First Comes Marriage hq-1

by Mary Balogh

  And he half bowed to her and offered his arm again.

  She chuckled despite herself. "Was that our first quarrel?" she asked him. "I would suggest you not even try counting," he said as she took his arm. "Before the nuptials have even been celebrated you may find you cannot count so high." She laughed outright.

  And then sobered again. "Who is going to tell?" she asked as they climbed the marble steps to the house. "I will," he said decisively. He sounded grim.

  She did not argue. She was massively relieved if the truth were known.

  However would /she /tell?

  Stephen was coming out of the study. "Ah, Lord Lyngate," he said, "you have arrived at the perfect time. Meg has just sent word that tea is ready in the drawing room. You will join us? And you are wearing /blue, /Nessie. Not gray or lavender today? It is about time, I must say." As she followed him upstairs with her betrothed, Vanessa wondered if a heart could really beat its way right out of one's chest.

  Katherine was sitting by the window, looking through the fashion plates Miss Wallace had left for her yesterday. Margaret was seated behind the tea tray, wearing her best day dress. She looked very determined and self-conscious when she saw that Viscount Lyngate had come. She must be steeling herself for the offer she thought was coming, Vanessa thought. "My lord," she said, "you have arrived in time for tea. Will you be seated?" "I will," he said, "though I would like to say something first that concerns all of you." Margaret looked openly dismayed - as if she expected a public declaration right there and then. Stephen looked interested, and Katherine looked up from the fashion plate she had been studying. "Mrs. Dew," the viscount said, "has just done me the great honor of accepting my hand in marriage." Vanessa wished she had sat down as soon as she was inside the room. But it was too late now. She could only stand where she was on legs that felt distinctly wobbly.

  There was a horrible silence that seemed to stretch forever, though it was probably no longer than a second or two. "I say." Stephen was the first to find his tongue. "Oh, I say, this /is /a surprise." And he took the viscount's hand in his and pumped it up and down and then caught Vanessa up in a bear hug, grinning at her as he did so.

  Katherine jumped to her feet and came hurrying across the room. "Oh," she cried, "this really /is /splendid. But I did not suspect a /thing/. Ought I to have? Neither of you has given the smallest sign that you have a tendre for each other. But of course - you danced together at the assembly. And you, my lord, danced with no one else /but /Nessie." She looked for a moment as if she might rush into his arms, but if she had intended that, she thought better of it and rushed into Vanessa's instead after Stephen had released her.

  Margaret remained standing behind the tea tray. Vanessa met her eyes over Katherine's shoulder and saw an expression in them that was impossible to read. "Nessie?" she said. She did not even look at Viscount Lyngate.

  Vanessa crossed the room to her, her hands outstretched. "Meg," she said, "wish me happy. Wish /us /happy?" The expression - whatever it had been - was gone, to be replaced by a strained smile. "But of course I do," she said, taking Vanessa's hands and squeezing them tightly. "I wish you all the happiness in the world. And you too, my lord." He bowed to her - to the woman he had come here to offer for today.

  And then, the announcement having been made and the first outburst of surprise and excitement over with, they all sat and sipped their tea and bit into their cakes as if this were any ordinary afternoon.

  Except that the conversation was far from ordinary. Viscount Lyngate told them that he would have a word with his mother, who was intending to leave for London within the week in order to get his sister properly outfitted for the coming Season. She would surely be pleased to take his betrothed too and help her choose her bride clothes and prepare her for her presentation at court after the marriage. In the meanwhile, he would see that the banns were called in both her parish and his own without further delay so that all could be accomplished within the month and in plenty of time before the Season began in earnest. /… within the month…/ They all sat politely listening to him - even Vanessa. And they all showed an interest in his plans and made appropriate comments and asked pertinent questions - except Vanessa.

  Within half an hour Viscount Lyngate was taking his leave of them all, bowing to each of them in turn, and then taking Vanessa's hand in his and raising it to his lips. "If I may," he said, "I will come and fetch you tomorrow afternoon and take you to Finchley Park to call on my mother. She will wish it." "I should enjoy that," she said, stretching the truth so thin that really there was nothing of it left.

