“I’m so sorry. I shall return later.” She retreated to the door.
“Marian, wait,” Wyle said desperately.
“Miss Greenway,” Aunt Alva said with delight. “I did not hear you arrive.”
“I-I…”
“She was helping the children with their lessons.”
“Oh, still having trouble getting a governess? Stay, my dear, this concerns you. I am throwing a ball to celebrate your engagement.”
Marian turned an accusing glare on Wyle and seated herself across from him. He shrugged as though none of this was his fault.
“Is there anyone you would particularly like to invite?”
“No one.”
Alva looked at her as though it was impossible to have no connections.
Marian licked her lips and shaped them into a severe line. “In fact I think it is premature to be thinking of balls.”
“Don’t tell me. Wyle has done something to give you a disgust of him.” Alva wrinkled her brow as she waited for an explanation.
“More like something to make me doubt his reason.” She wondered what she would say if pressed for details. The fake engagement came to mind but it was one of the many things she could not speak of.
Alva shrugged. “Well, these little things will happen. It will work out.” She consulted her lists. “Your mother is the wife of Major John Greenway. But Wyle tells me your father is a French prisoner of war.”
“Yes and my mother is not well. She never leaves Northhampton.”
“But we must send her an invitation anyway. She will be so happy for you. What is her direction?”
Marian glanced uncomfortably at Wyle. “Uh, Briarcliff Cottage, Tynbrill Down.”
Alva made a note. “Very good. I perceive you have been taking care of her yourself and have only come for a brief visit. I can suggest a modiste for you. Where are you staying?”
Marian hesitated, glad now that she had forsaken her prim cap, though she still wore a dowdy gown of dark blue. She glanced at Wyle whose eyes shifted desperately. “I am not satisfied with my current lodgings and mean to remove to another today if possible.” Was that a look of panic in his eyes?
“Well, you could always stay with me, you know. Here, I shall set down my address for you. Wyle never remembers it.”
“Thank you but—”
“I thought no more than three hundred.”
“Three hundred what?” Marian asked, feeling the situation slipping beyond her control.
“Guests, of course.”
She could feel her jaw drop but when she glanced at Wyle he shrugged.
“Now, now.” Alva patted her hand. “You handled yourself well enough in front of the family. This will be no very great matter. I shall send the invitations. What say you to two weeks from Saturday. No, you need to have a dress made. Say three weeks. It is early in the season and there are plenty of good days left.”
“Perhaps we should wait.” Her voice came out as a strangled gasp.
“Nonsense, I want to celebrate your happiness. Wyle, I assume you have time to get the ballroom cleaned.”
“You want to have it here?” Marian could feel the world whirling out of control.
Alva stood up and tramped to the door. “Of course, where would I put three hundred people in my house?”
With that she whisked out of the room and Wyle burst into laughter.
“You may think this is a great joke but what will you do in three weeks time when there is no Miss Greenway to present?”
“But she recognized you. So you can stop pretending to be just a governess.”
“What? What are you talking about? I am a governess and a damned good one.”
Henry entered at that moment with his translation so she bit her lip on the hope that he had not heard her swear.
After lunch Wyle recommended they throw open the doors between the drawing room and ballroom. He thought Charlotte’s playing might help Henry learn to focus on his fencing.
Charlotte laughed. “Learn to focus under trying circumstances you mean.”
At any rate the doors were opened so the girl could hear the clash of the fencing foils and Wyle could hear every wrong note Charlotte hit. Or perhaps not. Marian recalled how defective his hearing was unless that was a ruse.
Her roles were blurring together, Marian thought, as she demonstrated keying to Charlotte. She’d walked into the drawing room as though she belonged there. Why hadn’t he warned her. It was highly improper of her to be residing in this house as anything but a governess. If it came to be known that she had stayed here without female chaperonage and then aspired to marry Wyle, the world would put the worst possibly interpretation on her actions.
* * * * *
Before dinner she always sent the children off to do an hour or so of written homework. This was the perfect opportunity to have it out with Wyle. Even if he discharged her, he must be made to understand that this charade had to end. She knocked at the study door but only Hill answered and disavowed any knowledge of Wyle’s whereabouts. He needed him as well to decipher some notes Wyle had made in his absence. She threw open the door to the library next door but he was not there, just a ledger and a pen drying on the blotter. She cleaned the pen. He could not be trusted even with small things.
She came downstairs and asked Trumby where Lord Wyle was. He indicated the stable as the likeliest place to look. Marian went down the back steps and was crossing the stable yard to that building when she saw his head above a tall yew hedge. He was pacing the small rose garden outside the breakfast parlor.
She let herself in by the gate and stood there, waiting for him to see her but he kept pacing, head down and with that mark of concentration between his brows. It was no more than twenty paces from the sundial in the middle to the corner he had chosen. The quadrants each contained a bench surrounded by roses, one shaded by an arbor.
