Simply Perfect (27 page)

“Well?” he said after they had all regarded one another silently for a few seconds. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Joseph stood where he was, just inside the door.

“Lizzie is my daughter,” he said. “She is almost twelve years old though she looks younger. She was born blind. I have housed and supported her all her life. I have been part of her life from the beginning. I love her.”

“She seems like a very sweet child, Joseph,” his mother said. “But how very sad that she is—”

The duke quelled her with a look.

“I did not ask, Joseph,” he said, “for a history.
Of course
you have taken responsibility for the support of your bastard child. I would expect no less of a gentleman and a son of mine. What I
do
need to have explained is the presence of the child in this neighborhood and her appearance at Alvesley this afternoon where she was bound to be seen by your mother and your sister and your betrothed.”

As if Lizzie were somehow contaminated. But of course she was in the minds of polite society.

“I am hoping to place her at Miss Martin's school,” he explained. “Her mother died at the end of last year. Lauren invited Miss Martin and Miss Thompson to bring the girls to the picnic this afternoon.”

“And you did not think to inform them,” his father asked, his face ruddy with anger, a pulse beating visibly at one temple, “that it would be the depths of vulgarity to bring the blind child with them? Do not attempt an answer. I do not wish to hear it. And do not attempt an explanation of your appalling outburst after Wilma and Miss Hunt had reprimanded that schoolteacher. There can
be
no explanation.”

“Webster,” Joseph's mother said, “do calm yourself. You will make yourself ill again.”

“Then you will know, Sadie, at whose door to lay the blame,” he said.

Joseph pursed his lips.

“What I
do
demand,” his father said, turning his attention back to his son, “is that neither your mother nor Wilma nor Miss Hunt ever hear another word of your private affairs after today. You will apologize to your mother in my hearing. You will apologize to Wilma and to Lady Redfield and Lauren and the Duchess of Bewcastle, whose home you have sullied quite atrociously. And you will make your peace with Miss Hunt and assure her that she will never hear the like from you again.”

“Mama,” Joseph said, turning his attention to her. She held her hands clasped together at her bosom. “I have caused you distress today, both at the picnic and now. I am deeply sorry.”

“Oh, Joseph,” she said, “you must have been more frantic than any of us when that poor child was missing. Did she take any harm?”

“Sadie—” the duke said, frowning ferociously.

“Shock and exhaustion, Mama,” Joseph said. “No physical injuries, though. Miss Martin is sitting with her. I expect she is asleep by now.”

“Poor child,” she said again.

Joseph looked back at his father.

“I will go and find Portia,” he said.

“She is with your sister and Sutton in the flower garden,” his father told him.

It was
he
his father had been censuring, Joseph reminded himself as he left the library—his behavior in allowing Lizzie to be brought to Lindsey Hall and to Alvesley Park today, where she would necessarily be in company with his family and betrothed. And his behavior in allowing himself to be goaded into admitting publicly that Lizzie was his daughter.

It was not Lizzie herself he had been censuring. But dash it all, it felt very much as if that had been the case.

…
your bastard child…

…
the blind child…

And he almost felt that he ought to be ashamed. He had broken the unwritten but clearly understood rules of society. His
private affairs,
his father had called his secrets, as if every man was expected to have them. But he
would
not be ashamed. If he admitted he had done wrong, then he was denying Lizzie's right to be with the other children and with him.

Life was
not
easy—today's profound thought!

He found Portia, as his father had told him, sitting in the flower garden with Wilma and Sutton. Wilma looked at him as if she wished she could convert her eyes into daggers.

“You have insulted us all quite intolerably, Joseph,” she said. “To have made such an admission when so many people were listening! I have never been more mortified in my life. I hope
you
are ashamed.”

He wished he could tell her to stuff it, as Neville had done earlier, but she had the moral high ground. Even for Lizzie's sake, his admission had been rash and inappropriate.

