The Ideal Wife

by Mary Balogh

  The eyes surveying her became sharper and considerably more respectful. Madame clasped her hands to her bosom and uttered some charming and sentimental words about whirlwind romances. She and Mr. Gill should get together to render a romantic duet, Abigail thought, and then wished she had not done so, as her stomach muscles tightened with suppressed amusement.

  “But by tomorrow, m’lord?” Madame said, long-nailed hands fluttering. “Non, non. impossible!”

  “Possible,” the earl said firmly, not giving the word the modiste’s French intonation. “Definitely possible. Madame Girard was telling me only last week that her seamstresses can make up even the fanciest of ball gowns in three hours when necessary.”

  It seemed that it was, after all, possible to make a dress suitable for a bride before the next day. As for all the rest of the garments, they were to be delivered to Grosvenor Square, some within a week, some within two.

  There followed two hours of bewilderment for Abigail. Fabrics and designs were chosen by his lordship and Madame just as if she were a wax figure with no voice or mind of her own.

  In a meeting with Laura that morning for the planning of strategy, it had been agreed, much against Abigail’s conscience, that she keep to her demure image at least until after the wedding—if there was a wedding. At the time, Abigail had been more convinced than ever that she would never set eyes on the Earl of Severn again. But now that the situation was real, it would have been difficult to keep to the plan if she had not been feeling so far beyond her depth.

  Finally she was whisked to a back room—where the earl did not follow her, she was relieved to find—separated from all her clothes, except her chemise and stockings, stood up on a stool, and twirled and prodded and poked and measured for what seemed like a day and a half without stop.

  She clung doggedly to her demure self, slipping only twice. She did protest to Madame once, when she was turned without being asked to do so, that she was no slab of beef and would appreciate not being treated like one. And she did remind a thin, bespectacled seamstress that she was not a pincushion and did not enjoy being punctured by pins. But she felt sorry for the latter lapse immediately after, when the girl looked up at her with anxious eyes and glanced swiftly across to Madame, who fortunately had not heard.

  “Actually,” Abigail said, “I moved when I should have stayed still. It was my fault. Is my arm raised high enough?”

  The girl smiled quickly at her and resumed her work.

  Abigail had hoped for a couple of muslins and a riding habit. Laura had hoped that a ball gown might be added to that list. In all the wild dreamings of a largely sleepless night Abigail had not expected the dizzying number and variety of garments that were judged to be the very barest of necessities for a countess. It would take her a month to wear all the garments she was to be sent, she decided, if she did nothing all day long but change clothes.

  Ten ball gowns. Ten! Were there to be that many balls to attend? And would not one garment suffice for them all, or at the most two? It seemed not.

  She was beginning to feel very much like Cinderella, except that Cinderella had had only one new ball gown. Certainly she had her own Prince Charming awaiting her somewhere on the premises. She had succeeded in persuading herself during the night that he could not possibly be as handsome as she remembered. It was just that she had seen a tolerably well-looking man and reacted like a besotted schoolgirl, she had told herself. But she had not been mistaken. Not at all. He looked quite, quite magnificent wearing a tall beaver hat and carrying a gold-tipped cane.

  And she was beginning to believe in her own good fortune. Though common sense told her that she was foolish in the extreme to have agreed to spend the rest of her life as the possession of a total stranger, even if there was a vague tie of blood between them, common sense had a number of rivals. There were his eyes for one thing. But far more important than that was the knowledge that however unhappy she might prove to be, she would at least always be secure. She would never be poor again. And she would be able to reunite her family.

  It was true that her conscience smote her. For apart from the fact that she was not as she had appeared to be the morning before or as she appeared to be today either, there were other facts that she should tell him, facts that even Laura did not know about. She was not respectable, and neither was her family. That was the truth of the matter.

  But the temptation to remain quiet until after the wedding was proving to be just too overwhelming.

  So much for her own motives. But what about his? It would be better not to ask, Laura had advised, and Abigail agreed. She would ask him after their wedding, perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she would not want to know.

  Their business on Bond Street was not by any means over when she was finally dressed and back in the front parlor with his lordship again. There were shoes and fans and reticules and feathers and handkerchiefs and a whole lot of faradiddle to be added to the purchases. But finally she was taken to a confectioner’s and fed a meat pie and cakes and tea. She felt half-starved.

  “Why?” she could not resist asking when conversation did not flow freely between them.

  “Why?” He raised his eyebrows and fixed her with those blue eyes, which she wished for her own comfort he would direct at some other patron of the shop.

  “Why are you marrying me?” she asked.

  He looked at her assessingly and his expression gradually softened so that he did not look nearly as haughty as he usually did.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This must all be very bewildering for you. I realize that marriage is far in excess of the kind of help you hoped for when you called on me yesterday.”

  He spoke to her gently, as if he were speaking to a child. He smiled, and Abigail’s eyes strayed to his dimple.

  “I have had my title and everything that comes with it for fifteen months,” he said. “For twelve of those I was in mourning. Now it seems that it is time for me to marry. I am thirty years old and a peer of the realm. I have female relatives about to descend on me. They should be here before the week is out. They would like nothing better than to take the choosing of a bride out of my hands, and yet I feel a strange whim to make my own choice.”

