Мэри Бэлоу: Someone to Wed

Alexander’s fingertips were on her wrist again.

“My dear Rowena.” Her mother had taken the feathers in her own hand and was fanning her face again. “I kept you and cared for you for ten long years when you were hideous to look upon and everyone begged me to send you somewhere where only those well paid to do so would have to look at you. It is trial enough to look at you now—I feel for Lord Riverdale—but perhaps you do not remember how you looked then. Megan made a martyr of herself by taking you in, it seems, and persuaded that old man, doubtless still grief-stricken after the death of his wife, to marry her and take on the burden of you. I assume she is dead now? Poor Megan. But you are rich and have been able to purchase a husband and even a title. I congratulate you again. You should be thanking me, not heaping recriminations upon my head. Mr. Wragley, my vinaigrette, if you please.”

One of the young men picked it up from the table and handed it to her.

“Blanche,” Wren said, moving her attention to her sister, “I never knew you well. I was never given the chance. I would be happy to get to know you as a sister if you would like.”

Blanche looked at her with cool disdain. “No, thank you,” she said, and her husband, who had not been introduced, set a hand on her shoulder.

Wren got to her feet. “That is all,” she said. “I shall not trouble you again, Mother. And I shall not deliberately expose your ugly secret, though I daresay it will soon be known that I am Lord Hodges’s sister. Colin and I loved each other dearly as children. We will love each other again now and on into the future.”

Alexander was on his feet beside her and spoke now for the first time in more than an hour. “I thank you for receiving us, ma’am,” he said. “It was important to my wife to see you and speak with you again. She will be happier now, I believe. And her happiness is important to me. Of greater importance than anything else in my life, in fact. I certainly did not marry her for her money. I love her, you see.” With that, he turned and offered his arm to his wife. “Wren?”

He escorted her from the room and down the stairs to the hall. A footman held the door open for them. They would no doubt have stepped out of the house without speaking again if someone had not called Wren’s name. They turned. Both young men were hurrying down after them. They did not speak again until they were down in the hall too.

“You have upset Lady Hodges,” one of them said.

“Ugliness upsets her,” the other explained.

“And when she is upset, then we are upset,” the first man said.

It was the second man’s turn. “It is our express wish,” he said, “that you stay away from her in the future.”

“We and her other devoted friends always see to it that her wishes are granted,” the first young man said. “And it would be in your own interest, Lady Riverdale, to keep silent about your relationship to—”

He did not have a chance to finish. The other young man did not have a chance to chime in with his next remark. It all happened so quickly that Wren had no time even to blink. First the current speaker was grabbed by the neckcloth and then the other, and both were walked backward until there was no farther to go. They were hoisted upward, their backs to the wall, their elegantly booted feet only just scraping the tiled floor, their faces turning an identical shade of blue.

“Wren,” Alexander said, his voice pleasant, “go outside, my love, and await me in the carriage.”

But she stayed and gazed in amazement. He did not appear to have exerted a great deal of energy or power, and his voice was not breathless. He looked from one to the other of the young men he held in place.

“I do not like the sound of my wife’s name on your lips,” he said, his voice soft but curiously menacing. “I do not remember giving either of you permission to address her directly. I do not recall her ladyship giving such permission. Such permission is withheld. My wife’s name will not pass your lips ever again anywhere I might hear of it. You will utter no warnings or threats against her ever again . You will offer no public opinion about her. If you ever encounter her again, you will lower your eyes and button your lips. If you are given orders to the contrary, you will obey those orders at your peril. And you will pass on this message to your cohorts so that I may avoid the tedium of having to repeat them. Do you understand?”

Feet and hands dangled. Eyes popped. Neither young man seemed able to mount any defense against a one-handed hold. Nor did they seem quite able to draw breath.

“It was not a rhetorical question,” Alexander said when there was no answer. “It requires an answer.”

“Yes,” the first gentleman squeaked.

“Understood,” the second wheezed simultaneously.

Alexander opened his fingers and let them drop. They both crumpled to the floor, then rose awkwardly and fled in ungainly haste back up the stairs. Alexander brushed his hands together as though they were somehow soiled. He turned to glance at the footman, who was still holding the door open and gawking. His eyes alit upon Wren.

“Ah,” he said, “the ever-obedient wife. Come. We are done here, I believe.”

She took his arm without saying a word.

Twenty-two

Before Alexander climbed into the carriage after his wife, he told his coachman to keep driving until he was notified otherwise.

She sat with rigidly correct posture on her side of the carriage seat, her face slightly turned away to gaze out of the window. She had taken him by surprise during that visit. He had expected that she would ask questions of her mother to try to understand the why of her childhood and the way she had been treated. He had expected her to plead for some sort of reconciliation, for some sign that her mother had maternal feelings after all and some feelings of remorse. He had expected emotion, tears, drama— some outpouring of passion and pain.

Instead she had been magnificent. And he understood why she had gone against his advice and that of her brother. I came because I needed to come, because I needed to look upon you once more as an adult who has learned self-worth. I needed to confront the darkness of a childhood no child should ever have to endure … I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you that you have missed so much joy you might have had in your life…. I do not hate you … I feel sorrow instead, for perhaps you cannot help your character any more than I can help the birthmark on my face.

But he could not ignore the fact that that woman with her eerily youthful appearance and little girl voice was Wren’s mother.

He took her gloveless hand in his. It was cold and lifeless at first. But it curled into his almost immediately, and the carriage jerked slightly as it moved off.

“Thank you,” she said. “How did you manage to do that? There were two of them.”

“They were a grave disappointment,” he said. “I was itching for a fight, but all they could do was dangle.”

“It is … hurtful to be told that one was hideous to look upon,” she said, “even when one is assured that there has been a slight improvement and even when one despises the person who speaks such words.”

“But she is your mother,” he said.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes for a few moments and leaned slightly toward him until their shoulders touched. “There is an image that leaps to mind with the word mother — your mother, your aunt Lilian, Cousin Louise, Anna. But there is no compulsion on a woman to fit that image just because she has borne a child, is there? My mother is … Is there something wrong with her, Alexander? Can she really not help who she is, or how she is? Or can she? No. Don’t answer that.” She slid her hand beneath his arm and moved closer. “It does not matter. I went there so that I would be free of her at last. I am not naive enough to believe it will be as simple as that, of course, but calling on her was an important step and I have taken it. I am not going to puzzle over her. She is as she is. And Blanche is as she is.” With that, she sighed deeply. “Alexander, what a burden I have proved to be to you.”