She shuddered in his arms. And drew back from him, slowly, reluctantly. He allowed her to go, his questioning gaze fastened to her eyes. “What is it, Clarissa?''
“I know you mean well, Alexander. And I know there's some truth to the affection you feel for me.” She held her hand up lightly to prevent his speaking. “Just hear me out, please. We've been in close proximity since your sister's injury. That's reminded us of all the ‘what might have beens’ that we never settled between us."
He cocked his head quizzingly. “A very fortunate circumstance, I should think."
Clarissa sighed. “Yes, in some ways. But look at the other ways, Kinsford. You are left now with the knowledge that your sister cannot go on as she has been, that your stepmother is not a suitable guide for either your sister or brother, that Will is in need of some direction in his life.” She leaned back against the wall to give herself a little support. “I am very much afraid that you have unconsciously come to see me as the solution to your problems."
“What problems?” Kinsford frowned. “You're not suggesting that I'd marry you to provide my sister with a companion, are you? Or my stepmother with a keeper? Or my brother with a teacher?"
Her shoulders rose helplessly. “It's not that you would do it purposely, Alexander. Everything just seems to fall a little too easily into place, doesn't it?” She ticked the items off on her fingers. “You and I would be married. Then I would come to live at the Hall. Then there would be business that demanded your attention in London. It would be only reasonable that I would stay at the Hall to chaperone your sister. Certainly your stepmother could not be left alone there, even if you were to take Will or Aria to town. It makes so much sense."
“How I feel about you doesn't make the least sense,” he protested, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. “Except that it is so very natural and right. These are all unnecessary doubts, my dear. They have nothing to do with the way I feel about you."
Ignoring his words, if not his kiss, Clarissa continued, “Then there is the matter of your feeling guilt about your father taking advantage of mine, and your wanting to provide me with financial security because of that. And the children's affection for me. They would be pleased by your marrying me, I suppose."
“You suppose! I think Aria has planned this from the day I arrived home,” he interjected, grinning provocatively. “Clarissa, Clarissa, all these things are unimportant. All of them have other solutions. Surely you can see that."
“Yes, but marrying me is the best solution.” She ducked her head when he attempted to kiss her again. “Alexander, you've let yourself succumb to a romantic fantasy that might have worked ten years ago. Not now. I've been alone for a long time. I have my own cottage, modest as it is. I'm used to having my own way. I don't have to prostrate myself to the whims of propriety. I lead my own life. Can you understand that? Or does it seem to you that leading my own life cannot possibly compete with being married to an earl and fashioning my life around him and around his interests and his family and his estate?"
Kinsford refused to be provoked. “It seems to me that you should wish to be held by one particular earl, and kissed by him, and even irritate him beyond bearing on occasion. It seems to me that you should marry me and love me for the rest of your life."
His arms were on either side of her now, hands on the wall, framing her like a portrait. Clarissa felt a twinge of anticipation race through her body as he lowered his lips to hers. For long moments her mind was clouded with a haze of euphoria that would not release her to consider his proposal clearly. Reluctantly, she squirmed out from under his arms and stood with her back to him.
“I'll have to think about all this, Kinsford,” she murmured. “I'll need some time to figure out what's really happening here."
His eyes danced. “Don't you know? Well, I suppose I must not tease you further tonight. From start to finish I have behaved most unscrupulously this evening and you deserve a chance to consult your own feelings.” He moved behind her but merely bent to kiss the top of her head. “I trust you will find them quite as strong as my own, my dear. Until tomorrow."
* * * *
It was no use trying to think about what had happened, Clarissa found as she moved from sofa to chair to escritoire to window in the sitting room. Meg had appeared once to inquire, with a most suspicious light lurking in her eyes, whether she could be of any further assistance to Miss Driscoll that evening. Clarissa had sent her off to bed. And in due time, she herself climbed the stairs to her room.
