Only a Promise

by Mary Balogh

  Her papa was still looking into the fire.

  “You discovered the truth after you married Mama?” she asked.

  “No, before.” He turned to her then, his face wan. “She was perfectly frank with me. I had been in love with her from the start of that Season, from my first sight of her. And she had liked me too. But there was a dazzle about . . . him. He had looks and charm and rank and boundless wealth—or so it seemed. I thought I had lost her until she sought me out at a concert one evening and told me he was very close to financial ruin and must therefore marry into money. She told me too that she feared she was with child. When I offered to marry her without delay, I also promised never again to refer to the secret she had confided in me. And she in turn promised to love me steadfastly for the rest of her life. We both kept our promise. I was more blessed in my marriage than I ever deserved to be. I had a wife with whom I shared a mutual love and three children we both adored. It has always been my dearest hope that you would never have to learn the truth. I warned him never to return to London. But he came last year and again this year, his family with him. And you have married a nobleman and will inevitably move in the same social circles he does. I have no choice but to tell you the truth now, at last. I wronged you at Christmas time when you asked and I lied. I was afraid of losing you, but I almost did anyway.”

  . . . three children we both adored.

  Chloe gazed down at her hands, which she had spread across her lap, palms down. Had her mother adored her? Or had Chloe’s existence been an irritant, a constant reminder of her shame and of the man who had jilted her for a rich wife and of the man she had been forced to marry in order to avoid ruin?

  Had her mother loved her? Had she loved Papa?

  But the question here was not about her mother. Her mother was dead. Her father—Papa—was not. Chloe got to her feet and closed the distance between them. She stood in front of him, twined her arms about his waist, and buried her face against his neckcloth, inhaling as she did so the familiar, snuffy scent of him.

  “I am sorry I ran away and hurt you,” she said.

  His arms closed about her, and she was a little girl again, safe from all harm. A memory surfaced from nowhere—perhaps their reminiscences over dinner had shaken it free—of climbing a steep slope of loose pebbles somewhere until she froze with terror. Papa, who had been climbing ahead of her with Lucy, came back down and took her hand, and she scrambled upward, all fear gone, hardly dependent upon his help at all, but knowing that never in a million years would she be unsafe as long as her papa was holding her hand.

  A minute or two later the drawing room door opened and her father released her. Ralph and Graham had come to join them. Both were looking a bit uncertain of themselves.

  “Yes,” Chloe said, “Papa has told me.”

  Graham strode across the room toward them.

  “Did you always know?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “Not for sure until today,” he said, “and not at all before last year. It makes no real difference, though, Chloe. We are still your family. Love does not diminish just because a minor fact changes. And it has not even changed really, has it? It has always been so. It is just that we did not know it until today.”

  . . . a minor fact.

  “I ought not to have married you,” she said, looking beyond her brother to Ralph.

  His eyebrows rose. “If it is any consolation to you, Chloe,” he said, strolling past Graham to take her hand in his and lead her back to her chair, “I had no doubt of the truth before I married you. I married you anyway. Because I wanted to. And because I was led to believe that you wanted to marry me. I hope I was not mistaken in that?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because if I am,” he said, “then I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do now to release you. I believe you are stuck with me.”

  He had turned the tables on her. She was stuck with him, not the other way around. He was looking steadily down at her. His face did not smile, but, oh goodness, his eyes did. He had set out to make her feel better, and he had succeeded. How very kind he was.

  Ralph? Kind?

  She learned something new about him every day. What a delightful thing marriage was.

  “I wanted to marry you,” she said, “and I am not sorry I did.”

  And for a mere moment something else happened to his eyes. Something . . . intense. And then it was gone even before she was sure it was there. And like so many things these days, it was beyond her ability to put into words.

  “It might be wise, Worthingham,” Papa was saying, “to stay away from any entertainment you might expect Hitching and his family to attend. Chloe must be protected from unnecessary embarrassment.”

  Ralph was still standing before her chair, looking down at her.

  “I believe my wife may have something to say on that subject, Muirhead,” he said. “I am hers to command. Chloe?”

  “We will not avoid anyone or anything,” she said, lifting her chin. “And I do not need to be protected. I am the acknowledged daughter of Sir Kevin Muirhead and the wife of the Duke of Worthingham.”

  “Good girl,” Graham said.

  Ralph merely nodded slowly.

  “Graham,” she said, “would you pull on the bell rope, if you please? It is time the tea tray was brought in. Do sit down, Papa. Am I such a shockingly poor hostess that I have not even thought to offer you a chair? Mama taught me better than that.”

  Graham did as he was asked and then took a seat. “It is your turn, I believe, Ralph,” he said, “to entertain us with childhood memories of your own, since we entertained you so royally with ours during dinner.”

