Only a Promise

by Mary Balogh

  Her thoughts touched upon her father, who had been very upset before she left home and even more so when she did leave, but she shied away from those particular memories. She had had to leave. She had needed to put some distance between them while she sorted out a few things in her mind, though she could not quite name what those things were. Either she believed him or she did not.

  Why was she here if she believed him?

  Four days after the Earl of Berwick had returned to London, Chloe went for a longer-than-usual walk. The weather seemed to have turned a corner from the chill of late spring to the warmth of approaching summer, and the sun was shining. The duchess had gone visiting but had said with a twinkling smile at luncheon that she did not expect Chloe to accompany her, since Mrs. Booth had grown very deaf and would surely be happier with the company of just one very old friend.

  Chloe walked across the east lawn, taking care to give the old oak tree a wide berth, until she came to the river and the humpbacked stone bridge that led across to the meadow, which was an integral part of the park though it was made to look half wild rather than cultivated. It looked very inviting in the sunshine, its waving grass liberally dotted with daisies and buttercups and clover. Even from this side of the river she could see butterflies fluttering among them. But she was not in the mood today for sunshine or gaiety. Perhaps some other day . . .

  She followed the path along the near bank instead and was soon in the deep shade of the trees that grew in a dense band on both sides of the river. The water was dark green here until it quickened its pace into small eddies with white bubbles of foam as it approached the downward slope to the west and the rapids and the series of falls that would take it plunging into the large natural lake below. She slowed her steps and reveled in the smells of water and greenery, in the sights of the myriad shades of green and the occasional shaft of sunlight, in the sounds of rushing water and shrill birdsong.

  She picked her way carefully on the natural stepping stones of the rough path, though fortunately they were dry and posed no real danger. And then she was down and came out into full sunlight on the bank of the lake. Shade and the sound of the falls fell away behind her.

  She was still determinedly counting her blessings. How very fortunate she was to have this park to walk in whenever she chose to step beyond the confines of the house, and how fortunate to have the house itself to live in for as long as she wished. She did not know how long she would stay. Surely eventually she would return home. She knew her papa had always loved her as dearly as he loved Graham and Lucy, who were undoubtedly his. She knew that the gossip and her questions had caused him a great deal of distress. She did not know if he had told her the truth. Perhaps she never would. And perhaps it did not matter. She loved him anyway. She knew that, at least.

  But if she only knew without any doubt what the truth was . . .

  It was dreadful indeed—only someone who had experienced what she was going through could possibly understand—to discover at the age of twenty-six that one’s very identity was in question, that one’s father, one’s beloved papa, might not be one’s real father at all. One of her reasons for leaving London in a great hurry last spring had been her horror at the possibility that she might run into the Marquess of Hitching somewhere and somehow feel a connection to him. It had been worse than horror, in fact. It had been mindless panic. If there was one person in this world she never wanted to meet or even glimpse in passing, it was the man who had known her mother nine months before her birth.

  She shook off the unwelcome, plaguing thoughts yet again and tried very hard to rejoice in the peaceful beauty of her surroundings. She stooped to pick up a few flat stones and leaned back against the slender trunk of a willow tree that bowed its branches over the water on either side, enclosing her in what seemed like her own private world. The water was blue here and sparkled in the sunshine. The fronds of the willow were very green. The air was loud with birdsong.

  She took one of the stones in her right hand, positioned it carefully with her thumb, and tossed it across the water in the way her father had taught her with endless patience when she was a child. But she was out of practice. It hit the surface and sank from sight without bouncing even once.

  Well, one must not give in to defeat after just one try, or even, perhaps, after twenty. Her second stone bounced five times—an all-time record—and was halfway across the lake before it finally sank from view. Chloe smiled smugly. Even her father had never done better than that.

  Oh, Papa. Suddenly she felt like weeping.

  She should have been content with the triumph of those five bounces, she thought ruefully a short while later when the fifth stone, and the third in a row, bounced once halfheartedly before sinking. Though perhaps her attempts had accomplished something. She was feeling a little more cheerful.

  “It is all in the flick of the wrist,” a voice said from so close by that Chloe jumped with alarm and dropped the three remaining stones.

  She peered through the fronds of the willow to her left. But she had not mistaken the voice. It was not one of the gardeners. The Earl of Berwick was standing out on the grass a mere few yards from the tree. He must have walked the direct route down from the house. He was dressed for riding, complete with long drab coat worn open and tall hat that cast his face in shadow but did not quite mask the menace of his scar. He was flicking a riding crop against the supple leather of his boots. Her heart felt as though it had leapt into her throat and was beating wildly there like a bird trying to escape.

  “If you had been here a few moments ago,” she said, “you would have seen one of my stones bounce five times.”

  “Braggart,” he said. “Or fibber.”

  “It is true,” she protested.

