by Mary Balogh
“Stay,” she said. “Much time had passed since we last saw you, and you are Hallmere now. You must be very happy about that. I daresay it is what you always wanted.”
He did not contradict her. What was the point? He sat down and crossed one leg over the other.
“You have grown into a fine figure of a man, Joshua,” she said, frowning disapprovingly at him. “And your title and fortune make you doubly eligible. You are well received in Bath, I see. I am glad of it.” She sounded anything but.
“Everyone is well received in Bath, Aunt,” he said with a smile. “It is not as fashionable a resort as it used to be, especially among the young. Everyone is welcomed with open arms.”
“There are at least some other young people here,” she said. “The Misses Darwin are fine girls.”
“They are,” he agreed. “But I have difficulty telling them apart even though they are not twins.”
“Miss Holt-Barron is very pretty,” she said.
“And amiable too,” he said. “I understand she is betrothed to Mr. Frederick Wheatcroft, son of Viscount Mitchell.”
“Ah, yes,” his aunt said. “The prettiest girls always go the fastest. Prettiness is certainly not a malady from which Lady Freyja Bedwyn suffers.” Her tone had sharpened almost imperceptibly.
Joshua pursed his lips.
“She may be the sister of a duke,” his aunt continued, “the Duke of Bewcastle, I believe? But her rank has apparently not made her attractive enough as a marriage prospect. She must be all of five or six and twenty and is quite sadly ugly. There is not a great deal she can do to disguise that nose, is there?”
Joshua thought Lady Freyja's nose was perhaps her most attractive feature, although her hair, especially when loose down her back and blowing out in a wild tangle in the wind, must come a close second.
“I have heard her described as handsome,” he said.
“That is what people always say about girls when they are too kind to call them ugly,” she said. “You went riding alone with her yesterday, Joshua? Was that not somewhat indiscreet?”
“We went riding with a party of eight,” he explained, feeling amused. His aunt's unerring nose had led her to the right quarry, at least. “We went galloping alone together since the pace was not to our liking. Lady Freyja Bedwyn is a neck-or-nothing rider.”
“As your aunt who knows more of life than you, Joshua,” she said kindly, “I feel constrained to warn you of the wiles that aging and unattractive spinsters will employ when more genteel methods have failed to net them an eligible husband. If you are not very careful, Lady Freyja Bedwyn will trap you into compromising her virtue and you will find yourself forced to offer for her.”
His lips twitched as he thought of the inn room in which he had first encountered Lady Freyja and of yesterday's hot embrace on the white rock up in the hills. He wondered if she would appreciate the joke if he were to tell her what his aunt had just said—or would her wrath know no bounds?
“Oh, you may smile, Joshua,” his aunt said, looking frail and weary. “But do not say you have not been warned.”
“I will not, Aunt,” he promised.
“I can scarcely believe,” she said, “that Constance is already three and twenty. How times does fly. She should have been married long ago. I should have grandchildren to comfort my old age. But tragedy has kept the poor girl unwed this long. Albert died just when she ought to have been making her come-out, and since then my health has been too fragile to enable me to endure a Season in London. Then, just when I thought that perhaps I was recovering enough strength to do what was right for both Constance and Chastity, Hallmere suffered his heart seizure and died. Now I do not know when my dear girls can be expected to settle in life. And as for Prudence . . .” She sighed piteously.
There was a rather lengthy pause during which Joshua knew exactly what was coming, though he was powerless to prevent it.
“It is time you considered marriage, Joshua,” she said. “You are eight and twenty, and you are Hallmere now. It is your duty to produce a male heir for Penhallow. And it is your duty to provide for your cousins since you are their legal guardian—except for Constance, of course, who is of age and has come into her portion. It is time you put behind you these years when you have been sowing your wild oats, as the vulgar phrase would have it. I do not begrudge you that time or that wildness, Joshua, though Albert never showed any inclination to desert his home or his father or his sisters—or his mother. But I beg you now to remember your duty. And I beg you too not to resent this gentle reminder from the aunt who has loved you and nurtured you all your life.”