But she could not seem to rid her mind of the wild variety of sensations she had been assailed with that evening. Much as she wished to review the events with rational clarity, she was unable to do so. Clarissa had never felt this way before, either physically or emotionally. She had never been held in a man's arms and experienced the response of her body to his touch. She had been offered a chance at love, security, and position all in one breath, as it were.
Why? Did Kinsford really love her, or delude himself because it would be convenient to marry her? Clarissa drew the brush through her hair again and again, unable to reach any conclusion because every time she was distracted by her body's memory of delight.
Chapter Seventeen
Steven Traling had been particularly unhappy that morning with the way his in-laws were treating him. They barely allowed him to see his poor wife, who was due to produce a child at any moment. “You mustn't excite her,” Mrs. Wilton had insisted. As though he would do anything to disturb Jane's well-being! Surely his wife would want him to be there to sustain her during this period before her ordeal. But she was not strength enough against her mother's insistence that there was no place for Mr. Traling in the proceedings, or even during the wait.
Miffed, Steven had departed.
He had ridden to the outskirts of Pennwick before he remembered that Miss Driscoll still had Lady Aria staying with her. But he was in no mood to have one more female dictate what he could or could not do that day. So he continued on to the cottage, pleased to see on arriving that at least there were no other horses outside the small house. In his opinion, humble as it was, Lord Kinsford was there entirely too often for Miss Driscoll's peace of mind.
Something had been happening to Clarissa over this last week. Steven recognized that she was not quite as available to him as she had once been, and he suspected that it was not entirely due to the demands of Lady Aria. He guessed that the earl's threat to cease the children's instruction with her, which would make it very difficult for Clarissa to survive, was distressing her more than she let on.
Steven was shown into the sitting room where Clarissa greeted him with mild disquiet. “What are you doing here, Steven?” she asked, her brows raised slightly. “Isn't it almost time for Jane to have the baby?"
“Yes, but no one wants me around,” he grumbled. “So they can very well do without me."
''I hope you've left your direction with someone.”
“You sound like a schoolmistress, Clarissa.” He sat down and drew his gloves through restless fingers. “Yes, I've left my direction, more or less. In an emergency I could be found."
Clarissa merely waited for him to continue. She was decidedly distracted and not entirely paying attention to him. “What am I to do with them?” he demanded eventually. “I can't go on forever not being master in my own home. Surely you can see that."
Clarissa absently shifted a watercolor pad on the table beside her. “Perhaps men make too much of being masters in their own homes."
“What! A man's home is his castle,” Steven cried, only half in jest. “Look at you. I don't think you even realize how important it is to you to have this cottage. And not even a real companion to challenge your authority. Very few women have that kind of independence."
Startled, Clarissa looked at him sharply, but could see no evidence of hidden significance to his words. With a sigh, she said, “Yes, it is very important to me. I should very much dislike having to give it up."
“He's not threatening
you again, is he?” Steven demanded, his hands unconsciously forming fists. “He wouldn't dare withdraw your livelihood after all you've done for his sister during her illness."
''No, he's not threatening me."
Steven relaxed and smiled at her. “Well, he'll be off to London in no time and things will return to normal."
Clarissa fingered the pages of the watercolor pad without looking at him. “The children need his guidance, Steven, even if he's not their father. Their mother is hopeless and I don't have any real authority with them other that what they grant me. He would have to make some arrangement for their care."
The door to the sitting room flew open and there stood Lady Aria in an astonishing outfit. She had draped a coverlet about her person in a most artistic manner. Then, finding that she rather liked the effect, had piled her hair upon her head and tossed a few pieces from Clarissa's modest jewelry collection into her locks. She stood there triumphantly, smiling benignly on the two of them.
“I've decided to go to the ball after all,” she explained regally. “I know you wished me to, and I fear I was being a bit stubborn because I didn't really want to encounter Sir James there. He's such a dreadful bore and he will prose on and on at me, to say nothing of asking me to stand up with him more than twice! I'm so glad Will has agreed to chaperone me. He'll be able to keep all the stupid young pups away from me for long enough to let me breathe, don't you think?”
