A Marriage of Inconvenience (16 page)

James and his family were among the last to depart. He reminded Lady Arrington of his plans to call the next day and drew Lucy aside for a final word.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I promise you this will all work out.”

She sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.” He couldn’t kiss her before so many people, but he did take her hand and turn it so he could place a lingering kiss against her palm. He thought of her widened eyes and soft gasp as the carriage wound through the hills toward Orchard Park. It
would
work out. It must.

Lucy tried to escape to her room as soon as the last guests had left, but Portia and Aunt Arrington cornered her at the bottom of the great staircase.

“I have never been so greatly shocked in all my life,” Aunt Arrington said, her voice unwontedly angry and forceful. “I would not have thought it possible that any relation of mine could make such a public, wanton display.”

Lucy felt her face heat, but she didn’t speak. She supposed what she and Lord Selsley had been doing must have looked very shocking, but it wasn’t as though they had made a public show of it deliberately.

“Well, Mama, blood will out,” Portia said. “Her
father’s
blood.”

Aunt Arrington narrowed her eyes. “She does resemble him. At least, she must, for she certainly looks nothing like my sister. So I suppose it’s only to be expected that she would have his nature.”

Habit almost kept her silent, but then Lucy remembered that she would be married soon and no longer in the Arringtons’ power. “My father was a good man,” she said. And he had been—weak, but good. “I won’t stay and listen to his name being slandered.”

With head held high, she took the first few steps.

“Your father,” Aunt Arrington said, “was a Welsh peasant who seduced a girl of good birth away from her family and friends, and dragged her into a life of penury and squalor.”

“You’re far luckier than you deserve,” Portia added, “that your own efforts at seduction were so very successful, and that you had witnesses. Surely you don’t think Lord Selsley would’ve agreed to marry you if no one had seen.”

“I did not seduce him!” she cried.

“Oh, come now,” Portia said. “Someone like Lord Selsley would never have given you a second look if you hadn’t given him a great deal of encouragement to do so.”

Lucy didn’t respond at once, not because she was afraid, but because she knew it would serve no purpose to argue with Portia. At last she took a deep breath and spoke as calmly as she could. “Nevertheless, I am marrying him.”

Portia sniffed. “If he doesn’t change his mind.”

“He won’t. He’s an honorable man.” Lucy spoke automatically, but then she remembered that Sebastian had changed
his
mind, and she had always thought him the very embodiment of honor. But this was different. It would be much more difficult for Lord Selsley to cry off from a public betrothal. “Good night.”

She hurried up the stairs before either of them could speak again and almost ran headlong into Sebastian as he stepped out of a shadowed corner of the corridor.

“Sebastian! You startled me.”

“I beg your pardon, Lucy, but I wished to speak with you in private for a moment. I’d—I’d rather you didn’t marry Selsley.”

She blinked at him in disbelief. “Whom I marry is no longer your concern.”

“I know, I know, it isn’t. But—must you marry
him,
of all people?”

“Under the circumstances, I do believe I must. Even if we hadn’t—” she shied away from mentioning what they’d been caught doing, “—I couldn’t refuse such an eligible offer, for my brothers’ sake if for no other reason.” After what he had done, how could Sebastian fault her for taking steps to secure her family’s future?

“Very well, I can see that. But—you will promise never to tell him that you and I were, er, betrothed?”

“Sebastian, I already promised I’d never tell anyone.”

“But your husband—”

“Of course I won’t tell him. What could I possibly gain?”

He continued as if he had not heard her words. “It could create great difficulties for Miss Wright-Gordon and me—”

“It would create great difficulties for all of us,” she said, allowing her exasperation to creep through, “so I won’t tell him. I promise.”

“Thank you, Lucy. Thank you. I hope—I hope you will be very happy together.”

“I hope the same for you,” she said, realizing to her surprise that she meant it. She had admired Sebastian too long to wish him miserable, and she was sure he hadn’t meant to treat her dishonorably. Hal’s folly had thrown their lives into chaos, and of course she could not wish Sebastian to marry her if his heart belonged to another.

“That’s exceedingly kind of you, Lucy.”

