She looked back at him sharply the moment she realized the agreement must, of needs, extend to him as well. The very calmness of his expression told her this was so.
“And what is your second worry?” he asked.
By saying nothing in complaint now, she knew she was tacitly agreeing to his terms, if they were to marry. She was not sure why it bothered her to think of someone whom she would call “husband” taking lovers for himself, but she comforted herself with the thought he was promising to be discreet as well. She found herself hoping they had a mutual understanding of the word
discreet.
“Your second worry?” he urged her again, recalling her from her outlandish thoughts.
“You should be able to guess that,” she more or less snapped at him, for she had no ability to say what was in her mind, unless he counted her deep blush as words enough.
“Ah,” he said, and his expression grew distant. “'The conjugal rights, I presume?” He spoke toward her forehead.
She nodded mutely.
His gaze lowered to meet her own. “I presume you do not care to share them with me?”
She leaped to her feet—and some part of her knew she was feeling a trifle outraged not least because she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt in answer.
He stood as well, and a rueful sideways smile touched his mouth. “Forgive me. I am wont to tease. But since we agree to allow each other to go our own ways, I assume we are not to practice those familial duties of which we so delicately speak.”
She resented the laughter in his tone and in his eyes, and said severely,
“Some
of us speak delicately.”
“And some of us know whereof we speak, I believe.” To her horror, his steady look accused her of knowing more of the facts of life than a well-brought-up maiden ought to know, and she knew, miserably, that he could confirm the truth of this by her own telltale blushes.
She sputtered for a moment, wanting to explain that sisters and schoolgirls spoke of these things because they were perceived to be important, and because they were subjects so carefully avoided by their parents—all the while knowing she would look even more hoydenish if she tried to explain.
“It is as well, my dear,” he soothed, laughter in his voice yet again. “I should not care for making a bargain where you did not know what you were giving up.” She stared at him quite frankly. Did he think he was such a wondrous bargain? Why was he teasing her so? If they married, would they go on in this manner?
Meeting his gaze squarely, she belatedly saw by the twist of his mouth that it was likely he was teasing himself as much as her.
To her surprise, she found her anger sliding away and she was laughing, and then he was laughing gently with her.
“Such a conversation,” she said.
“Peculiar, yes. Well,” he said, shaking his head without losing his grin, “I think we must say we have struck an accord.”
She shook her head as well, still smiling a little, though her voice became meditative as she changed the shake to a nod and said, “I believe we have.”
“There is nothing left for it then, but to shake on it.” He extended his hand, and she offered her own. His grip was firm, her hand small against his, and with a sigh of mingled amusement and uncertainty she knew her future had been decided.
She watched as he moved her hand from where he clasped it, turning the back of it up, and raised it to his lips. He gave the gallant’s kiss, his lips not even really touching her skin. He did not release her hand as he straightened, and his eyes were now once again sober as he looked down at her.
“I would clarify one thing.”
“Yes?” she said somewhat unsteadily, for courtly gestures, until this moment, were only things her mother had tried to tell her about. She had found out quite suddenly that they were ever so much more gratifying in reality than they were in practice.
“I would that we will treat each other with respect. I’m not just speaking of taking lovers, but in all matters. As you know, I was raised in a home where there was constant bickering, and constant pettiness. My parents did their best to misunderstand one another in a hundred spiteful little ways, and often too publicly. It was really for the best when they chose separate homes, as then at last my father had a little heart and energy to bestow upon my brother and myself. And we could visit mother in a home that had some semblance of peace to it.
“So, although as newlyweds we must make the effort to reside together at first, I do not care to live in such a strife-filled home. If we find we cannot live together peacefully, I would ask that we do as my parents have done.”
He still held her hand, perhaps a little too hard, so that she had the distinct impression this was very important to him. Her youthful heart felt for his suffering in years past, and she answered readily, “Of course. I, too, could not care to live where there is no harmony.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly, raising her hand once more for the gallant’s kiss.
The double doors of the front parlor swung open wide, and in marched a pretty lady still clad in her traveling clothes, her features suspiciously like Alessandra’s. “Well?” she demanded, her hands on her hips, her pelisse winding around her skirts in a swirl of activity that indicated she had wasted no time entering the room.
Geoffrey looked at the woman, at Alessandra’s delightedly welcoming face, and then back at the other woman, whom he finally recognized. “Cousin Emmeline.”
