The Marriage Mart (11 page)

Mary walked silently at the other woman’s side as they took another turn around the garden. She knew Hortense did not mean to sound calculating, and she also knew it was perfectly normal for families to involve themselves in the making of such alliances. If his family had schemed behind John’s back, Mary would object entirely, for John would never appreciate secret planning--but he was aware of their designs. He was perfectly capable of quashing their machinations, and he’d been annoyed but not forbidding at the mention of this Miss Yardley.

“Why tell
me
all these things?” she asked, hearing the heaviness in her own voice.

“For the simple reason I wish to enlist your assistance,” Hortense said. Her arm pulled gently at Mary’s, at last acknowledging the increasing patter of raindrops on their heads by turning their steps toward the house.

“My assistance?” Would she ever stop sounding so simple, repeating everything Hortense said? What was wrong with her? Had she taken a chill? She tried to shake off the lethargy that filled her, aware that not even her quick steps had served to clear her slow mind.

“You are the closest to John. He listens to you as he listens to no other female these days. You must be the one to persuade him of Miss Yardley’s virtues. You must be the one who edges him into that lady’s company. I know you care for him even as we all do, and I know that you would wish him happily settled.”

“Of course, but…I don’t know....,” Mary faltered. “John and I are never serious for a moment. I do not think he would care to have me dictating to him--”

“You underestimate yourself, but perhaps that is because you have not known John all that long. I tell you, you have the fellow’s ear. You have but to whisper, subtly, in that ear and he will be as complaisant as a lamb, I vow it,” Hortense said, a satisfied light coming into her eyes, evident even in the dim light coming from the house.

“But he might begin to dislike me if he ever suspected!” Mary wailed, appalled at the very thought.

“Only if you are less clever than I think you are.”

“I could not bear it if--”

Hortense pressed her point. “And do you care to see John grow old, an aged bachelor with no family of his own, no heir, no affection to warm his long winter evenings?”

“He would have all of you,” Mary argued feebly, her resistance already crumbling at the thought of John never having that which all men must surely, if secretly, aspire to obtain. Of course he need have a spouse, and children. He must have them to bring him happiness…even as she must.

“Pish!” Hortense said dismissively. “We give him fits. No, it’s a family of his own that will make him happy.”

And Mary knew it was truth, for hadn’t she been chasing that same dream herself for some time now, to make a family of her own? There was the family you were born to--and another family you chose.

Yet, what were those moments when he looked away from her, when his mouth tightened and he would not meet her eye? What had caused him to dislike talk of the very thing for which Hortense assured Mary he longed?

“I see,” she said, casting off her indecisive manner with an effort. “I would meet this Miss Yardley, and if she is half so suitable as you imply, then of course I will use what little influence I have with John in that regard.”

“Good girl!” Hortense crowed just as they stepped onto the paving stones of the terrace that led into the house.

It had been raining for so many days now that no one bothered to ask the ladies why they had chosen to walk in inclement weather. The men had not returned from their port, and in a short while Mary pleaded sleepiness. She retired to her room to lie on her bed until Mrs. Pennett tapped at her door and entered.

“You’re abed early,” that lady said.

“I don’t feel very well,” Mary half-lied.

“Well, it’s this country air, no doubt,” Mrs. Pennett said with a sniff that showed she was being sarcastic. “It’s a good thing we’re bound back for London in just a matter of days.”

Mary heard the warning tones, and winced to think Mrs. Pennett might be guessing at the internal turmoil that even Mary did not want to think about too clearly. “Six days,” she replied, and it was a kind of agreement with the companion.

Mrs. Pennett clucked around her charge, saw her tucked into bed, and left her to stare listlessly at the ceiling for a goodly portion of the night.

It came as no surprise to Mary when she learned the next day that an evening of card playing was being arranged, and Miss Yardley was to be invited. Cornelia wanted it to be held in one week, but Hortense--with a quick glance at Mary, who would be gone by then--talked her mother into holding it only two days from now.

“Two days!” her mother had cried, but Hortense had persuaded her that the invited guests would leap at any opportunity to be away from the rain binding one and all too much to home.

Which, in fact, proved to be the case. By that same afternoon, all the invitations had been answered, with only the vicar declining, as he had a clerical assembly to attend outside of the village that night.

Mary sat with Hortense, marveling over the rapid success of the endeavor, when suddenly John put his head in at the door. She had not seen him since he had stomped from the table, and once again, as always, his handsome features made her pause in both deed and thought.

“Mary, come, please. We have something to discuss,” he said, completely ignoring his sister.

She rose at once, and only later realized she had not offered any kind of parting to Hortense.

Once in the hall, he took her hand and placed it on his arm, and said in a low voice, “You did not ride with us this morning.”

