Mary Balogh - Gentle conquest

He took her to art galleries and museums, places she had always shunned as dry gatherers of dust and worthless junk. She would still not have enjoyed the visits greatly, she admitted, if Ralph were not there to explain things to her and bring to life an object that was just that to her and no more. She started for the first time to believe that it would be a pleasurable experience to travel to Florence and Milan and Rome and all those other places that many travelers visited out of a sense of duty only.

With Ralph she was learning that one did not need to be constantly out and doing in order to bring meaning and enjoyment to life. Not that they shunned the brighter entertainments. Now that more and more members of the ton were returning to the capital for the winter, there were frequent invitations. And they refused only those they genuinely could not keep. They attended parties, musical evenings, theater parties, even one ball.

Ralph did not shine at such entertainments. He was not naturally sociable. But he did not shun contact with others. He could be relied upon to seek out someone-usually a female-who was isolated from the company for one reason or another. And he would sit quietly conversing with these people-aging spinsters, young girls without either looks or fortune, even chaperones, who were usually beneath the notice of the ton. If some of his friends from the House of Lords were present, of course, he would be engrossed in serious conversation.

Georgiana loved to keep an eye on him while she danced or chatted with gayer companions. She was inordinately proud of him and came very close to quarreling loudly with Dennis Vaughan one evening when he joked that Ralph blended in quite well with the row of chaperones amongst whom he sat for one particular set.

One afternoon Ralph took her to visit the Broomes. They did not live in the most fashionable part 'of London. Georgiana felt apprehensive. The school would be in progress. Were they to expect noise and chaos and dirt?

She was pleasantly surprised when a maid ushered them into a tiled hallway and took their coats. The only sound was a distant, unidentifiable murmur. And the hallway, though rather small, was neat and spotlessly clean. Sylvia Broome came hurrying down the staircase before they could be shown into any room, her hands extended.

"How wonderful!" she said. "I am so happy you have come. We do not have very many visitors during the daytime. Some people, I believe, think that they will be coming into a den of thieves if they set foot in here." She laughed lightly and instructed the maid to take Lord Chartleigh to her husband.

“That is, if you wish to meet our boys?" she said, eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

"I had hoped to do so," Ralph said. "Will your husband mind?"

Georgiana was taken to a cozy sitting room by her hostess, who immediately rang for tea. And she found again that she liked this girl, who was the same age as herself yet who seemed very mature.

"I am so happy to see you, Georgiana," Sylvia said. "I lived a quiet life in the country until last spring, you know, but I always had my cousin with me to talk to. She is on a wedding trip in Italy and like to be away for almost a year if Edward has his way. And I do miss her. Do you mind my calling you by your given name?"

"My friends call me Georgie," Georgiana said.

Sylvia laughed. "I like it," she said. "It suits you. You used to be quite a madcap, didn't you? I remember hearing of your racing in the park during the fashionable hour, when it is considered quite unacceptable to move faster than a slow crawl."

"Oh dear," Georgiana said. "That does seem to be a long time ago. Is it your cousin who married the Earl of Raymore? I heard of his wedding a few months ago."

Sylvia nodded. "We were both most fortunate," she said. "We both made love matches. Is it not wonderful to love one's husband? I can tell that you and Lord Chartleigh are very attached to each other too. He is a lovely person. I had not met him before Standen's party."

"He has been at university," Georgiana explained. "He is only one-and-twenty, you know. Three years older than I. I had not met him myself before… Well, he offered for me at our second meeting, you see. It was an arranged marriage."

"How dreadful for you!" Sylvia exclaimed. "But how wonderful to discover that your parents had allied you to the very man you would have chosen for yourself if given the chance."

"Yes," Georgiana agreed. "Except that I do not believe I would have had the good sense to choose him. I have grown to love him since our wedding."

Sylvia laughed again. "I was foolish enough to let Nigel talk me into betrothing myself to his brother," she said. "It was only afterward that we realized that it was each other we wanted. I had to think of a desperate scheme to set things right. I still feel almost guilty when I think of it. Almost! But when I look at Standen, I know that we would have been very unhappy. As a brother-in-law I can admire him and even feel affection for him. As a husband I would have feared him and come to hate him."

The hour that passed until Ralph and Nigel Broome joined them in the sitting room seemed no longer than five minutes. Georgiana found a very easy friendship developing between Sylvia and her. The other couple had promised to dine with them before they left for home.

Ralph was impressed with Nigel Broome's school. He talked to her on the journey home about his own dream of doing something worthwhile with his time and fortune and position of influence. Chartleigh was a large estate. Could he set up some sort of project that would occupy the people from the village workhouse? he wondered. Charity was not the answer. He could give all the inmates of the institution enough money on which to live in comfort and still not beggar himself. But that would not restore their self-respect or satisfy their human need to feel in control of their own lives and destinies. It was jobs they needed. What did Georgiana think?

Georgiana had never done any thinking along those lines. She was in the habit of agreeing with the general feeling of her class that the poor were poor because they were idle and lazy. But she had learned respect for Ralph's mind. If he said these people needed jobs and faith in themselves, then it must be so. She felt a warm glow of happiness that he would discuss his thoughts with her and ask her opinion. Just as if she were a real person who mattered, instead of a feather-brained female who needed to be bullied to stay out of scrapes.

"I don't know, Ralph," she said. "But I am sure you will think of a solution. And I know it will be the right one. And if it means spending a great deal of money, you are not to mind me. I shall be quite content to stay at Chartleigh if we cannot afford to keep up the town house. And I have quite enough clothes and faradiddles to last me until I am quite middle-aged."

And what was more, she thought in some surprise as he laughed in amusement and assured her that he did not think they would be reduced to utter destitution, she meant it. She could live naked on a desert island for the rest of her life, provided Ralph was there with her, she thought with all the intense unrealism of one newly and deeply in love.

They were a happy seven weeks.

They were not quite so happy for Ralph. He was happy when he was with Georgiana and when he was with Sally. But he could find no peace of mind when he was alone.

He was delighted with the way his relationship with his wife was developing. She appeared to have lost her fear of him and a fragile friendship was growing. He was making an effort to spend more time with her, to get to know her, and to share something of himself with her. The last was not easy to do. Ralph had always been a very private person. He was accustomed to being alone, to feeling somewhat despised by most of the people with whom he was forced to associate. He had accepted his essential loneliness.