by Mary Balogh
“Mother,” Lord Shields said sharply, striding around the chair on which his wife had been sitting and catching his mother-in-law by the upper arm as she stumbled back to her own chair. He leaned over her, frowning.
Flavian’s fingers had closed so tightly about Agnes’s hand that he was actually grinding her fingers together and hurting her. But she was unsurprised to see when she glanced up at him that he was regarding the scene about him with lazy eyes and a mocking mouth.
And you have done it quite deliberately, have you not?
“This is a sudden thing, Ponsonby,” Sir Winston Frome said, his voice cold and haughty. He completely ignored Agnes. “You might have given more consideration to your mother’s sensibilities.”
“You are married, Flavian?” Lady Hazeltine said with a smile that looked ghastly in a face turned almost as pale as her hair. “But what a delightful surprise. My congratulations. And to you too, Lady Ponsonby. I hope you will be very happy.”
She came the rest of the way across the room, her eyes upon Agnes, her right hand extended. It was as cold as ice, Agnes discovered when it rested limply for a moment in her own.
“Thank you.” Agnes smiled back.
“I have just completed a year of mourning for my husband,” the countess said. “Mama and Papa insisted upon bringing me to town before the Season begins so that I may shop at some leisure for new clothes, though it has been very much against my inclinations to put off my blacks. Lady Ponsonby came up early too—pardon me, the Dowager Lady Ponsonby—with Marianne and Lord Shields. We were invited to tea this afternoon. I came because your husband was expected, and it is years since we last saw each other. We grew up as neighbors, you know, and were always the dearest of friends.”
She was all pale, smiling dignity.
“I was s-sorry to hear of your b-bereavement, Lady Hazeltine,” Flavian said. “I o-ought to have written.”
“But you were never much of a letter writer, were you?” she said, flashing him a smile.
“Lady Ponsonby,” Lady Frome said, addressing Flavian’s mother, “we will take our leave and allow you some privacy in which to rejoice with your son over his delightful news and acquaint yourself with your new daughter-in-law. The tea and conversation have been most pleasant. Lord Ponsonby, it is to be hoped you will be happy.”
She smiled uncertainly at Agnes as she left. Her husband ignored her completely. Their daughter expressed the wish that she would make Agnes’s better acquaintance soon.
The door closed behind them, but their presence still seemed to loom large in the room. There was something, Agnes thought. There was most definitely something. Flavian, the countess had said with a look of bright welcome on her face. Velma, he had said in response.
Velma.
But they had grown up as neighbors. As friends. Childhood friends called one another by their first names.
There was no time to ponder the matter, however. Her mother-in-law and her sister- and brother-in-law were still in the room. And Flavian’s news had shocked them deeply.
You have always been an unnatural son. Always, even before your brother died. And even before you went to war when it was irresponsible to do so and were wounded and took leave of your senses and turned violent. You ought never to have been let loose from that place we sent you. But this . . . this . . . Oh, this is the outside of enough.
That place was presumably Penderris Hall in Cornwall, the Duke of Stanbrook’s home.
. . . You have done it quite deliberately, have you not?
His mother was recovering some of her poise. She was sitting very upright in her chair.
“You have married, then, Flavian,” his sister said. “And Mama was quite right. Of course it was deliberate and just the sort of thing you would do. Well, you are the one who must live with the consequences. Agnes, you will pardon us, if you please. We have had a severe shock and have quite forgotten our manners. But, really, where on earth did the two of you meet? And how long have you known each other? And who exactly are you? I am quite certain I have never set eyes upon you in my life before today.”
And that was hardly surprising, her expression seemed to say as her eyes swept over her new sister-in-law from head to toe.
“We met at Middlebury Park last autumn,” Agnes explained, “and again this past month. We were married by special license there four days ago.”
She was given no chance to answer her sister-in-law’s last question. Flavian had released Agnes’s hand in order to set his own firmly against the small of her back.
“C-come and sit down, Agnes,” he said. “Sit by the f-fire. Pull the b-bell rope, if you will, Oswald, and order up a f-fresh tray of tea in case Biggs has not thought of it himself. I thought you were all remaining at Candlebury for Easter. I s-sent a letter there.”
“In punishing us so cleverly, Flavian,” his mother said as if he had not spoken, “you have, of course, punished yourself too. It is so typical of you. But, as Marianne observed, it is you who must suffer most as a result, just as you did when you refused to sell out after your brother’s death. How very different your life might have been if you had done your duty then. Agnes. Who are you? Who were you before my son elevated you to a viscountess’s title?”
It was all worse than Agnes’s worst nightmare. But she tried to make allowances for shock. She suspected this first meeting would not have been quite as bad if events had been allowed to unfold according to plan. If his family had remained in the country and had read his letter with a few days to spare before meeting her, and if she had had a chance to write before going, then they would have had at least a little time to prepare themselves and to hide the rawest of their horror behind good manners.