Steven turned astonished eyes to Clarissa, who remained seated as she regarded the girl. “My dear Lady Aria, you look delightful but I'm afraid William hasn't arrived yet."
“Hasn't arrived yet?” Lady Aria frowned, her hand going up to secure a pendant that had been twisted around a forelock of hair. “But he was supposed to take me. What am I to do?"
By this time Clarissa had determined that Lady Aria was not having a spell of disorientation. The outfit was too ludicrous, the eyes too full of mischief to deceive her. But with Steven there, Clarissa was not about to call the little minx on her subterfuge.
“Perhaps it would be best if you waited in your room for him, my dear. I dare say he won't be long.” Clarissa moved to take her patient's elbow and Lady Aria reluctantly allowed herself to be propelled out into the hall.
As they began to cross to the stairs, there was a hurried rapping on the front door. Clarissa was not anxious to have any visitors at the moment. Meg arrived in the hallway, took one glance at Lady Aria and paled. Steven stood in the doorway of the sitting room, looking helpless. The knock came louder on the front door.
“Steven! Are you in there, Steven?” demanded a soft but insistent female voice.
“Oh, my God, it's Jane,” he said.
Meg looked to Clarissa for guidance. “Well, you will certainly have to let her in,” Clarissa sighed, shrugging helplessly at Steven. “Surely she cannot have come here in her state! You must be mistaken."
But he was most assuredly correct, as he should be in recognizing his own wife's voice. As Meg quickly drew open the door, a very small and very enceinte young woman was revealed, her eyes blinking back tears of distress.
“But look,” Lady Aria exclaimed. “She's about to have a baby. How did she get here? Is she one of Kinsford's lovers, do you suppose?"
“No, I do not suppose,” Clarissa said, sternly hushing the young woman. “This is Mr. Traling's wife, Jane."
Steven had dashed forward and pulled his wife across the threshold of the cottage. Outside he could see his in-laws’ carriage, but he caught no glimpse of anyone else in the vehicle. “You haven't brought your mother?” he asked, both alarmed and relieved. “What are you doing here, Jane?"
''You shouldn't have left me at a time like this,” she protested as she allowed herself to be lowered into a chair Meg thrust forward for her use. The maid uttered something about going into the kitchen to get the young lady a glass of tea or water, and disappeared with one brief, scandalized look at her mistress.
Steven was kneeling beside his wife, clasping her hands in his, trying to get the words out that he meant to say. “But I did want to stay with you. Your mother refused to let me. I would have stayed, I swear I would have stayed. You didn't tell your mother that you wanted me to stay."
“But I did. I most certainly did. Didn't she tell you?” Jane was quite adamant in her protestations, and everyone hung on the gentle insistence of her words, so they were quite aware when a look of pain overcame her face and she bent forward and clasped her abdomen.
“Do you suppose that the carriage ride has brought on my time, Steven?” she asked almost meekly.
“Several times on the way here I had these feelings of pain that could be the child coming, you see. Perhaps I should not have come."
“No, of course you shouldn't have come,” he said, but not in a scolding way, more out of fear and worry for her safety. “I don't think we can take you back in this condition, Jane. Not if the child is coming. You'll have to stay."
“Well,” said Lady Aria, excited by the possibilities here, “you shall have my room for your wife, Mr. Traling. It's a delightful room, if not particularly large. And we shall send for the midwife. Don't you think so, Miss Driscoll?"
Clarissa, amused at this abrupt return to practicality, agreed. “But Mrs. Traling shall have my bed-chamber. Meg can prepare it for her straightaway."
“I don't believe I shall go to the ball after all,” Lady Aria declared. “You do have the most fascinating household, Miss Driscoll."
“It never used to be,” Clarissa said dampeningly. There was a knock at the door. Clarissa had a moment of supreme desire to be elsewhere, then descended to answer the summons herself, since Meg had not returned from the nether regions, and Steven had disappeared. On the doorstep stood William, resplendent in a hussar's uniform.
