by Vanessa Gray
Events were moving faster than Richard would like, or indeed had anticipated. He heard Edward saying, interminably, but in an effort to be fair, “Chloe said not a word to me about you and Emma, Sophy. It was Francis who was outraged, and rightly so. He was right to tell me.”
To Chloe’s pitiful, unspoken plea, Richard responded. His voice was quiet, yet it cut across the babble of the mutually recriminatory Rothwells, stopping the flow of justification and accusation. “Enough! Miss Rothwell is not penniless, and I can’t think why you said so, Edward, unless you have managed to do away with the late Lady Rothwell’s dowry?”
Chloe murmured, “Oh no, oh no.”
Richard, dropping his hand to rest on Chloe’s shoulder, and feeling the trembling lessen within her, continued, “Edward?”
Edward, wounded by the accusation, and knowing his own honesty, blustered, “Of course not!”
Richard, to Edward’s surprise, said, “Just so. My informants have assured me of this. So Chloe has as great a fortune as she ever had.”
Lady Rothwell, turning an inward eye upon her own endorsement of Francis’s offer of marriage, said indignantly, “She almost married Francis!”
Richard, sadly hampered by the need to be civil, fixed Lady Rothwell with an exceedingly cold blue eye and said, “I should not have allowed that.”
It was clear to all that a new element had been added to the Green Salon — the steel of Sir Richard Davenant. They reacted as though someone had set down a man-eating lion in their midst.
Lady Rothwell and Edward were caught up short, and intangibly joined forces against the intruder. While Sir Richard Davenant, as Lady Rothwell would have told anyone, was a man of the utmost gentility and impeccable breeding, yet he was interfering in a fashion that could only be considered vulgar.
Lady Rothwell said as much. “I do not understand, Sir Richard, why you see fit to meddle in our family’s affairs.”
Lydia, intent on her own loss, mourned, “Now I’ll never get to London! Not for two years!”
Sophy fell silent, for her conscience regarding the pearls was troubling her badly. If she had not hinted that she knew where the pearls were — and she did — then Chloe would not have turned angry and this whole very uncomfortable afternoon would have not happened. Sophy had no doubts but what she herself would come out of it well, but her thoughts ran seriously along the line of returning the pearls before anyone knew where they had gone.
Chloe herself had spent her fury. Richard remembered, irresistibly, that once as a child, Chloe had impetuously poked a hornet’s nest and he had been hard put to preserve her from the consequences of her own indiscretion.
This incident today was much like that. Chloe had stirred up more than she had engaged for. A move to Highmoor had seemed at the time to require all her resolution. And that had been thwarted, not only by her family’s wish that she stay at Rothwell Manor, but by the fact that she no longer had Highmoor as a last resort.
Now, in retrospect, how simple a move to Highmoor seemed in comparison with the unpleasant days that were certain to lie ahead! She had accused her family of every crime in her book, and the words could not be taken back. Her courage, of a high order, was of a kind which endured rather than led a charge through a breach in the wall. Her head ached, her thoughts thrummed within her brain, and she knew only that matters of some moment were being discussed over her head. But she faltered, and most of what was said now was going past her.
Lady Rothwell echoed Richard’s words, in high indignation. “You should not have allowed?”
Richard said, glancing sidelong at Chloe, “Chloe is going to marry me. So you see, I should not have allowed her to marry anyone else.”
There was dead silence. For a long enough space so that the silence caught Chloe’s attention, no one said anything. Then there was tumult.
Edward, predictably, was angry and hurt. “You should have asked me. I’m the head of the family. I don’t recall that you said anything to me about pressing your suit with Chloe.”
Lady Rothwell for once was totally silent. It was something she could not take in — the dashing Sir Richard had actually offered for Chloe, and been accepted, and Chloe, that sly minx, had said not a word!
Lydia, participating in the general feeling of anger and hurt feelings, cried out, “Chloe said you had offered for someone else. She should have told me the truth!”