“I was born Agnes Debbins in Lancashire, ma’am,” she explained. “My father is a gentleman. I married William Keeping, a gentleman farmer and our neighbor, when I was eighteen, but I was widowed three years ago. I stayed for a short while in Shropshire with my brother, a clergyman, and then moved to the village of Inglebrook, close to Middlebury Park in Gloucestershire, to live with my unmarried sister.”
“Debbins? Keeping? I have never heard either name,” the dowager complained, looking at her daughter-in-law with obvious irritation.
“Neither my father nor my late husband moved in tonnish circles, ma’am,” Agnes said, “or had any interest in spending time in London or at any of the fashionable spas.”
Though Papa would have come to London the year Dora turned eighteen if his wife had not left him for a lover. Even then, though, they would not have mingled with the very highest echelons of society.
“They were not prosperous gentlemen, I suppose.” The dowager’s eyes swept over Agnes as her daughter’s had done a few moments before.
“I have never coveted riches, ma’am,” Agnes said.
Her mother-in-law’s eyes snapped to hers. “And yet you have married my son. You surely knew that you were making a brilliant match.”
“Agnes has m-married a m-madman, Mama, as you can a-attest, and deserves some s-sort of m-medal of h-honor,” Flavian said in his bored voice, though he was having a harder time than usual getting his words out. “I am the one who has m-made a b-brilliant m-match. I have f-found someone w-willing to t-take me on. I am s-sorry you had no chance to r-read my letter before we w-walked in upon you, b-but you did not inform me you were c-coming to my London home—of which Agnes is now m-mistress. Ah, the tea t-tray at last.”
“We have been heaping blame upon Flavian’s head for springing such unexpected news upon us,” Lord Shields said, smiling at Agnes, “when it is we who are at fault for coming up to town so impulsively and even inviting visitors here the very day we were expecting my brother-in-law home. Agnes, you have had a sorry welcome to your husband’s family, and I apologize most profusely. I can only hope that Flavian would be having just such a welcome if you had sprung him upon your papa without any warning. Shall I set the tray before you?”
It had been set down before the dow
ager, and she had already reached out a hand to the teapot.
“Oh, no, please,” Agnes said, holding up a staying hand. “I will be very happy to be waited upon.”
“You must indeed be weary, Agnes,” Lady Shields said as she brought Agnes a cup of tea. “Traveling is a tedious and uncomfortable business at the best of times.”
Agnes thought back on the journey with some longing. She had known even at the time that it was in a sense a bridge between her old life and the new, and she had clung to it as a sort of time out of time. Her mind touched for a moment upon what they had done three separate times to alleviate the boredom of a lengthy journey. That was the excuse Flavian had given, anyway.
She had been right to cling to that bridge.
Of course it was deliberate and just the sort of thing you would do. Well, you are the one who must live with the consequences.
In punishing us so cleverly, Flavian, you have, of course, punished yourself too. It is so typical of you. But, as Marianne observed, it is you who must suffer most as a result. . . .
And somehow it all had something to do with the very sweet and beautiful Velma, Countess of Hazeltine, who was at the end of her year of mourning for her husband. And to whom Flavian had never written with any regularity. Was there some reason he ought to have done so?
“Thank you, ma’am,” Agnes said in acknowledgment of the tea.
“Oh, that must be Marianne, if you please,” Lady Shields said. “We are sisters. And how very strange that sounds. I have been deprived of involving myself in your wedding, which is perhaps just as well, for Flavian would doubtless have called it interference. Do tell us all about the wedding. Every detail. And you may save your breath to drink your tea, Flavian. Men are utterly hopeless at describing such events at any length that exceeds one sentence.”
He had taken the chair on the other side of the fireplace and sat there looking across at Agnes, his sleepy, slightly mocking expression firmly in place. She wondered whether his mother and sister realized that it was a mask that covered all sorts of uncertainties and vulnerability.
She described her wedding and the wedding breakfast at Middlebury Park. And she wondered what they had meant by saying that he had married her quite deliberately.
* * *
The trouble was, Flavian thought some time later as he led his wife upstairs, that he had never taken charge. Never. It had been quite deliberate when he was still a boy and David had inherited the title after their father’s death, and everyone had tried to prepare him for the day in the not-so-distant future when the title would be his. There had been plans, of course, for David to marry, and the faint hope that he would beget an heir of his own, but that faint hope had come to an end when Flavian was eighteen and old enough for everyone to try arranging a marriage for him.
He had flatly refused to have anything to do with any of it.
The bedchamber next to his own had already been prepared, he was relieved to discover when he entered it with Agnes. No one had given the order, least of all himself, though he ought to have done so, but servants could almost always be relied upon to act on their own initiative. A young maid was visible through the open door to the dressing room on the far side of the bedchamber. She was unpacking his wife’s bags. She bobbed a curtsy and explained that she had been “assigned to my lady until my lady’s own maid” arrived.
“Thank you,” Agnes said, and Flavian nodded at the girl before shutting the door.
He turned then to Agnes. “I am s-sorry,” he said, breaking the silence that had held since they left the drawing room.