“Except for the first six years, Aunt,” he said quietly but firmly, “when my mother and father were still alive.”
“May God rest their souls,” she said. “Do you have a possible bride in mind?”
“I do not,” he said. “But I will inform you as soon as I am betrothed, Aunt. It will be some considerable time in the future. And I have exercised my guardianship over Chastity and Prue—I have left them undisturbed at Penhallow with you. Constance too.”
“I know you love them, dear Joshua.” She regarded him with sad, fond eyes—until they lit up, apparently with a sudden idea. “How absolutely delightful it would be if you were to conceive a tendre for Constance. It would not be at all surprising. She is a sensible, dutiful girl, and she is in good looks, is she not? She has always been fond of you—and you of her, I remember. How perfectly . . . right it would be for you to marry the sister of your wards. I cannot imagine why I have not thought of this before now.”
“Constance is my first cousin, Aunt,” he pointed out.
“Cousins marry all the time,” she said. “It is a sensible thing to do, Joshua. It keeps titles and lands and fortunes in one family, as well as duties and responsibilities.”
“I am not about to turn either you or Constance or my other cousins off penniless, Aunt,” Joshua said, “even if I had the power to do so. There is really no need for you to foist one of your daughters on me.”
“Foist.” She spoke faintly and wilted back into her chair. She produced a black-bordered handkerchief from somewhere and raised it to her lips. “I offer you my dearest Constance and you accuse me of foisting her on you? But you were ever ungrateful, Joshua. You were a difficult boy to raise, and then you shamed your uncle by spurning his generous hospitality and going to live in the village to work as a carpenter. And then you came back and forth to the house, supposedly to visit Prudence, and . . . Well, I try not even to think of the shameful vulgarity of your behavior. And when Albert went to confront and reprimand you . . . But I have made every effort to put the painful memories behind me and to forgive you. It is the Christian thing to do and has ever been my way. I have been prepared to believe that five years must have matured you, made you a better person. I have trusted you sufficiently to offer you my own daughter. Yet you speak of foisting?”
She had shriveled into what seemed like half of her usual self—a trick she had always had of drawing pity and remorse and ultimate acquiescence from anyone who had been foolish enough to try thwarting her will. She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
“I daresay,” he said, “Constance has no desire to be foisted upon me either, Aunt.”
“Constance has always been a dutiful girl,” she said. “She will do as I advise. She knows that I always have her own good at heart. And how could any girl not wish to be the Marchioness of Hallmere? I shall relinquish the title to her without any reluctance at all. I shall delight in the title of dowager.”
Joshua got to his feet. “I would not talk of this as if it were a foregone conclusion if I were you, Aunt,” he said firmly. “You would doubtless be doomed to disappointment. Constance ought to have been allowed to stay for this discussion. I am convinced she would disabuse you once and for all of the notion that we will marry. You must not upset yourself, though. I have informed you before that I have no intention of returning to Penhallow to live. It is your
home. You may live there in peace for the rest of your life. My cousins may live there for the rest of theirs if they do not marry.”
If by some strange chance he ever did marry Constance and take up his residence at Penhallow, he thought, his aunt would have to go. She doubtless did not have the imagination to realize that.
She gazed pitifully up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.
“You were always a hard, unfeeling boy, Joshua,” she said. “But I will not take offense. And I will not despair. I will consult Constance, and she will agree with me that a marriage between the two of you is the only decent way in which you can atone for your past actions.”
There, Joshua thought, he had allowed her after all to get under his skin like a sharp and jabbing needle. He was angry when he ought to have kept his feelings aloof, even amused. She was going to try to wear down Constance's defenses, if she had not already done so, and then use his fondness for his cousin to make him feel guilty for resisting her suggestion—her utterly preposterous suggestion.
