Мэри Бэлоу: Someone to Wed

Alexander shook hands with all his departing guests, a long, slow process as each wished to thank him profusely for the invitation and the tea. Some asked him to pass on their compliments to the cook. A few hoped, as they had on previous occasions, that he would be remaining in the country and that they would see much more of him. One or two asked about Mrs. Westcott, his mother, and about Lady Overfield, his sister. One tenant farmer thought the weather they had been having so far this spring boded well for the year’s crops, while another, overhearing him, argued that a dry, warm spring often presaged a wet, cold summer and a poor harvest. The young lady who had performed a pirouette earlier repeated her hint that his lordship’s drawing room would be quite divine for an informal dance. Her mother again told her to mind her manners. But finally they had all left and Alexander gave the order to have his carriage brought around.

Miss Heyden rose to her feet again when they were alone. “You dismissed my carriage without consulting me, Lord Riverdale,” she said. It was a clear reproof.

He wished he had not done so. He would have been quite happy to see her on her way with the hope that he would never see her again. He would have liked her better, perhaps, if she had stamped her foot and thrown a tantrum. But her annoyance was perfectly controlled. He set his hands behind him and gazed steadily back at her. Good God, she was tall. He was unaccustomed to looking almost straight across into a woman’s eyes—or what could be seen of her eyes through her veil.

“Miss Heyden,” he said, “the last time we met you asked me to marry you. Do you not feel we ought to get to know each other somewhat better before deciding if it is what we both want? Unless, perhaps, you have already decided and wish to withdraw your offer. If that is indeed so, I shall send a maid to accompany you and an extra footman to sit up with my coachman.”

“I have not changed my mind,” she said. “You are considering my proposal, then?”

“Considering it, yes,” he said reluctantly. “I would be a fool not to. But I am sure neither one of us wishes to marry in haste only to repent at leisure, as the old saying goes. Shall we?” He gestured toward the doors. “I believe I heard the carriage drawing up a moment ago.”

She came toward him and he opened one of the doors for her to pass through. As he followed her, he considered offering his arm but decided against it. It was a breach of gentlemanly manners unlike him, but there was something about her … It was as if she were surrounded by an invisible wall of ice. Though that was unfair. There was nothing definably icy in her demeanor. It was just … other . He had still not thought of the word for which his mind sought—if there was such a word.

He wondered suddenly if this tea had been her first social event ever. It seemed incredible when she was almost thirty. But … perhaps she really had been a total recluse until today. Perhaps all afternoon she had been terrified and holding herself together by pure force of will. He had challenged her to have the courage to come. Perhaps she had shown more courage than he could possibly imagine.

Perhaps she was that desperate to marry. Though desperate was an unkind word. Eager, then. Perhaps her wish to find someone to wed—to use her own phrase—took precedence over all else. The possibility made her seem more human and perhaps even a little more likable.

He offered a hand to help her into his carriage and was a bit surprised when she took it.

He had sent Maude home with her carriage. Perhaps as her presumptive betrothed he had not felt the necessity of observing the proprieties. Was he her presumptive betrothed? He had done and said nothing during that ghastly tea to suggest any such thing. There had been no hint to his neighbors, several of whom had been acquainted with her aunt and uncle and had commiserated with her on her loss and expressed pleasure at meeting her. None had really seemed delighted, though. But perhaps that was her fault. Undoubtedly it was, in fact.

It had been by far the worst afternoon of her life—since the age of ten anyway. She settled on the seat of Lord Riverdale’s carriage, made room for him beside her, and longed for her own conveyance. She had been waiting for what seemed like forever but was actually less than two hours for the ordeal to be over so that she might collapse into it and close her eyes and feel the comfort of Maude’s presence beside her. She could not do this. She simply could not. He was too male and too handsome and the world was too vast a place and too full of people.

She wanted to curl up into a ball, either on the seat or on the floor. She did not know how she was going to keep panic at bay for … How long did it take to travel eight miles? She could not think clearly.

“Will you lift your veil?” he asked her as the carriage moved away from the front doors.

Did he not understand ? What she needed was an extra veil to throw over the first—to throw over the whole of herself. She wanted desperately to be alone. But there was no point in directing her anger against him. She was the one who had set this nightmare in motion. Was she going to draw back now? She had made the decision and had planned her course with cool deliberation. She raised her hands and lifted the veil back over the brim of her bonnet. But she turned her head slightly toward the window on her left side as she did so.

“Thank you,” he said. And, after a few silent moments, “Have you always been a recluse, Miss Heyden?”

“No,” she said. “As the owner of a thriving business, I do not merely sit at home all year long, gathering in the profits while other people make the plans and the decisions and do the work. I learned the business from my uncle and spent long hours with him at the workshop with the artisans and in the offices with the administrative and creative staff. I am a businesswoman in more than just name.”

Her uncle and aunt had indulged many of her whims and respected her basic freedom, but they had been very insistent that she be properly educated — something she had certainly not been to the age of ten. They had hired Miss Briggs, an elderly governess who had appeared to be a cuddly old dear. In some ways she was, but she had also imposed a challenging academic curriculum upon her pupil and not only encouraged excellence but somehow insisted upon it. Miss Briggs had also taught manners and deportment and elocution and social skills, like making polite conversation with strangers. She had finally been let go the day after Wren’s eighteenth birthday with a comfortable pension and a small thatched cottage, to which Wren’s uncle had gone to the expense of bringing her beloved sister from halfway across the country to live with her.

Wren’s real education, though—or what she considered her real education—had come at the hands of her uncle himself. One day when she was twelve he had realized after taking her with him to the glassworks that a passion for his life’s work had been sparked in her. I could hardly get a word in edgewise all the way home, he had told Aunt Megan later. And I lost count of the number of questions she asked after the first thirty-nine. We have a young prodigy here, Meg.

“Did you live with your aunt and uncle all your life until their passing?” the Earl of Riverdale asked.

“Since I was ten,” she said. “My aunt took me to his home in London—that was before he sold it—and they were married a week later.”

“You have his name,” he said.

“They adopted me,” she told him. She had not been sure it was a legal adoption until after her uncle’s death, when she had found the certificate among his papers. Her father’s signature had been upon it—a stomach-churning shock at the time.