  And he was gone, taking Stephen to ride a way with him.

  Katherine left the room too after another few minutes of excited chatter and several impulsive hugs. She was going to write to her friends in Throckbridge and tell them the news.

  Which reminded Vanessa that /she /must write without delay to the Dews.

  She hoped the news would not upset them too much.

  But she would think of that later. She was suddenly alone with Margaret, who was still seated on the same chair though the tea tray had been removed. Vanessa was a few feet away.

  Margaret broke the silence. "Nessie," she said, "what have you done?" Vanessa smiled cheerfully. "I have affianced myself to a handsome, rich, influential man," she said. "He asked and I said yes." "Are you sure that is the way it was?" Margaret asked, her gaze uncomfortably direct. "Or did /you /ask /him/?" "That would be very improper," Vanessa said. "But not something you have not done before," Margaret reminded her. "I was happy with Hedley," Vanessa protested. "Yes, I know." Her sister frowned. "But will you be happy with Lord Lyngate? I have been under the impression that you do not even like him very well." "I will be happy," Vanessa said, smoothing one hand over the blue fabric of her dress. "You did it for me, did you not?" Margaret asked. "I did it because I /wanted /to," Vanessa said, looking at her again. "Do you mind awfully, Meg? Did you really want him for yourself? Now that it is too late, I fear that perhaps you do. Or did." "You /did /do it for me," Margaret said, clasping her hands so tightly in her lap that Vanessa could see her knuckles turn white. "You did it for /us/. Oh, Nessie, must you make yourself a martyr for our sakes?" "/You /always do," Vanessa told her. "That is different," Margaret said. "It is my lot in life to protect you all, to make sure you all have a chance for the best life possible. I so want you all to be happy. You married Hedley for his sake, and now you will marry Lord Lyngate for ours. You /must /not, Nessie. I will not allow it. I will write him a letter and have it taken over to Finchley without delay. I will - " "You will do no such thing," Vanessa said. "I am twenty-four years old, Meg. I am a widow. You cannot live my life for me. Neither can you live Kate's or Stephen's. It is /not /your lot in life to give up your own dreams and chances of happiness for us. We are all almost grown up. Kate will have all sorts of chances with my sponsorship. And Stephen will be helped to maturity by Viscount Lyngate and Mr. Samson and the tutors who are being hired for him before he goes up to Oxford. It is time you looked ahead to your life on your own account." Margaret looked stricken. If /only /Crispin had gone off to join his regiment without saying anything to Meg except good-bye, Vanessa thought. She would be over her feelings for him by now. "Oh, Meg," she said, "it is not that we do not need you any longer. Of course we do. We always will. We need you as our eldest sister. We need your love. But we do not need your /life/. You want us to be happy.

  Well, we want the same for you." "I dreamed of you finding love again," Margaret said, tears welling in her eyes. "But a love that could last a lifetime this time. You deserve a happily-ever-after more than anyone else I know." "And I am not to have it?" Vanessa asked. "Meg, he is heir to a /duke's /title. He told me that earlier. I had /no /idea. Could anything be more dazzling? How could I /not /be happy for the rest of my life? I am going to be a /duchess /one day." "A /duke/?" Margaret said. "Oh, Nessie, I had no idea either. However will you cope? But of course you will. You are grown up, as you have just pointed out to me
. Of course you will cope - and very well too. I wonder if Viscount Lyngate knows yet how fortunate he is to have you." "I suspect not," Vanessa said, her eyes twinkling. "But he will. I intend to be happy with him, Meg. /Blissfully /happy." Her sister set her head to one side and regarded her steadily. "Oh, Nessie," she said.

  And then they were both on their feet and in each other's arms, and for some inexplicable reason they were both weeping.

  She had just become betrothed, Vanessa thought. Hers were tears of happiness.

  Of course they were.

  She was going to be married again.

  To Viscount Lyngate.

  Who could never in a million years love her.

  Not that she loved him either, of course, But even so… "What did she say?" Vanessa asked.

