An Imperfect Proposal

by Hayley Ann Solomon

  His one consolation was that Martha Caddington looked alternately green with envy and red with rage, neither of which color suited her sultry looks. For a devilment he invited her to dance, but he held her at such a formal distance and Amaryllis at such a tender one that Miss Caddington had no time to gloat; indeed, she seethed all the more.

  Amaryllis, confused by my lord’s strange whimsies—first tender, then cold, blushed uncertainly but could not resist Stephen’s smile, or the firm arms that held her closer than they strictly should.

  The marriage took place with all the pomp Lady Hastings had wished for, and the dowager Countess of Devonport considered fitting. She liked Amaryllis very much, though wished there was not so much distance between her and her son. On closer observation, however, she seemed satisfied, a small smile playing about her regal cheeks.

  It was the object of her heart to see a grandson born before another year was out, not only for the succession, as she had mentioned time and time again to Stephen, but also because she thought her son would benefit greatly from being a papa. She felt certain that unlike his father before him, all his more tender emotions would surface with a baby to delight in.

  She was tired of reading reports about his exploits in The Tattler, she was bored with the succession of opera dancers he paraded and that dreadful Lady Luttlow, who all the world knew to be his established mistress in Honeydew Street.

  No, she was wise enough not to speak of any of these concerns to her son, but glancing at Amaryllis through her lorgnette, she laughed to herself. She considered she had done very well indeed with that little list of hers. Amaryllis Hastings, who would have thought it? But she would serve, certainly she would serve!

  Miss Hastings became Lady Amaryllis Redding, Countess of Devonport before the morning was out. Her mama shed several happy tears and her papa whispered that he was very proud indeed of her. Misses Clementine and Victoria Farnstone disobeyed all orders by rushing out and hugging Amaryllis, so that her gown was crushed and her veil—a delicate gossamer silk of the palest pink—had to be adjusted.

  Amaryllis did not care, for the girls’ laughing welcome was like the freshest of wild breezes to her, and her spirits lifted unaccountably. At her request, they were flower girls, and looked as pretty as pictures in gowns of shimmering pearl with snowdrops in their hair. Unfortunately, their mischievous faces were not nearly so demure as their dresses, but since they got up to no more mischief than tugging at Miss Miranda’s sash and spilling tea over a violently ill Miss Caddington, no one scolded at all.

  Stephen, handsome beyond imagining in his formal dress of velvet knee breeches, clocked stockings, and a jacket that Weston himself had forged from the closest fitting fabric imaginable, took Amaryllis’s hand solemnly, but his eyes were hooded, so Amaryllis knew not what he was thinking, or whether he regretted his impulse of kindness.

  The day passed as a dream and it was not long before Amaryllis was being tucked into a traveling chaise, bound for her new home in her husband’s country seat. There were cheers and bells pealing and a thousand—surely it must have been a thousand at least?—well-wishers wishing them all happy.

  For an instant, Amaryllis’s eyes rested on Lady Luttlow, who had not been invited to the wedding, but who nevertheless was present as the coach set off. She was startled by the hostility in her eyes, but had no time to question the matter, for the horses were off and she was alone, at last, with her husband.

  Shyness fought with longing and the desire to appear conformable and sophisticated. Stephen, had he but been thinking straight, might have laughed aloud at Amaryllis’s attempts to be engaging. She alternated between languor and extreme timidity, but succeeded in doing nothing more than arousing Stephen’s senses.

  She was so soft, and her hair smelled so natural, so unlike the heady perfumes he was accustomed to . . . he wondered, for the hundredth time that day whether he ought to kiss her, to cradle her in his arms, to murmur the sweet nonsenses that he longed to. Gracious, he should push aside, for heaven’s sakes, those voluminous skirts with their shimmering jewels. He should cover her mouth with his own, make her his in truth. He wanted, he discovered with a pang, to be her husband in more than just name, for more reasons than he had promised.

