Mary Balogh: First Comes Marriage

And so she could not make a choice. Not even a sensible one. Not yet, anyway, though the day would come, she supposed, when she would have to decide - or remain forever a spinster - and there would be an end of the matter.

Stephen Huxtable was tall and very slender, not having yet quite grown into his man's body. And yet there was an energy and natural grace about him that saved him from appearing either thin or awkward. His hair was almost purely golden, and it fell about his head in soft curls that defied taming - much to his occasional despair and just as much to the eternal satisfaction of almost all who knew him. His face was handsome and brooding when it was not filled with laughter. His blue eyes gazed intensely at the world, the outer sign of a restless nature that had as yet not found sufficient outlet for his energy and curiosity and need to master his world.

He played hard. He rode and fished and swam and played sports and indulged in 101 other energetic activities with his peers. If there was any scrape to be got into, he was sure to be there. If there was any scheme to be dreamed up, he was sure to be the chief dreamer. He was liked and admired and followed almost worshipfully by all the boys and young men in the neighborhood. He was adored by women of all ages, who were charmed by his good looks and his smiles but were captivated most of all by the brooding restlessness of his eyes and lips. For what self-respecting woman can resist the challenge of taming a potential bad boy?

Not that he was bad… yet. He worked as diligently as he played. For as the only boy of the family, he was the privileged one. It was for him that Margaret had set aside the portion their mother had brought to her marriage so that when he was eighteen he would be able to go to university and thus secure a good future for himself in steady and perhaps even lucrative employment.

Much as Stephen sometimes chafed against the yoke of his eldest sister's authority, he understood too the sacrifice she was making for his sake.

There was very little money left for her daily needs or for Katherine's.

He studied with the vicar and worked long and hard at his books. The career that a good education might bring him would be his means of escape from the confinement of life in the country. But because his was not an entirely selfish nature, he planned one day to repay his sisters for all they had done for him. Or, if they were married by then and did not need his support, then he would shower them and their children with gifts and favors.

That, at least, was his dream of the future. But in the meanwhile he worked to make his dream come true. And played hard too.

There was a fourth member of the family.

Vanessa, formerly Huxtable, now Dew, was twenty-four years old. She had married Hedley Dew, Sir Humphrey's younger son, when she was twenty-one and lost him a year later. She had been a widow for a year and a half now, but had remained at Rundle Park with her in-laws rather than return to the cottage to be an added financial burden there. Besides, her in-laws had wanted her to stay. They had needed her. She was a comfort to them, they had always assured her. How could anyone resist being needed? Besides, she was fond of them too.

Vanessa was the plain one of the family. She had always known it and had accepted it with cheerful resignation. She was not as tall as Margaret or Katherine. Neither was she small enough to be called petite. She was not as shapely as Margaret or as willowy as Katherine. The least said of her figure the better, in fact, since really there was nothing much to say. If the family hair color went in a descending scale from Margaret's vibrant chestnut through Katherine's gold-flecked dark blond to Stephen's golden, then Vanessa's fell somewhere on the line that was difficult to describe with a single word - or even a word with an adjective added. Her hair color was really quite uninteresting. And the hair itself had the misfortune of waving without curling. If ever she wore it loose, it fell in heavy ridges down her back rather than in a single shiny column like Margaret's.

And her face - well, it was a face on which all the features were exactly where they ought to be, and all of them functioned just as they ought.

But there was nothing outstanding, nothing memorable, about any of them.

Her eyes fell short of being blue though no other color quite described them either. Perhaps the best that could be said of her face was that it was not exactly ugly.

None of her family had ever called her ugly - they /loved /her. But she had been her father's favorite because she was willing to curl up in his study, reading, while he worked. And he had often told her that reading was a pastime she should continue to cultivate since it was very possible she would never have a home of her own to run. It was a roundabout way of telling her that she could never expect to marry. Her mother had stated the fact more baldly and had encouraged her to acquire housekeeping skills that she could offer Stephen and his wife after he married - or Margaret or Katherine after /they /married. She had been her mother's favorite too.

Her parents had felt a special tenderness for their plain Jane - her father had sometimes called her that with a fondness that had taken any sting out of the words.

But she /had /married. She was the only one of the family to have done so thus far, in fact.

She had always marveled over the fact that Hedley Dew had loved her so passionately, since he had been as beautiful as a god. But he had. Loved her passionately, that was.

Vanessa was not the sort of person to resent her sisters - or even her brother - for being better-looking than she. And she was certainly not the sort to hate herself merely because she was not beautiful.

She was as she was.

Plain.

And she adored her siblings. She would do anything in the world to secure their happiness.

She left Rundle Park on foot early in the afternoon of St. Valentine's Day, as she did three or four times every week, in order to call upon Margaret at the cottage. They had always been each other's best friend.

She set out on her walk at perhaps almost the exact time when Viscount Lyngate and George Bowen were settling into their rooms at the inn, blissfully unaware of what was in store for them for the rest of the day.

And Vanessa herself was unaware of their arrival - of their very existence, in fact.

Fate very often creeps up upon people without any warning.

She walked briskly. It was a chilly day. And she had something particular to tell her sister. "I am /going,/" she announced as soon as she had removed her winter cloak and bonnet inside the cottage door and greeted her sister in the parlor. "To the assembly?" Margaret was seated beside the fire, busy as usual with her needlework, though she looked up to smile warmly at her sister. "I am so glad you have decided, Nessie. It would have been a shame for you to stay away." "Mama-in-law has been urging me for the past week to go," Vanessa said. "And last evening Papa-in-law himself told me that I must attend and moreover that I must dance." "That was very kind of him," Margaret said, "but no more than I would expect him to say. And it is high time. Hedley has been gone for well over a year." "I know." Tears threatened, but Vanessa blinked them away. "Which is exactly what Papa-in-law said. I cannot mourn forever, he told me, and Mama-in-law nodded her agreement. And then we all had a little weep and the matter was settled. I am going." She smiled a slightly watery smile as she took a chair close to the fire. "What do you think?" her sister asked, shaking out the garment she had been working on and holding it up for Vanessa's inspection.

It was Katherine's primrose yellow evening gown, which had been looking slightly limp and tired when she wore it at Christmas. It was at least three years old. Now it sported shining blue ribbon sewn in two bands close to the hem and in one thin band around the edges of the short sleeves. "Oh, very smart indeed," Vanessa said. "It makes the dress look almost new again. Did you find the ribbon in Miss Plumtree's shop?" "I did," Margaret said. "And a pretty penny it cost too. Cheaper than a new gown, however." "And did you buy some for yourself too?" Vanessa asked. "No," her sister said. "My blue gown is just fine as it is." Except that it was even older than Katherine's yellow - and more faded.