Except that the words had been more freeing than any others he had ever uttered, he realized suddenly.

“And
what
do you have to say to Miss Hunt?” Wilma asked him. “You will be very fortunate indeed if she will listen.”

“I think, Wilma,” he said, “that what I have to say and what she says in reply ought to be private between the two of us.”

She looked as if she was going to argue. She drew breath. But Sutton cleared his throat and took her by the elbow, and she turned without another word and stalked back in the direction of the house with him.

Portia, still in the primrose yellow muslin dress she had worn to the picnic, looked as fresh and as lovely as she had at the beginning of the afternoon. She also looked calm and poised.

He stood looking down at her, feeling his dilemma. He
had
wronged her. He had humiliated her in front of a large gathering of his family and friends. But how could he apologize to her without somehow denying Lizzie anew?

She spoke first.

“You told Lady Sutton and me to hold our tongues,” she said.

Good Lord!
Had
he?

“I do beg your pardon,” he said. “It was when Lizzie was missing, was it? I was frantic with worry. Not that that was any excuse for such discourtesy. Do please forgive me. And, if you will, for—”

“I do not wish to hear
that name
again, Lord Attingsborough,” she said with quiet dignity. “I will expect you to have her removed from here and from Lindsey Hall by tomorrow at the latest and then I will choose to forget the whole unfortunate incident. I do not care where you send her or the others like her or the…
women
who produced them. I do not need or wish to know.”

“There are no other children,” he said. “Or mistresses. Has this afternoon's revelation led you to believe that I am promiscuous? I assure you I am not.”

“Ladies are not fools, Lord Attingsborough,” she said, “however naive you may think us. We are perfectly well aware of men's animal passions and are quite content that they slake them as often as they please, provided it is not with us and provided we know nothing about it. All we ask—all
I
ask—is that the proprieties be observed.”

Good Lord! He felt chilled. Yet surely the truth would make her feel somewhat better, make her less convinced that she was about to marry an animal in the thin guise of a gentleman.

“Portia,” he said, gazing down at her, “I believe very firmly in monogamous relationships. After Lizzie was born, I remained with her mother until her death last year. That is why I have not married before now. After our marriage I will be faithful to you for as long as we both live.”

She looked back at him, and it struck him suddenly that her eyes were very different from Claudia's. If there was anything behind them, any depth of character, any emotion, there was certainly no evidence of it.

“You will do as you please, Lord Attingsborough,” she said, “as all men are entitled to do. I ask only that you exercise discretion. And I ask for your promise that that blind girl will be gone from here today and from Lindsey Hall tomorrow.”

That blind girl.

He strolled a few feet away from her and stood looking at a bed of hyacinths growing against a wooden trellis, his back to her. It was a reasonable request, he supposed. To her—probably to everyone at Alvesley and Lindsey Hall—it must seem that keeping Lizzie close was in extremely poor taste.

Except that Lizzie was a person. She was an innocent child. And she was his.

“No,” he said, “I cannot make that promise, I'm afraid, Portia.”

Her silence was more accusing than words would have been.

“I have observed the proprieties for all these years,” he said. “My daughter had a mother and a comfortable home in London, and I could see her whenever I wished, which was every day when I was in town. I told no one about her except Neville, and never took her where we would be seen together. I accepted that that was the way it must be. I never had real cause to question society's dictates until Sonia died and Lizzie was left alone.”

“I do not wish to hear this,” Portia said. “It is quite improper.”

“She is not quite twelve,” he said. “She is far too young for any independence even if she were not blind.”

He turned to look at her.

“And I love her,” he said. “I cannot banish her to the periphery of my life, Portia. I will not. But my worst mistake, I realize now, was not telling you about her sooner. You had a right to know.”

She said nothing for a while. She sat as still as any statue, delicate and lovely beyond belief.