  He wondered what she would say to such a change of sentiments. How pompous he had been, laying down the rules of their betrothal! He could cringe when he remembered some of the things he had said . . . worse, what he had omitted. He had practically told her he meant to be no husband to her, that she was simply a practical means to fatherhood.

  He was not a fool, he knew perfectly well she would know of Lady Luttlow and his other paramours. It was he, after all, who had invited the woman if not to the wedding, than at least to the breakfast. He sank back into the squabs and tried his level best to ignore his annoying desires. For once, he would have been grateful for a chaperone.

  Chapter Seven

  Amaryllis, Countess of Devonport, only nibbled on her dinner. The servants were all very kind, and discreet. She had had a wonderful scented bath and rose petals were strewn about her chamber, in deference to her wedded state. Her maid, appointed by the earl himself, had had her gowns unpacked and pressed in record time, so that she had a considerable choice to agonize over when her bath was at an end and the time had come, at last, to change for dinner.

  She chose something simple, a stark contrast to the grand confection she had been wearing earlier. It was a gown of pastel blue trimmed in silver and embroidered, at the hems, in a darker blue to match her eyes. Lady Hastings had been positively triumphant with the result, but Amaryllis felt strangely nervous and rather shy.

  This was to be her first dinner alone with her husband and it was natural that she feel a constriction in her throat as she was led down the main staircase to the dining room below.

  Stephen was waiting for her, equally tense, but when he saw his wife he smiled and she felt all that awkward shyness melting away. He seemed resolved to set her at ease, and by the second remove her eyes were shining and she was able to enjoy several of the absurd on-dits that were doing their rounds about town.

  Between them, though, there was a tension, for it is not every night that is one’s wedding night, and not every marriage that begins in such constrained circumstances such as theirs. So Amaryllis nibbled, despite the excellence of the meal, and Stephen poured her some negus, which whilst sweet and hot and somewhat spicy, soothed her nerves.

  Presently, conversation faltered. The candles glittered about them, and Lord Redding was regarding his bride with a peculiar sensation of pride mingled with frustrated desire.

  “Amaryllis, I . . .”

  “Yes?” Amaryllis almost whispered, for she could tell Stephen’s tone had changed and her heart was beating so loud she was afraid he would hear it. Indeed, he did, and he reached out and felt it for a moment, so Amaryllis thought she might faint from both embarrassment at her transparency and something more, much more.... Her eyes darkened, and Stephen groaned, for he was certainly not in control as he had planned to be.

  He had planned to make a little speech about settling into the role, no hurry for heirs . . . gracious, he could not remember the half of it. Then suddenly, he no longer wished to. He pulled Amaryllis into his arms and kissed her the way he wanted to, the way he had resolved not to, the very way in which Amaryllis had tormented herself with forbidden dreams.

  The candles had long burned down before he had finished exploring her delightful mouth, with those expressive curves that tilted so sweetly upward when she was not remembering to be shy.

  He had long since pulled out all the diamond pins and the posy of snowdrops she had adopted with her simple evening gown. Her hair, as he imagined, was soft and fresh and sweet, unscented with powders but no less alluring for their lack. He twisted her hair about her, then pulled her toward him again so that she had no choice but to draw closer and laugh softly as he kissed her.

  As the last flames flickered in the grate, he ra
ised his brows expressively and asked her whether she wished to explore her own pretty bed or his own. Amaryllis swallowed hard, for she feared that if she threw herself at Stephen, the nature of their relationship would change forever.

  She doubted whether she could hold on to her heart, steady her feelings, smile blithely as he became remote . . . then she stopped doubting as she saw the wry smile that twisted his features, almost as if he himself were hesitant, hanging anxiously upon her decision.

  “Yours, Stephen,” she breathed.

  His lordship nodded and lifted her gently from her formal seat. Her gown trailed the floor dramatically as he carried her up the stairs, past the marble sculptures of Venus and Andromedes, past the portraits of earls and countesses past, past several candelabras with wicks of varying lengths and luminous flames of orange gold, past everything, in fact, except the mahogany door to his own sumptuous chamber. This he opened with his elegant tasseled boot and closed, again, with a firm and feverish click.

