First Comes Marriage

by Mary Balogh

  Margaret was alone in the drawing room. She curtsied to Elliott and hugged Vanessa tightly. Their guests had left yesterday, she told them. Stephen was downstairs in the library with one of his tutors, having returned late from a morning ride with Mr. Grainger and been soundly scolded for it. Katherine had gone out for a walk.

  “Though I hope she comes home soon,” Margaret said, glancing at the window, which was spotted with rain. “Before she gets a soaking.”

  She looked listless and a little pale, Vanessa thought as they both sat down by the fire and Elliott went off to the library.

  “Are you well, Meg?” Vanessa asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” Margaret smiled. “And you, Nessie? How are you?”

  Vanessa leaned back in her chair.

  “Has the weather not been wonderful?” she said. “The dower house at Finchley is such a pretty place, Meg, and the lake is lovely We went boating and yesterday we picked dozens of daffodils without coming even close to denuding the bank on which they bloomed. We set a bowl of them in each room of the house. They looked quite splendid.”

  “We,” Margaret said. “Is all well, then, Nessie? You have no regrets? But you look happy.”

  “Well, of course,” Vanessa said, “real life is about to intrude. We will be going to London tomorrow, and I will be presented to the queen next week—a mildly terrifying prospect. And there will be numerous people to meet and places to go and … Well, and so on. But of course I have no regrets, you goose. This was something I wanted to do. I told you that from the start.”

  “Oh, Nessie.” Margaret leaned back in her chair, looking weary again. “If you can only be happy then I will be happy too.”

  Vanessa looked closely at her. But before she could ask her again what was the matter—clearly something was—the door opened and Katherine came inside, all bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

  “Ho,” she said, pressing one hand to her bosom, “I am breathless. I did not know whether to take shelter in the chapel when it started to rain or make a run for it to the house.”

  “I take it you ran,” Vanessa said, getting to her feet.

  “And now I am glad of it.” Katherine came hurrying across the room to hug her sister. “I saw Viscount Lyngate’s carriage outside the door and hoped he had brought you with him.”

  “He did,” Vanessa said, smiling.

  “I cannot tell you how handsome you both looked on your wedding day,” Katherine said as they took a seat. “Did you enjoy the three days by the lake?”

  “I did indeed,” Vanessa said, hoping she was not blushing. “It is an idyllic place. I would have been perfectly happy to remain there forever. Did you enjoy having company for a few days?”

  Katherine leaned forward in her chair suddenly, her face lighting up with excitement.

  “Oh, Nessie,” she said, “you are not the only one to marry recently. Has Meg told you? A letter for Sir Humphrey and Lady Dew was sent on here from Rundle Park and fortunately arrived just before they left yesterday morning. Did Meg tell you?”

  “She did not.”

  Vanessa glanced at her elder sister. She was sitting back in her chair, holding the arms, a half-smile on her lips.

  “It was from Crispin Dew,” Katherine said.

  “Oh, Kate,” Vanessa cried, “he has not been wounded, has he?”

  But then she remembered how this conversation had started and darted another look at Margaret.

  “No, nothing like that,” Katherine said. “He has just married. She is a Spanish lady There was a great deal of excitement here before the carriage left for Throckbridge, as you can well imagine. Though Lady Dew was sad that she had been unable to attend the wedding. As were Eva and Henrietta.”

  “Oh,” Vanessa said, her eyes locked on Margaret’s. Her sister looked back at her, that ghastly half-smile still on her lips.

  “I have been teasing Meg,” Katherine said. “I remember that when I was a girl she and Crispin used to be rather sweet on each other—just as you and Hedley were.”

  “I have told Kate,” Margaret said, “that I cannot even remember clearly what he looks like. And that was all years ago. I wish him every happiness with his new bride.”

  And then Stephen and Elliott came to join them in the drawing room and they all drank coffee and ate sweet biscuits and talked, among other things, about London, where they would all be settled within the next week.

  They would not stay for luncheon, Elliott said when they were invited. He had some business to attend to on his estate during the afternoon.

  Margaret, Stephen, and Katherine all came downstairs to see their sister and brother-in-law on their way though they did not step out onto the terrace as the rain had settled into a steady downpour.

  There was not one moment in which Vanessa might have had a private word with Margaret. Or if there were—they might have held back on the stairs and let everyone else move out of earshot—then Margaret pointedly avoided it.

  One of life’s great ironies, Vanessa thought as she climbed into the carriage and Elliott took his seat beside her. She had married him four days ago in order to leave her sister free to hope.

  But now all hope had been shattered forever.

  It would have been far better for Meg if Crispin Dew had been killed in battle.

  One hated to think such a horrible thing, but even so …

  “You are feeling homesick?” Elliott asked as the carriage moved off down the driveway.

  “Oh.” She turned her head and smiled brightly at him. “No, of course not. Finchley Park is my home now”

  She held out her hand and he took it and held it on his thigh while they proceeded homeward in silence.