  She was seated inside Viscount Lyngate's traveling carriage again, but this time she had him for a companion rather than her sisters. They were on their way to Finchley Park, almost twenty-four hours after their engagement. A heavy drizzle misted the windows. She was being taken to call upon his mother. "She is eager to meet you," he told her. "But I asked what she /said/." She turned her head to look at him. "She expected you to offer for Meg, did she not? And then you went home and told her you had offered for me instead. What did she say?" "She was a little surprised," he admitted, "but she was happy after I had informed her that you were the lady I wished to marry." "Did you really say that?" she asked him. "And did she believe you? I would wager she did not. And I would wager she was not happy at all." "Ladies," he said, "do not wager." "Oh, fiddle," she said. "She is unhappy, is she not? I would rather know now before I meet her again." He clucked his tongue. "Very well, then," he said. "She is unhappy - or uneasy, at least. You are not the eldest sister, and you have been married before." "And I am no beauty," she said. "What am I to say to that?" he asked, clearly exasperated. "You are not ugly. You are not an antidote." Loverlike words indeed! "I will make her like me," she said. "I promise I will. She will like me when she sees that I can make you comfortable." "Ah," he said. "It is only /comfortable /today, is it? Yesterday you knew how to /please /me and how to make me /happy/." He was looking at her sidelong. His eyelids were drooped over his eyes again in that disconcertingly slumberous expression she remembered from the assembly. "And comfortable too," she said firmly. "Well, then," he said, "I am to be a fortunate man." "You are," she agreed - and laughed. "And I would like to have been a spider crawling across the carpet in your drawing room after I left yesterday," he said. "Especially after you and your elder sister were alone together, as I suppose you were eventually." "She was not upset, if that is what you mean," she said. "At least, not upset that you had offered for me rather than her." "I am crushed," he said. "She wishes us well," she told him. "Now /that,/" he said, "I can believe. She is inordinately fond of you.

  She was not happy, though, was she, to learn that you had offered yourself as the sacrificial lamb for the family." "I have no intention of being any such thing," she told him. "I am going to be your wife - your viscountess. I am going to learn to do the job well - you will see." "I am going to be thirty before the year is out," he said. "My primary motive in deciding to marry this year has been to set up my nursery without further delay. There is the need for an heir." He was looking directly at her from beneath those drooped lids - deliberately trying to discompose her, of course. "Oh," she said, and knew she was blushing. Her toes curled up inside her half-boots. "But of course. That is perfectly understandable. Especially as you expect to be a duke one day." "Was there any question," he asked, "of children with Dew?" She shook her head and bit her lip. "You told me," he said, "that you are not a virgin and I believed you.

  But are you perhaps an /almost /virgin?" She turned her head away sharply. She could not trust her voice. She watched two streams of water snake their way down the side window of the carriage.

  It had happened three times in all - /it /being nuptial relations. And after two of them Hedley had wept. "My apologies," Viscount Lyngate said, setting his gloved hand on her sleeve. "I did not intend to upset you." "It is quite understandable," she said, "that you would want to know if I am capable of bearing children. As far as I know, I am. I /hope /I am." "We are almost at Finchley," he said. "You will see it around the next bend." He leaned across her to wipe the steam off the window with the sleeve of his greatcoat.

  It was another gray stone mansion, but this one was older than Warren Hall. It was solidly square with balustrades and statues around the roof and ivy on parts of the walls. It was surrounded by lawns dotted with ancient trees, still bare of leaves. Sheep grazed some distance from the house, probably below a ha-ha. There was another house - it was too large to be called a cottage - some distance away, on the banks of a lake.

  There was none of the new splendor of Warren Hall here, but to Vanessa it looked stately and peaceful and welcoming - though that last word reminded her of what she was facing inside its walls within the next few minutes. She sat back in her seat. "It looks better in the sunshine," he said. "It looks lovely now," she told him.