She realized what he was doing, exercising his injured leg. Now that he was riding, fencing and dancing, perhaps he’d been pushed too fast in his recovery. His head jerked up as he saw her.
“I was just admiring the garden,” he said. “Never spent much time out here but we have roses in abundance or we will in three weeks. Not enough for the ballroom but certainly enough for the front hall.”
“Are you insane?”
He grinned. “Well, yes, but generally regarded as harmless.”
“Not in this case. You may think it a great lark to let this ball go forward, then not appear but think of the repercussions for Charlotte. Think how your aunt will feel.”
“I have every intention of appearing.”
“Oh, no. Now I see your plan, you mean to use this as a public forum for ending our engagement.”
He looked stricken. “How could you think I would do that to you?”
“Then what do you plan to do?”
He came and took her hands. “I have been trying to think how to say this to you without making you want to bolt. Three weeks does indeed seem like too little time. And you have only known me—what—four days? At the ball I would like to reaffirm the fact that I would like to make Marian Greenway my wife.” He drew nearer and gazed into her eyes in that compelling way he had.
She felt paralyzed. “Is this a joke?”
“I was never more serious. Think about it. The children love you. I love you. What could be more perfect?”
She backed away from him but he did not let go of her hands. “If-if this had happened years ago when I had my come out, it would have been perfect. If my father were not missing under a cloud of suspicion, it might have been perfect. If you were not a soldier, it might still be perfect. But we are where we are. I am a governess and you are a peer.”
He tightened his grip on her hands “There is no gulf between us but what your mind puts there.”
He sounded so Shakespearean he almost convinced her.
“There is more than one gulf between us. Beyond even this stupid pretense in which we are engaged, there is t
he fact that I will never marry a soldier, not after watching what my mother has gone through.”
“I am not a soldier at the moment.”
“You still retain your commission.”
“That is easy enough to fix if it bothers you that much.”
She didn’t know what to say, for she did already in her heart have a regard for Wyle, not to mention a ready sympathy. “I must think.”
“Yes, take your time. Take two weeks.”
“What a ridiculous statement.” She felt herself torn between desperate tears and hysterical laughter and resented it. “This is impossible.”
“No. This is perfect.” He grasped her hands tighter.
“Hearing you say that confirms it is a crack-brained idea.” Somehow a hasty laugh slipped out and he pulled her to him to wrap his arms around her.
“Sometimes those are the best ideas because they come from the heart not the head.”
“Thinking with my heart never brought me anything but unhappiness. And I am tired of it.”
“Then wed me, be happy, be a mother to my children.” He looked at her intently and slowly met her trembling lips with a warm kiss. Marian felt her resolve crumbling. She also heard the window to the breakfast parlor open and shot back against the rose arbor as though she had been burnt.
Henry peeked out. “Dinner is ready. Trumby gave up looking for you.”
“Excellent.” Wyle took Marian’s arm and conducted her inside as through everything was settled.
If the previous night’s dinner had been her time to speculate on an attachment between Hill and Charlotte, then surely Hill was doing the same thing tonight as his gaze flicked between her and Wyle. What must Hill think of her? That she was a fortune hunter would be the kindest appellation he could use. Once again they practiced dancing that evening. It was all such a whirl. It seemed to Marian as though she had been given a family for only for a few days, that she had to enjoy them all quickly before they were snatched away from her. But why such portents of doom? Perhaps Wyle was right and their marriage could be perfect.
Before she went to sleep that night Marian penned a long letter to her mother asking for advice. On the one hand, this was exactly the sort of situation her mother had warned her against falling into. What would Wyle’s friends think if they realized she was a governess? What if he tired of her? She knew Wyle was volatile. Would it not be worse for the children to have a mother and father at odds rather than a calm and collected governess? Perhaps they could delay their happiness until the children were older. But that was not fair to Wyle. He might want more children. In fact she wanted children herself and she had to admit that she wanted to have them with Wyle.
She put all her arguments for and against the marriage into the letter but could not write the one thing that should be most important. She did care for Wyle. She thought she was falling in love with him. Seen in the light of society, her marriage to Wyle would be to his disadvantage. Thinking of the four of them sitting around a table together or riding in the park it did seem perfect. Thinking of having a babe of her own felt like a dream, a fairy-tale ending. That was the problem. What he offered seemed too perfect to be real. Life simply was not like that. At least her life wasn’t. Until now.
Was it possible her expectations were unaccountably low because of all her misfortunes? Could she be happy with Wyle in this ready-made life? And if she refused him would she regret her decision forever?
Chapter Eight
Unaccountably it was another beautiful morning and the children rode out ahead of them with the confidence of beings who had been riding all their lives. Wyle rode on her left side as though he had always been there and always would be.