  “And so the hasty marriage,” she said. “You are afraid that they will persuade you to change your mind if we are still unmarried when they arrive?”

  He smiled again. And looking deliberately away from his dimple, she saw that he had attractive creases at the corners of his eyes. He would have wrinkles there when he was a little older. She would have to advise him to rub cream around his eyes at night—not that the wrinkles would look unattractive.

  “Let me just say,” he said, “that I would prefer to present them with a fait accompli.”

  “But why me?” she asked, looking meekly down at her plate. This must be the very last question, she decided. She was not supposed to ask any, but to speak only when spoken to. Was it just that she had walked into his house at the right moment? Or the wrong moment, depending on how this marriage would turn out. It certainly was not her beauty or her charm or her dowry.

  “I seem to have been surrounded by and managed by female relatives from boyhood on,” he said with a laugh. “I have a notion that I would like a quiet and sensible and good-natured wife, Miss Gardiner, one who will be a companion rather than a manager. I judge you to have those qualities that I am looking for. Am I wrong?”

  Oh, dear good Lord! Conscience was a dreadful thing.

  Abigail swallowed. And a crumb went plummeting in the wrong direction. Other customers looked around as her napkin came up over her face and she wheezed and gasped and coughed until she thought she would vomit. The Earl of Severn, she realized as she willed herself not to disgrace herself, was standing over her, patting her back.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked as the coughing began to subside.

  How mortifying. How positively and totally humiliating!If someone would be kind enough to kick a hole in the floor,
she would gratefully drop through it.

  “How mortifying!” she said weakly, lowering her napkin, knowing that her face must be scarlet if not purple with embarrassment and the exertions of dislodging the crumb and sending it off to a more legitimate resting place.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said kindly. “Would you be more comfortable if we left? Come, we will stroll along the street until you have regained your composure.”

  He tucked her hand through his arm as they walked, and Abigail, feeling firm muscles beneath the sleeve of his coat and smelling the same cologne he had worn the day before, was glad that they were walking side by side so that he was not looking constantly into her face.

  She doubted that she had ever felt so humiliated in her life.

  And the man was to be her husband the next day. The very next day! That meant that she was to have one more night in her bed at Mr. Gill’s, and then a wedding night—with the man who walked beside her, drawing female glances with every step he took.

  And he was marrying her because she was quiet and sensible and good-natured and because he wanted to be free of managing females.

  She was very tempted to turn to him without further ado and tell him the truth. All of it, down to the last sordid little detail. Even that one detail that no one else on earth knew except her—not even Boris. She should do so. After all, she would not be able to hide everything for the rest of a lifetime, certainly not the truth about her character.

  But she thought of the long journey into Sussex and a disapproving Vicar Grimes at the end of the journey. And she thought of Bea and Clara and their unhappiness with their Great-Aunt Edwina and the dreary prospects that awaited them when they grew up. And she thought of all the clothes being made up in Madame Savard’s shop and of all the parcels and bandboxes lying in the earl’s carriage at that very moment. And of being a countess and comfortable and secure for life.

  She held her peace.

  It was already well into the afternoon. His lordship had a pressing appointment, he explained, and must return her to Mr. Gill’s. He was to be busy for the rest of the day. He would take her up the following morning and they would go to the church together. The gown from the modiste’s should be delivered in plenty of time.

  “Is there anyone you would like to accompany you tomorrow?” he asked as he was handing her out of his carriage. “To witness your marriage?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a friend here, the children’s governess. Miss Seymour.”

  “Then I shall take you and Miss Seymour up tomorrow morning,” he said, smiling at her. “You will feel more comfortable to have a friend with you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  And she watched in fascination as he took her gloved hand in his and raised it to his lips. No man had ever kissed her hand before. She wondered if it was normal to feel the kiss all along her arm and right down her body and both legs to all ten toes. She found herself thinking of wedding nights again, and turned hastily to enter the house.

  Gracious, she thought as Edna, the Gills’ maid, opened the door for her and she saw as she stepped into the hallway both Mr. and Mrs. Gill waiting there for her, their faces wearing welcoming and identical smiles. Goodness gracious. She did not know his name. She was to marry him the next morning, and she knew him only as the Earl of Severn.

  She smiled in some amusement, and the smiles on the faces of the Gills grew broader. Mrs. Gill came toward her, both hands outstretched.

  THE EARL OF SEVERN really did have pressing business, business that he thought might well keep him busy for the rest of the day and part of the night too. He had to settle with Jenny and take his leave of her.

  He would spend a few hours with her before breaking the news, he thought. He might as well enjoy her favors one more time before his wedding the next day.

  She came hurrying across the room to him when the manservant he had hired for her showed him into her parlor. She wrapped bare arms about his neck and raised her face for his kiss. Her eyes were dreamy. Jenny could always give the impression that the money she earned as his mistress was of quite secondary consideration—that making love with him was the pinnacle of joy for her.

  But then, she had been recommended to him for just that quality.