  What on earth was he doing back at Manville? And not just at the house but down here at the lake? She felt a little ridiculous standing where she was, as if she were cowering behind the willow fronds, hoping not to be seen. She pushed her way through and stepped out onto the grass.

  He looked her over unhurriedly, a slight frown between his brows, his eyes cool and unreadable. Chloe clasped her hands behind her back and stopped herself from apologizing for being here when perhaps he had been seeking some solitude. He could have avoided talking to her, after all. It must have been obvious to him that she had not seen him come.

  But why would he seek solitude in the park when he must have just arrived? His boots were covered with a film of dust, which suggested that he had ridden this time, not driven his curricle. Had he ridden all the way from London? Why?

  She said something very foolish instead of waiting for him to break the silence.

  “I am not going to apologize for the other morning,” she said. “I have had time to reflect upon what I suggested, and I have changed my mind. It was nothing but foolish impulse. I have forgotten it. I hope for the duchess’s sake you have brought her happy news from London.”

  “Changed your mind?” he said after a few moments, during which his riding crop tapped rhythmically against one boot. “That is a pity. I came back here to offer you marriage, Miss Muirhead.”

  * * *

  The duke was dozing in his study, Weller had informed Ralph on his arrival, and Her Grace had gone to pay an afternoon call on Mrs. Booth. Miss Muirhead had not accompanied her. He regretted that he did not know where she was.

  She was not in either the drawing room or the morning room. Ralph had looked in both. Nor was she on the eastern terrace. A gardener he had hailed had seen her walking across the east lawn in the direction of the river an hour or so ago. But she was neither down on the riverbank nor in the meadow on the other side of the bridge. Ralph looked to his right when he reached the bridge, but going that way would have brought her to the driveway and on out through the gates to the village. He would surely have seen her if that had been her destination. Besides, if she had been going to the village, why take such a ci
rcuitous route? The path to the left led in among trees and around the bend in the river to the rapids and then the falls. If she had gone that way and kept going, she would have ended up at the lake. It seemed a likely destination on such a lovely day.

  Ralph took the short route to the lake past the house again and down the steep west lawn. He almost missed seeing her when he got there. The bank of the lake seemed deserted. But then a stone arced out from behind the nearer fronds of the weeping willow and bounced once at far too sharp an angle to allow for a second bounce. It sank from sight. It could only have been thrown by a human hand—a not-very-skilled one. Another followed it, and then another, with the same result.

  And then he saw her, standing with her back to the slender trunk of the tree, her green dress an almost perfect camouflage against her surroundings. Except that she wore no bonnet and that red hair of hers gave her away if she was indeed hoping to stay hidden. Did she never wear a bonnet?

  She had not seen him approach, and, stupidly, he almost turned back before she did. But what the devil? He had come all this way, on horseback, ahead of his baggage coach and his valet, with the sole purpose of seeking her out privately. Good fortune had been with him—he had seen neither of his grandparents first.

  He had attended a ball the evening after he called upon George. There had been nothing unusual about that, of course. He often attended balls. He usually danced a few sets with ladies of his acquaintance. It would be impolite to his hostess not to dance at all. What he did not often do, though, was allow that hostess—Lady Livermere in this case—to latch on to his arm as though she had been presented with a prize trophy and parade him about, introducing him to what had seemed like an endless stream of young ladies he had not seen before. And their mamas too, of course. No self-respecting young lady attended a ball without her mother at her elbow every moment when she was not dancing.

  He had wondered if his mother had been having a word with Lady Livermere. The two ladies enjoyed more than just a passing acquaintance.

  He had become aware of a buzz of sharpening interest around him as the evening proceeded. He was quite sure he had not imagined it. For of course he had been obliged to reserve a set of dances with as many of those young ladies as could be fitted into a long evening of dancing. He ought to have been glad. Without any real effort on his part he had been presented with a number of the Season’s eligible hopefuls, and at the same time signaled that this year he was in search of a bride. He might, if he had really wanted to avoid the bother of a protracted search, have made his choice before the evening ended, presented himself to the young lady’s father the following day, and made his offer before another evening came along. His betrothal might have been announced in all the morning papers the day after that. All the uncertainties of his existence might have become certainties.

  It was not vanity that made him believe it would have been that easy. He had an earl’s title and fortune, after all. More than that, though, he was heir to a dukedom, and the incumbent was an old man well into his eighties. Ducal properties, all of them extensive and prosperous, were spread across large swaths of England.

  Most of his dancing partners had been pretty. All had been young and graceful, with polished, pleasing manners. A few had been vivacious. One or two had appeared intelligent and had had some conversation—as far as one could judge in the distracting setting of a ballroom. All were eminently eligible. Only one had looked noticeably repelled by his facial scar.

