Her hand went up to his chin. “What’s wrong, Hudson?”
Lowering his gaze for her not to see the sorrow in it, he said resignedly, “I wish—”
She shook her head as she cut him off. “No, don’t do this to yourself. I’ve made peace with my situation. I must confess that I was worried about you, but knowing that you’re about to settle down has given me immense joy. I believe I’ll go to my grave with a smile on my face.”
How this wonderful woman lying before him could be so relaxed about the fact that she was dying was beyond him. Granted, she had lived well, but didn’t she realise that he was going to miss her? He couldn’t bear to think of the vacuum her death would create in his life.
Don’t go! Please don’t die! He wanted to cry. Such behaviour was bound to alarm her because even as a boy, he had rarely shown any emotion. But she had no idea how much he loved her and how much he wanted to please her.
She had taken the position of his mother when the woman who birthed him was laid to rest. His three elder brothers had no inkling of how much she meant to him. They had been independent when their mother died except him who had still needed nurturing. Aunt Agnes had stepped in and given him all the love and attention he needed at such a young age. For that, he would be eternally grateful to her.
“Can I ask you a question, Hudson?”
The seriousness in her tone got him jerking his head. Her intense gaze made him reach out to drag his cravat from his neck. Why did she still have the power to make him feel like a little boy who had done something silly?
At sixty and looking every bit her age due to her ailment, she could still make him squirm under her penetrating scrutiny. Her demure stature had never stopped her from being intimidating when she wanted to be.
Hudson cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck with a lean finger.
“Yes, Aunt Agnes.”
Peering into his eyes as if trying to read his soul, she softly queried, “Are you happy? I mean, are you certain you’ve made the right choice? You were pretty broken when your proposal was rejected years ago.”
Hudson’s lips thinned. He didn’t want to remember the girl who had broken his heart by her rejection. He hastily pushed away the memory.
His aunt had asked a simple but difficult question. It went against the grain for him to fib, but he had to for her sake. If she got to know that she was the primary reason he had settled for his betrothed, she would tell him to call it off immediately.
Deep down inside, he wanted to settle down. However, he wasn’t confident that the girl he had chosen to marry was who he would have picked had he time on his hands. Aunt Agnes, despite a difficult pill to swallow, was dying.
Getting married immediately would put her mind at rest, for he knew that she worried about him. Why? He couldn’t say. In her thoughts, she most likely felt being married with children would make a responsible man out of him.
Hudson didn’t think so. He knew quite a number of his peers who were married yet a great disappointment to their families.
“If it’s taking so long for you to answer my questions, mayhaps I should be concerned.”
His aunt’s words cut into Hudson’s thoughts. He smiled sheepishly at her. She gave him the stern eye, which got him reeling with laughter. He kissed her hand.
“Aunt Agnes, you have nothing to worry about. I chose a beautiful young woman who will bear my sons.”
“And are you happy?” she pressed, regarding him intently.
Searching his soul, Hudson couldn’t possibly claim joy at the proposed union. The girl had fit his prospects of a wife, and her father had readily and gladly accepted his proposal. Time couldn’t be wasted courting her, and so, he had offered for her immediately.
“Yes, Aunt Agnes. I’m happy,” he answered, hoping his voice was steady enough for her not to think otherwise.
She smiled. “That’s all I want, Hudson; your happiness.”
He nodded, avoiding her gaze as pain squeezed his chest. Losing his aunt would surely devastate him beyond words.
“Do I know her? What’s her name? What family is she from?”
Hudson shook his head. “You’ll get to know all that very soon, Aunt Agnes. All in good time.”
She smiled again. “I can rest easy now, knowing everything will be well with you.”
As Hudson descended the staircase to get to the front door, his aunt’s words came back to him. Although he had feigned happiness at his settling down, he wasn’t sure if everything would indeed be well with him.
A knot had formed in his chest that he couldn’t seem to shake off. His bride to be was beautiful, from a good home, and had a large dowry; although that was insignificant to him. He didn’t quite understand why he felt ill at ease with the union.
Maybe it’s just my mind, he surmised when he couldn’t come up with an explanation for the feeling of dread running through his body.
Hudson nodded at the butler, who opened the door. His carriage was already positioned in front of the house when he descended the stairs. He paused and turned to stare at the white Elizabethan manor he had grown up in. Nostalgic feelings hit him, which drove a wedge up his throat.