She lowered her head, and mumbled, “I wasn’t sure--”

“That is Mama’s fault, for interrupting us on your first day here. But you should have known I went ahead and picked a lovely little mare for you.” His tone was faintly scolding.

“Yes, I should have known that.”

“But now I have stolen you away from my greedy sisters, and I mean to keep you with me the better part of the day. What do you say to a ride now?”

It was raining, and not lightly either. The wind was up, and the clouds were heavy, promising no respite. “I should like that very much,” she said, for what was weather when she was beside her ‘beautiful window’?

He placed his hand over hers and squeezed lightly. “Good! We must go out, for there is no place where one is not disturbed in this household. Do you need to change?”

“I’ll only be a moment,” she assured him.

“Let me go up with you and guard your door, elsewise I know someone will steal you away yet again. And if I catch sight of your companion, I mean to steer your precious Mrs. Pennett away. She is not to come with us.”

Since Mrs. Pennett was nothing less than an atrocious horsewoman, Mary acquiesced at once, or at least that is why she told herself she would not argue the point. “Yes,” she said, and shivered, and vowed he would not undo her buttons yet again.

He escorted her to her room, where they found one of the maids returning laundered garments. Mary at once solicited the girl’s assistance, and with her help she was dressed in a trice, even to a sweet little riding bonnet tied cheerily under her chin, its maroon velvet ribbon matching her habit. Bless Mama for always seeing that her plain-faced daughter had the latest fashions. It would never do to look an ill-dressed quiz before John’s family or tenants.

As soon as she opened her door, John’s hand sprang forward, catching up her own. “There are dragons afoot,” he declared. His long legs strode purposefully toward the rear of the house, down a flight of stairs, and out the back entrance. Mary had to all but run to keep up with him. As they crossed the lawn to the stables, he flung a triumphant look back over his shoulder at her. “We are almost escaped! But trust me, continued haste is our friend.”

Inside the stable he instructed the groom to ready a horse for him, and he set about saddling the proposed mare for Mary. “Her name is Dumpling, which suits her personality as well as her girth,” he told her. “She is Daphne’s favorite, and Daphne is the most timid horsewoman among us, so I suspect Dumpling will give you no trouble.”

“Oh, I am not afraid of horses. I rather like a spirited mount, at least in the country where they may run a bit.”

“I ought to have known,” he said as he pushed hard against the mare’s side. When the creature exhaled noisily, he quickly cinched the girth strap tight. “A mere horse could not frighten my Mary, not when she is not frightened of me.”

“I never have been since the first moment when you hid in the shadows before saying anything,” she said, smiling. “I suppose it is because otherwise you have never fully played the Blade with me.”

He moved to where he could offer her a hand up. She stepped forward and placed her booted foot in his cupped hands, and he threw her easily up into the sidesaddle. He patted the horse’s neck, and said musingly, “So I haven’t. Be glad, for that means you are neither a fool nor an idiot. I should have let you know if you were.”

“But what will become of our friendship when I
do
do something foolish or idiotic?” she asked, looking down at him, half-laughing and half-afraid he meant what he said.

“Nothing, of course. For if I cut you up, why, you shall simply remember your stay here amongst my kin, and you will laugh heartily and know who the real fool is.” He grinned up at her, instantly erasing the furrow that had creased her brow.

“Coddled perhaps, but never a fool. A man cannot help the relations he must claim.”

“I suppose I must claim them. I have been thinking of some way around the matter, but I confess I have not found it.” The groom led Rothayne’s horse forward, holding the head while John mounted. Just then another groom came hastily around the corner and through the stable door. “M’lord,” he cried, “I’ve to fetch you to her ladyship.”

John’s eyes widened in feigned horror, and he cried to Mary, “Away, I say! Let us flee! I never heard the summons, did you?”

“What summons?” she laughed as they put their heels to their mounts and sprang out through the stable doors.

They let the horses have their heads for a few minutes, both to put some distance behind them, and as a kind of payment for the startle they had given the poor beasts. The rain dashed into Mary’s face and sought to creep round the edges of her pelisse. The wind pushed her hat off her head so that it hung from her neck by its ribbons, but it never entered her head to complain or insist they turn back. It felt good to be outside and (in truth!) away from all the people who currently inhabited Rothayne Manor. She began to realize that John’s letters had not all been farce but--given his role in this large family--based to a certain degree on genuineness. She could only be glad she had come, if only to allow him excuses to find a little time for himself.

After a while he pulled back on the reins, and she followed suit. He edged his animal closer to hers, that he might not have to shout too loudly to be heard through the sound-deadening rain and wind. “Well, what did she have to say to you then?” he asked, his expression knowing.

He meant Hortense, of course. And it was the fact of his knowing that irrevocably and immediately erased any plans she might have had to try and dupe him. “What do you think?” she asked, able to give him a sudden, impish grin.

He groaned. “Marriage, of course. To Miss Yardley, no doubt.”

