by Mary Balogh
“Was,” she said. “What happened to him? I assume this is the uncle who has recently died and left you property and fortune. Your cousin must have predeceased him, then?”
“By one day,” he said. “There was an outbreak of typhus. My aunt died too.”
“Oh,” she said. “I am so terribly sorry. You really had no expectation of inheriting, then, did you? But if your cousin was ten years older than you, he must have been in his forties when he died recently.”
“He had no sons,” he said.
This was the family situation that had forced him to come home, then? But he did not offer further explanation, and she did not ask. He was not wearing mourning. But despite the family falling-out that had sent him running off to America, he must surely be feeling some pain at such a sweeping loss. She had intruded enough upon his privacy, however. It was not, after all, as though she intended to marry him.
Yet she had vowed to herself that she would marry someone this year. Mr. Rochford, perhaps? He would be a good match for her. And he was young, perhaps even younger than she. He was handsome and personable.
Or perhaps after all she would marry no one. Now that it had come to the point, she found that it was not easy to make a rational, purely practical choice when she would be stuck with it for the rest of her life. As all women were when they married.
Could Mr. Thorne offer something more attractive? But what?
They had paused to look at the smaller pond a short distance from the path, but they walked on after nodding to a group of six people, who were in a merry mood and acknowledged them with smiles and greetings and comments upon the loveliness of the weather. It must have been their laughter Jessica had heard several times in the last half hour. The group continued on its way toward the Pen Ponds.
There were many other questions she could ask. What exactly had happened to cause him to run away and stay away? Had he had any contact with his family since? But if not, how had he discovered recently, thirteen years after leaving, that his uncle and aunt and cousin had all died, leaving him to inherit property and fortune? Why did he feel it necessary to marry? And why her in particular?
“It must have been distressing for you when you heard about your loss,” she said.
“I did not wish any of them dead,” he said. “I did not want to return.”
There was something a bit chilling about his response. It was as though he had grieved not for his three dead relatives but only for the obligation their passing had put upon him to return. The trouble with questions, of course, was that the answers merely aroused more.
“Perhaps,” she suggested when they came to a fork in the path, “we should make our way back to the curricle.” The sun had dipped behind a rather large cloud and the air had cooled as a result.
They turned onto a path that would eventually circle back to where he had left the curricle. It wound through trees, with an occasional glimpse of the lakes.
“Why have you not married before now, Mr. Thorne?” she asked him. “By my estimation you must be thirty-two.”
“I have never felt any strong inclination to give up my freedom,” he told her. “And I have been busy. I have had an active social life too, but I have never met that one woman who stands out from the crowd.” He was almost smiling when he glanced at her, no doubt remembering what he had said to her earlier about her court of admirers.
“Yet,” she said, “almost immediately after you set foot upon English soil you saw a stranger at an inn where you were putting up and decided that you would marry her?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” he said.
“Why?” she asked. “Did you fall violently in love with me at first sight?” She lifted her chin and frowned at him. She was feeling angry, because the answer was very obviously no. She did not even wait for his answer. “I know why. You have come into an inheritance that cannot be ignored. Property. A house? An estate? A stately home, perhaps, situated within a park? And a fortune upon which to live there in some luxury?”
“All of those things, yes,” he admitted.
“So,” she said, “you came back to England in order to live the privileged life of an English gentleman. You came to take on the responsibilities of running your estate and tending to the needs of all who are dependent upon you. I daresay there are a number of servants and laborers. And tenant farmers, perhaps?”
“Yes,” he said. “All of those.”
“And you decided that all this could be far more effectively accomplished if you had a wife,” she said. “Someone to see to the smooth running of your home, someone to manage the indoor servants and to be an accomplished hostess to your neighbors. Someone to ensure that there are sons to inherit your property and fortune when you die. Someone with the experience you lack because you have been gone so long. Someone whose lineage is impeccable and whose consequence will not be questioned by those with whom you must deal after a thirteen-year absence.”
There was nothing so abnormal about what he had set out to do. She felt chilly, almost as though the blood were running cold in her veins. Would that cloud never pass over?
“Yes,” he said.
Had his vocabulary been reduced to one word? But at least he was not trying to beat about any bushes. He was not trying to pretend that he really had fallen violently in love with her.
“You have approached the issue as you would any business matter, in other words,” she said. “In a measured, dispassionate way. In a typically masculine way.” She ignored the fact that she had been contemplating marriage in just such a way herself. “What was your aunt like, Mr. Thorne?”
“My aunt?” His eyebrows rose at the apparent non sequitur. “She was quiet, sweet, unassuming, and unassertive.”
“And totally dominated by the men in her life, I suppose,” she said.
He thought about it. “It would have been hard not to be dominated by my uncle,” he said.