  “Unlike you, though, Gray,” Ralph said, looking away from Chloe at last and taking a chair close to her brother’s, “I had three sisters to plague the life out of me. I built a fort deep in the woods at Elmwood and high up in the branches of a tree for good measure. I was well prepared to hold it against all female comers, but no one ever did come there except imaginary pirates and highwaymen and dragons—tree-climbing dragons, of course. I was a solitary boy, though a vivid imagination saved me from ever feeling lonely. I was very happy to find company of my own age and gender when I was sent off to school.”

  Chloe looked from her husband to her brother and back as they recalled some humorous and hair-raising incidents from their school days. They were not excluding either her or Papa, but they were focused upon each other and upon a budding friendship that had never come to full fruition during their school years. Perhaps it would now, though they seemed poles apart in the way of life each led.

  She glanced at her father and smiled at him when their eyes met. Her father!

  The Marquess of Hitching was her father.

  Her stomach lurched with a nausea she willed away.

  * * *

  Their visitors did not stay late. Graham’s work got him out of bed early in the mornings, Ralph guessed. And Muirhead had looked strained even while he smiled and joined halfheartedly in the conversation after dinner. But poor man, he had finally had to divulge a secret he had hoped to take to the grave and had risked losing his daughter as a result.

  The drawing room seemed very quiet when Ralph and Chloe were left on their own. They found themselves at opposite sides of the hearth again. Chloe reached down for her workbag and her embroidery, apparently changed her mind, and sat up again, her hands folded in her lap.

  “When I said I was at your command,” he told her, “I meant it, Chloe. Do you wish to go home?”

  She raised her eyes to his. “To Manville?” she asked him. “Alone?”

  “I would come with you,” he said, “and stay with you.” And to hell with what was expected of him as the new Duke of Worthingham here in town.

  “You are very kind,” she said. “Very kind. But, no. Nothing has changed really, has it? You knew the truth. I
did too, though I chose not to believe it. Now I have no choice. But I will not run away.”

  He rested one elbow on the arm of the chair and propped his jaw against one balled fist. “None of the invitations to our ball have gone out,” he said. “If you wish, I will have Lloyd—”

  “No,” she said. “They will remain on the list.”

  When had he first realized, he wondered, that he cared for her? But of course he cared. She was his wife. He would protect her and care for her needs for the rest of his life. He bedded her nightly. They would share children. Of course he cared.

  But why hide truth from himself, as she had done since last year on a far larger issue? He cared, though he did not wish to analyze what exactly that meant.

  He cared about her happiness.

  What must it feel like to discover right out of nowhere that one’s father was not one’s father after all? He felt a sick jolt to the stomach at the very thought. To discover that one’s mother had conceived one with another man. To know that one’s apparent father had lived with the lie all one’s life.

  “I suppose,” she said, “this whole situation is as awkward for them as it is for me.”

  He watched as she opened her fingers, gazed down at her palms, and then clasped her hands in her lap again. He supposed she was talking about Hitching and his family.

  “After I fled last year,” she said, “they must have assumed that I would not return. But here I am, the Duchess of Worthingham, and likely to be wherever they plan to go. Does she know, do you think?”

  “The marchioness?” he said. “I daresay she suspects.”

  “I meant Lady Angela,” she said. “But, yes, there is the marchioness too. I have hated Lady Angela since last year. But she is quite innocent. I suppose she hates me. Yet we are half sisters.” She shivered even though the fire had been built up while they were downstairs seeing her father and Graham on their way. “She is as much my sister as Lucy is. And she has brothers, does she not? My half brothers.”

  Her fingers had curled into her palms. Her head had dropped. Her eyes were closed. He wondered if she would faint—or vomit.

  “What you could do,” he said, “is call upon Hitching at his home. Tomorrow is Saturday. He will not be at the House.”

  “What?” She looked up at him with startled, incredulous eyes. Her face had turned even paler, if that was possible.

  “At least all the eyes of the ton would not be upon you there,” he said. “The inevitable meeting would come at a time and place of your own choosing. You would have some control over it.”

  “But it would be utter madness.” Her eyes were wide and fixed upon his. “To walk up to the door of his home, Ralph? To ask for him by name? To come face to face with him? To speak to him? To speak the truth openly? It would be madness.”

  “I would come with you,” he said.

  She was shaking her head from side to side.

  “No,” she said. “I will face them all in public. I will be civil, as I daresay they will be too. They will be as anxious as I not to initiate any closer contact than that. But go deliberately to call upon him? No, Ralph. Do not ask it of me.”

  “I do not,” he assured her. “I merely made the suggestion. Did you not tell me of a sermon Graham once gave about confronting your worst fear, walking into it and through it, and thus conquering it? Or something to that effect?”

  “But you will not do it,” she said.

  He froze.

  “You will not go to call upon Viscount and Lady Harding,” she said.

  “That is altogether different,” he told her.

  “Is it?” She was gripping the edges of her chair arms. “How?”

  “Forget that I made the suggestion.” He wished to God he had not. “It probably was madness. And Graham was right and you were right, nothing really has changed. And there is no reason why you on the one hand and the Marquess of Hitching and his family on the other cannot coexist with civility during the times when you are in the same place at the same time. The ton will tire of speculating. Forget that I spoke.”