There was nothing anyone could answer to that, for logic had vanished from the scene. As logic had disappeared, so did Sophy. Seizing the moment of great tumult, of Chloe’s betrothal to Sir Richard, Sophy quietly slipped out of the room.
She climbed the stairs, low in her mind. Everything she had tried had gone awry. She had wanted to go with Emma to Bath. She had thought that Chloe’s influence was irresistible, for after all they all said she had a great fortune and Edward would listen to her. If Chloe had taken her part, Sophy was sure she would now be on her way to Bath with Lady Partridge. Everything had gone awry, and there was only one thing to do.
If it were discovered that she had indeed secreted the pearls away, and not told Chloe, then the expected retribution would be tenfold. Sophy opened a secret hiding place that she had devised for herself. She fished out the pearls and held them in her hand. Just so had she fished out of the cushions in the coach on their way home from Lady Partridge’s that night, when they had come undone from around Lydia’s throat and slipped behind the squabs. To be truthful, Sophy had had no intention at first of using the pearls for her own advantage, but things had gone wrong even at the beginning. Sophy was quite sure that Edward would keep her from going with Emma, for he had summarily dismissed Lady Rothwell’s order for gowns for Lydia. There had been so much going on that in truth Sophy had forgotten the pearls. It was only when Edward came home from London in such a somber mood that she remembered. She had only wanted to look at them, and put them away until a later time.
He reminded her of her adventure with the hornets’ nest, and received for his trouble a watery smile. Then, convinced she had not listened to the announcement he had made to her family, informed her, “I have announced that you and I will be wed.” Her reaction to the news, clearly the first she had heard of it, astounded him.
Now, sooner or later, the subject of the pearls would be reopened and she would face consequences. However, there was one way — if the pearls were where they belonged, then Sophy would be safe. In moments the pearls were restored to Chloe’s drawer. She hurried back to the stairs, intending to rejoin the family before inquiry was raised.
From the top of the stairs she saw Richard holding Chloe firmly by the wrist and pulling her across the hall into the book room and closing the door firmly behind them. Sophy spared a thought to listening at the door, but Field and the footman were both still in the hall, and there was no opportunity.
Inside the library, Chloe found her voice. “I’ve made such a mess of things.”
Richard, amused, was deeply touched. His poor Chloe! But she had turned to him in her need, and the future looked rosy indeed for Richard.
The longer the search continued, the more difficult it was to produce them. And she had a sure instinct that counseled her to keep her secret until it could serve her.
Chloe, for reasons of her own, and very conscious of the fact that Richard was presenting her with all she longed for in life, cried out, “Oh no, no!” and burst into tears.
27
A disinterested spectator, were he watching the interview between Richard and Chloe, would have noticed that Richard’s knuckles had turned white. He clutched the back of a small chair and felt rather than heard it creak beneath his strong grip. He had neglected many a time when he could have told Chloe what was in his heart, and he had now left it too late. He had not intended to declare himself in the midst of a quarreling family, but he had had no choice.
Now, as he looked at his intended bride, his dismay was carefully hidden. She was sobbing as though her heart would break. He watched her
gravely, feeling even the air around him turn gray and black. Had he misread her feelings? Did she regard him as only her Great Friend? He did not realize how greatly he had staked his future upon the reaction that he had read in her eyes. And now, from all appearances, he had made the worst mistake of his life.
He had precipitated this spate of tears, and although he regretted the result, there had seemed to be little choice. But what did she mean — No?
He guided her, unresisting, to a small love seat and sat beside her. She cried into his shoulder. He waited — indeed, all his recent life seemed to have been waiting — for what he thought was the right moment. Finally he said, in a gentle rallying voice, “It is a good thing I am not a Corinthian, else I would regret my coat’s being ruined. Weston, you must know, looks dimly upon a wet jacket.”