“As I thought,” she told him with a curt nod. “Your life has been very lacking in females, has it not, Mr. Thorne? Your mother died when you were no more than a baby. Your aunt was unassertive. Your female cousins married and moved away soon after you went to live with your uncle. Your kinsman in Boston was a widower without children. Your business partner is a man.”
“You are right,” he said after thinking again for a moment.
She would have loved to ask if he had had mistresses, but there were some subjects no lady would touch upon. Ladies were not supposed to know even that such persons existed or that many men used their services. Ladies did know, of course. They were not stupid. At least, most of them were not.
“You know exactly what you are looking for in a wife, then,” she said. “You have a list of attributes in your head. You may even have written them down—perhaps during the voyage here.”
Again there was that suggestion of amusement she had detected in him on a number of occasions, though he did not smile. “I have a good memory, Lady Jessica,” he said. “I believe it is women who like to make written lists.”
How did he know that? But of course he was quite right. How else could a woman plan a party?
“But there is a mental list, is there not?” she insisted. “Or was. You looked at me back at that inn and mentally checked off every point. I was even easy on the eyes. I wonder what number on the list that requirement was. Close to the bottom, at a guess, if not right at the bottom. And were there any qualities of character on the list at all? Or are women not supposed to have qualities of character?”
“You are offended,” he said.
“Yes, I am offended.” She looked up to see that the sun was about to break free of that big cloud. At last. “At your presumption and your arrogance in assuming that I will marry you merely because you are prepared to condescend to marry me. And also—”
“It is hardly condescension to decide to marry the
daughter of a duke,” he said. “I am not myself a duke or a royal prince or a king. I am therefore somewhere below you on the social scale.”
“I am the daughter of a duke,” she said, sketching a few circles in the air with one hand. “And that sums it all up, does it not? But that daughter of a duke, Mr. Thorne, is also a person. When you looked at me—at that inn, at the ball two evenings ago, in Avery’s drawing room yesterday, here today—did you see a person? Did you see me? I very much doubt it. You saw and you see the daughter of a duke.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and tipped his head slightly to one side. His eyes and the upper part of his face were half hidden in the shade cast by the brim of his tall hat. He looked awfully . . . appealing. Which fact annoyed her more than anything else. She did not know him either. She knew things about him, more now than she had known half an hour ago, but she did not know him. Why should one find another person appealing based entirely upon physical attributes? He might be an axe murderer for all she knew. Or a miserly businessman who cheated his clients and mistreated his employees and spent his evenings counting his cash.
He obviously had nothing to say in reply to her outburst. Perhaps he did not even know what she was talking about.
Did she?
And when had they stopped walking?
“I am not a commodity,” she told him, “to be bought and sold on the exchange. Have I used the right terminology? Do you not think you should hope to marry me rather than intend it? Do you not think you should work a little—no, that you should work hard—to win me? There must be all sorts of deals you have to work hard to achieve as a businessman. Should not I be at least as big a deal as any of them?”
She did not know quite what she was saying. But she had worked herself into a state of considerable agitation, rare for her. She was angry at the arrogance of this man, who had made a list, even if it was only in his head, found that she suited all his requirements, and decided without further ado that he would marry her. The presumption! How dared he?
Perhaps he might not have irked her so much if she did not find him appealing. And that fact infuriated her even more. How could she? Was she that shallow?
“You wish to be wooed, then, Lady Jessica?” he asked her.
Did she? She thought about it. “With a view to marriage?” she said. “That is the end for which a man woos a woman, is it not? It is sometimes a necessary but rather tedious step a man must take in order to persuade her to say yes. As though she lacked the intelligence to demand more?”
He still had his hands clasped at his back. She was still rooted to the spot. She wished she had brought her parasol from the curricle. She could twirl it about her head and give her hands something to do.
“No,” she said before he could answer. “I do not want to be wooed, Mr. Thorne. I am not at all certain it would accomplish its desired aim anyway. Indeed, I am almost certain it would not. But if you want a chance with me, then you will . . . Oh.” She circled the air with her hand again. Where were the right words when one most needed them? “You will romance me.”
His eyebrows rose. His eyes, darker than ever in the shade of his hat, were as intent upon hers as always. “Is it a verb?” he asked. “To romance?”
She stared at him, stupefied. “I have no idea,” she said. “I am no grammarian, Mr. Thorne. But it perfectly expresses what you must do if you wish to persuade me even to consider falling in with your intention.”
“I must romance you,” he said. “How does it differ from wooing?”
She had no idea. Or, rather, she did, but how could she find the words to explain?
“Its end, its whole purpose, is not necessarily marriage,” she said. “It is about . . . oh, about persons. About feelings. About getting to know another person. Not just facts, but . . . getting to know the person behind the facts. And showing that person that you know and understand and like the whole person, regardless of imperfections. It is . . .”
“Falling in love?” he suggested when she struggled for further words. His eyebrows were still up.