She nodded.

“Better tell me the whole of it, then, so I may circumnavigate any of my beloved sister’s plans for me.”

“You must know most of it. It is not too complicated a plan,” Mary confessed. “I am to ‘steer’ you into Miss Yardley’s company, and whisper in your ear about that lady’s wonderments.” She grinned at him. “But you would know better than I--does Miss Yardley have any wonderments?”

He rolled his eyes, but he answered honestly, “That she does. She is, as far as I can tell, the epitome of womanly virtue and worth. She is, as my sister so assuredly knows, the very stuff brides are made of.”

“I hear she is a beauty,” Mary said, and if the words did not trip easily off her tongue, she disguised that neatly by reaching up to dash some of the rain from her cheeks with the side of her glove.

“Oh, my, yes. Possibly the prettiest woman I’ve ever met.”

“Then you should marry her,” Mary said, sitting up a little more straightly in her saddle. “Only think what beautiful children you would have together.”

“Hmm, that’s true enough, I suppose. But wouldn’t it be awful if nature should not care for the combination, and therefore made our children ugly? Can you imagine growing up always less beautiful than your parents? No, that argument is not enough to send me off to kneel before the lady and request her hand in eternal and everlasting matrimony. You have to do better than that. But, no, now you shall not have to make the attempt, for I know Hortense’s plan, and thusly is it already thwarted. You realize, of course, that this is the very matter of which I could not bear to write?”

“Marriage?”

“Imminent marriage. It became quite clear to me from the moment Miss Yardley was presented to me, that not only did my family have plans for me, but they had even been so vulgar as to present those same plans to the enemy.” He put a hand to his chest, as if a mortal wound had been sustained there.

“How you do protest! Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said something about ‘protesting too much’?” Mary asked, one eyebrow delicately lifted.

“I believe he said ‘the
lady
doth protest too much’. He said nothing about any gentlemen, and so it does not apply.”

“I see. Well, and now that my part in your ensnarement is found out, what are we going to do about it?”

“Why, absolutely nothing.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think I shall certainly give this Miss Yardley the eye. I must see this paragon for myself. If she is all Hortense believes, and if she has a sense of humor--the poor dear would need it with you--then I shall still do my best to whisper in your ear and urge you into her company,” Mary said, and she almost believed the confidence she heard in her own voice.

He gave her a long, slow look from the corners of his eyes, and when he turned his head to face her, he growled, “Traitor!”

She smiled, but the smile flickered uncertainly. “John, you know I will not, truly, if you do not care for--”

“It’s all right, Mary. In truth, I am interested to hear what you think of this young miss. I vow, she makes me feel very old. Very old indeed. Perhaps even old enough, at last, to wed.”

Mary lowered her lashes to watch as she unnecessarily adjusted the reins in her hands, and it seemed suddenly to be raining harder than ever. “I think we should go back,” she said toward the horse’s ears.

John gave a grunt for an answer, and they turned their horses at once.

He only said one more thing as they rode along. “This home of mine, Mary, it is the strangest place. I’ll confess I love it, much as one loves a leg or an arm. To be cut off from it, I should feel its loss deeply, and yet, too, it does not seem to quite fit me. I should like to be comfortable here. I should like to make it a home.”

He said no more, but she filled in the rest of the words for him: he was, after all, thinking of taking a wife, that he might at last become the true master of this place. There was some kind of invisible marker that kept him from being in possession of his own estate, that allowed his sisters and mother to exert an old dominance over him, and that marker could never be put aside until he had succumbed to its singular demand: domesticity. Not until the heir had an heir would he have the authority to claim the kind of peace and freedom he wished here.

So it was a paradox: that he must give up his freedom to gain it.

And it was just like John to resist the commonplace, the expected, the natural flow of everyday life, even though, as she had come to see and accept, it was what he craved most in this world. Hortense was correct in this, Mary saw quite clearly and suddenly, and so she knew, for once, John could not call the tune, but in this must instead dance to whatever melody the piper chose.

Of course, it need not be Miss Yardley, and
should
not be she unless the lady was, indeed, a wonderment. Nothing less would do for her dearest John, absolutely nothing less than a wonderment.

Returned to the stables, he placed his hands on her waist and helped her slide to the ground, where her half-boots squelched and where she lingered before him a moment, looking up into his eyes. “It is not wrong to want to be happy,” she told him. She blinked a few times, suddenly struggling against the hint of tears that came at the faintly surprised and unusually somber expression on his face. She then stepped quickly away from him, able only to quickly mumble, “Thank you for the ride.” Pulling at her sodden gloves, she moved to leave the stables and step back to the house, but he called after her, causing her to pause with her back to him.

“Mary? Will you ride tomorrow morning?”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded. She did not linger a moment longer, all but running across the rain-soaked lawn.