“Have you thought about our discussion,” he asked without looking at her.
“I have thought of little else, sir.”
She stared at his handsome profile. The sun showed up the firm line of his lips but did not reach his eyes under his hat brim. “And your decision?”
“Unlike you I feel unable to bolt into a decision. I need to consider my mother.”
“She could always live with us.”
“Someone must take care of Father’s estate when we get control back.”
“You’ll hire a bailiff.” He was smiling now but it was forced.
“You seem to have an answer for everything.”
“There generally is an answer to every problem.”
“But sometimes the answer isn’t what you want to hear.”
He looked at her now that she had his attention. “Don’t say no.”
“For now, I must.”
“Please take time to consider.”
“We must do something soon. Our rides are beginning to cause remark.”
“By whom?”
“By anyone who observes us, I imagine. Him for example.” She nodded toward one rider in particular. He was at a distance but he was watching them. She entertained the fear that it might be her cousin but the clothes didn’t look right and she did not recognize the showy bay.
“He is just surprised to see Henry here. Most children do not have leave to ride in Hyde Park. You’re just imagining people talking about us.”
“You must admit we have not been discreet.”
“We have done nothing wrong.”
“Perhaps you have not. Rules are different for woman.”
“I hope you are not teaching Charlotte anything so nonsensical. Woman now have just as many rights as men.”
She pressed her lips together. “Because you are a fair man you imagine what the world should be like but it is not a just place. And when it is time for her come out you may discover to your horror that people hold the divorce against her or even your disadvantageous second marriage to the governess who snared you.”
“Then to hell with the lot of them. She’s an innocent. If they won’t accept her, I have no use for them.”
“You have pressed me for an answer and I have said no. Before arrangements go any further, I should make my excuses in a letter to your aunt. My mother has taken a turn for the worse and I must see to her. Then if the engagement dissolves no blame will fall to you.”
“You mean to leave?”
“Like you I feel I must do something. I am just trying to avoid making a huge mistake.”
“But remember what your father said. Have the courage to act even if you make a mistake. At least it will be your own mistake.”
He rode away to catch up with Charlotte and Henry and to laugh at his son’s ideas for what horse he should buy. Even though she had disappointed him, he could still feign happiness for the children. Marian felt distanced from them already. At least she had knitted this family back together but she was not part of that, nor should she be, not with Cole on the loose to discomfit them. She did not want any of them, least of all Wyle, exposed to his rude manners and insistent intrusions.
* * * * *
After the morning ride Wyle returned to find Hill hard at work at the desk in the library.
“I fear I must burden you with even more busywork to distract you from what you think to be a great literary endeavor.”
“And what is that, sir?” Hill looked up with a smile.
“Preparing the ballroom for three hundred guests in three weeks time.”
Hill froze and stared at him, the ink drying on his pen. “You’re serious.”
“Never more so. My Aunt Alva has decided the throw a ball…here.”
“I see. So we need food and drink for three hundred, plus all the flowers I can buy in London. I shall make a note.”
“If I said I was entertaining the Prince Regent you still would not bat an eye, would you?”
“I am yours to command. It’s not my place to question.”
“Nor mine when it comes to Aunt Alva. She’s like a rock.”
“And the occasion?”
“To publicly announce my betrothal to Miss Greenway.”
That stopped Hill with his mouth open and his pen arre
sted above his notebook.
“You don’t approve.”
“Approve? It’s not my place to approve or— I have to admit I had hoped some such relationship would blossom. She is so perfect with the children. But I had assumed it would take some time to explore each other’s… I am truly treading on forbidden ground here. Just allow me to wish you happy, sir. There will have to be an announcement in the Morning Post and the…”
“No, not yet.”
“Not yet? But if the engagement ball is in three weeks we cannot wait. The invitations must go out soon.”
“My aunt is taking care of that so that means it will be a week before she gets them sent. I need a few more days.”
Hill stared at him.
“To convince Miss Greenway,” Wyle added.
Hill cleared his throat and placed his pen back in the stand. “Generally speaking a proposal of marriage precedes the engagement party. You have asked the lady in question?”
“Yes, of course. We are in accord on almost every point.”
“Almost? You make it sound like peace negotiations.”
“She does not want to marry a soldier.”
“Understandable given the fate of her father. So you mean to resign your commission?”
“Yes, soon. It’s unlikely they will need me again anyway. But I hate to be thought so weak as to let a few wounds deter me.”
“There is one thing that worries me,” Hill mentioned.
“What is that?”
“Miss Greenway’s change in status from governess, which makes her unapproachable as your fiancée. If you had a female relative staying in the house everything would be more proper.”
“I should think a man of the cloth would be chaperone enough.”
Hill shook his head with the disapproving line to his mouth that had prevented Wyle from one or two social disasters in the past. For one so young Hill had a massive sense of propriety.
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