The trouble was he was stupidly afraid. The woman was the very fiend for getting her own way.
“There is a concert at the Upper Rooms this evening,” he said. “Will you wish to go?”
“No.” She sighed. “Marjorie Lumbard has invited us to a card party at her lodgings this evening. We will go to the Pump Room again in the morning, though. You may call for us here on your way. And there is to be a ball at the Upper Rooms tomorrow evening, I believe?”
“There is,” he said.
“We will attend it,” she said. “You may lead Constance into the opening set of dances. It would appear very strange if you did not.”
She looked wan and dejected. Any man who did not know her methods of enforcing compliance with her wishes might have felt compelled to assure her that he would at least consider what she had proposed.
She needed no such assurance.
“It will be my pleasure, Aunt,” Joshua said. “I will take my leave now so that you may rest before your card party.”
She waved her handkerchief in a pathetic gesture of helplessness, too choked up with emotion, it seemed, even to bid him farewell.
She was, of course, absolutely determined to have him, Joshua thought grimly as he left the White Hart and strode off in the direction of the Pulteney Bridge. The drizzle had increased slightly in intensity, and he was soon damp and uncomfortable. He had realized that as soon as he set eyes upon her in his grandmother's drawing room the afternoon before. Good Lord, she had even taken the unprecedented step of leaving Penhallow.
The obvious course for him now, he supposed, was the one of least resistance. He should simply leave Bath. It was what he would do too, he decided, cheering up considerably. It was so easy to fall into old patterns of thought when under his aunt's aura of influence. For years he had had no choice but to obey or suffer the consequences. But he was free of her now. He owed her nothing except the basic courtesy of a gentleman and a relative.
He would do it the day after tomorrow. Not tomorrow, though he was very tempted to flee while the proverbial coast was clear. He had agreed to escort his aunt and Constance to the Pump Room in the morning and to the ball at the Assembly Rooms in the evening. He would fulfill those obligations, and then he would make himself scarce.
He would dance with Lady Freyja Bedwyn at the ball too. He would flirt with her one last time, perhaps find some way to provoke her into losing that very volatile temper of hers one last time. What fun if he could do it in public, in full view of all the attendees at the ball. And what a wicked thought! He chuckled softly to himself.
He was going to miss her. She was surely the most interesting lady of his acquaintance.
One of the most sexually appealing too.
A dangerous admission. Yes, for more than one reason it was time to leave Bath.
CHAPTER VII
The predictable routine of life in Bath was wearing on Freyja's spirits. The rain had stopped, though the sky was still heavy with gray clouds, and after one day's absence they returned to the Pump Room for the usual morning promenade. The same people as usual were in attendance. There were no new faces at all, in fact, unless one counted the Marchioness of Hallmere and her daughter. The marquess and Lady Potford were with them.
Freyja strolled with Charlotte and stopped to talk with Mr. Eston and one of the Misses Darwin—she was not sure which—and then with Mrs. Carbret and her sister. The Earl of Willett joined them and walked between them until they came face-to-face with the marquess's party close to the alcove at one end of the room. Freyja thought almost with nostalgia of that morning when she had stormed up to the marquess and demanded that he be expelled from the Pump Room and from Bath itself. There had been some excitement about life in those days—it seemed eons ago.
“I do admire the cut of your dress, Lady Freyja,” the marchioness said after greetings and pleasantries had been exchanged and the marquess, looking sober and respectable this morning, had half depressed one eyelid while looking at Freyja and made her bristle with indignation. “You must tell me who your modiste is and whom I should patronize in Bath. Do come and stroll with me.”
She took Freyja's arm, leaning rather heavily on it as if she were an invalid just risen from her sickbed, and led her off away from the others.
“I am the very last person to consult about fashion, ma'am,” Freyja said. “And I patronize absolutely no one in Bath. Shopping is surely the most tedious pastime ever invented for women. I abhor it and avoid it whenever I am able. You would be better advised to talk with Lady Holt-Barron or even with her daughter.”