  She drew a deep breath when the carriage drew to a halt outside the double front doors of the house and let it out on a sigh that was unfortunately audible. "I suppose," she said after he had descended the steps and turned to offer her a hand, "I ought to have looked beyond the mere request that you marry me to what came next." "Yes," he agreed as she stepped down, "perhaps you ought. But you did not, did you?" "And what-ifs are pointless," she said. "You said so yourself the day we arrived at Warren Hall." "Precisely," he said. "You are stuck with me, Mrs. Dew. And I - " He stopped abruptly. "And you are stuck with me." She often found amusement in the strangest things. She laughed.

  It was better for both her spirits and her pride than weeping.

  He raised his eyebrows and offered his arm.

  11

  LADY Lyngate looked even grander inside her own drawing room than she had in Stephen's. Or perhaps it was just that at Warren Hall she had been merely Viscount Lyngate's mother, Vanessa thought, whereas here she was her soon-to-be mother-in-law.

  She was alone. There was no sign of Miss Wallace.

  And she was gracious. She greeted Vanessa with apparent warmth and drew her toward a chair across from her own at the fire.

  Viscount Lyngate, after presenting Vanessa as his betrothed, was dismissed as if he were quite irrelevant to the discussion to come. He bowed to them both, assured Vanessa that he would return in an hour's time to escort her home, and left the room. "I suppose," Vanessa said, taking the offensive because she was thoroughly frightened, "you were surprised and none too pleased when Lord Lyngate returned home yesterday to inform you that he had proposed marriage to me instead of to Meg?" Lady Lyngate raised her eyebrows and looked very aristocratic and very haughty - and very like her son - for a moment. "I was surprised, yes," she said. "I had thought it was your elder sister to whom he intended to pay his addresses. It seems I was mistaken. I assume he had good reason for choosing you instead. I trust he has also chosen wisely." Guilt smote Vanessa. "I will make him happy," she assured the viscountess, leaning slightly forward in her chair. "I have promised him that. I have always been able to make people happy." But would it be possible with Viscount Lyngate? He would be a definite challenge.

  The viscountess looked steadily at her, her eyebrows still raised, but she did not respond. The tea tray was being carried in, and, until the tea had been poured and the plate of macaroons had been passed and the servant had withdrawn, she spoke of the weather and the hope that spring would come at last. "You have a figure," she said then, "that modern fashion will flatter.

  It is not voluptuous, but it will look quite elegant when properly draped with silks and muslins. And that blue dress is far more becoming than the gray in which I saw you two days ago, though the design is not fashionable and probably never was. It is very wise of you, of course, to leave off your mourning entirely now that you are betrothed again. We must discover exactly which colors become you best. Pa
stel shades, I believe, behind which you will not pale into insignificance. And your hair has distinct possibilities, though its present style does not flatter you. We will have it cut and styled by an expert. Your face is prettier when you smile than when you do not. You must cultivate animation rather than fashionable ennui when you are in company. I believe you will take well enough with the /ton/." Vanessa just stared at her. "I hope you did not expect that this visit would be a purely social occasion in which we would both mouth meaningless platitudes," the viscountess said. "You are to be my son's bride, Mrs. Dew. What is your Christian name?" "Vanessa, ma'am." "You are to be my son's bride, Vanessa. You are to supersede me as Viscountess Lyngate. And one day you can expect to be the Duchess of Moreland. You must be brought up to scratch, then, and there is no time to lose. I found you and your sisters - as well as your brother - quite delightful two afternoons ago, but you will not do for London society, you know. Your manners are pleasing and unaffected, and I believe the /ton /will find your countrified airs charming, but you must learn to dress differently and carry yourself with a more confident deportment and know about /ton /etiquette and the expectations of polite society and the rules of precedence and so on. You will be entering a new world and must not give the appearance of gaucherie. Are you capable of doing all this?" Vanessa remembered her first meeting with Lady Dew after she became affianced to Hedley. Lady Dew had hugged her and kissed her and wept over her and assured her that she was an angel sent from heaven. "I have been married to a baronet's son, ma'am," she said. "But Sir Humphrey rarely leaves home - he loves it too much. And I had never been farther than a few miles from Throckbridge until I came to Warren Hall.