Sighing, he turned and swung swiftly into the carriage to relax on the padded seat. As the horses rode away from the grounds of his familial estate, Hudson’s heart beat a rapid thud against his chest. When next he set foot in Strombridge, he would be a married man.
Chapter 3
Tempest warily eyed the younger woman who was looking quite fetching in a sea blue pastel and high-waisted gown which made her ample bosom prominent and emphasised her thin waist. Her shining blonde hair was caught in a chignon at the base of her neck.
The only similarity the two cousins shared were their height. They were both petite, standing at 5’6, but that was about it. While Valerie was blonde with blue eyes and with somewhat of a voluptuous figure, Tempest was a redhead with brown eyes and a slim frame.
They were both quite beautiful in their own right. But while Valerie’s beauty was the first thing one would notice about her, Tempest was a cool and classic beauty with a high forehead, a patrician nose, high cheekbones, and full lips.
In character, they also differed. Tempest was independent and hardworking, Valerie was selfish and manipulative. The younger woman made sure she got her heart’s desires irrespective of how it affected anyone around her.
Ignoring her cousin for a moment, Tempest settled herself on one of the brocade sofas in the drawing room. Seemingly unperturbed, she arranged the skirt of her dress across her legs.
“Didn’t you hear me, Tempest?” Valerie asked as she paced on the Aubusson carpet by the windows.
Elevating her head, Tempest asked, “What has you in despair, Valerie?”
“I’m to be wed,” the girl answered sharply.
Oh, dear. I’m going to have my ears filled again about the benefits of marriage. But wait, why is she in despair if she’s to be married? Something isn’t right.
Coolly, Tempest said, “Congratulations.”
“You can’t congratulate me.”
Tempest’s brows lifted. “Oh! Why ever not? Isn’t it what you’ve always wanted? To hand over your wealth to a man in exchange for being his personal slave?”
Valeria paused in her stride to fix angry eyes on her cousin. “How dare you describe the beauty of marriage in such a horrid manner?”
Tempest simply shrugged. She wondered why her cousin was looking at her in such a scandalised manner. She had never made excuses for her distaste of the so-called holy matrimony.
She wasn’t being harsh or anything of that nature. Realism was what she usually employed when dealing with such matters. She was a firm believer that women were the losers when it came to marriage. That fact had never been hidden from Valerie.
“Why do you appear shocked?” Tempest questioned her cousin, who she had always regarded as a sweet, silly girl without common sense. “I have never minced words when I’m ref
erring to what you debutantes see as a lifesaver, your only future.”
“You can’t go on addressing marriage that way!” She stomped her slipper-clad dainty feet on the carpet. “It’s preposterous of you to continue thinking that women who marry become slaves to their husbands.”
Tempest sighed. “Dear innocent Valerie, you must open your eyes and see things exactly as they are. After offering your wealth to your husband as dowry, he marries you, then secures you in one of his houses. After that, he carries on with his life while you are turned into a breeder for him to get his heir. Does that look even the remotest to being enticing?”
Valerie was prevented from answering when a soft knock on the door admitted a maid who came in bearing a tray. Both cousins were silent as the maid served the steaming cups of tea and handed each of them theirs.
“You get to be someone’s wife,” Valeria stated firmly as soon as the servant shut the door, placing her untouched tea on one of the small stools. “You get to love someone and be loved in return!”
“Bah!” Tempest waved a hand reflecting her disdain at the word ‘love’. “What a useless emotion!”
Tempest considered herself fortunate that she didn’t believe in the silly sensation that made fools of the indulgers. If only she could get Valerie to see it was all a waste.
But the young chit wouldn’t listen to her. Valerie had always had her head in the clouds; she still believed that a handsome and wealthy man would make an offer for her, and she would live happily ever after. Tempest surmised that it was due to all the novels she loved reading. Tempest couldn’t be bothered by such pure lies.
She knew the emotion was all a hogwash in fact. After listening to her fellow debutantes during her first season, she got to know most of the young chits who weren’t from wealthy homes and were being sponsored were after only wealthy husbands.
Tempest had her ears filled with talk about snagging men with vast properties and means of income. Most, if not all, had come to London for the sake of increasing their family’s social circles and wealth. Love hadn’t been mentioned, not once.
Eyeing her cousin now, she wasn’t sure if Valerie fell under the few who had wished the suitors they were in love with would meet their family’s approval.
“Do you want to tell me that you’ve never been in love?”