She moved to pull away, but he held her tight. Still cradling her head on his shoulder, he murmured in her ear, “I’m sorry to make my offer in such a public way, but I was sincere, you know. I truly was serious. Chloe — look at me.” She looked up at him. He thought she was even more beautiful with her eyes drowned in tears and her lips trembling. “Now, Chloe, believe me. I should like you to share my life. I’m throwing myself at your feet.” Then, lifting an eyebrow when he saw that she still was not amused, he said, “Shall I go down on one knee?”
In spite of herself, she gurgled in amusement and said, “Of course not.” But she wondered, had he gone down on his knee to Penelope Salton, or whoever?
Chloe could not bring herself to accept him. At length, he pointed out that her family thought them already betrothed. “And are you going out and say that I was mistaken?” She shook her head mutely. “Then what will you do, if you don’t marry me?”
At length she asked him, in a weak voice, “Can I get Highmoor back?”
Richard took a long time to answer. Finally he said, “If Edward has sold it, and does not know to whom he’s sold it, then I see no way to do it.” He took her hands in his, and said, “Does Highmoor mean so much to you?”
She said, “It is only that I don’t know what I should do.”
“Well,” he said, “you know you may not be comfortable here after all this.”
“I know,” she said, “and I do not know what possessed me to say all the awful things I said.” Forlornly, she said to him, “I have no fortune. You have forgotten that, I think?”
Richard, sturdily, said, “It’s good that I have kept beforehand with the world then.”
Richard was head over heels in love, but even so he was on the verge of exasperation with his beloved. Chloe remained silent, and he could not know what lay behind her sad eyes.
Her thoughts were a mixture of shadow and sunlight, as a March day. She had long dreamed of Richard, and had come to know that her future, if it did not contain him, was not worth the living. But yet, having happiness handed to her on a platter, so to speak, she feared it. She did not wish to reach for it, lest it vanish and leave her to desolation. But what else could she do?
Finally, she placed her hand in his, and said, “Richard, I am so grateful.”
Richard was suddenly savagely furious. “Don’t say that to me! Never again tell me you’re grateful!”
She had an uneasy feeling that she must throw a sop to Providence. She feared lest she wake up and find it all a dream. She said, to ease her superstitious fear, “What else can I do? I can’t stay here, and I’ve lost Highmoor.”
His disappointment was keen, for he had thought she had a regard for him. If she were taking him as only a last resort, as an alternative to staying at Rothwell Manor and being ground into bits by her unappreciative family, then so be it. He had to trust that after this shock was over and she grew used to the idea, she would once again look at him as she had less than an hour ago across the hall in the Green Salon.
He rallied, and said, “I agree — you may not stay here very long. Our wedding must take place as soon as is convenient.” Seeing her nod agreement, he pursued the matter a little farther. “Did you really want Highmoor that much?”
She said, tremulously, “Just owning something gratified me. And it seemed to me the beginning of a life that was all my own.”
Richard, at sea on an outgoing tide, hardly knew what to say. He murmured, “You will have a free hand at Davenant Hall.”
Chloe, having lived through an experience that was devastating to her, was equally at sea. The words came from her without her thinking, for she had no known landmarks to guide her. She had lashed out at her family, told Edward to be quiet, accused the others of being selfish. To cap it all off, she was now, so it seemed, truly betrothed to Richard.
This was the thought that was uppermost. She was engaged to Richard, and he had arranged this only because she was so desolate.
She fumbled an explanation. “I really want you to be happy, Richard, and I will try my best. Indeed, I shall not object,” she added in charity, but not in fact, “if you keep your other interests.”
She thought, but later could not be sure, that she had told him point-blank that she knew his heart was elsewhere even though his honor was now bound to her. She was confused now so that she did not remember what thoughts had found vocal expression and what still lay too deep in her heart for speech.
Richard, for his part, was as thunderstruck as she. He had thought she was in love with him, and he still believed so. But he had thought all he had to do was fix his interest with her, that she was waiting eagerly for his offer, and all would be well. All he had had to do, he had told himself, was at the proper time to sweep away the other suitors and offer Chloe his heart and hand. He had had no doubt that she would accept with joy.