“I do not believe I can marry you, Lord Attingsborough,” she said then. “I had no wish to know of any such child and am only amazed that you think now you ought to have informed me about that dreadful creature, who cannot even
see
. I will not hear any more about her, and I will not tolerate knowing that she remains here or even at Lindsey Hall. If you cannot promise to remove her, and if you cannot promise that I will never hear of her again, I must withdraw my acceptance of your offer.”

Strangely, perhaps, he was not relieved. Another broken engagement—even if it would be obvious to the
ton
that she was blameless in both—would surely render her almost unmarriageable. And she was no young girl. She must be in her middle twenties already. And in the eyes of society, her demands would appear quite reasonable.

But—
that dreadful creature…

Lizzie!

“I am sorry to hear it,” he said. “I beg you to reconsider. I am the same man you have known for several years. I fathered Lizzie long before I knew you.”

She got to her feet.

“You do not understand, Lord Attingsborough, do you?” she said. “I
will not
hear her name. I will go now and write to Papa. He will not be pleased.”

“Portia—” he said.

“I believe,” she said, “you no longer have any right to use that name, my lord.”

“Our engagement is off, then?” he asked her.

“I cannot imagine anything that would make me reconsider,” she told him, and turned to walk back to the house.

He stood where he was, watching her go.

It was only when she had disappeared from sight that he felt the beginnings of elation.

He was free!

20

Claudia returned to Lindsey Hall without Lizzie. By the time
the Marquess of Attingsborough returned to his room, she was fast asleep and it seemed very possible that she would sleep all night if left undisturbed. Lady Ravensberg offered to have a truckle bed set up for him in the dressing room.

He also insisted upon escorting Claudia back to Lindsey Hall in his own carriage—the guests from there had returned home long ago, of course. The viscountess, Anne, and Susanna all promised to watch Lizzie until his return.

Claudia tried to insist upon going alone, but he would not hear of it. Neither would Anne and Susanna, who reminded her that it was now evening. And heaven help her, Claudia thought as they descended the staircase together and stepped out onto the terrace, where the carriage awaited them, she was not going to argue the point.

Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg were out there, as was Lady Redfield.

“Miss Martin,” the countess said, “I hope you will disregard everything that Lady Sutton and Miss Hunt said earlier. My husband and I have been delighted to entertain both you and the girls from your school—
including
Lizzie Pickford—and you were not neglecting your duties by walking with your childhood friend, the Duke of McLeith. We were all watching her and so we were all responsible for letting her wander away.”

“Miss Martin was certainly not to blame,” the Marquess of Attingsborough said. “When she went walking I was playing with Lizzie. She had every reason to believe that I would keep her safe.”

He handed Claudia into the carriage and climbed in after her.

“Miss Martin,” the viscountess said, leaning into the carriage before the door was closed, “you
will
come to the anniversary ball tomorrow, will you not?”

Claudia could think of nothing she would like less.

“Perhaps it would be better,” she said, “if I were to stay away.”

“You must not,” the viscountess said. “You would thereby suggest to some of our guests that they have more power to decide who is welcome at our home than we have.”

“Lauren is quite right, Miss Martin. Please come,” the countess said. Her eyes twinkled. “You do not look to me like a lady who lacks courage.”

The viscount, when Claudia caught his eye, winked.

“You are all most kind,” Claudia said. “Very well, then, I will come.”

What she
really
wanted to do, she thought, was return to Lindsey Hall alone, pack her bags, and leave at first light. As the door closed and the carriage moved forward, she thought of the last time she had left Lindsey Hall. How she would love to repeat that exit!

The carriage suddenly seemed to be filled with just the two of them—the very same carriage in which he had taken refuge from the rain on the road from Bath when she had been uncomfortably aware of his masculinity. She was aware again, though of far more than just that.

And she remembered what—incredibly—she had almost forgotten in the emotional turmoil of the past hour or so. While they had been sitting on the bed in that little hut in the woods he had spoken to her without any sound—with only lip movements. But she had heard loudly and clearly.