“I knew you would look quite dashing in uniform,” Lady Aria cried.
When William saw his sister, he exclaimed, “What the devil are you wearing, Aria? You look ludicrous."
Before his sister could answer, there was a moan of pain from the lady seated to his left in the hallway. The young man turned to her, blinked his eyes uncertainly and said, “Can I help you, ma'am?”
At that moment Mr. Traling issued forth from the kitchen with Meg, her sister Betty, and a cup of tea which he insisted on carrying himself. “Here, my dear,” he said, as though it were exactly what she was waiting for. “This will be just the ticket."
Betty removed the cup from his hands and told him that they had much better see my lady up to a bed than to be feeding her cups of tea at this moment. Steven looked as if he meant to take exception to this advice, but sighed and swooped his wife into his arms. “Just show us the way, Clarissa."
His hostess, after tossing a brief glance skyward, did indeed lead the party up the stairs and into her own room. The sunlight poured through partially open windows, making the room bright and fresh smelling.
“What a lovely room!” Jane Traling exclaimed. “I wish my room were so bright and airy. There is nothing so stuffy as the way my mother has kept the house all these years. And even though the fashion has changed, she will not come round to seeing that it is healthier for one to have fresh air than stifling air in a room."
Steven, who wondered if this criticism of her mother was something that only the pains of childbirth had induced, helped settle Jane on the bed. “We should have a small house of our own,” he suggested, taking advantage. “Just a small place, but one where we could have sunlight for ourselves, and for the children."
“Now that will be enough talking, ma'am,” Betty cautioned. “You'll need your strength for the work you have to do here. The gentleman will not want to be staying here with you until all is over and done with.”
“But I do,” Steven protested. “At least until I would be in the way. That's what I've always wanted to do.” And he held tightly to his wife's hand.
Clarissa prevented William from following her into the room. “No, my dear, this is no place for you.” She closed th
e door and directed him into Aria's room. “Just be sure the dog is under control, will you?"
“Aria seems quite capable of that,” William remarked, watching as his sister placed the animal on a pillow she had covered with a cloth from the dressing table. “You may be wondering why..."
They heard a loud hammering at the front door. Clarissa was not about to entertain any more guests. The upstairs of her cottage at least, was bursting at the seams. When she glanced out the window of Aria's room, however, she could see that it was Lady Kinsford at the door. Reluctantly she left brother and sister to fend for themselves and went to admit her ladyship.
“You cannot keep her from me,” Lady Kinsford insisted as she elbowed her way into the hall. “I am the child's mother and I will see her, this instant."
Clarissa, torn between amusement and despair, dipped her head and agreed. “If you will come this way, Lady Kinsford. Lady Aria is upstairs in her room."
“Her room! Her room is at the Hall, not in this shabby little cottage,” Lady Kinsford informed Clarissa as Meg helped relieve the woman of her pelisse and walking stick. Not that Lady Kinsford had walked. There was now a second carriage outside the cottage, in addition to Steven Traling's horse. Clarissa thought it looked as though she were running a stable.
“Come with me, please,” she offered and led the way up the precipitous stairs, hoping that Lady Kinsford would not trip on her long robes and tumble down the short flight.
At the head of the stairs they were met by a wail from Clarissa's bedroom as Jane Traling suffered a pang of labor. Lady Kinsford clutched her breast and cried, “What are you doing to the poor child?"
“That's another guest of mine, who is in child-bed,” Clarissa informed her in an offhand manner meant to disarm the woman.
“In childbed? Here? Do you run a boardinghouse?” Lady Kinsford demanded. “I don't believe I knew you ran a boardinghouse. What is my daughter doing in such a place?"
“Oh, Mama,” Lady Aria called from her room, where she was feeding Max tidbits from the breakfast tray. “Come and see my new dog. His name is Max."
The Village Spinster Page 16
