by Mary Balogh
“It will mean a great deal to her that you took the trouble to make it yourself, no matter what it looks like.”
He hoped that she was right, for it appeared a pathetic specimen to him. Barbara would be justified in laughing in his face when she saw it.
He had botched his cravat a half-dozen times before his valet took pity on him and tied it for him. It made him feel like a schoolboy. The valentine was a bit of a problem since it would become crushed in his coat, so he went downstairs a few minutes early to hide it in a drawer in one of the side parlors.
As the other guests joined him, he made disjointed small talk and hoped that they could not see his heart pounding in his throat.
When the De Neresfords were announced, his heart stopped for a moment before resuming its erratic beating once more. Barbara looked subdued but beautiful in a simple dress of white jaconet with one deep flounce at the hem and a simple tucker of lace at the neck. It clearly had been made for her, unlike every other garment in which he had seen her, and as he gazed at her he met her mother’s satisfied eyes upon him. Clearly, despite the little contretemps, and encouraged by his offerings, she was still bent upon impressing the “London swell.”
Dinner seemed to take an eternity. Roger and Anne had made certain that he should escort Barbara in to dinner, but despite being seated beside her, he found it difficult to engage her in conversation. Her replies to his polite queries were monosyllabic, just short of rude. He could not discuss private matters wjth everyone else about them, and his heart was pounding so fiercely that he was having difficulty speaking anyway. His hand trembled as he helped her to a slice of the fricandeau of veal, but she did not appear to notice. For some odd reason the air was thicker than usual, and he was having difficulty breathing.
It seemed an interminable time until the final course had been served and dinner was at last over. The ladies were excused. He did not know how long he could bear to sit with the gentlemen. He threw Roger several despairing glances, and after a single glass of wine, the latter kindly recommended that they rejoin the ladies. Perhaps half an hour of conversation followed before one of the ladies was persuaded to entertain them on the harp. Now was his opportunity. In the ensuing rearrangement of the party, he moved to Barbara’s side and took her by the hand.
“I must speak to you alone. Pleasel I have something to give you.”
He could sense her unwillingness, but looking up he saw her mother’s eyes upon them, a commanding expression in them. He had never thought to be so grateful to Lady De Neresford. Barbara went with him, albeit reluctantly.
He led her to the side parlor. Now that his moment had come he felt almost ludicrous. He was beside himself with joy and terror.
“There is so much that I wish to tell you—”
“Lord Hunsdon, you cannot persuade—” she began, refusing to meet his eyes.
“No, please! Please let me speak for a moment. You have every right to be angry with me. I behaved abominably—and I shall regret it for the rest of my life. I cannot even hope that you will forgive me…”
She said nothing.
He took a deep breath. “What I wish you to know is that I was deceived in my affection for Mariabella. I thought I loved her, but I did not even know what love was. It took her refusal for me to realize that the one I truly loved and wished to be with was you. I love you with my whole heart, Barbara, and my affections will not alter. If it takes years for me to prove the sincerity of my affection, then so be it. You are the only woman for me and I will do whatever it takes to convince you of it.” He had not planned the words and they took him by surprise, but he realized that he had never meant anything more earnestly.
She still did not speak. Were his words wasted? He opened the drawer and extracted the valentine. “I made this for you.”
It was a pitiful thing, really. The lace had fallen loose from one side and the heart he had cut from the satin was far from artistic. He had pasted bows of ribbon upon it, but they were coming untied. He had written simply “I love you”—not very eloquent, he had to admit. He waited for her to burst into laughter. For several moments she said and did nothing. His heart was in his throat. She might very well tell him never to trouble her again.
Finally she looked up at him, and her eyes were bright. “You made this?”
“Yes.”
“It is beautiful. My first valentine.”
He could only gape at her.
“Oh, Lord Hunsdon—” Her voice throbbed with emotion. It seemed a good sign.
“Please call me Charles,” he begged.