  As soon as the final set drew to a close, he had gone home to bed. How had his fellow Survivors done it—Hugo and Vincent first, and then Ben and Flavian? How had they been able to give up everything to take on a lifetime commitment that might well bring them nothing but misery, and, equally important if not more so, that might bring misery to their wives? How could they know? Or did they not? Did they merely hope for happiness and gamble the rest of their lives on a risky possibility?

  None of them, as far as Ralph knew, had been forced into marrying out of any sense of duty. Well, Vincent had, perhaps. But none of them had stood in a ballroom, knowing that within its walls he must find his lifetime partner.

  There had not been much of the night remaining after he returned home from the ball. He had spent it staring upward at the intricately ruched satin canopy over his bed thinking, not about any of the very real candidates for his hand that he had met in the course of the evening, but about the very ineligible Miss Muirhead.

  Ineligible by her own admission. She was not technically illegitimate, of course, even if the rumors were true, since Sir Kevin Muirhead must have acknowledged her as his own at her birth, but she had the misfortune to have the distinctive coloring shared by Hitching and his legitimate daughter, which fact made it difficult not to believe what the gossips had said last year. And there was the other baggage she carried about too. Her sister, at the age of seventeen, had eloped with Freddie Nelson while his wife still lived, and then Graham Muirhead had got himself embroiled in a farce of a duel. Her father, instead of disowning his wayward daughter, had taken her back and then presumably paid the newly widowed Nelson a fortune to marry her before her child was born. Miss Muirhead meanwhile had been publicly humiliated and jilted and equally publicly denied admittance to Almack’s.

  To call her ineligible was to understate the case. Ralph’s duty was to marry. And since he expected no personal satisfaction from marriage and therefore did not much care whom he married, it behooved him to please his grandparents and his mother by choosing a young lady who was both eligible and accomplished, someone who would adjust smoothly to her future role, someone over whose name not a whisper of scandal breathed.

  He had met at least half a dozen perfect candidates at the ball. Yet he had lain awake thinking of Miss Muirhead and her absurd, impertinent suggestion that they agree to . . . What had she called it? A bargain.

  Some bargain.

  He had called on his mother the following day. Obviously she had spoken to Lady Livermere, though she had not been at the ball herself. She had heard of his triumph, of the buzz of interest and excitement he had caused, of the partners with whom he had danced. She had drawn up a select list of young ladies with whom it would be unexceptionable for him to strike up an acquaintance, soon to become a courtship. There was a neat dozen. He had danced last evening with four of them. She would invite four more, with their mamas, to tea one afternoon soon, along with some other ladies so that her purpose would not be vulgarly obvious, and Ralph would happen to call in upon her on that particular afternoon. The remaining four . . .

  Ralph had stopped listening.

  Four days after leaving Manville Court, he had found himself on his way back there to seek out Miss Muirhead. Suddenly her so-called bargain had looked like the best of his options. At least neither of them would be hurt by it. How could one suffer disappointment when there were no expectations? She wanted a husband and a home and family, a perfectly understandable ambition for any woman. He needed a wife and family. Neither of them expected or even wanted love or romance or any of those finer sensibilities some people of a romantic disposition deemed necessary for a good marriage. He had nothing whatsoever to offer along those lines, and she did not want anything. She was done with love.

  He carefully kept his mind away from what George had had to say on the topic.

  She was ineligible, yes. But unfairly so. In all the admittedly unsavory events in which she had been involved during the past six years, she appeared to have been quite blameless. And, he had recalled as a final point in her favor, she wanted to live a quiet life in the country. She wanted nothing more to do with London and its myriad entertainments. Neither did he.

  However it was, no matter how much he was rationalizing instead of using plain common sense, he had come. He had sought her out, and he had told her quite baldly why he had come.

  I came back here to offer you marriage, Miss Muirhead.

  But he h
ad said it only after she had had her own say on the subject.

  I have had time to reflect upon what I suggested, and I have changed my mind. It was nothing but foolish impulse. I have forgotten it.

  He liked her the better for her spirited words, for thumbing her nose at him to all intents and purposes. He liked her better for the fact that her chin had jutted upward and an almost martial gleam had lit her eyes.

  “Why?” she asked him now.

  It sounded like a challenge.

  5

  Chloe’s hands were still clasped behind her back. Tightly. For some reason the third finger of each hand was crossed over the forefinger.

  “I have to marry,” he said in answer to her question. “Given that fact, I would rather it be to someone who neither expects nor craves what I cannot give. I can give my name with all it entails at the present and promises for the future, and I can offer security and respectability and protection. I can give a home and children. Indeed, the latter is what I will work most diligently to give. But you know all this. I can offer all the material benefits of my wealth and position. I will allow you freedom within the bounds of respectability. I will not, however, give love or romance or even a feigned affection I do not feel, though I will show unwavering respect and courtesy. You informed me a few mornings ago that you wish to be married, to have a secure home of your own, to have children of your own. You informed me that you have no wish for any emotional bond within marriage. Is this correct, Miss Muirhead?”