“The horses are champing at the bit,” he had said, “and so are all the humans in the cottage. We will resume this discussion, if we must, at Redcliffe.”
“It will be too late then,” she had said. “It will be general knowledge that we are betrothed even if no official announcement has been made. Estelle will have planned her party and invited guests. Do you not care that her feelings will be more terribly hurt then than they would be now?”
“It is because of my daughter and my son,” he had said, “and because of your daughters and your son too that we must do the decent thing, Viola, regardless of our own feelings on the matter.”
“Since when,” she had asked him, all incredulity, “have you cared one iota for your children’s feelings?”
It was a good question.
Since Estelle had called him Papa the day before, perhaps. She had only ever called him Father before that, and all her life had rarely raised her eyes to his or spoken to him beyond largely monosyllabic answers to any direct questions he had asked her. He had often wondered if she was actually afraid of him or if she simply disliked him. He had almost always cut his visits shorter than he had planned. Bertrand was still calling him sir and was still behaving with stiff good manners.
“It is a fair question,” he had said, forcing himself to speak with cool arrogance instead of allowing himself to lash out in bitterness. “Call it the autocrat in me, then, this insistence of mine upon not having my will thwarted. You will marry me, Viola—for your own sake and for that of your children. You may not care about the loss of your own reputation, though I am not at all sure I believe you—or even that your reputation has been lost. But I am very sure you care about your children’s. Do you want them to have to deal with yet another scandal to pile upon what they dealt with not so long ago? Do you wish them to hear their mother called a slut?”
He had heard the sharp intake of her breath. “How dare you!” she had said.
“You see?” He had raised his eyebrows. “I rest my case. I will see you in Northamptonshire, Viola. Every day between now and then will seem like a week.”
“You do mockery awfully well.” She had not done as well as he. She could not hide the bitterness from her voice.
He wondered what had happened to the man he had been just three weeks ago—the man who did not care a tinker’s damn for what anyone thought or said of him, the man who looked upon the world and its rules and conventions and judgments with cynical indifference. But his mind shied away from any answers that might have presented themselves.
If only there had been a few more days—and a few more nights. He would surely have worked her out of his system and would no doubt have taken a different course upon the arrival of the search parties. He would have thought of every argument there was—and a few there were not—to avoid having to marry her. Or perhaps he would have used no argument at all. That would have been more like him. If he had been forced into a duel with either Riverdale or Cunningham, he would have shot contemptuously into the air and taken his chances on what they chose to do—and on the accuracy of their aim.
Had he broken with his usual practice, then, and insisted upon marriage because of some leftover lust? He had missed her like a gnawing toothache since their last night together, and it kept occurring to him that the last time he had traveled this road she had been beside him, her hand often in his, her head sometimes upon his shoulder, the whole of their glorious escape ahead of them.
He felt vicious.
It was a feeling that was threatening to become habitual.
* * *
• • •
Everyone had remained in Bath. It was the final humiliation. Even Michael, Viola’s brother, had stayed, though he had had to make hurried arrangements to have another clergyman carry out his duties in his parish. For those staying at the Royal York hotel it was a huge extra expense they had not planned for.
The carriage stopped at Joel’s house first before making its descent into Bath, and Camille, who must have been watching for it, came dashing out in her thin slippers despite the cold, Sarah balanced on one hip, Winifred close behind her. She grabbed her mother in a one-armed hug as soon as Viola’s feet touched solid ground.
“Mama,” she cried. “Oh, Mama, I have been sick with worry. Oh, Mama. I have been so worried. Wherever have you been?”
“Papa!” Sarah was exclaiming as she held out her arms and leaned away from Camille.
And this was the daughter who had outdone her mother just a couple of years ago in very correct, icily controlled demeanor?
There was a cluster of strangers out on the lawn, huddled inside warm cloaks before their easels as they worked on their paintings.
“She did write, Cam,” Abigail cried, scrambling down from the carriage unassisted, as Joel had been distracted, first by Winifred, who wrapped an arm about his waist and raised a beaming face to his, and then by Sarah, who clasped her arms tightly about his neck and gave him a smacking kiss on the lips. “To us and to Mrs. Sullivan. Somehow both letters were lost. Mama is betrothed, Cam.”
And after all, Viola could not set the record straight, as she had intended to do the moment she arrived. Neither Camille nor the rest of the family when they all came to the house within the hour was thrilled by the announcement, especially when they knew the identity of her betrothed, but none of them protested loudly or demanded or even suggested that she change her mind before it was too late. For there was no hiding the fact that she and the Marquess of Dorchester had lived together for a few weeks before Alexander and the others had found her, though no one spoke of it. Everyone believed, or pretended to believe, the story that they had been betrothed before they decided to go to Devonshire for some time alone together and that therefore their behavior was less scandalous than it would otherwise have been.
It was after all impossible to tell the truth, though she had steeled herself throughout the journey home to do just that. For these were decent, much-loved, respectable people—her mother, well-known for most of her life in Bath society; her brother, a man of the cloth, and his wife; the Dowager Countess of Riverdale, her former mother-in-law, who at the age of seventy-one had made the effort to come all the way to Bath; her former sisters-in-law; Avery, Duke of Netherby, who had once been Harry’s guardian, and his duchess, Anna, who was Humphrey’s only legitimate child; Jessica, Avery’s half sister and Abigail’s dearest friend.
And her own daughters. And her grandchildren. Had they not all suffered enough in the past two years without . . . How had he phrased it? But it took no great effort of memory to remember. Had her children not suffered enough without having their mother known as a slut?
She hated him, she hated him, she hated him.
She believed she really did.
And she would not marry him. But now was not the time to announce that.
When would be the time, then?
Oh, she was being justly punished. She had no one to blame but herself for her own unhappiness. The trouble was that one sometimes dragged innocent people down into one’s own misery and guilt.
Marcel. She closed her eyes for a moment while the noise of conversation proceeded about her in Camille and Joel’s drawing room. Why had they had to be stranded at the same country inn? What were the chances?
Why did you stay instead of leaving with your brother?
Why did you speak to me?
Why did I reply?