“Oh, Charles, I—I don’t know what to say—”
“Say that you will marry me.” He didn’t even know where the bold words came from.
“But our circumstances are so unequal—”
“Hang the circumstances.” He crushed her in his arms, and what a dizzying, satisfying feeling it was. He kissed her recklessly and felt her match his own eagerness. She was soft, ripe, and yielding, and he thought he might easily drown in her. At length, he realized that if he didn’t stop this process soon, they might offend the sensibilities of the guests in the other room. Accordingly he released her, searching in his pocket for the diamond and sapphire ring, and then thrusting it onto her finger. It fit perfectly. In his whole carefully controlled life he had never known such a thing to happen.
“We were meant for each other,” he said, a touch of awe in his voice.
“Yes,” she replied, pinkening with a new and not-unbecoming diffidence.
How beautiful she was—not just the common, ordinary sort of beauty, either, but with a loveliness uniquely her own. He felt that he could happily sit with her hand in his and simply gaze at her the rest of the evening. He did not even notice that his artwork, which she continued to hold, had been badly crushed during their embrace. She smiled tremulously at him and his heart swelled with happiness. Well, perhaps just one more kiss would not be hurt anything. It was Valentine’s Day, after all…
After protracted and exceedingly reluctant farewells later that night, it was Barbara alone who had to bear her mother’s raptures during the carriage ride home.
“What a marvelous match, my dear. I am sure that before I hit upon this scheme, I had despaired of doing half so well for you. Of course, even I could not be certain that everything would happen so smoothly. However, I knew in the end that it must be—as I told you, I knew that Lord Hunsdon simply could not resist the chance to marry a De Neresford! After all, 1312! Hardly a family in the kingdom can match it. Oh, yes, I knew he would be all eagerness as soon as he learned that you…”
Her daughter, leaning back upon the faded cushions in the roomy old coach, smiled faintly, but in actuality she was not attending. She gave a glad little sigh, a dreamy expression upon her glowing face as her ringed left hand lovingly caressed and smoothed the crumpled lace-and-satin-covered valentine that she held in her lap.
Dear Delight
by Sheila Walsh
A few flakes of snow were falling and the sky looked heavy with the promise of more to come as Charlotte Wynford walked briskly across’the lawns of Lambourn Manor and took the path through the bushes to the side door. In the passage leading via the muniments room to the main hall she removed the shawl draped around the shoulders of her pelisse and shook it vigorously.
“You give that to me, Miss Charlotte,” said Agnes, coming briskly to whisk the shawl away from her. “Heaven knows why you should want to go traipsing down to the cottages in this weather. February’s a treacherous month, what with all that’s gone before. Catch your death, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Charlotte smiled and allowed the maidservant to help her take off her pelisse and bonnet. “Nonsense. A little healthy exercise never did anyone any harm, and I promised poor Mrs. Allan that I would take her some of Cook’s special beef tea for that sickly child of hers. Things haven’t been easy for Tom Allan since the end of the war. My sister is in the drawing room, I suppose?”
“Aye
. And in a proper fidget with you nowhere to be found and the weather looking fit to play havoc with the celebrations. And those girls so excited, you wouldn’t believe. You’d best get up there right away and calm things down before her grace has one of her headaches. I took the tea tray in not five minutes since.”
Charlotte smiled as she made her way upstairs. Agnes had been with the Lambourn family all her life, and was given to speaking her mind without fear or favor.
The Duchess of Lambourn looked up from the delicate process of tea-making to greet her younger sister, her agitation very evident in her voice. “Ah, there you are, Lottie. No need to ask where you’ve been. I can’t think why you should choose to go ministering to the village children on a day when you are needed here.”
“Such a fuss, Annis,” she said good-humoredly. “I haven’t been away above half an hour, and you know perfectly well that everything is in hand.”
“Even so. Oh, never mind, you are here now.” Her grace set the kettle down. “Do come to the fire at once. You look half frozen.”