  Would she be married to him now, she wondered, if Crispin’s letter had arrived five or six weeks ago instead of just yesterday?

  Or would it have been Meg sitting where she was now?

  She could feel the warmth of his thigh through his pantaloons and her glove, and she was secretly glad that the letter had not come sooner.

  How could he? How could Crispin Dew have treated Meg so shabbily?

  She leaned slightly sideways and took comfort from the solidity of Elliott’s shoulder. She swallowed hastily when she heard a gurgle in her throat.

  15

  VANESSA was still feeling depressed. It was not something she allowed herself to feel very often. There was almost always something to do, someone with whom to talk, something to think about, something to read that would elevate her mood. And there was almost always something to wonder at, something to smile over, something to laugh about.

  Laughter was so much better for the soul than glum-ness.

  But just occasionally depression hit like a stone wall. Usually it was because there was more than one cause and it was virtually impossible to avoid.

  Her honeymoon had come to an end. And though the unexpected happiness that had filled her days and nights at the dower house and the lake might surely be brought back to the main house with her and taken to London tomorrow, she could not rid herself of the notion that now all would change, that she and Elliott would never again be as close as they had been there.

  If that had been all, of course, she would have firmly shaken off any low spirits that threatened. It was up to her to see to it that her marriage worked. If she expected things to change for the worse, then almost certainly they would.

  But Elliott had gone off for the afternoon to take care of some estate business. It was perfectly understandable. She did not expect him to go walking and boating and picking daffodils with her every afternoon of the rest of their lives. But it was a bad time just now today for her to be left alone.

  Crispin Dew had married a Spanish lady in Spain.

  Meg must be desperately, devastatingly unhappy, but there was absolutely nothing Vanessa could do to help her. The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one’s own suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless. She knew that from bitter
experience.

  And of course that thought, the thought of Hedley sent her running up to her bedchamber and rummaging through her large trunk, which had been brought over from Warren Hall but not yet unpacked because it was to go to London tomorrow Just where she had placed it with her own hands after carefully wrapping it, she found the object she had almost decided to leave behind. It was only at the last moment that she had slid it down the left front corner.

  She sat down on a love seat and opened back the velvet cloth that kept the treasure safe from damage. And she gazed down at the framed miniature of Hedley that Lady Dew had given her after his death.

  It had been painted when he was twenty, two years before Vanessa married him, and just before it became obvious that he was really very ill indeed.

  Though the signs were apparent even then.

  She ran one finger about the oval frame.

  His eyes were large, his face thin. It would have been pale too if the painter had not added color to his cheeks.

  But even then he had been beautiful, as he had to the end. His had been a delicate beauty. He had never been robust. He had never been able to participate in the more boisterous games of the other children in the neighborhood. Though strangely he had never been teased or victimized by them. He had been widely loved.

  She had loved him.

  She would have died in his place if it could have been done.

  Those large, luminous eyes gazed back at her now from the portrait. So full of intelligence and hope.

  Hope. He had not given it up until close to the end, and when he had finally let it go, it had been with grace and dignity.

  “Hedley” she whispered.

  She touched a fingertip to his lips.

  And she realized something. Apart from one fleeting memory on her wedding night, she had not thought of him at all during the three days at the lake.

  Of course she had not. It would have been dreadful if she had. She had been there with her new husband, to whom she owed her undivided loyalty.

  But even so …

  Until very recently it had seemed inconceivable that a single day could ever go by without her thinking of him at least a hundred times.

  Now three days had slipped by.

  Three days in which she had been blissfully happy with a man who did not even love her. Whom she did not even love.

  Not as she had loved Hedley anyway. It was impossible to love any other man as she had loved her first husband.

  But she had never been able to know with Hedley the sort of sensual happiness she had just experienced with Elliott. By the time of their marriage his illness had rendered him all but impotent. It had been a terrible frustration for him, though she had learned ways to soothe and satisfy him.

  And now she had found sexual satisfaction with another man.

  She had not thought of Hedley for three whole days—no, four by now.

  Would she eventually forget him altogether?

  Would it be to her as if he had never existed?

  She felt a deep welling of grief and a sharp pang of guilt, which was all the worse for the fact that it was quite unreasonable. Why should she feel guilty about putting behind her memories of her first husband when she was married to a second? Why should she feel as if she were cheating on a dead man? Why should she feel as if she were hurting him?

  She felt all of those things.

  You must go on with your life, Nessie, he had told her during the final few days of his life while she held his hand and dabbed at his feverish face with a cool cloth. You must love again and be happy again. You must marry and have children. You must. Promise me?

  She had called him a goose and an idiot and flatly refused to make any promises.

  Oh, not a goose, please, Nessie, he had said. A gander if anything but not a goose.

  They had both laughed.

  Keep on laughing at the very least, he had said. Promise me you will always laugh.