“Oh, and so am I,” she said on a rush. “It was horrible, and it was a ghastly shock for your mother and sister. But you were hardly to blame, Flavian.”
Her brushes had already been set out on the dressing table. She moved closer to rearrange them.
“The thing is,” he said, “that I have n-never asserted myself. I have been Ponsonby for longer than eight years, and I have n-never established my authority. They would not have behaved as they did today if I had. I am s-sorry.”
She positioned two candleholders more to her liking on either side of the dressing table and then moved them together on the same side.
“You were ill for several of those years,” she said.
It was a pretty room, furnished mostly in mossy greens and cream, very different from the rich wine brocades and velvets in his own room. It was here he would most enjoy making love to her, he suspected.
Good God, Velma! It had felt like walking through some warp in time. Seven years had fallen away just as if they had never happened, and there she was again, but moving toward him rather than away, smiling joyfully instead of weeping in grief and agony. And looking every bit as lovely as ever.
He rubbed the edge of a closed fist across his forehead. There was a headache trying to move in.
“Who is Velma?” Agnes asked him, just as if she could read the direction of his thoughts. She was looking at him over her shoulder.
“The Countess of Hazeltine?” He frowned.
“You called her Velma at first,” she said. “And she called you Flavian.”
He sighed.
“We were n-neighbors,” he said. “She told you that. Farthings Hall is eight miles from Candlebury. Our families were always quite close.”
She sat on the padded bench before the dressing table, facing him, her hands clasped in her lap.
“Velma was intended for D-David,” he said. “They were to be betrothed when she t-turned eighteen. He was b-besotted with her. But when the time came, he w-would not do it. It was already obvious he had c-consumption and was not getting any better. He r-refused even though everyone tried to insist that he could still father an heir and m-maybe even a spare. He w-would not do it. And his heart b-broke.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Did she love him?”
“She w-would have done her d-duty,” he said.
“But she did not love him?”
“No.”
“Poor David,” she said, looking at him. “And your heart broke for him?”
He wandered restlessly to the window and drummed his fingers on the sill. Her window, like his in the adjoining room, looked down on the square and the immaculately kept garden in the center of it. The headache niggled. Something snatched at the edge of his mind and made it worse.
“I had him purchase a commission for me,” he said, “and I went off to join my regiment.”
It seemed like a non sequitur. It was not. He had refused to be betrothed to her himself when David would not. He had had to get away. It had been the only way he could save himself—by running away.
The headache started to pound like a heavy pulse.
“And Velma?” she asked.
“She married the Earl of Hazeltine a few years l-later,” he said. “He died last year. There is a daughter, or so I h-have heard. No son, though. She must have been d-disappointed about that.”
He wondered whether Len had been too. But of course he must have been. Why had he even wondered? Drat this wretched headache.
“Did David die before she married?” Agnes asked.
“Yes.” He kept his back to her.
“You must have been glad about that for his sake,” she said.
“Yes.” She did not know the half of it, and he did not have the energy or the will to tell her.
She had come to stand beside him, he realized. He wrapped one arm about her shoulders and turned to draw her against him. He touched his forehead to the top of her head. She had not yet changed or cleaned up after a day of travel. Neither of them had. But he breathed in that familiar soap smell of her and folded her even more tightly into himself.
“We are right by the window,” she said.
He reached up a hand and jerked the curtains closed. And he kissed her with openmouthed urgency, reaching for the safety she represented.
“This c-conversation needs to be continued on that b-bed,” he said against her mouth.
“It w-worked well enough in the carriage,” he pointed out.
“The maid.” She glanced at the dressing room door.
“Servants will not enter an occupied room uninvited,” he told her.
He did not wait to unclothe either her or himself. He tumbled her to the bed, hiked her skirts to the waist, unbuttoned the fall of his pantaloons, positioned himself on top of her and between her thighs, and plunged into her as though his life depended upon finding some sort of salvation in her hot depths. He pounded into her, the blood thundering in his ears, and exploded into release a good few seconds before he heard the breath sobbing out of him and in again.
He rolled off her and flung an arm over his eyes. His headache was still hovering.
“I am s-so s-sorry,” he said.
“Why?” She turned onto her side and spread a hand over his chest.
“Did I h-hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “Flavian, you must forgive yourself for being alive when your brother is not.”
She did not know the half of it. But he withdrew his arm and turned his head to look at her. He smiled lazily. “It was good s-sex?” he asked. “Even though there was not much f-finesse?”
“And there was in the carriage?” she asked, her cheeks turning pink.
He raised one eyebrow. “You have no idea of the skill involved in such maneuverings, ma’am,” he said.
“I believe I do,” she told him. “I was there.”
“Ah,” he said, narrowing his eyes and gazing at her lips, “that was you, was it?”
And he turned over to kiss her again, more slowly this time, more skillfully, with more of a thought to pleasing her. He wondered how Velma was feeling. Her heart had surely been in her eyes when he first stepped into the drawing room.