  That night, Lady Amaryllis Redding forgot all her troubled anxieties. Her ignorance was more than compensated for by Stephen’s worldliness, and though she was still young and youthfully innocent, she nevertheless became countess in far more than just name.

  The days that followed were probably the loveliest Amaryllis had ever experienced. The girls were back from their convenient holiday in London—not for the world would he have them anywhere near his home on his wedding night—and there were lively games and a great deal of truancy and much laughter. Time and time again Amaryllis thought what a good father he would be, for he was not too pompous to play hide-and-seek, or bob for apples, or remember what it was like to muddy one’s clothes or pinch pies from the kitchen. He was a master of charades, and kept them in fits of laughter, save for the odd moments of tenderness.

  Stephen still felt uncomfortable about these—he wished he could preserve the boundaries he had set, but every morning his resolve became less and by evening had evaporated completely, so that the new countess had not, as yet, had the pleasure of sleeping in her own pretty bed or waking to the chocolate her maid promised her each morning.

  Instead, it was Stephen’s bed that drew her, and Stephen’s pot of hot coffee that scalded her tongue each new day and filled her heart with pride and secret delight.

  In the mornings they would ride, or open letters together, or crack chestnuts or fish (though without any great measure of success, save for a single trout which Amaryllis swore had been her catch, and Stephen swore was his). In the afternoons, Amaryllis would play the flute, or the harpsichord, or stab at some needlework, which she hated but felt she really ought to improve upon. The earl laughed at this, and would more often than not throw the horrible thing away, but Amaryllis would always smilingly fetch it out of the bin. They would read together, for their tastes were remarkably similar, though Stephen found Pope too stern and Amaryllis found his penchant for Byron amusing, though she loved to hear his deep, velvety voice read certain passages aloud.

  But she was still naturally shy, and she could feel the earl’s restraint at times. She reminded herself firmly that she must not complain or grieve when this brief idyll came to an end, as it must.

  The end came far quicker for her than she had imagined, for Stephen received two letters one morning, one from Lord Diggory, his best friend, and one from Lady Luttlow. It could not have been a worse juxtaposition, and when he excused himself shortly to peruse them in his study, Amaryllis felt a deep sense of foreboding that lasted the whole morning and a good part into the afternoon, too, despite a vigorous ride and several games of charades.

  Stephen did not join them, though her eyes searched the horizons for him anxiously. She was too timid to enter his study uninvited, so she did not know that he sat there with a wry expression on his countenance, and his hands clasped bitterly across his brow. She did not know that he poured himself two glasses of brandy, nor that he scrawled and carefully franked two return missives.

  Lady Luttlow, of course, was begging him to return to London “for it is so tedious without you, my dear,” but there were also veiled hints that if he did not immediately restore their previous amicable situation she might be forced to bestow her pleasures elsewhere. This note, heavily scented and underlined in purple ink, quickly found a place in his lordship’s fire.

  The second, however, stung, for it contained laughing jibes about being caught in a parson’s mousetrap. There was even an enclosure from the Gazette about “a certain Lord R. who was in increasing danger of falling in love with his wife.” The ton apparently found the notion amusing and Stephen, who should have scorned both messages, fell instead into the trap of scorning himself.

  He had been weak, and selfish, and oh, so stupid. He had not only not kept the distance between himself and his wife, he had been as eager to close it as she. As eager as a greenhorn! He could squirm when he thought how careless he had been, how quickly Amaryllis had got under his skin, undermined his resolve, made him husband in deed as well as name.

  Well, that was not what he wanted! He wanted his freedom without constraints. He had been at pains to tell her so! Indeed, he had only chosen her because she was lonely and an antidote. He had never intended to marry a beauty that held him captivated by her every charm. She was bewitching and he simply refused to be bewitched. He had resolved long before the first stirrings of manhood that his would be a reasonable union, one founded on respect and integrity rather than love.