Now, if his understanding of her words was correct, she was taking him as a last resort, for she had nothing else that she could do. She did not care even enough to hope that he would not keep what she called his other interests — she didn’t even want his whole self. Now, he was wounded where he never thought to be vulnerable.
He took her hand and said, “Let us return to your family.”
They crossed back to the Green Salon, Chloe clinging to Richard’s hand as though it were the only block of flotsam in the ocean.
Lady Rothwell, still seething with anger but having had time to recollect the advantages that a marriage to Sir Richard Davenant might give, and swiftly altering her plans for Lydia and Sophy to march with her “stepdaughter Lady Davenant in London,” had begun to be reconciled.
Lady Rothwell insisted that Chloe stay at Rothwell Manor until the wedding. She must preserve the appearances of decency, “even though,” said Lady Rothwell, “this whole hubble-bubble is not to my liking. In my day, this kind of behavior would not have been countenanced.”
Richard said, in his quiet way, “I quite agree. However, I am anxious for the wedding — and I hope that two months will be sufficient time. I should like to take Chloe to my cousin, Lady Theale’s, for a visit, and I shall write to her at once to find out a convenient time.”
On his way out, he caught Edward’s eye, and the two of them left together. At the door, Richard said, “I know there will be details — Chloe’s mother’s dowry will, of course, be transferred to her as Lady Davenant. But my man Aston in London will handle the details.”
Edward nodded, and said, “I’m sure you will find the accounts in good order.”
Richard, sensing Edward’s downcast mood, reassured him. “I never thought otherwise.”
Edward, laboring under a strong sense of injustice and disappointment, said simply, “I thought it was all for the best.”
Richard, speaking from the depths of his recent interview with Chloe, “That’s all either of us thought to do — what was best, in our limited view.”
Edward said in a burst of confidence, “I’m glad she’s marrying you. This whole business of flies around the honeypot was not to my taste.”
Richard spared a thought to Edward’s short memory. He certainly had advocated Thaddeus Invers with all his strength.
Edward continued, “I just wanted to see her settled. Now, as near neighbors, all will be well. We will not truly have lost Chloe.”
Richard nodded, feeling a growing regard for Edward, beset as he was by such scatter-brained females. “Her family,” said Richard, “took Chloe for granted, but she is a pearl of great price. Too bad you learned it too late.”
But Richard was speaking more truly for himself. He left Edward and returned to Davenant Hall. His thoughts — it seemed that his thoughts always were in turmoil when he left Rothwell Manor — were busy. Even observing Chloe with more sensitivity than the Rothwells could manage, yet he failed to understand.
He had considered Chloe as a country lady, without experience, and with dreams in her head of marrying and setting up a household. But he was wrong.
Chloe had the beginnings of a search for something more — a search for independence, and even, so Richard was beginning to understand, for a certain integrity. It was the only word he could think of — for independence was not the answer. No one was independent. Even he himself was not independent without a staff of servants, a number of tenant farmers, a man of affairs, and others who ministered to him. Integrity was the word. Chloe Rothwell was to be herself — she was not Lady Rothwell’s stepdaughter, she would not be Richard’s wife — she would be simply Chloe.
Richard was learning more than suited his palate. But whatever Chloe wanted — he vowed to himself — she would have. Even though Richard’s own wishes might fall by the wayside.
He informed his butler as he came in the entrance of Davenant Hall, “You may wish me happy, for I am marrying Miss Rothwell.”
Dall was delighted, and allowed his happiness to show in his eyes. Not the least of all reasons was, because, reading the signs in the wind, he had quietly placed bets against long odds and stood by this marriage to win a year’s wages.
Richard, for a bridegroom, was not happy. Dall watched him shut himself away in the book room, and the butler felt uneasily that his winnings might be fading away. If Sir Richard did not make it to the altar, then all bets were off.