She smiled, but she didn’t wish to prolong the conversation. “I’m very tired, Sebastian. It’s been a long day. Good night.”

“Good night, Lucy.”

She reached her room without further interruptions to find Molly still awake and waiting for her.

The maid helped her undress in silence, but as she braided Lucy’s hair she cleared her throat and spoke. “I beg your pardon, miss, and I hope I’m not presuming too much, but may I congratulate you?”

Lucy smiled despite herself. Servants’ gossip traveled like lightning. “You may.” For the first time she noticed something tense and hopeful about the maid’s posture, and came to a quick decision. Molly had been kind and helpful from the first, and now she could return the favor. “I’ll speak to Lord Selsley about bringing you to Orchard Park as my abigail after I’m married. I cannot make a definite offer without his leave, but I can’t imagine him saying no.”

“Oh, thank you, miss!
Thank
you.”

“It’s my pleasure. I’ll be glad to see a familiar face at Orchard Park.”

She dismissed Molly and sighed with relief to be alone at last. She climbed into bed and curled up on her side, but despite the lateness of the hour and how little she had slept the night before, she was wide awake.

She knew that gossip would deem her the luckiest girl in the world—a penniless girl, nobody in particular, marrying a wealthy viscount. She knew too, and writhed with humiliation at the thought, that all the world would assume that Portia was right, that Lucy had deliberately entrapped Lord Selsley in a compromising situation in order to force him to marry her.

But she didn’t feel lucky, and Lord Selsley was the very last gentleman she would have tried to force into marriage, had she been capable of such a course at all. Married to him, she would never be able to avoid Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon and all her thoughts of what might have been.

There would always be an awkwardness of secrets between them, too. It would be one thing if she had married a different man, someone with no connection to her family or Lord Selsley’s. She would not feel guilty about hiding her previous engagement from such a gentleman, because it could be of no concern to him as long as she gave him the respect and affection due to him as her husband. But she had a feeling Lord Selsley would be furious with her and Sebastian if he ever found out what they had concealed from him, and so the necessity of secrecy made her feel anxious and guilty.

Guilt aside, she knew she wasn’t a fit wife for a man in Lord Selsley’s position. He might say that fortune did not concern him, and she supposed that even the largest dowry would be a pittance beside his wealth and property. But he deserved a wife who knew how to be a hostess and the mistress of a grand estate. Nothing in her upbringing or education had prepared her for the role she must now assume.

She had three very good reasons to dread her marriage—her humiliation at how their engagement had begun, her unworthiness to be a viscountess and the misery of a continued connection to Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon. It was too bad, because she did like Lord Selsley very well. And she liked his kisses. Oh, she did like his kisses.

She blushed again at the memory of what they had been doing when her aunt and the others burst in upon them. Portia had accused her of seduction and Aunt Arrington had called her common and wanton. Lucy knew she was no seductress, but perhaps the other accusations were justified.

She hardly knew what to think of herself. She had never imagined any of the things she and Lord Selsley had done before she’d found herself doing them. Had she really, truly almost climbed into his lap, pressed herself against him, ran her hands through his hair, thrown back her head so he could kiss and—dear God—bite her neck? All her self-control, her careful discipline of her thoughts and actions, had flown away. Her body had ruled her, driven her along in a sheer mindless urge to get as close to Lord Selsley as ever she could. Even thinking about it hours later set her on fire—and terrified her. She needed to be in control, she had to discipline herself, and all the more so now that she was to be flung into a new position, a position she was ill-suited for, and burdened with secrets.

She wished she knew more about what passed between husband and wife in marriage—about the begetting of children. From a lifetime of overheard snatches of conversation and her own reasoning, she had managed to deduce that it was some sort of intimate physical contact that took place in bed, one that some women regarded with enthusiasm and others with distaste. Aunt Arrington, she believed, fell into the latter category.

That was all Lucy knew with any certainty, and her ignorance troubled her. She hated to go into her marriage blind, with no knowledge of what to expect from her husband or what he would expect from her. But she couldn’t think how to remedy her ignorance. Before, she would have asked Aunt Arrington, but she hesitated to ask for help and advice from someone who had evidently turned so firmly against her.