Tempest only just held herself from bursting into laughter. Valerie would find it unkind of her if she did. Not an ounce of inkling did she have concerning love, but she didn’t want to appear as cold and unfeeling as her cousin obviously saw her.
“I was fond of a young man once,” she related lamely.
The surprise in Valerie’s eyes got Tempest giggling.
“Oh, come now, Valerie. Surely you don’t think I’m devoid of human emotions.”
Her cousin licked her lips. “You always give the impression of one who would freeze hell if you found yourself about to be married to the Devil himself.”
Tempest laughed so hard that she spilled a little of her tea. She gently placed it on the small stool beside the sofa.
“What a wild and vivid imagination you have, Valerie,” she chided gently.
“I’m just saying,” her cousin defended her words. “You don’t believe in love, and you don’t believe in marriage. Tell me, what exactly do you believe in?”
“I believe in a woman’s independence. I believe in a woman having the right to choose what she wants in her life. I believe in a noblewoman engaging in any work she chooses to do without having society frown at it. In place of her wasting her time with sewing, knitting, managing the home or bearing children, she could put her brain into proper use.”
Valerie’s eyes widened like saucers. “Good Lord, Tempest! Surely you don’t mean such insane things. A woman having to work!” She clicked her tongue in disgust.
Tempest regretted instantly sharing her views with the naïve and impressionable chit. She should have known better than to share her idealism with someone who only saw things as black and white.
Telling her there was more that she could attain in life other than marrying and breeding children was a total waste of her breath. In the future, she would watch her words against such silliness.
“Forget I ever said such things,” she quickly put in, realising that she was being a tad unfair. Simply because her cousin and the rest of the world didn’t share in her ideas didn’t mean she had to cast aspersions on their beliefs. Aunt Beth had taught her better.
“Indubitably, I’m going to erase such thoughts from my mind. I really ought not to have such conversations with you, else you poison my mind, and I start having such thoughts, too. God forbid I end up an old maid like you!”
Had it been last year Valerie spoke such harsh words to her, it would have made her stricken with hurt. But now, she wasn’t concerned what her cousin thought of her. Old maid, left on the shelf, or whatever phrase was given to an unmarried woman she might be, at least, she was happy and satisfied with her life.
***
Guilt stole up Valerie’s face and reddened her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to call Tempest to her face the name she and her friends called her when they were talking about her.
Her cousin would definitely end up like Aunt Elizabeth, who was still unmarried at sixty, but she didn’t think it was fair of her to call her an old maid.
Tempest was unmarried by choice, not because she lacked suitors. She was beautiful and had a good dowry which would attract even wealthy men. Rumour had it that she had turned down all the men after her first season. Tempest never discussed it with her. So she couldn’t be sure about it.
“They were unsuitable,” Tempest had once said when she asked. Her cousin had changed the topic, and no matter how she tried, she hadn’t been able to draw her back to it.
Even if she lived to a thousand years, she would never understand the kind of woman her cousin was. When they were children, Tempest wasn’t like this. She was very easygoing and impressionable like her. Although they were four years apart, they used to play games together.
They played the ‘damsel in distress’ game with their dolls. Knights in shining armour would come to their rescue, and they would marry them. They were always delighted at the outcome of such games.
Valerie figured it was the death of Tempest’s mother that caused the change in her. Perhaps Aunt Elizabeth had sold her silly spinster ideas into the poor child she had come to take care of. And now, poor Tempest was just like her; truth be told, even worse.
What a waste! Such a beautiful and intelligent woman with riches was willing to while away her life as a spinster doing only God knows what. She hadn’t quite asked Tempest what she hoped to do with her life without a husband by her side or children.
“With such inane ideas, Tempest, I’m forced to ask you what you wish to do until you’re old and greying. A woman without a husband or children doesn’t seem to have a lot of options in our society. Even widows strive to remarry.”
Valerie’s eyes narrowed when she noted a spark of mischief in her cousin’s eyes. What was it about this woman she couldn’t understand?
A mischievous smile dancing on her lips, Tempest said, “There are a variety of things I could do with myself, Valerie. You don’t have to worry your pretty little head about it.”
Tempest’s condescending tone grated on Valerie’s nerves. She couldn’t care less if her cousin decided to spend the rest of her days ensconced in her room; she was more interested in her own life, which reminded her of her reason for seeking out her cousin that morning.
A Seductive Lady Rescued From Flames (Historical Regency Romance) Page 30
