André caught his eye from across the room and winked and grinned.
“Well, young man,” the dowager said amid the babble of voices around them. “I have never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. You will regret this. So will Viola. But that is your business, I suppose.”
She took his offered arm.
* * *
• • •
Viola had always known that something immeasurably good—or, rather, three things—had made every difficult year of her marriage worth suffering through. She was not a demonstrative woman—another result of her marriage—and perhaps her children did not know fully how adored they were, but she knew. She had often thought they were the only good thing to have come of her marriage. But she had been wrong.
During those twenty-three years she had learned to endure in full sight of family, friends, and society at large. She had learned to drag a gracious sort of dignity about herself like an all-enveloping mantle whenever she was not alone, and that meant most of her waking hours. That ability was her saving grace this evening.
With palpitating heart and shaking knees she had been about to make the announcement herself. She had drawn breath and opened her mouth to speak. A few heads had begun to turn her way. Yet even at that moment she had not known quite what she was going to say. She had not prepared any speech, or if she had, she could not remember a single word of it. She had only known that it must be done—now. Suddenly time really had run out. It was now or never, and never was a temptation that must be resisted.
Marcel had saved her by speaking up himself and risking all sorts of repercussions for violating his gentleman’s honor. It had not happened, however. To her knowledge, Joel had not challenged him to any sort of duel. Neither had Alexander nor Avery. And Michael had not denounced him. Everyone, in fact, had absorbed the shock of the announcement with remarkable civility despite the fact that a large number of her relatives had been dragged half across the country under false pretenses. Her daughters had hurried to her side before they left the dining room, and she had smiled at them both.
“Everything he said was true,” she said. “It was noble of him to make the announcement himself and take all the blame. I do not hate him or even dislike him. Neither does he hate nor dislike me. We just do not wish to be married to each other.”
“Mama,” Abigail said, and could not seem to find anything else to say. She looked her concern and distress instead.
“We so wanted you to be happy,” Camille said, looking equally forlorn.
“We have a party to attend and enjoy,” Viola reminded them. “For Estelle’s sake. And Bertrand’s.”
“They must have known,” Abigail said. “He must have told them before tonight.”
“Yes,” Viola agreed. “I think he must. Now, I promised to kiss Winifred good night before the party. I am going to go there without further delay before you and Joel go up, Camille.”
And the party proceeded an hour later as a grand and noisy reception in the ballroom, followed after a while by some country dancing for the young people and eventually a lavish sit-down supper during which there were toasts and speeches and birthday greetings from Bertrand and various neighbors—and Marcel, who praised his daughter and son and thanked his guests and made a few dry remarks about being forty. He made the first cut into a very large iced fruitcake, which fortunately looked suitable for any occasion.
If any of the neighbors had heard rumors of a betrothal announcement to be made tonight, none of them alluded to it or afforded Viola any more marked attention than they showed any other of the house guests. All was well, and Estelle’s party had been rescued from the disaster it might have been.
“How very fortunate it is,” Louise, Dowager Duchess of Netherby, remarked to Viola soon after the party began, “that there was a birthday also to celebrate tonight.”
“I daresay Dorchester will remember it for the rest of his life,” Mildred, her sister, agreed. “So will you, Viola. I must confess to some disappointment, though I came here quite prepared to line up with my sisters and subject the marquess to an interrogation that would reduce him to a quivering jelly. However, I daresay you know your own mind as he knows his.”
“I am so sorry,” Viola said, “that you were all dragged here for nothing.”
“Kicking and screaming,” Louise said after clucking her tongue. “It is a pity Bertrand is so very young. Jessica seems rather smitten with him, does she not? And who can blame her? That young man is destined to break a few female hearts before he finds the one for him.”
Lady Jessica Archer had made her come-out during the spring. She could probably have made a brilliant match before the end of the Season if she had wished. She was both pretty and vivacious—and the wealthy daughter and sister of a Duke of Netherby. Instead, she had insisted upon returning to the country even before the end of the Season, upset that Abigail, her very best friend, could not make a come-out with her. She had been unable to accept the fact that Abigail’s illegitimacy disqualified her from entering society on a level with her own.
“He looks exactly like his father,” Mildred said.
Viola seemed to spend half the evening apologizing for what had not been her fault.
“I would rather have the two of you admit your incompatibility now, Viola,” her brother told her, “than in the middle of next January.”
“But I am so glad we all came,” Elizabeth assured her a little later, and Cousin Althea, her mother, nodded agreement. “I think this evening would have been dreadful for you if you had only had Abigail for moral support.”
“Aunt Viola,” Avery, Duke of Netherby, said with a languid sigh after she had expressed her regret at his having come all this way with Anna and the baby for a nonevent. He had wandered her way to rescue her from a gentleman farmer who had settled into a lengthy description of all his livestock and the bounty of his recent harvest, which somehow surpassed that of all his neighbors. “People who are forever begging one’s pardon are almost invariably crashing bores. I shudder at the unlikely possibility that you might become one of them. Do come and dance with me. I believe I may remember the steps of this one well enough not to disgrace you.”
“You must not apologize, Viola,” Alexander told her not long before supper. “It is not your fault that we were invited as a surprise for you and ended up being a bit of an embarrassment instead. And we are glad to be here to lend you some support.”
“If you are truly sorry, Viola,” Wren said, a gleam of mischief in her eyes, “then you will come to Brambledean for Christmas regardless of what has happened tonight. Everyone else will still come even though there is no longer to be a wedding. I know you well enough to predict that you will not want to be there. But you must. Family is so very important. I know. I grew up without any except my aunt and uncle. At least now I have my brother back in my life—and I have all of Alexander’s family. As you do. Your mother is still going to come, and so are your brother and sister-in-law. I just asked them. You must come too.”
“Wren is an expert at twisting arms,” Alexander said. “I have the sore muscles to prove it.”
Viola was horrified at the very thought of yet another family gathering in little more than two months’ time. But she would not think about it yet. She could not. “I will let you know,” she said.