Mary Balogh: First Comes Marriage

The viscountess's prestige rose significantly.

The Huxtables were invited everywhere fashionable people were invited - to balls, soirees, concerts, picnics, Venetian breakfasts, dinners, theater parties… The list was endless. They could, in fact, have been busy merrymaking every day from morning to night. Well, perhaps not morning as they defined it. Most people slept until past noon, having danced or played cards or conversed or otherwise diverted themselves almost all night long.

It amused Vanessa to discover that an invitation to breakfast actually was an invitation to a meal beginning in the middle of the afternoon. It amazed her that most people seemed perfectly content to begin their day in the afternoon and end it early in the morning.

What a sad waste of daylight and sunshine!

She accompanied her sisters to numerous entertainments, but she did not have to make any great effort to introduce them to people whose names she often could not recall herself or to find conversational groups for them to join or partners for them to dance with. As Elliott had predicted, they met the same people almost wherever they went, and names, faces, and titles soon became more familiar.

Margaret and Katherine soon acquired friends and acquaintances, and each very quickly had a court of admirers - as did Vanessa herself, to her great amazement. Young gentlemen whose names she scarcely remembered asked her to dance or offered to fetch her refreshments or to escort her on a stroll about a garden or dance floor. One or two even offered to drive her in the park or to ride on Rotten Row with her.

It was not an uncommon occurrence, of course, for married ladies to have their cicisbei. And she remembered Elliott telling her at the theater that it was quite unexceptionable for a married lady to be escorted in a public place by a man who was not her husband.

It spoke volumes to Vanessa about the state of marriage among the /ton, /though she had no wish to behave as others did. If Elliott could not be with her, she preferred the company of her sisters or her mother-in-law to that of some strange gentleman.

She was not unhappy during the weeks following her presentation at court.

She was not particularly happy either.

There had been something of a reticence between her and Elliott since the day on which she had confronted him over the matter of Mrs.

Bromley-Hayes. They were not estranged. He accompanied her to many entertainments, especially in the evenings. He conversed with her whenever the opportunity presented itself. He made love to her each night. He slept in her bed.

But there was…something. Some sense of strain.

She believed him, and yet she was hurt. Not hurt that he had had a mistress before marrying her - that would have been unreasonable. Hurt perhaps because he had visited his ex-mistress after marrying her and would have said nothing to her if she had not found out on her own. And hurt perhaps because Mrs. Bromley-Hayes was beautiful in every imaginable way - physically at least.

There was nothing wrong with her marriage, Vanessa kept telling herself.

There was only everything right with it, in fact. She had a husband who paid attention to her, who was faithful to her, who had sworn to remain faithful. She was well blessed. What more could she ask for? /His heart?/ If one had the moon and the stars, must one be greedy for the sun too?

It seemed that the answer was yes.

Katherine treated her court of admirers much as she had done in Throckbridge. She smiled kindly and indulgently upon them all, granted them all equal favors, /liked /them all. But when asked, she would admit that there was no one special among them. "Do you not /want /someone special in your life?" Vanessa asked her one morning when they were taking a brisk walk through an almost deserted park. "Of course I do," Katherine said with something of a sigh. "But that is it, you see, Nessie. He must /be /special. I am coming to the conclusion that there is no such person, that I am looking for an impossibility.

But that cannot be so, can it? Hedley was special to you, and Lord Lyngate is. How I envied you when I watched you waltzing together at Cecily's come-out ball. If it has happened to you twice, is it too much to ask that it happen to me just once?" "Oh, it will," Vanessa assured her, taking her arm and squeezing it. "I am glad you will settle for no less than love. And what about Meg?" Their sister was not with them. She had gone to Hookham's library with the Marquess of Allingham. "And the marquess, you mean?" Katherine said. "I do believe he is seriously courting her." "And will she have him?" Vanessa asked. "I do not know," Katherine admitted. "She seems to favor him. Certainly she pays no attention to anyone else, though there are several eligible and personable gentlemen interested in her. She does not behave as if she were in love, though, does she?" It was true. Meg was far more concerned with trying to control Stephen's movements and with encouraging Kate to enjoy herself as much as she was able and with assuring herself that Vanessa was happy than with forging a new life for herself.

Yet the marquess, who really was an amiable gentleman, was very attentive.

And Crispin Dew was married. There was no point in pining any further for him. Ah, easy for /her /to say, Vanessa thought. "Meg never will talk about herself, will she?" Katherine said. "I have never particularly noticed before, but it is true. That is why I never knew about Crispin Dew, I suppose. Oh, Nessie, did she care for him so very much?" "I fear she did," Vanessa said. "But perhaps given time she will find someone else. Perhaps he will even be the Marquess of Allingham. She seems to enjoy his company." But it was a hope soon to be dashed.

When Vanessa arrived at Merton House one afternoon a week or so later, she found Stephen in the hallway, about to go out with Constantine. They were to go to the races. He was frowning. "Dash it all, Nessie," he said, "when will Meg learn that she is my sister, not my mother? And when will she learn that I am seventeen years old, going on eighteen, and far too old to be kept in leading strings?" "Oh, dear," she said, "what has happened?" "Allingham came here earlier," he said, "and asked to speak with me. It was dashed decent of him since I /am /only seventeen and he must be twice that and Meg is twenty-five. He came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to her." "Oh, Stephen," Vanessa said, clasping her hands to her bosom. "And…?" "And of course I said yes," he said. "I was delighted actually. He does not have the best of tailors or boot-makers, perhaps, but he rides to an inch and is reputed to be the devil of a fine fellow and it doesn't really matter that he is not very tall. He has /presence/. And Meg has spent enough time with him in the last few weeks, the Lord knows. One could be forgiven for thinking that she would welcome an offer from him." "But she did not?" she asked. "Refused him out of hand," he said. "Ah," Vanessa said. "She was not fond enough of him after all, then?" "I dashed well don't know," he said. "She refuses to say. Says that has nothing to do with anything. She had made that infernal promise to Papa and she is going to keep it, by God, until I am twenty-one and Kate is married." "Oh, dear," Vanessa said. "I thought perhaps she would consider that things have changed somewhat." "As they dashed well have," he said. "I am /Merton /now, Nessie. I have land and a fortune and a /life/. I have new friends. I have a future. It is not that I don't love Meg. It is not that I am not grateful for all she has done for me since Papa died. I will /never /forget, and I will /always /be grateful. But I resent having to account for my every movement every single hour of the day. And I resent being made the cause of her rejecting the best marriage offer she will probably ever have. If she does not like him well enough, then fine. I applaud her having the gumption to refuse him. But if it is not that… If it is just me…