by Mary Balogh
Abigail frowned before blanking her expression again. “How about this?” she asked, curtsying a little less deeply and raising her chin.
“The curtsy is good, if a little stiff,” Laura said. “The look appears rather as if you are challenging me to a duel.”
They both collapsed into laughter again for a few moments.
“It is the chin,” Laura said. “Make sure it does not jut, Abby.”
Abigail practiced the routine a few more times until Laura approved.
“You are the head of my family, sir, and must help me, if you please,” Abigail said.
Laura sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Your chin is jutting again, Abby,” she said. “And there is a definite martial gleam in your eye. And must you not address him as 'my lord'? And must you sound as if you are demanding help as of right, despite the 'if you please' at the end?”
“I might as well forget it,” Abigail said. “I would never be a good actress, Laura, either with my cousin or on the stage. What does that leave me?”
“Sit down, Abby,” Laura said. “It is going to be time for Billy and Hortense to come to the schoolroom soon for their morning lessons. Let us try to get this just right. The Earl of Severn must not be given an unfavorable impression of you.”
''So I must cringe and demean myself,'' Abigail said. “I shall die of mortification anyway.”
“No, not that,” her friend said. “You must be . . .” She waved a hand in the air. “Oh . . . “
“Demure,” Abigail said. “Very well, then. It shall be done. Tell me how to do it. There has never been anyone more meek and mild than I will be.”
Less than half an hour later the governess had left for her morning duties in the schoolroom and Abigail was left alone to get herself ready for the visit to the Earl of Severn's house on Grosvenor Square
.
She really ought not to be doing this, she thought as she set out on her way. It was quite outside her nature to grovel, and that was what she would be doing, however carefully she followed Laura's instructions. She was going to ask a stranger to help her find another position, on the very slim grounds that he was her kinsman.
They were very slim grounds. Papa had had no dealings with the earl or his close family.
And if the earl knew anything about her family, the chances were that she would find herself outside his door on her ear with great haste. It was not a reputable family. Papa had not been reputable, and there were other facts and events that would make any self-respecting nobleman's hair stand on end.
She would just have to hope that he did not know anything about the Gardiners. Or that age had tampered with his memory. If she were fortunate, he would have snowy white hair and bushy white eyebrows and a kindly smile and all she would have to do would be to say what she had rehearsed with Laura, and look meek and demure and helpless. She just hoped that he would not do so doddering with age that he would be incapable of listening to her with any intelligence at all. She hoped she would not have to deal with a young and sharp-brained secretary.
She would not think of it, she thought as she approached Grosvenor Square
and tried not to notice quite how grand the houses surrounding it looked. She walked resolutely up the steps to the earl's house and lifted the brass knocker. She remembered just before the door opened to pull in her chin and soften her expression.
And oh, Lord, she thought a few minutes later when she had forgotten herself enough to stand up to his lordship's starchy butler and inform him in so many words that she did not for a moment believe that the earl was from home, it was a grand house. The salon was clearly used only for the reception of visitors. The chairs were not arranged about the room in any pleasing or cozy design. They were set about the walls. She did not seat herself on any of them.
The wait was interminable. She wandered about the room, looking at all the paintings, afraid to sit down lest she be caught at a disadvantage if the door should open without warning. Perhaps she should have asked the butler if his lordship was expected home within the week. She began to fear that she had been forgotten about and would be remembered when a parlor maid came in to dust the next morning or the morning after that.
But finally the double doors opened and the butler, who stood between them for a moment, stepped aside to admit a tall young man. Abigail's heart slipped all the way down inside her half-boots. She was not to be admitted to his lordship's presence after all. She was going to have to deal with a secretary, who looked as stiff and frosty as any duke one would care to imagine and who had the effrontery to lift a quizzing glass to his eye and survey her through it.
Through a superhuman effort she retained the stance that Laura had approved of. If she could not impress the secretary, there was only one of two other possibilities—Vicar Grimes or the London job that was not being an actress.
She was forced to waste the curtsy she had practiced with such care on a man who was as much a servant as she was.
She stood quietly and looked calmly at him. And she was very aware suddenly of her lone state, a gentlewoman in the receiving salon of a gentleman's establishment with nary a chaperone on the premises.
“Miss Gardiner,” the secretary said, looking at her with a disdain he did nothing to disguise. “What may I do for you, ma'am?”
2
Miss Abigail Gardiner looked at the earl steadily, though he guessed that it took a great effort of courage to do so.
“I wished to speak with my cousin, Lord Severn, sir,” she said quietly.
She was definitely a mouse, he decided. A little brown mouse, though she was not particularly small—or particularly tall, for that matter. She was really quite nondescript, a woman it would be hard to describe one hour after she had left his sight. A woman who would fade admirably into any background.
“I am Severn, ma'am,” he said, still toying with the handle of his quizzing glass, though he did not raise it to his eye again. This woman did not need to be put in her place. There was none of the boldness of manner in her that he occasionally had to contend with in other indigent relatives. “Whether I am your cousin or not, I do not have the pleasure of knowing.”
