drawing room yesterday. Her mother was over the moon with happiness for her, as she had told her last night when she came to her bedchamber. She was delighted with Viscount Darleigh’s appearance and manners and address, as she had every reason to be. And she spoke of her daughter’s betrothal to him as a foregone conclusion. All she wondered was how many days would pass before he declared himself. Surely no more than two or three.

  There had been a brief lull in the conversation.

  Philippa clasped her hands very tightly in her lap. She could feel her heart thumping in her bosom. Should she simply do it? Tell him the truth, that was? Tell him that she liked him but could never marry him? But how could she? He had not even asked her yet. What if he had no intention of doing so? She would want a hole to open up in the garden and plummet her down to China.

  “I am firmly of the opinion,” Lord Darleigh said in his pleasant, courteous voice, “that the scientific world has been in a wicked conspiracy against the masses for the past number of centuries, Miss Dean, in order to convince us that the earth is round. It is, of course, quite undeniably flat. Even a fool could see that. If one were to walk to the edge of it, one would fall off and never be heard of again. What is your opinion?”

  She turned her head sharply to gaze at his profile. Oh, he knew her game and he was trying to flush her out into the open. Surely. He could not possibly be serious. Surely she could relax now, laugh merrily, and ask him if he was as desperate to get out of this situation devised by their parents as she was.

  But it was so much more difficult to be spontaneous with a stranger than it would seem. For there was the smallest possibility that he was serious. And if she laughed at him …

  Well, she simply could not risk it.

  “I am quite sure you have the right of it, my lord,” she said.

  And she willed him to laugh and ask her if she was as desperate as he to be free of this farce.

  Instead, he smiled politely and asked her if the wind was too chilly for her.

  She was a bit angry, a bit bewildered. He was playing games as surely as she was. Did he expect her to speak the truth first? It was very unfair of him. It showed a lack of gallantry.

  But perhaps he believed she really was a peagoose.

  She set her fingertips on his sleeve and spoke in her sweetest, most breathless voice. She really was quite angry.

  “I did not at all mind coming here, you know, Lord Darleigh,” she said. “Even though I have been looking forward forever to my first Season in London and do not remember ever being happier than I was on the night of my come-out ball. But I know enough about life to understand that I was taken there not just for enjoyment. Mama and Papa have explained what a wonderful opportunity this invitation is for me, as well as for my sisters and brothers. I did not mind coming, truly. Indeed, I came willingly. I understand, you see, and I will not mind one little bit.”

  And if that did not flush him out into the open, she did not know what would.

  “You will think I am forward,” she added for good measure, “though I am not usually so outspoken. I just thought you needed to know that I do not mind. For perhaps you fear I do.”

  Perhaps, she thought, she was merely digging a deeper and deeper hole for herself. For perhaps she had read all the signs wrong. And if so, then she had surely just committed herself to the very future she was most intent upon avoiding.

  She willed him to turn his head and laugh at her. He could not possibly think she was serious. She was a walking, talking cliché.

  He got to his feet, and she took his arm and deliberately steered him along the path toward the house, even though he had his cane and had used it without mishap to find his way out here earlier.

  She really had sealed her own doom.

  Oh, Julian!

  She shivered in the chill of the wind.

  Julian’s first sight of Middlebury Park was intimidating—first the ivy-clad outer wall stretching as far as the eye could see to either side of the gates, then the long, winding driveway through dense woodland, and then the sudden vista of the imposing mansion and the formal gardens before it with closely scythed lawns stretching away to either side.

  It was late morning, and the early mist had burned off to be replaced by sunshine.

  He still did not know quite what he hoped to accomplish by coming here. But he did at least have his story clear in his mind. He hoped it would not seem hopelessly thin.

  The butler looked dubious when Julian presented his card and asked to see Viscount Darleigh. He would see if his lordship was at home, the man said, and away he went, leaving Julian standing in the tiled hallway with its high ceiling, marble fireplaces on either side, and marble statuary—and a silent footman.

  It was a hall meant to reduce callers to size, he thought—and it succeeded admirably. Not that he would have been intimidated if, as was entirely possible, he really was passing by and had thought to call upon an acquaintance and friend of his uncle’s in order to pay his respects.

  He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, as though he were some sort of impostor. Philippa was staying here. Would he see her? But to what purpose? Was he already too late? But too late for what? He had come here without any clear plan.

  Would Darleigh merely receive him in a private salon, shake his hand, offer him refreshments, make polite conversation for a while, then send him on his way?

  Would he allow that to happen? But what could he do to stop it?

  “If you will follow me, sir.” The butler had returned on silent feet.

  Julian was led into the west wing of the house and along a wide corridor until they stopped outside high double doors, which the butler opened.

  “The Honorable Mr. Julian Crabbe, ma’am,” he announced.

  The room—a large, comfortable-looking apartment that Julian assumed was the morning room—was crowded with people. One of them, a lady of middle years, was on her feet and coming toward him, her right hand outstretched, a look of eager anxiety on her face.

  “Mr. Crabbe,” she said, “how do you do? What can you tell me of Vincent?”

  Vincent? He felt stupid for a moment as well as dazed. For two of the occupants of the room were Mr. and Mrs. Dean, who were seated opposite the doorway, close to the fireplace. And off to one side of the room, by the window, standing apart from everyone else, was Philippa, her startled face turned his way.

  Good God. All else fled from his mind, though he dared not turn his head to look fully at her. And yet he knew that her face was parchment white, as pale as her muslin dress.

  Vincent, he realized, his mind coming back to him with a jolt, was Viscount Darleigh. Vincent Hunt.

  “How do you do, ma’am.” He shook the lady’s hand and bowed over it. “Lord Darleigh is a friend of my uncle, the Duke of Stanbrook. I met him at Penderris Hall once when he was there recovering from his war wounds. I am on my way to visit friends in this part of the country and called to pay my respects. I hope this is not an inconvenient time?”

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Crabbe,” she said. “I thought perhaps you brough
t news of my son.”

  “He is … not here?” he asked. “I beg your pardon for intruding upon you, ma’am.”

  Philippa, he could see with his peripheral vision, was as still as a statue.

  “Not at all,” the older lady said briskly. “I am sorry that you have come out of your way for nothing. He is not here.”

  “Perhaps he has merely gone somewhere for the day, Mama, and forgot to tell us,” a young lady said from her seat to Julian’s left.

  “With his trunk and half his clothes and his valet?” a gentleman who was standing before the fireplace said. “Not to mention his traveling carriage and his coachman and four horses? Hardly, Ursula.”

  “Anthony!” another young lady said sharply.

  “He has bolted,” the man called Anthony said. “That is what he has done. I said it at breakfast, and I say it again.”

  “Anthony!” The same young lady sounded mortified.

  “He has indeed gone,” Mrs. Hunt said with weary resignation.

  Julian felt acutely embarrassed—and something else too, which he was not yet at liberty to explore.

  Darleigh had gone? Left home? Run away? Just when he had been presented with a prospective bride and was expected to make her an offer of marriage? And she was here in this very room with her parents—no doubt a horrible embarrassment for his family.

  “I do beg your pardon, Mr. Crabbe,” Mrs. Hunt said. “You will think we all have the shabbiest of manners. Allow me to introduce everyone, and then we will all have coffee and cakes. Vincent has gone away quite abruptly, and I invited you in here in the hope that you brought word of him. No matter. You must stay awhile anyway.”

  She proceeded to introduce him to her mother, to her daughters and their husbands, and to her guests.

  He should, Julian thought, withdraw immediately. His continued presence here would seem an unpardonable intrusion. But he could not tear himself away just yet.