“Ah, but it is you with whom I wish to speak,” the marchioness said.
This was interesting, Freyja thought, nodding genially to a couple of elderly acquaintances. And she would wager she knew what was coming, though she guessed that it might take her companion some time to get to the point. How very diverting! She must listen attentively so that she could report the conversation verbatim to Morgan when she wrote to her later.
“I am flattered, ma'am,” she said.
“I am very grateful that you are staying in Bath for a while, Lady Freyja,” the marchioness said. “There are not, I have observed, many young people here of a rank sufficiently elevated to offer companionship to Hallmere.”
“Your gratitude is misplaced,” Freyja told her. “I did not come to Bath in order to offer companionship to the Marquess of Hallmere. I came to visit my friend Miss Holt-Barron.”
The lady tittered. “Hallmere is reveling in the company of my dear Constance,” she said. “He grew up at Penhallow with his cousins after the tragic death of his parents when he was very young. He doted on them and they on him. Indeed, very often his uncle and I forgot entirely that they were not all brothers and sisters.”
The little-girl whine was annoying Freyja. She wished the woman would simply talk and show her claws.
“But now you are happy,” Freyja said, “to remember that in fact he and Lady Constance are merely cousins.”
“It is a match the late Hallmere and I expected almost all their lives,” Lady Hallmere said with a soulful sigh. “It might have appeared an ineligible connection while my son still lived, since dear Joshua did not possess any fortune of his own. But our fondness for him was such and their attachment to each other was such that we would not have had the heart to refuse our consent to the match. Now, of course, there are no such barriers to be overcome. They can look forward to a happy ending to their long attachment.”
“Happily-ever-after endings are the best possible endings,” Freyja said, “especially when there has been an unnecessary separation of years and then a sudden, unexpected reunion.” She nodded at a few more acquaintances.
“Ah, the separation,” the marchioness said. “It was necessary. Constance was barely eighteen years old, far too young for matrimony, according to her papa, who had his own ideas on such matters. Yet dear Joshua's ardor was such that being so near to her every day was an unbearabl
e torment to him. And so he went off to seek his fortune and broke all our hearts.”
“How collectively painful, ma'am,” Freyja murmured.
“Devastatingly so.” The lady darted her a suspicious glance. “But not Constance's heart—she knew he would remain true. She knew he would not stay away forever. And now her patience and Joshua's sense of honor are to be rewarded, Lady Freyja. He will marry my daughter and Penhallow will remain my home and the home of my other daughters for as long as they remain unwed.”
“I am honored indeed,” Freyja said, “that you would confide such an intimate secret to me.”
“I have done it,” the marchioness said with a look of sad candor, “because I was given the distinct impression yesterday, Lady Freyja, that perhaps you were in danger of losing your heart to Hallmere. And the boy does have a naughty tendency to flirt with the ladies. He is so very handsome, you see, and cannot help but notice the admiring glances he attracts wherever he goes. But his heart is true, and it was given long ago.”
Freyja discovered that she was enjoying herself immensely.
“Now I understand why you drew me apart with that clever ruse about the fashionable cut of my dress,” she said. “I am eternally grateful to you, ma'am. If I am ever inclined to experience a weakness of the knees at the sight of the Marquess of Hallmere's handsome person or to suffer heart palpitations at one of his charming smiles bestowed upon me, I shall remember that his heart is given elsewhere and has been for five long years while his beloved has been growing up—from the tender age of eighteen to the altogether more eligible age of three and twenty. I shall remember that you brought her here to him when he was surely pining with the anxious fear that perhaps she was still too young to be snatched from her mother's bosom. It is a marvelously romantic story, in which your own part has been one of selfless maternal devotion. How could I ever even think about intruding upon such an affecting romance by conceiving a tendre for the gentleman myself?”
The marchioness's arm had stiffened beneath Freyja's. Her voice was a little more steely when she spoke again.