It was one of life’s absurdities that the petite duchess had been married for more than eighteen years and had seven children, for at first glance she looked little more than a girl herself. Her guinea-gold hair owed nothing to artifice, and the look of sweet helplessness in her wide cerulean-blue eyes that had captured the Duke’s heart when she was barely out could even now be guaranteed to bring gentlemen rushing to her aid.
Charlotte, younger by eight years, was taller and slimmer than Annis. There was a superficial likeness, but in Charlotte the vivid coloring was muted to a soft ashen fairness, her eyes to a smoky blue-gray that most often, as now, held a lively twinkle.
Friends frequently bemoaned the fact that she had refused more than one prestigious offer of marriage, and it was, in their opinion, a shocking waste for her to be dwindling her life away, waiting on the various members of her family, when she ought to have been raising one of her own.
To all such criticisms Charlotte returned the amused observation that she enjoyed her life prodigiously. Her father had left her a comfortable little manor house in Hampshire and had settled a reasonable amount of money on her, which enabled her to dress, if not in the first stare, at least with a certain elegance, thanks to her fashionable cousin Kate, who had introduced her to Yvette, one of London’s most sought-after dressmakers.
What she did not tell them, what no one knew, was that there had been a brief interlude many years ago when her youthful heart had been seduced. True, no words of love had been spoken, no promises given, but she had been so sure that her sentiments were returned; too sure, perhaps, for instead she had been left heartbroken, with only her pride to sustain her. There and then she had resolved that no man would ever have the power to hurt her again. And in ten years that resolve had never faltered.
But she had not grown bitter. Instead, her natural resilience was such that she had long since pronounced herself cheerfully resigned to a life of single blessedness. Several times a year she tore herself away from Hampshire, dividing her time between Annis and her children, whom she adored, and her brother’s family in Hereford. And for at least a part of each Season she visited her fashionable cousin Kate to replenish her wardrobe at Yvette’s and enjoy a brief foray into society with all its absurdities.
She always visited Lambourn in February to celebrate the birthday of her twin nieces, whose godmother she was—and who, with impeccably romantic timing on their mother’s part, had entered the world on St. Valentine’s Day. “Such an excellent portent, don’t you think?” Annis had said at the time. And as they grew from childhood to young womanhood, nature certainly seemed to have endowed them with every blessing.
The girls would make their official come-out during the London Season, of course, but Annis had decided to invite all their closest friends to a St. Valentine’s Night ball to celebrate their birthday. Those traveling from a considerable distance were to stay for several days and were due any time now, but many more would come out from Bath and the neighboring countryside on the evening of the ball.
“I still find it incredible to believe that the girls will be seventeen tomorrow.” Charlotte accepted a teacup from her sister, and settled herself comfortably in a corner of the sofa nearest the fire.
“Oh, Lottie, don’t!” Annis wailed. “It is wonderful, of course, and I am very proud of my dear daughters, but sitting here alone, it came to me quite suddenly that I am getting old!”
“What nonsense.” Charlotte’s eyes twinkled. “You know perfectly well that you consistently defy the years—and as for beauty, the twins will certainly have their work cut out to outshine you.”
“Dear Lottie, you always were prone to exaggerate.” The tiny frown lines vanished from between the duchess’s lovely blue eyes, though a faint shadow still remained. “You don’t suppose the snow will persist? After all the trouble we have gone to for tomorrow night’s ball, it would be too awful if everyone was snowbound.”
To hear Annis speak, Charlotte thought, one might suppose she had personally worked her fingers to the bone to ensure the comfort, entertainment, and well-being of her guests. In point of fact, a vague suggestion here, a hint there, had been the sum total of her grace’s endeavors. The rest had been accomplished by Charlotte herself, with the willing cooperation of her twin nieces.
As if conjured by thought, there was a rustling sound beyond the drawing room door. With a rush and flutter of skirts they swept in—Lady Fanny Denham and Lady Katherine Denham, as alike as two peas, and already bidding to be as fair and beautiful as their mother.
