Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

“I daresay,” he said, “he is fiendishly intelligent and bookish.”

“He is,” she agreed.

“Both of which traits he has passed on to you,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Though perhaps not the fiendishly part.”

He lifted her hand and set the back of it briefly against his lips.

“May intelligent, bookish ladies sometimes be reformed?” he asked her.

She thought about it.

“I suppose it may be within the bounds of possibility,” she said, “even if not of probability.”

“Under what circumstances might it?” he asked.

“I have discovered within myself in the last while,” she said, “a desire to …”

“Yes?” he prompted her when she fell silent.

“To enjoy life,” she said.

“And you cannot enjoy being intelligent and bookish?” he asked.

“I can appreciate both,” she said. “I always have and always will. I certainly have no wish to renounce either. I just want to … to have some fun.”

“Ah.” He returned their hands to the seat between them. “I like the sound of this.”

“Edward and I thought we would suit admirably when we made that agreement four years ago,” she said. “We were and are alike in many ways. But when I saw him again earlier this spring in London after not seeing him for well over a year, I knew immediately that it was impossible, and not only because by then he was the Earl of Heyward and more was expected of him than to marry someone like me. I also knew that he needed someone to brighten his life, to lift the load of duty and responsibility that he shouldered without complaint after his brother died. I could not do that. I cannot be … merry unless someone draws merriment out of me. I have no experience of my own. And then, at the Tresham ball, when you danced with Lady Angeline and Edward and I came to sit at your table during supper, I could see immediately that she admired him and that he was unaccountably concerned about her safety even while he was irritated by her. And I knew that she was just the wife he needed. As I got to know her better, I could see too that he was just the husband for her. She needs steadiness and he needs … joy. And I knew too that I felt a little depressed at the loss of what for four years I had thought I wanted. But I did not want that dream back, or Edward, dearly as I love him. For I realized that I would like some joy too. Or at least a little fun.”

“Have you had fun with me, Eunice?” he asked softly.

She looked sharply at him but let his use of her given name go.

“I have,” she said. “You are fun—intelligent and sharp-minded and witty and irreverent.”

“I sound like a dreadfully dull dog,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, “and you are handsome and … attractive and you kiss well. Not that I have anything with which to compare that kiss, but I would be very surprised if even the most experienced of courtesans would not agree with me. There! Is your vanity satisfied?”

He grinned slowly at her.

“We are here,” he said. “Come and meet my mother. We will warn her, by the way, that she may expect two more guests, though they have been unfortunately delayed at the Peacock by carriage troubles and may well decide to return to Hallings once the carriage is roadworthy again.”

“Oh,” Eunice said with a sigh. “I have told more lies in the last few days than I have in my whole life before. After today there will be no more.”

And then he escorted her into the grand house of Norton Park and up the winding staircase to the drawing room, where Lady Windrow was waiting to greet them, a warm smile on her fragile face.

“Charles,” she said as he enclosed her in his arms and kissed her cheek and wished her a happy birthday. “I told you when you went to Hallings that you must not dream of coming all the way back here just for my birthday. Ten miles is a long way.”

“How could I not come for such an occasion, Mama?” he said. “Have I ever missed being with you on your birthday?”

He turned, one arm about her waist, and her eyes rested upon Eunice, who curtsied.

“Besides,” he said, “I had another reason for coming, one that will delight you, I believe, as you have been pestering me for years. I wanted you to meet Miss Goddard, the lady I plan one day soon, when the setting and the atmosphere are quite perfect, to ask to marry me. It is time, you see, to do that most dreaded of all things to men, though suddenly it does not seem so dreadful after all. Indeed, it seems infinitely desirable. It is time to settle down.”

He smiled sleepily at Eunice, who gazed briefly and reproachfully back at him, her eyebrows raised, her cheeks pink, before wishing his mother a happy birthday.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Angeline asked after they had listened for a few moments.

Edward assumed the question was rhetorical since it would have been obvious even to an imbecile what they had just heard, but she was waiting for his answer, all wide-eyed and pale-faced.

“It was a carriage leaving the inn,” he said. “Windrow’s, no doubt. He is taking Eunice and probably her maid to Norton Park to dine with Lady Windrow.”

“Without waiting for us?” Her dark eyes grew larger, if that were possible.

“I daresay,” he said, “they hope to dine before midnight and fear that that hope may be dashed if they wait. I daresay they think you and I have a few things to work out between us. And no doubt Windrow does not particularly relish the thought of sharing carriage space with me so soon after I hit him. The fact that he did not hit back or accept my invitation to step outside indicated, of course, that he was a party to Eunice’s scheme—even perhaps the instigator. And Eunice will have seen the success of her plan, even though she was alarmed at the flaring of violence, and will have considered it fitting—or perhaps she has been persuaded to consider it fitting—to leave us alone to settle what is between us.”

“Miss Goddard’s scheme,” she said, “was that I leave that letter for you, so that you would come hurrying after us to rescue her from Lord Windrow’s clutches. Yet you have just allowed him to drive off with her.”

“I would like to read that letter sometime,” he said. “I suppose it is a marvel of Gothic literature. But before I came to rescue you, it was a letter from Eunice that I read. It was restrained in tone but really rather clever and quite effective. As you see, here I am.”

And he was beginning to feel just a little angry, in a different way than he had been feeling until a few minutes ago. He was everyone’s puppet, it seemed, and he had been dancing to everyone’s tune. Well, to Eunice’s, anyway, and that infernal Windrow’s. Lady Angeline’s was less effective.

“What did you say?” She frowned suddenly.

“When?”

“Just before the carriage left,” she said.

“It is you I love,” he repeated, gazing steadily into her eyes.

And it is you I could shake until your teeth rattle. But he did not say those words aloud. Actually it was all part of the same feeling. She fascinated him and annoyed him. She exhilarated him and infuriated him. He adored her and could cheerfully throttle her, even if only very figuratively speaking. Theirs would not be a match made in heaven. There would be nothing placidly comfortable about their lifelong relationship. But one thing was certain. He knew he was alive when he was with her, whatever the devil that meant.

Whatever the devil it did mean, it made all the difference.

And he was not even sure what that meant.

“I love you,” he added since she was uncharacteristically mute.

Her eyes seemed to fill her face. And they were swimming in unshed tears.

“You do not.” Her voice was accusing. “You do not believe in love.”

“If I ever said anything so asinine,” he said, “I must have been lying. I love my mother and my sisters and my grandmother and my nieces and nephews. I even love my grandfather. And I love you—in an entirely different way. I am going to ask you again to marry me. I’ll do it when we are back at Hallings and when the time seems right. And this time I am not going to go down on one knee. Whoever started that ridiculous tradition ought to be horsewhipped, except that I suppose he is long dead.”

She was smiling through her tears.

“I will not demand it of you,” she said. “But how do you know I will say yes?”

He wagged one finger pendulum fashion before her face.

“No more games,” he said. “There have been enough games to last us both a lifetime, Angeline. They are at an end. I am going to offer you marriage because I love you and would be unable to live a happy, fulfilled life without you. And you are going to marry me because you love me.”

A wave of uncertainty washed over him, but he mentally shook it off. It was time to take a stand. He had the feeling he would be doing it for the rest of his life—except when she was bowling him over with some madness or he was simply indulging her because he had no desire whatsoever to take a stand.

Devil take it, life was going to be complicated. He was never going to know whether he stood on his feet or on his head.

“You are very sure of yourself,” she said.

“I am.” He clasped his hands behind his back and resisted the foolish urge to cross his fingers.

The private parlor, indeed the whole inn, was suddenly very quiet. Somewhere in the distance a clock ticked loudly.