Color rose in her cheeks, though she did not remove her eyes from his. They were fine gray eyes, he noticed—definitely her best feature.
“Doubtless,” he said, “you did not hear of the demise of the former earl fifteen months ago. Perhaps your branch of the family was not considered close enough that anyone thought of informing you.”
He felt immediately sorry for his sarcasm. It had been quite unnecessary. The woman's lips tightened for a moment, but she said nothing.
“My father was a great-grandson of the former earl's grand father,” she said, “his father being the third son of a fourth daughter.”
“The former earl was my father's second cousin,” he said. “And so I suppose that makes you my . . . cousin, too, Miss Gardiner. What may I do for you?”
“I need your help, my lord,” she said, “in a small way and for this occasion only.”
He let his quizzing glass swing free from its black ribbon and clasped both hands behind his back. His eyes moved over her. She was not servile. He liked that. She held her chin up and she was able to look him in the eyes even as she begged. But she was quiet and respectful. He liked that too.
He had a sudden and unwelcome image of Frances and the inevitability of their union once she arrived in London—unless something should happen between now and that moment to make a union impossible.
But it was a ridiculous idea, one that he had expressed the night before from the depths of his gloom but had not meant seriously, nonetheless. It was a stupid notion.
“How much?” he asked with a heavier sarcasm than he had intended.
She stared at him in incomprehension. “How much help?” she said.
“How much money, ma'am?” The earl walked a few steps farther into the room. It was time to do business and get rid of the woman before he d
id something unbelievably foolish, something he would regret for the rest of his life.
“Money?” she said, frowning slightly. “I have not come here to beg for money, my lord. It is for your help I have come to ask.”
“Is it?” he said. He was disappointed. It would have been easier if it had been money she wanted.
“I have lost my position as lady's companion,” she said, “and have no prospect of acquiring another. I wish you will provide me with some recommendation as your relative, my lord.”
Lord Severn considered directing the woman to take a seat. Had she been standing ever since she entered the room? But he did not wish to prolong the interview. She was too uncannily like the ideal wife he had described to Gerald the night before.
“Is not your former employer better qualified to do that?” he asked. “I do not know you, after all, ma'am, even if there is some remote connection of blood between us.”
The woman's chin lifted for a moment before she tucked it in once more. Her hands fidgeted with each other. She was clearly nervous, he thought, narrowing his eyes on her.
“I was dismissed, my lord,” she said.
“I see.” He watched her eyes lower to her hands and the hands grow still. “Why?”
She licked her lips. “My employer's husband has roving hands,” she said.
“Ah,” he said. “And your employer discovered him at it and blamed you.”
She glanced quickly up into his eyes and lowered her own to his chin. She said nothing.
Yes, he thought, he could just imagine it. Miss Abigail Gardiner was young and not totally unattractive. She was impoverished and dependent upon what she could earn from genteel employment. She was quiet and unassuming—the perfect prey for a lecherous husband bored with his wife.
He felt sorry for her. She had not moved from the spot on which she had been standing when he entered the room. She waited with quiet patience for his decision. If he gave her money, she could survive for a week or two. And then what?
But could he give her the letter she asked for? When all was said and done, he did not know the woman. He did not even know for sure that she was related to him, though he guessed that she must be. Such a matter was too easily checked for her to risk the lie. He might take a chance on her himself if he had a suitable position to offer her. But could he in all fairness recommend her to an unsuspecting stranger?
But he did have a suitable position to offer her. The thought came unbidden, causing him to frown quite unintentionally at Miss Abigail Gardiner. Was he taking leave of his senses?
She was looking directly at him, her fine gray eyes gazing steadily into his.
“Will you help me, my lord?” she asked.
In three of four days' time the peace of his bachelor existence was to be shattered and siege was to be laid to his single state. Frances was to be foisted on him.
Frances! He could see himself now down the years fetching and carrying for her, murmuring “Yes, dear” and “No, dear” a hundred times a day, listening to the envious opinions of his friends and acquaintances that he was a lucky dog to have won for himself such a beautiful and charming wife.
His voice was speaking, he became aware suddenly.
“Yes, ma'am,” he was saying. “I have a position to offer you in my own home.”
Her eyes widened, and for a moment she looked considerably more than ordinary. “Here?” she said. “A position?”
He listened to himself, appalled, almost as if his brain and his voice had been divorced from each other.
“Yes,” he said. “I have a somewhat pressing need to fill the position of wife.”
She stared at him as he stared mutely back.
“Wife,” she said, the word falling like a stone into the silence between them, not a question.
His hands gripped themselves very tightly behind his back. “I need a wife, ma'am,” he said. “Men in my position generally do. I would judge that you might be the kind of woman who would suit me. The position is yours if you wish for it.”