  Her fingers were playing the edges of her chair arms like a pianoforte. Her face was still pale. She was gazing fixedly at the carpet between them. After a minute or two of silence, during which he tried to think of something to say that would distract her and relieve the tension, she looked up at him.

  “You will come with me?” she asked.

  Not would come, but will come.

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  Ah, Chloe.

  She said no more for a while but returned her gaze to the floor. Then abruptly she got to her feet and came hurrying toward him. He got up quickly from his chair and opened his arms just before she collided with him and wrapped her arms about his waist and burrowed her head into the hollow between his neck and his shoulder. His arms closed about her and held her tight.

  “How many sons are there?” she asked after a while, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

  It took him a moment to understand what she was talking about. Hitching’s sons. Her half brothers.

  “Two or three. I am not quite sure,” he told her. The eldest is Gilly—Viscount Gilly. He is my age, I believe, or perhaps a little younger.”

  “And just the one daughter?” she asked.

  “I believe so.”

  He really did not know the family. Until last year they had never been in town when he was there, and last year he had avoided them. Or at least he had avoided Lady Angela Allandale for fear someone would try a bit of matchmaking.

  She pressed even more tightly against him.

  “I have you close,” he told her.

  “Have you?” He heard her inhale slowly and release the breath again on a sigh. “You cannot know how I longed to have someone to hold me close last year and again at Christmastime. Forgive me for clinging. I thought I could be brave.”

  “Pardon me,” he said, raising one hand to cup the back of her head and turning his own to murmur the words into her ear, “but I think you are being brave. Do you or do you not intend to call upon the Marquess of Hitching in his own home?”

  “I do.” She laughed softly, though he did not believe she was amused.

  You cannot know how I have longed to have someone to hold me close . . .

  A wave of the familiar yearning swept over him as he held her through a lengthy silence.

  She drew back her head to look into his face.

  “You must not fear,” she said, “that I will make a habit of leaning heavily upon you. I beg your pardon for doing so now. It is silly really. I knew, after all. And the Marquess of Hitching is just a man. After tomorrow I can cheerfully meet him anywhere and nod courteously in his direction when we cannot avoid being in the same place. I will not burden you, Ralph. I promised I would not, and I will keep my promise.”

  She smiled at him.

  He should have been relieved. He wanted no emotional involvement after all. Except that . . . Well, it was already too late.

  “You misconstrued my silence,” he told her. “I am your husband. When you feel lonely or afraid or unhappy, it is to me you must come, Chloe. My arms are here for you, and my strength too for whatever it is worth. You will never be a burden to me.”

  Her teeth were biting down on her bottom lip. And then her eyes warmed with a smile and what looked to be genuine amusement.

  “I will remind you of that,” she said, “the next time we quarrel.”

  “Will we?” he said. “And will you?”

  “Yes and yes,” she told him.

  He took her face between his hands and wondered when the walls about his heart had been breached. For they had been.

  He kissed her.

  20

  It was a mad idea. Chloe had thought so last night when Ralph suggested it, and she thought so now as Mavis put the finishin
g touches to her hair and then fitted one of her new bonnets carefully over it so as not to disorder the curls she had created.

  Actually, it felt even madder this morning. Her stomach was churning and she was not sorry she had been unable to eat much breakfast.

  She had had to send a note off to Lucy to postpone the proposed walk in the park until tomorrow. She hated having to do that. She had not seen her niece and nephew, Lucy’s children, since Christmas.

  Had the Marquess of Hitching known of her existence before last year? The question had plagued Chloe half the night, as well as all the questions associated with it. He must have heard the rumors last year, of course. Did he believe them? Would he believe them when she called on him if he did not already? But he must have known of the possibility twenty-eight years ago when Papa warned him to leave London and never return. Did the marchioness know? Did Lady Angela? And her brothers? But how could they not?

  “The duke is taking you somewhere this morning, is he, Your Grace?” Mavis asked. “Somewhere nice?”

  “Visiting friends.” Chloe smiled at her in the mirror and wished desperately that she could switch places with Mavis. How tranquil and uncomplicated a maid’s life must be. Which was an absurdly foolish thought, of course. No one’s life was all unrelieved tranquility and ease.

  How on earth was she going to be able to knock on the Marquess of Hitching’s door and announce that she had come to see him? She must tell Ralph before it was too late that she simply could not do it.

  But it was precisely what she was doing half an hour later—or rather what Ralph was doing for her. Chloe had to use all her willpower not to take a step back and duck sideways so that she would be half hidden behind him when the great oak door opened. She thought yearningly of the carriage mere feet behind her.

  “Inform the Marquess of Hitching that I would have a word with him if he is at home,” Ralph told the servant who opened the door.

  The man looked from one to the other of them, glanced beyond them to the carriage with its ducal crest, briefly consulted the card Ralph had handed him, and stepped aside to admit them, bowing respectfully as he did so. He directed them to a salon that led off the hall and informed them that he would see if his lordship was at home.