  Always when something is funny, she had promised and had held his hand against her lips while he fell into an exhausted half-sleep.

  She had laughed a few more times in the next few days but not for a long time after that.

  “Hedley,” she whispered again now and realized she could no longer see the portrait clearly. She blinked the tears from her eyes. “Forgive me.”

  For doing what he had begged her to do—for living again and being happy. For marrying again. For laughing again.

  And for forgetting him for almost four whole days.

  She thought of the vigor of Elliott’s lovemaking and circled her palm over the miniature. Somewhere she had crossed over a border between depression and something more painful, something that tightened her chest and made breathing difficult.

  If Hedley had just once been able …

  She closed her eyes and rocked backward and forward.

  “Hedley,” she said again.

  She sniffed as the tears flowed, tried to dry them with the heels of her hands, and then felt around for a handkerchief. She had none yet was feeling too inert to get up to fetch one.

  She gave in to a terrible self-pitying despair.

  Finally she sniffed again, swiped at her nose with the back of her hand, and decided that she must get up, find a handkerchief, give her nose a good blow, and then wash her face in cold water to obliterate the signs that she had been weeping.

  How awful if Elliott were to see them! Whatever would he think?

  But just after she had set the miniature down on the cushion beside her a large handkerchief appeared over the back of the seat, held in a large masculine hand.

  Elliott’s.

  He must have come through his dressing room and hers — the door was behind her back.

  For a moment she froze. But there was nothing else to do for now than take the handkerchief, dry her eyes with it, blow her nose, and then think of some plausible explanation.

  But even as she took the handkerchief from his hand she was very aware of the miniature lying faceup on the seat beside her.

  There was really very little that needed doing. Elliott had worked hard to get everything done before his wedding, knowing that soon after he would be leaving for London and staying there for a few months.

  He was finished in less than an hour, and the courtesy call he then decided to make on a tenant who was also something of a friend of his had to be cut very short when he discovered the man and his wife were not at home.

  He was quite contented to return to the house much sooner than expected. Thus far he was pleased with his marriage. Indeed, he had been surprisingly reluctant to leave the dower house this morning. He had felt absurdly as if some spell were about to be broken.

  There was no spell to break, of course, and no magic involved in anything that had happened. He had had a regular bed partner for three days and four nights and the sex had been surprisingly good. A woman’s body did not have to be voluptuous in order to be desirable, he had discovered.

  It had not been just the sex, though. His wife had decided not to quarrel with him during those three days, and he had found her company congenial.

  Good Lord, he had allowed her to row one of the boats—with him in it—even though it was obvious she had no skill whatsoever at the oars. He had allowed her to murder his ears with shrieks of laughter when by sheer accident she had sent a stone skipping three times across the lake. And he had—heaven help him— gathered more daffodils than he had known were in existence anywhere in the world and had then run and fetched for her as she filled the dower house with them a mere few hours before they were to leave there.

  He was ever so slightly charmed by her, he realized.

  And there was no reason that things should change drastically for the worse now that they were back at the main house and on their way to town tomorrow.

  Perhaps after all they could enjoy a decent marriage.

  And so instead of just coming home early, he actually hurried home, ignoring the inner voice that told him t
here were other tenants upon whom he might have called.

  They had had sex yesterday among the daffodils, he and Vanessa. If the weather had just held they might have gone back there today—to gather daffodils for the main house. As it was, there was the bed in her bedchamber to try out for the first time, and what better time to do that than a rainy afternoon when neither of them had anything better to do?

  She was not in any of the downstairs rooms. She must be in her bedchamber already. Perhaps she was lying down, catching up on some missed sleep.

  Elliott took the stairs two at a time, though he did go into his own dressing room first to dry his hair and haul off his boots without stopping to ring for his valet. Vanessa’s dressing room adjoined his own. He crossed through it, treading quietly in case she was asleep— though it was going to give him great pleasure to wake her in a few minutes.

  The door into her bedchamber was slightly ajar. He opened it slowly without knocking.

  She was not in bed. She was sitting on the love seat, her back to him, her head bent forward. Reading? He contemplated tiptoeing up to her and setting his lips against the nape of her neck.

  How would she react? With a shriek? With laughter? With shrugged shoulders and a sensual sigh?

  She sniffed.

  A wet sniff.

  And then it was perfectly obvious that she was weeping. She did it with deep, grief-stricken sobs.

  Elliott froze in place. His first instinct was to stride forward to scoop her up into his arms while demanding to know what had happened to upset her so. But he had never been much good at embroiling himself in female emotions. What he actually did was move forward more slowly and quietly He was making no attempt to hide his presence, but she was too preoccupied to notice him.

  And then, just as he was about to set one hand on her shoulder and squeeze it, she set something down on the cushion beside her, and he found himself looking down at the miniature portrait of a delicate, almost pretty young man.

  It took Elliott less than a moment to realize that the young man must be Hedley Dew His predecessor.