“Oh,” she said, frustrated. “Not necessarily. It is about making the other person feel appreciated. It is about making her feel that she is a person, that she matters, that she is more precious than all the cold facts in her favor. It is about making her understand that she is more precious in your sight than all other women. It is making her feel that she is . . .”
“Loved?” he said when she was lost for words again.
She sighed deeply and audibly. “There are really no words,” she said. “No, it is not about falling in love or about loving. How can one do or feel either of those things in advance? You do not know me, just as I do not know you, Mr. Thorne. It is about the possibility of love. The possibility of friendship and laughter and . . . oh, and something more. Something bright and beautiful. Something that will transform life and fill it with color and . . .”
This time he did not end the sentence for her. Not immediately, anyway. They stared at each other.
“Romance,” he said at last.
What a prize idiot she had just made of herself. And she had no idea where it had all come from. Just an hour or two ago she had been planning a marriage for herself that was every bit as passionless and calculated as the one he proposed. And then she had got angry and . . . and this had happened.
Romance? She was twenty-five years old. Any man looking at her and considering her as a wife would have everything but romantic love in mind. She was horribly, hideously eligible. How could she expect any man to look beyond the facts that she was the daughter and sister of a duke, that she was wealthy, and that she had the upbringing and education and accomplishments of her rank? Romance at her age? Or at any age? It was laughable. It was pathetic.
Except that she was not just Lady Jessica Archer. She was . . . She was her. She was the being that was inside her and far more meaningful to her than any of the outer trappings of birth and rank.
It was a strange time to be having all these thoughts, which she could not recall ever having before. Not consciously or coherently, anyway.
He turned to stroll onward, and she walked beside him, leaving two feet of space between them. She could see the curricle in the distance. Thank heaven. Though the ride home was going to seem endless.
But she was not sorry, she thought, lifting her chin. She was not. How dared he, or any man, decide that he was going to marry her?
“Very well, Lady Jessica,” he said as they drew closer to the curricle. “I will romance you. Not with a view to matrimony, but as an end in itself, to see where it leads.”
Jessica licked her lips. Oh goodness, what had she started now? “Thank you,” she said, her words cold and clipped.
“But I do hope,” he said as he offered his hand to help her up to her seat, “that you will not expect a bouquet quite as large as the one that was in your brother’s drawing room yesterday.”
He spoke the words in all seriousness. But . . . A joke from Mr. Thorne? Really?
She settled her skirts about her as he climbed to his place and took the ribbons from his young groom.
“Oh, I will not,” she assured him, raising her parasol and twirling it behind her head. “I shall expect a far larger one.”
He did not laugh. But when she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was actually and definitely smiling.
He looked different when he smiled. He looked handsome. Not almost handsome, but the real thing.
Not that looks mattered. At all.
Eight
Gabriel sent Lady Jessica Archer a single long-stemmed pink rose the following morning.
He ought to have turned his eyes and his mind elsewhere, of course, as soon as it became obvious she was going to make him work to win her, with no guarantee that the prize would be his at the end of it all. He needed a wife soon. And there was no
reason to believe he would have any great difficulty finding one even if the ton knew no more about him than it already did. For some reason he had captured the public’s imagination. Yet he had set his sights upon the very lady whose imagination had not been captured.
He had no time to romance Lady Jessica just because she had taken offense at his saying he intended to marry her. What the devil did it mean, anyway, to romance a woman? He was still not convinced there was any such verb. Though her meaning would stand even if the word did not. She wished to be flattered, to be fawned over, to be sighed over with open adoration, to be sent flowers, and generally to be treated like a goddess.
Gabriel was gazing out of his sitting room window upon rain—the drizzling sort that only England seemed able to produce in such depressingly copious quantities. He had intended to call at Archer House this afternoon to invite her to drive in the park with him later. It was what the ton did in large numbers, apparently, in the late afternoon. It was where they went to see and be seen, to pick up the latest gossip and to spread it, to ogle the opposite sex and to flirt.
It was not going to happen today, however. Even if the rain let up right at this moment it would be damp and miserable out there. Chilly too, or at least it had been chilly when he went to White’s Club this morning with Bertie Vickers.
No. He was being unfair—perhaps because he was feeling frustrated and therefore irritable.
Everything he had just thought was almost certainly not what Lady Jessica had meant by the term romancing. It was unfair to think she was so shallow. Indeed, he knew she was not. He just could not imagine her being susceptible to any sort of flattery. She would stare right through him, her chin and her nose in the air, as though she could see the hairs on the back of his head. No. What had offended her was her assumption that he saw her as a commodity rather than as a person. Did he? He very much feared she might have a point. She wanted him to see her for what she really was—or perhaps that should be who she really was, quite independent of all the attributes that made her one of the most eligible ladies in England.