“Mama! There is a most elegant carriage coming up the drive!”
“Followed by a groom leading two horses!”
“Oh, deaf… so soon? I had not expected anyone for at least another hour.” The duchess rose with effortless grace. “I must go and change, such a fright I must look.” As she never looked anything but enchanting, this pronouncement was greeted with hoots of derision, which she ignored. “Fanny, be a dear and ring for the tray to be removed at once, and ask Cook to prepare fresh tea. And Kate, see if you can find your father. I daresay he will be in the gun room. Dear Lottie—you will have to do the honours until he can be found.”
In a moment Charlotte was left alone. How like Annis, she reflected. Not a thought as to whether I am presentable. But a quick glance in the mirror above the mantelshelf showed her hair to be neatly coiled, with just a few curls escaping. She exchanged a wry smile with her reflection, smoothed down the blue-chintz skirt of her second-best day gown, demurely cut with a muslin ruff at the high neck and long, tight sleeves—and went to greet the first arrivals.
The great hall was full of bustle, with Milton, the butler, already overseeing the footmen as they struggled under the weight of several large portmanteaus, while the duke’s two large black retrievers sniffed around the growing pile of luggage and got under everyone’s feet.
“It is Lord Frederic. Miss Charlotte,” Milton murmured, as she called the dogs to heel. “His lordship is accompanied by a friend. I have sent William to inform Mrs. Buddie to prepare extra rooms.”
From outside came loud exhortations to “have a care with those bandboxes, damn it! Trumble, don’t let that fool lay hands on m’dressing case!” Moments later a corpulent exquisite well past the first flush of youth appeared, enveloped in a coat with at least six capes and fastened with a double row of enormous mother-of-pearl buttons, beneath which Charlotte glimpsed buff pantaloons and gleaming top boots with white turndown tops. Beneath the brim of his fashionable beaver hat, his hair gleamed with Macasser oil. This pink of the ton beamed upon seeing Charlotte and made her a leg.
“Freddie! What in the world are you doing here? You might have let us know you were coming.”
The duke’s younger brother, Lord Freddie Denham, was unabashed. “Well, you know how it is. Devilish dull at this time of year. Popped over to Paris for a spell, came back, visited Mother, pottered around London again—looked up a
few cronies. Then, finding m’self at a loose end, I thought why not a week or so in Surrey, in the bosom of the family? Knew Edward wouldn’t mind—spot of hunting, pot a few rabbits…”
“Freddie, honestly. We have upwards of twenty house guests expected any minute.”
His smile widened. “A party. What luck!”
“For your nieces’ birthday,” she explained patiently. “Their seventeenth birthday. I did write to remind you, but as I received not a word by answer, I assumed you were from home.”
“Seventeen, are they? Beats me where the time goes. Annis was seventeen when Edward married her—only seems like yesterday. Well, well. So—I’m in the nick of time, it seems, what? And the manor’s big enough—plenty of room for two extra. Did I mention I’d taken the liberty of bringing a friend? Hadn’t seen him for years until I ran across him in Paris a while back with the duke—and blow me if we didn’t meet again in White’s last week.”
He stood aside to usher his companion forward. As the tall figure straightened and emerged from the shadow of the porch, Charlotte felt the blood draining from her face—from her whole body, in fact.
“Charlotte, allow me to present Colonel Luke Valentine. This is my brother’s sister-in-law, Charlotte Wynford, Luke.”
He had been a major when she… when they… But she must not think back. The desire to swoon receded as pride once again came to her aid.
“Colonel Valentine.” Her politely extended hand scarcely trembled as his much larger one closed around it, and her voice was firm, though every nerve in her body was aware of him. “You are welcome.”
“Am I?” And she knew that the deep-voiced query had nothing to do with Freddie’s unwarranted invitation. The long years of campaigning had etched harsh lines in the long, aquiline face and there were gray threads in the springing black hair, but his bold black eyes were as probing as ever. “I think, perhaps, I should not stay.”