  “No,” he said, smiling at her and laying three fingers lightly over her lips. “I have come here to talk, Jenny.”

  “To talk?” Jenny was not strong on conversation. She communicated with her body.

  “This has to be my last visit, I’m afraid,” he told her. “I am getting married tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” she said. “So soon?”

  “Yes,” he said, removing his fingers and kissing her briefly.

  She sighed. “When will I see you again?” she asked.

  “You won’t,” he said. “This is the last time, Jenny.”

  “But why?” She looked at him blankly. “You are taking your wife out of town?”

  Jenny obviously could not conceive of the idea that a man might give up his mistress once he took a wife.

  “No,” he said. “I will have the house made over to your name, Jenny, and all its contents. I shall pay the servants their salaries for one year, and you too. And I have bought you an emerald necklace to wear with your favorite gown—a farewell gift.” He smiled at her. “Is that fair treatment?”

  She removed her arms from about his neck. “Where is it?” she asked.

  She spoke again while he clasped the jewels about her neck. “Lord Northcote wants me,” she said. “He offered me more than you pay, and I think he will go even higher. He wants me badly. Perhaps I will take him, though he is not near as handsome as you. This is pretty.” She touched the emeralds.

  “I’m glad you like it,” he said.

  She turned and raised her arms about his neck again. “Shall I say thank you?” she asked.

  “If you wish,” he said, smiling.

  She took him by the hand and led him into the bedchamber that adjoined the parlor. He had expected her to thank him in words, he thought, kissing her and sliding her dress off her shoulders. But he could not insult her by spurning her way of thanking him.

  It even surprised him that he was reluctant. He had come there with the intention of spending many hours with her.

  He kissed her throat as she began to undress him with expert hands.

  “I am going to miss you, Jen,” he said.

  But strangely, he thought a long time later as she lay sleeping, her head in the crook of his arm, and he lay gazing up at the mirror over the bed, which had always made him feel a little uncomfortable, he was not feeling nearly as sad as he had expected to feel.

  The arrangement with Jenny was all business to her, all sexual dalliance to him. There was no relationship, no emotional tie whatsoever.

  He was about to enter into an arrangement in which there would be a relationship, a commitment, some emotional tie. And he was not feeling nearly as sick or as reluctant about it as he had earlier that morning.

  He did not yet know Abigail Gardiner. But during the hours he had spent with her that day he had felt a strange and totally unexpected tenderness for her—almost as if she were a child who had been put into his keeping.

  He thought of her as she had been at Madame Savard’s—quiet, bewildered, acquiescing in the decisions he and the dressmaker had made between them. And he thought of her as she had been at the confectioner’s—anxious, shy, wondering why he had chosen to marry her rather than give the letter of recommendation she had asked for. He thought of her terrible embarrassment when she had almost choked on her cake. He thought of her flush and look of surprise when he had kissed her hand. And he thought of her drab clothes and the cit’s home in which she lived.

  She was not pretty. And yet when she had removed her cloak at the modiste’s, it had been to reveal a trim and pleasing figure. And when she had taken off her bonnet, he had seen that her hair was in a heavy coiled braid at the back of her head. It looked as i
f it must be very long. He liked long hair on women. And of course her eyes saved her face from being quite plain.

  He was rather looking forward to his marriage, he was surprised to find. He believed that he and Abigail Gardiner might deal well together. Despite Gerald’s warnings, despite what his mother and the girls were bound to say when they arrived, he was not going to feel despondent. He was going to make the best of this marriage he had proposed in such haste.

  He had his eyes closed. But he opened them when he felt Jenny’s light and practiced hand moving over him again.

  “No, Jen,” he said, removing her hand from his body and kissing her lightly on the nose. “I have to go.”

  She pouted and looked for all the world as if she were sorry.

  But he wanted to be out in the fresh air. He wanted to be home. He wanted to be in a bathtub full of hot suds, scrubbing her perfume from his skin.

  He wanted to be well-rested for his wedding day—and for his wedding night.

  4

  OH.” FOR ONCE ABIGAIL APPEARED TO have been rendered speechless. She stared at Laura Seymour, who was standing at the opposite side of her room beside the window. “Yes. Thank you, Edna.”

  Mrs. Gill’s maid stared at her wide-eyed from the doorway, from which she had just announced the arrival of the bridegroom. “Ooh,” she said, “you do look fine, Miss Gardiner.”

  Abigail looked speakingly at the girl and turned back to Laura. “I don’t believe my feet will move,” she said.

  “Then we will have to persuade them to do so,” her friend said, coming across the room toward her. “We can keep his lordship waiting for five minutes, Abby, because it is your wedding day and brides are allowed to be a little late. But not indefinitely, until your feet decide to unroot themselves from the floor.”

  “What if he has changed his mind?” Abigail said. “What if he is having regrets? What if he does not like me, even when I am dressed in all my finery?”

  Laura looked at her friend’s pale blue muslin dress with its high waistline and short puffed sleeves and flounced hem. And she looked at Abigail’s hair, which Mrs. Gill’s personal maid—lent for the grandeur of the occasion—had dressed smoothly down over her ears and coiled intricately at the back of her head.