I love you,
he had told her.

Heartache, she thought, was very likely to turn to heartbreak before this was all over. And that was an optimistic assessment of the future. It
would
turn to heartbreak. Indeed, it already had.

“Miss Hunt has broken off our engagement,” he said as the carriage wheels rumbled onto the Palladian bridge.

Sometimes even a short sentence did not have the power to impress itself upon the mind all at once. It was as if she heard the words separately and needed a few moments to piece them together and know what he was telling her.

“Irrevocably?” she asked.

“She told me,” he said, “that she cannot imagine anything that would cause her to change her mind.”

“Because you have an illegitimate child?” she asked.

“Apparently,” he said, “that is not the reason at all. She does not care if I have any number of mistresses and children. Indeed, she seems to expect it of me—as she expects it of all men. It is the fact that I broke one of the cardinal rules of polite society by acknowledging Lizzie's relationship to me that has offended her. My refusal to have her removed from Alvesley tonight and Lindsey Hall tomorrow and never to mention her ever again is what caused her to inform me that she could not marry me.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “on cooler reflection she will change her mind.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

They did not speak for a while.

“What next, then?” she asked. “What will happen to Lizzie? Eleanor and I are agreed that she is educable and adaptable and eager to learn. It would be a pleasure to take on the challenge of having her at the school. However, I am not sure it is what Lizzie wants even though I know she had been enjoying the company and the activities.”

“What I have wanted to do from the moment of Sonia's death,” he said, “is move Lizzie to Willowgreen, my home in Gloucestershire. It has always seemed an impossible dream, but maybe now I can make it a reality. The secret is out after all, and I find that I do not care the snap of two fingers what society thinks of me. And society is often not half the villain we sometimes expect it to be. Anne and Sydnam Butler have her son with them at Alvesley. He was born out of wedlock nine years before they met each other—but of course, you know all about that. David Jewell is treated here no differently from all the other children.”

“Oh,” Claudia said, “I think Willowgreen—the country—would be perfect for Lizzie.”

She felt a nameless longing—which would not remain nameless if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it.

“What provision would you make for her education?” she asked.

“I would hire a companion and governess for her,” he said. “But I would be able to spend a great deal of my own time with her. I would teach her about the countryside, about plants and animals, about England, about history. I would hire someone to teach her to play the pianoforte or the violin or the flute. Perhaps in a year or two's time she would be more ready for school than she is now. In the meantime I would be able to remain at home for far longer spells than I have been able to do with her in London. I would be less idle, more meaningfully employed. You might even come to approve of me.”

She turned her head to look at him. The carriage was just drawing clear of the trees at the bottom of the driveway and passing through the gates. His face was lit by the slanting rays of the sun, which was low in the sky. She noticed that he spoke hypothetically, as if he did not really believe in his freedom.

“Yes,” she said, “perhaps I might.”

He smiled slowly at her.

“Though I already
do
approve of you,” she said. “You have not spent so much time in London for frivolous reasons. You have done it for love. There is no nobler motive. And now you have acknowledged your daughter publicly. I approve of that too.”

“You look,” he said, “like the prim schoolteacher who first greeted me in Bath.”

“That,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “is who I am.”

“Was it not you,” he said, “who told my daughter just a short while ago that no one can be summed up by labels alone?”

“I have a rich life, Lord Attingsborough,” she told him. “I have made it myself, and I am happy with it. It is as different from the life I have lived during the past few weeks as it could possibly be. And I cannot wait to return to it.”

She had turned her head away to look out through the window.

“I am sorry,” he said, “for the turmoil I have brought into your life, Claudia.”

“You have brought nothing that I have not allowed,” she told him.

They lapsed into silence after that, a silence that was fraught with tension and yet was curiously companionable too. The tension, of course, was sexual. Claudia was well aware of that. But it was not lust. It was not just the desire to embrace and perhaps go beyond mere embraces. Love lent a comforting touch to the atmosphere, and yet it was a love that might yet be tragic. Miss Hunt might yet change her mind.