He was not, he realized in some surprise as his brain caught up to his mouth, sorry that he had spoken those words. If the choice were between Frances and Miss Abigail Gardiner—and it seemed that it probably was—he would settle for Miss Gardiner without any hesitation at all. He waited anxiously for her reply.
Abigail stared at him. She had been feeling acutely embarrassed and had been finding it far easier to follow Laura's advice to be demure than she had expected. Her cousin—or relative, to use a vaguer and more accurate term—was so very young and fashionable. And there she was, trapped in a room in his house, dressed in her drabbest brown, her hair in its most unbecoming coiled braid beneath her bonnet, begging a favor of him.
She would not have come if she had known that the old earl was dead, she thought. She definitely would not have. She would have taken her chances with Vicar Grimes.
Not only was this earl young and fashionable. He also had disconcertingly blue eyes, the sort of eyes that had a tendency to do strange things to one's knees.
It was not just the eyes, either. He was alarmingly handsome—tall and athletic-looking, with thick dark hair, several shades darker and several degrees glossier than her own. She felt mortified in the extreme.
And what had he just said? Under almost any other circumstances she would have thrown back her head and given in to peals of laughter. The encounter had taken a bizarre turn. Her hearing must be defective. She must be so nervous and so strained from acting out of character that she had allowed some of his words to pass her by.
“You are to be married, my lord?” she said. “You wish me to be companion to your wife? I have had some experience, though Mrs. Gill is an older lady. I believe I am capable of offering companionship to someone closer to my own age.”
“I am asking you to be my wife, ma'am,” the Earl of Severn said.
The words and the meaning were quite unmistakable.
“I have taken you by surprise,” he said when she did not immediately reply. “You would like time to consider? I am afraid I cannot help you in any other way, Miss Gardiner, except to offer you a sum of money with which to keep yourself for a few weeks. I cannot recommend for employment a young woman whom I do not know.”
In addition to being young and fashionable and handsome, in addition to those knee-weakening blue eyes, the man was mad. And was she to pity him or take advantage of him? Abigail wondered.
She looked at him, at the object of every woman's most secret and unrealistic dreams, and she took a mental look at herself. She was a woman who would be quite destitute in a few more days. She would not even have a roof over her head. She would be quite unable to find employment without a character from her last place of employment. And Vicar Grimes would doubtless scold and perhaps—if she were fortunate—send her to another Mrs. Gill. Or she could take to the streets.
Or she could marry the Earl of Severn.
He thought she would be just the type of woman who would suit him. Had he not just said that? What type was that? All the most dazzling beauties of the ton must be falling all over their dancing slippers to charm him.
She couldn't. She really could not. He thought she would suit him, poor man. And how could she marry a man she knew nothing about except that he was very, very rich?
Oh, dear good Lord. He was very rich. She thought suddenly of Bea and Clara and of another unrealistic and impossible dream—but more painful than the one about handsome men because it involved real people. And she thought of Boris and his shattered dreams.
“I shall leave you for a while,” the earl said, “and send refreshments. I shall return in half an hour.” He made her a half-bow and turned to leave.
“No,” she said, stretching out a staying hand. For goodness' sake, she would be in a state of nervous collapse after a half an hour alone. But she could not simply accept him, could she? Without telling him a few truths and watching him scramble to rescind his offer?
It was all absurd
. Totally insane. She must get out of there as soon as possible, she decided, and hurry home to share a good laugh with Laura.
Home! She had no home, or would not have in four days' time.
The earl was looking at her inquiringly from those compelling blue eyes. She wished it were possible to change his eyes, to make them more comfortable to deal with. Gray, brown, green, hazel—anything but blue. But blue they were, and they were looking at her.
“Ma'am?” he said.
“I accept,” she said quickly. But it would make as much sense to take a dueling pistol and shoot herself, she thought even as she spoke. How did she know that he did not have six mistresses and three dozen children hidden away cozily in various parts of London? How did she know he would not turn out to be a wife-beater? And how did he know that she would not turn out to be quite the opposite of what he wanted in a wife—as she would? And why was he in such pressing need of a wife anyway? “But you may be sorry, my lord.”
He smiled rather arctically, to reveal a dimple in his left cheek that had Abigail's heart performing a complete somersault. It was not fair. It really was not.
“I think not,” he said. “I am happy with your decision, ma'am. I shall have the banns read at St. George's on Sunday and we will be married one month from now. Will that suit you?”
Several dozen questions all crowded themselves into Abigail's mind. She was going to wake up soon, she thought, and have a good giggle over the absurdity of her dream—and a good sigh over the handsomeness of its hero. In the meantime she felt rather unwilling to put a deliberate end to it, bizarre though it was.
“Yes, my lord,” she said quietly.
He frowned and stared at the floor between them for a few moments. “But Sunday is six days off,” he said. He looked up at her suddenly. “You are without a home, Miss Gardiner?”
“I have to leave Mr. Gill's by the end of the week, my lord,” she said.
“Then I shall procure a special license,” he said curtly. “We will be married . . . two days from now. Can you be ready?”
