Мэри Бэлоу - Someone to Romance

“I had no interest in returning,” he said. “I had made a new life and I was both busy and happy. I grew up at Brierley from the age of nine, when my father died. I was never happy there.”

“Why have you returned now?” Jessica’s mother asked.

“There was one particular reason,” he said. “But it has grown into several reasons since I came back and learned more.”

“This will be very disturbing news to Mr. Manley Rochford,” she said. “And to his son, who came here to Archer House not many days ago to ask for Avery’s blessing on a marriage proposal he wished to make to Jessica—and on the expectation that he was about to become heir to an earldom.”

“They will certainly not be happy,” Gabriel agreed.

“Mr. Thorne,” Anna said. “Who was the other cousin who urged you to run away after your friend’s murdered body was discovered?”

“Manley Rochford,” he said.

She frowned.

“My love,” Avery said, “since you did not after all ring for coffee, and the sun is still shining outside despite dire predictions I heard during my morning ride of rain on the way, perhaps we ought to take the children to Hyde Park for an hour or so. Mother, would you care to accompany us?”

“But there is so much to be talked about,” she said. “I . . . feel as though my brain must have frozen.”

“Quite so,” Avery agreed. “Come and thaw it in the park. Jessica and Thorne have a wedding to discuss and might make better headway if they are left alone. My advice, Thorne, is that you wait until we are out of sight, and then instruct my sister to fetch her bonnet before taking her off to the nearest church. But I daresay you have not yet acquired a special license.”

“I have, actually,” Gabriel told him.

“Jessica?” Her mother had set aside her embroidery frame and got to her feet. She sounded alarmed.

“You may relax, Mama,” Jessica told her. “I shall flatly refuse to fetch my bonnet, and no lady can be expected to set foot outdoors without one.”

Avery was holding open the drawing room door. Soon it closed behind the three of them, though her mother had looked very reluctant to go.

Jessica could not remember being alone in a room before with a man who was not a relative—oh, except when someone had come to ask for her hand in marriage. But on those occasions Avery had not gone off to stroll in Hyde Park with Anna and her mother and the children. This whole thing suddenly felt horribly real.

Horribly? It struck her how little she knew this man or of him. She had only his word for almost everything he had told her. One thing struck her as a bit odd, though.

“Why was Avery willing to give his blessing?” she asked. “Did he . . . know? Before you came up to the drawing room, that is?”

“He did,” he said. “But not because I told him. Apparently he is too lazy to find things out for himself, but discovering that Thorne was my mother’s name was well within the capabilities of his secretary.”

“Avery is far from lazy,” she told him.

“Yes,” he said. “I have concluded that for myself. That man of his is at Brierley, finding out what he can while trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous.”

“Avery told you he had sent him there?” Jessica asked.

“No,” he said. “But my man at Brierley reported that a stranger has been asking pointed questions. It seemed to me from the description he gave that the stranger was almost certainly the same man who had the charge of you on the road to London.”

“It seems to me ,” she said, “that there are definite similarities between you and my brother. You have a man at Brierley? Spying, you mean? Do you really have a marriage license?”

“I do,” he said. “Do you still want to marry me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

If Avery had given his blessing, it would not be just because he had discovered that Gabriel was the Earl of Lyndale. Avery was certainly high in the instep, but he was not shallow. And if Mr. Goddard was at Brierley, trying, poor man, to look inconspicuous, Avery himself must have been very busy here. She was not surprised, however. It would always be a mistake to be taken in by Avery’s studied indolence.

Gabriel had come to stand in front of her. He held out one hand, and she put her own into it and allowed him to draw her to her feet.

“Now?” he asked her. “Or would you rather wait and allow your mother to arrange a family wedding?”

She could in all reality go and fetch her bonnet now and go and get married? She felt suddenly breathless. And very tempted.

“I believe,” she said, “it broke Mama’s heart when Avery thwarted the plans of the whole Westcott family and took Anna off to marry her privately. I think maybe the family wedding, then. But within the week. And not the grand event they will try to press on us. I do wish, however, you also had family.”

He looked at her rather wistfully, she thought, and she remembered that he did have family here in England. Family members who lied and committed rape and possibly murder and tried to blame an innocent man. Family members who would be far from happy to see him again.

“I do have Sir Trevor,” he said, “and Lady Vickers. They are in truth my godparents. And there is their son, who has become my friend in the past few weeks. Shall we decide upon Friday for our wedding, then? I would rather not wait longer than that.”

It was Tuesday already. By Friday she would be a married lady. She would be Lady Jessica Thorne, Countess of Lyndale.

“You would wait that long,” she asked, “just so that Mama—and doubtless Grandmama and the aunts—would have time to arrange some sort of family wedding? Because it is what I want?”

“Yes,” he said.

And she wondered. Oh, she wondered. Last evening he had admitted that he wished to marry her only because she had all the qualifications he felt he needed in a bride. He had also admitted that he wanted her. But wanting her did not necessarily mean he felt any tender emotion for her. Did he care for her? Just a little bit?

And did she care for him? Had she agreed to marry him just because she had decided she wanted to be married and because she wanted him? Was there anything else? It would be wise not even to think of the possibility.

“Thank you,” she said, and he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Slowly and thoroughly, holding her right against the full length of him, though the kiss was not as urgent as last night’s.

It was good even so. Better than good. He felt solid and dependable. Masculine. Desirable.

He already had a marriage license. Mama and Anna and all the other females in the family were about to be let loose upon wedding plans.

She was glad.

She was going to be married.

With her family about her.

She was going to be married.

And then she would have to face his family with him.

Fifteen

I wish to say something,” Lady Estelle Lamarr said to the roomful of ladies, none of whom were related to her by blood but all of whom had welcomed her into the Westcott family as one of their own when her father married the former Viola Westcott, Countess of Riverdale.

The chatter ceased abruptly, and everyone turned to listen to her with identical expressions of surprised inquiry. They were gathered in the drawing room of the dowager countess’s home, it being easier for all of them to travel there than to expect her to travel elsewhere.

“You are all tiptoeing about one point,” she said. “It is to spare my feelings, I know, and I do appreciate your kindness. It is, however, unnecessary. I like Mr. Thorne exceedingly well. I was never for one moment interested in marrying him, however, even though I know you all did your best to promote a match between us. He was never for one moment interested in marrying me. It ought to have been obvious to everyone that he had eyes only for Jessica—and that she had eyes only for him, though I know you were all hoping for a match between her and Mr. Rochford. Please believe me. I am not nursing a broken heart. I am not even in search of a husband yet. I am only twenty-three. I am going to live in the country with Bertrand for a year or two when the summer is over. We are both agreed upon that plan. Meanwhile I am very happy for Jessica and Mr. Thorne.”