And if she did not?

But Claudia's mind could not move beyond that stumbling block.

The Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle stepped out through the front doors of Lindsey Hall as the carriage rounded the great fountain and drew to a halt.

“Oh,” the duchess said when the coachman had opened the door and let down the steps, “the Marquess of Attingsborough has accompanied you, Miss Martin. I am so glad. We have worried about you coming alone. But Lizzie is not with you?”

“She is sleeping,” the marquess explained to her as he stepped out and turned to hand Claudia down. “I thought it best not to disturb her. I will take her away from there tomorrow—to another destination if you wish.”

“Other than Lindsey Hall, you mean?” the duchess said. “I most certainly hope not. This is where she belongs until Eleanor and Miss Martin leave for Bath. I invited her here.”

“I have thought that perhaps I ought to leave tomorrow too,” Claudia said.

“Miss Martin.” It was the duke who spoke. “You are not planning to leave us in the manner you chose last time, it is to be hoped? It is true that Freyja credits the chagrin and guilt she felt at that time with turning her into a tolerable human being, but I could draw no such comfort from the incident—especially after I had heard that Redfield took you and your heavy valise up in his carriage because you would not take mine.”

He spoke haughtily and somewhat languidly, and his hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass and half raised it to his eye.

The duchess laughed. “I
wish
I could have seen that,” she said. “Freyja was telling us about it during the drive back from Alvesley. But, come inside, both of you, and join everyone else in the drawing room. And if you are afraid, Lord Attingsborough, that you will meet disapproving frowns there, then you do not know the Bedwyn family—or their spouses. Does he, Wulfric?”

“Indeed,” the duke said, raising his eyebrows.

“I will not come in,” the marquess said. “I must return to Alvesley soon. Miss Martin, would you care to take a stroll with me first?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

She was aware of the duchess smiling warmly at them as she took the duke's arm and turned to go back into the house with him.

         

Joseph was not well acquainted with the park about Lindsey Hall. He turned in the direction of the lake, where the dog had led Lizzie almost a week ago. They walked in silence, he with his hands at his back, she with her hands clasped at her waist.

They stopped when they came to the water's edge, close to where he had shown Lizzie how to hurl pebbles so that she could hear them plop into the lake. The remains of the sunset made the water luminous. The sky stretched above, light at the horizon, darker overhead. Stars were already visible.

“It is altogether possible that my father and my sister will persuade Portia that it is not in her best interests to end her betrothal,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Though she
did
say nothing could change her mind,” he added, “and I will not compromise. Lizzie will remain a visible part of my life. But it is a terrible thing for a lady to end an engagement—especially twice. She may reconsider.”

“Yes.”

“I cannot make you any promises,” he told her.

“I do not ask for any,” she said. “Even apart from the one obstacle, there are others. There can be no promises, no future.”

He was not at all sure he agreed with her, but there was no point in raising any arguments now, was there? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that his father and Wilma between them would persuade Portia to resume her plans to marry him.

“No future,” he said softly. “Only the present. At present I am free.”

“Yes.”

When he reached out a hand to her, she set her own in it, and he laced his fingers with hers, drew her closer to his side, and strolled onward, following the bank of the lake. Up ahead he could see a forest of trees stretching down almost to the water's edge.

They stopped when they were in the darkness of the shade provided by the trees. The grass was rather long and soft underfoot. He turned to face her, lacing the fingers of their other hands too and drawing them partway around his back so that she stood against him, touching him with her breasts, her abdomen, and her thighs. Her head was tipped back, though he could no longer see her face clearly.

“I intend more than kisses,” he said, leaning over her.

“Yes,” she said. “So do I.”

He smiled in the darkness. She sounded fierce and prim, her voice at variance with her words and the yielding warmth of her body.