Yet, who else was there? She would not ask cool, cynical Lady Marpool and open herself for mockery. Nor did she feel at ease at the prospect of approaching Lady Dunmalcolm. Lord Selsley’s aunt had not been precisely unkind; on the contrary, she had treated Lucy with every civility. But her courtesy had been decidedly cool and distant compared to the warmth Lucy had received from Lord Dunmalcolm and Miss Wright-Gordon, and Lucy had already concluded that Lady Dunmalcolm considered her a less than worthy bride for her nephew, with his royal ancestors four or five centuries past. No, she had no choice but to marry Lord Selsley in her ignorance.

James called at Almont Castle before noon, earlier than was quite decent on the day after a ball. He’d decided he needed to go to London to consult with his solicitor on certain provisions he meant to include in the marriage settlements—both his own and Anna’s—and he wanted to leave early that afternoon rather than waiting till the following morning, since he’d need to hurry to be back before Lord Almont’s wedding.

While in Town, he meant to pick up special licenses for both weddings, though he didn’t mean to marry Lucy in the same sort of haste Anna and Lieutenant Arrington intended. He thought Lucy would like more time to grow accustomed to him and the idea of marriage. Also, since their engagement had stemmed from a compromising situation, it seemed best to put some distance between that incident and their wedding. If they happened to conceive a child immediately, for Lucy’s sake James didn’t want the neighbors to have reason to count on their fingers and cluck their tongues.

But half an hour in the parlor with Lucy, Lady Arrington and Miss Arrington changed his mind. The sooner he got her out of the clutches of the Arrington family the better, and gossip be damned. It was clear that the prospect of Lucy becoming a viscountess had not increased her standing among her nearest relations; in contrary, their coldness and disdain were all but palpable.

He insisted upon a few minutes alone with her before he returned to Orchard Park. He took her into the rose garden and led her to the same bench where he had touched her hair on the day they met. She sat down gracefully, smoothing the skirts of her simple muslin morning dress, but he noticed an odd expression on her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

She smiled ruefully. “I simply cannot seem to escape this bench. You and I sat here, that night—”

“I remember.”

“And it was here that Hal told us about his debts.”

“Ah. Well. I hope your first memory is more pleasant.”

She shot him a quick, demure glance, but he got the distinct impression she was laughing at him. “It was. You already knew that.”

“I’m sorry your aunt and cousin are making this so unpleasant for you,” he said, “but we’ll be married as soon as I’m back from London, if you have no objections, and you’ll be free of them.”

“I cannot understand it,” she said. “You’d think they’d be glad to be rid of me. When my uncle was alive, he was always kind to me and my brothers, distant, but kind, even though we were only his niece and nephews by marriage, with no blood tie. But since he died, Aunt Arrington and Portia…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “You’d think they’d be glad. We’re not their responsibility anymore.”

James took her hand. “They’re guilty and jealous. That’s why they’re cruel.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “Guilty and jealous?”

“Yes. Guilty, because they did so little for you, and so it pains them to think of you as a great lady, with your brothers given ample provision to help them rise in the world. And jealous because—well, I don’t like to boast, but you said last night that you wouldn’t marry Lord Almont, not even to save your brothers.”

Lucy gasped. “Dear God. You’re right. Portia is jealous of
me.
Portia would trade places with
me
if she could.”

“Well, she can’t,” James said briskly. “I wouldn’t have her if she were the last lady on earth.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

“So are you.”

She looked profoundly doubtful.

“I like dark-haired women,” he told her. “And I don’t like statues made of ice.” He reached out and captured a dangling curl, wrapping the soft strands around his fingers, and she smiled at him, sweet and shy but playful, too. His heart soared. With any luck, they would contrive to be happy together despite their marriage’s inauspicious beginning.

“I must go,” he said. “I’d like to be in Cheltenham by nightfall. But I’ll be back as soon as I can. You’ll be free of them within a week.”

She laughed unsteadily. “Everything is happening so very quickly.”

“I know,” he said sympathetically. “But it should settle down, once everyone is married. Just think of the gallery at Orchard Park, if it helps. Soon you’ll be free to spend hours there every day.”

“That does help.” She stood and extended her hand. “Safe journeys, Lord Selsley.”