Мэри Бэлоу: Someone to Wed

Other couples twirled about them, candlelight wheeled above them, flowers gave off their heady perfumes, and the music seeped into their very bones, or so it seemed.

She smiled at him and he smiled back and really nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but her—and him. Them.

“Ah,” she said on a sigh when the music finally came to an end, “so soon?”

“Come,” he said. He did not know if she had promised the next set. He did not really care. He led her out onto the balcony beyond the French windows and down the steps to the garden below. It was lit with colored lanterns strung among the trees, though not many people strolled there. He stopped walking when they were beneath a willow tree beside a fountain, out of sight of the house. “Happy?” he asked.

“Mmm,” she said, clinging to his arm. “It is beautifully cool out here.”

“I suppose,” he said, “you are still going to insist that we wait to go home to Brambledean until after the parliamentary session is over.”

“Yes,” she said. “Because your duty here is important. To you. And therefore to me.”

“We will leave the very day after,” he said. “At the crack of dawn. I want to be home. With you.”

“It does sound heavenly, does it not?” she said.

“Wren.” He turned to face her and cupped her face in his hands. “I am guilty of a terrible deception. Of myself as much as of you. I surely suspected when you insisted upon ending things between us at Brambledean. I surely knew when I saw you again by the Serpentine. The truth must have been staring me in the face and knocking on my brow when I offered you marriage on that woodland path. It has been clamoring for my attention ever since.”

She raised both her hands and set them over the backs of his. “What?” she half whispered. Lamplight was swaying across her face in the breeze.

“I love you,” he said. “I wish there were a better word. But maybe it is the best after all, for it encompasses everything else and reaches beyond. I love you more than … Well, I am really not good with words. I love you.”

Her smile was soft and warm and radiant in the dim light. “Oh,” she said, her voice hushed with wonder. “But you have chosen the most precious word in the English language, Alexander. I love you too, you see. I think I have known my own feelings since the moment you walked into my drawing room at Withington and looked so disconcerted not to find it full of other guests. I have certainly known since Easter Sunday. It broke my heart to let you go, but it would have been worse to continue—or so I thought. After we met again I chose to settle for the hope of affection, and it has been good knowing that you do indeed care. I have tried to tell myself it is enough. I have tried not to be greedy. But now … Oh, Alexander, now …”

He touched his forehead to hers. “And it is at least a few weeks since I last noticed, you know,” he said. “Is it still there? I wonder.” He lifted his head and gazed with a frown of concentration at the left side of her face. “Indeed it is. The birthmark is still there. How could I possibly not have noticed?”

She was laughing. “Perhaps,” she said, “because you were noticing me instead.”

“Ah,” he said. “Undoubtedly that is it.”

They smiled at each other, and she pressed her hands warmly against his as he kissed her.

… because you were noticing me instead.

Ah, Wren.

Yes.

READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN MARY BALOGH’S WESTCOTT SERIES,

Someone to Care

AVAILABLE FROM PIATKUS IN MAY 2018.

Marcel Lamarr, Marquess of Dorchester, was not at all pleased when his carriage turned abruptly into the yard of an undistinguished country inn on the edge of an undistinguished country village and rocked to a halt. He made his displeasure felt, not in words, but rather in a cold, steady gaze, his quizzing glass raised almost but not quite to his eye, when his coachman opened the door and peered apologetically within.

“One of the leaders has a shoe coming loose, my lord,” he explained.

“You did not check when we stopped for a change of horses not an hour ago that all was in order?” his lordship asked. But he did not wait for an answer. “How long?”

His coachman glanced dubiously at the inn and the stables off to one side, from which no groom or ostler had yet emerged to rush eagerly to their aid. “Not long, my lord,” he assured his employer.

“A firm and precise answer,” his lordship said curtly, lowering his glass. “Shall we say one hour? And not a moment longer? We will step inside while we wait, André, and sample the quality of the ale served here.” His tone suggested that he was not expecting to be impressed.

“A glass or two will not come amiss,” his brother replied cheerfully. “It has been a dashed long time since breakfast. I never understand why you always have to make such an early start and then remain obstinately inside the carriage when the horses are being changed.”

The quality of the ale was, indeed, not impressive, but the quantity could not be argued with. It was served in large tankards, which foamed over to leave wet rings on the table. Quantity was perhaps the inn’s claim to fame. The landlord, unbidden, brought them fresh meat pasties, which filled the two plates and even hung over the edges. They had been cooked by his own good wife, he felt impelled to inform them, bowing and beaming as he did so, though his lordship gave him no encouragement beyond a cool, indifferent nod. The good woman apparently made the best meat pasties, and, indeed, the best pies of any and all descriptions for twenty miles around, probably more, though the proud husband did not want to give the appearance of being boastful in the singing of his woman’s praises. Their lordships must judge for themselves, though he had no doubt they would agree with him and perhaps even suggest that they were the finest in all England—possibly even in Wales and Scotland and Ireland too. He would not be at all surprised. Had their lordships ever traveled to those remote regions? He had heard—

They were rescued from having to listen to whatever it was he had heard, however, when the outer door beyond the taproom opened and a trio of people, followed almost immediately by a steady stream of others, turned into the room. They were presumably villagers, all clad in their Sunday best though it was not Sunday, all cheerful and noisy in their greetings to the landlord and one another. All were as dry as the desert and as empty as a beggar’s bowl in a famine—according to the loudest of them—and in need of sustenance in the form of ale and pasties, it being not far off noon and the day’s festivities not due to begin for another hour or so yet. They fully expected to be stuffed for the rest of the day once the festivities did begin, of course but in the meanwhile …

But someone at that point—with a chorus of hasty agreement from everyone else—remembered to assure mine host that nothing would or could compare to his wife’s cooking. That was why they were there.

Each of the new arrivals became quickly aware that there were two strangers in their midst. A few averted their eyes in some confusion and scurried off to sit at tables as far removed from theirs as the size of the room allowed. Others, somewhat bolder, nodded respectfully as they took their seats. One brave soul spoke up with the hope that their worships had come to enjoy the entertainments their humble village was to have on offer for the rest of the day. The room grew hushed as all attention was turned upon their worships in anticipation of their reply.

The Marquess of Dorchester, who neither knew the name of the village nor cared, looked about the dark, shabby taproom with disfavor and ignored everyone. It was possible he had not even heard the question or noticed the hush. His brother, more gregarious by nature and more ready to be delighted by any novelty that presented itself, nodded amiably to the gathering in general and asked the inevitable question.