  Love, he knew, could be suffocating. His mama had loved his father and had exposed herself cruelly to a multitude of unkindnesses. If she had not felt so passionate, she would never have been so hurt. Stephen shook his head. The gossips were right! He was in danger of falling in love with his wife! He would be a laughingstock if he did not do something drastic.

  In this resolute state of mind, the earl sent his missives on to London and prepared himself for the trip back to his Mayfair residence.

  He expected tears or pleas and hardened his heart. In essence, he received neither, for Amaryllis had been expecting such from the start. It made it no easier for her, though, but she resolutely nodded and smiled and agreed that of course he must return.

  The girls pleaded with him to stay, but Amaryllis hushed them, and Stephen frowned, though in truth he had never spent a more delightful time than with these scamps and his own—had he but admitted it!—very dear wife.

  Again, that terrible yearning for children like Vicky and Clem, to start a family with Amaryllis, to have a child of his own . . . he closed his eyes firmly to such wishful visions. Amaryllis was becoming more part of his dreams than his own flesh and blood. He was placing more importance on her presence as a mother than on dreams of the heir himself.

  He was not a fatherly type. He didn’t know why he had ever thought he was. Foolishness! When his heir was born, he would be brought up properly in the nursery and presented to him on such occasions as were appropriate. But something in his heart mocked him. He got up from the table abruptly and disappeared into the house. Two days later, he was gone.

  Amaryllis determined not to be forlorn. She threw herself into her new home and family. She took to teaching the girls herself when they played truant, so in the end, they were not truant at all, and, indeed, they had learned more in the few months since Amaryllis’s arrival than they had learned in a year of deportment classes.

  The governess, a kindly woman, but pale and of ill health, was only too grateful to the new countess, so the regime remained unchallenged.

  The Countess of Redding also took a keen interest in the stables and in the bloodstock of her nearest neighbor, Sir Hugh Finlay-Orb, an easygoing country gentleman who happened to share her passion for bloodstock. When she was not consulting Sir Hugh, she was doing the rounds of the district, for a positive heap of calling cards had arrived for her, and there was simply no end to the amount of invitations she received.

  Amaryllis was still reserved in company, but there was no doubt that her new rank helped a gr
eat deal—it gave her confidence, and no one would have believed that the shy little mouse who had sat out most of the dances at Lady Coverford’s ball was now the poised young lady who honored the neighborhood with her wit and occasional bright and dazzling smile.

  At night, however. Amaryllis felt the loneliest, for without Stephen the residence seemed very large and cavernous, and though there was much to read in the library, and much to discover in the various drawing and music rooms, she could not settle her thoughts, or devote her attention to the well-cared-for tomes as she should.

  She found herself staring out of windows, dreaming of those first magical nights of her marriage. Oh, if only Stephen felt the same way about her as she did about him!

  But she must not be maudlin, nor should she complain. The situation had been plain to her from the outset, and she had no reason to regret matters now. She wondered, for the hundredth time, what Stephen was doing, and she blushed when she remembered that house on Honeydew Street. She stood up restlessly and took up her embroidery frame. If she concentrated on the complicated pattern, she would not be able to torment herself with improper—and decidedly unpleasant—thoughts.

  Chapter Eight

  Improper thoughts were exactly on Lord Redding’s mind as he sent up his card to Lady Luttlow. It was a mere courtesy really, for he expected her to be within and he had already divested himself of his jacket and cane when she made her appearance. Very fetching it was, too, in a gown that could hardly be called modest, so low-cut as it was. Her skirts were dampened and Lord Redding noted that she had applied an alluring patch to her slightly rouged cheeks. Well, doubtless she thought it alluring. He did not, though he was not so unmannerly as to say so.

  Indeed, he wanted no conversation at all, for Lady Luttlow’s finest points lay not in speech, but in the seductiveness of her touch. Unfortunately, though she hovered close to him, in a manner he had always regarded as inviting, she also seemed desirous of verbal reassurances.