She ignored him except to nod, and marched up to her little sister, her expression demanding an immediate answer.
“Emmeline, you know Geoffrey…” Alessandra said, her voice a mixture of shyness and a funny kind of pride as she added, “My betrothed.”
“So then!” Emmeline cried in her resonant fashion as she frowned, then smiled, and proceeded to hug them both at once.
“Father. Elias,” Geoffrey said over the dinner table. Their plates were satisfactorily empty, but Geoffrey’s plate was still full, however pushed about the food had been. They looked at him as he spoke, their mutually steely gray eyes (so appropriate in his sober father and so unsuitable for lighthearted Elias) now half-sleepy over the pleasant repast they had just enjoyed.
Geoffrey cleared his throat, and seeing he had even managed to attract the butler’s attention, waved the fellow out. When the servant was gone, he went on, “I have something I must tell you. I do hope you will not be unduly upset, and you will be aware that the situation was not precisely of my making.”
Elias set down his wineglass and regarded his older brother with any sleepiness erased.
“I became betrothed today,” Geoffrey said, his chin buried into his cravat. Without looking up, he hastily added, “but not to Jacqueline Bremcott.”
His father, Roderick Darringforth, the second earl of Chenmarth, choked on his wine and coughed for a full minute before he recovered himself.
Elias looked to his brother, his father’s purple face, then to Geoffrey again, his eyes filled with animation. “I say, that is unexpected. And not unwelcome news,” he ventured, watching his brother’s face. Elias had never thought much of Miss Bremcott.
“Who? Who is the girl?” their father demanded sharply as soon as he could speak.
“She is…,” Geoffrey found himself floundering for a moment, but her name came back to him after only a moment, “…Miss Alessandra Hamilton.”
“Warring's youngest girl?” his father asked, sitting back with a furrowed brow, a finger coming up to rub along the side of his nose.
“Little Lessie Hamilton?” Elias hooted, slapping the table delightedly with one hand.
“She is not so little now. Eighteen...or so I would venture a guess,” Geoffrey grumbled, still not wanting to meet their eyes, least of all his carefree, careless brother’s.
The room fell silent, and Geoffrey was just on the verge of rising from his chair to make an escape, when his father leaned forward on his elbows, his chin coming to rest on his intertwined fingers. He said in his sternest paternal voice, “All right then, Master Geoffrey. We all, including you I believe I may say, thought to see you one day offer for Jacqueline. This sudden engagement to Alessandra is too unexpected to not have a tale behind it. We’ll have the whole of that tale out of you, if you please.”
Without yesterday’s constant interruptions and heightened dramatics that had occurred at Alessandra’s home, the story of the torn gown was soon retold. He could see by their expressions that Elias was pleased and vastly amused, but a glance at his father showed him Lord Chenmarth was less in charity over the matter.
“Well! I can only imagine what Lady Bremcott will have to say to this.” Lord Chenmarth said with an anticipatory shudder of having to meet with the woman. “After all, there has been an understanding for these ages past.”
“That is not precisely true, Father. You and Lord Bremcott had an understanding, and he passed away years ago, and nary a word has been said since. I might add, that understanding was made when Jackie and I were only babes.” At his father’s openly skeptical look, Geoffrey sat up straight in his chair, using his hands for emphasis as he went on, “Yes, it was assumed we would eventually make a pact of it one day, but you will recall Jacqueline made her debut last year. She told me herself she’d had three very serious suitors other than me. I fully anticipated she would bring some other, er, lucky fellow up to scratch this season.”
“Geoffrey! You’ve never meant to offer for her? I’ll have you know Jacqueline Bremcott discouraged a viscount while waiting for your offer. Her mother told me so herself.” Papa was genuinely shocked.
“No surprise there,” Elias said. “Jacqueline Bremcott would rather be a countess over a viscountess one day, if she can manage it.”
He was soundly rapped on the knuckles with his father’s soup spoon.
“Ouch!” he cried as he rubbed his offended knuckles.
“Elias,” Lord Chenmarth snapped, “you are excused.”
“I’m not a child, to be excused from table.”
“Then stop acting like one. This is serious, and we’ll have none of your flippancy.”
“I can’t help m’self. Jackie’s a nice enough girl.” He hesitated, “Well, some people think so. But could you possibly see Geoffrey shackled to her?”
“Obviously I could, and I said you were excused,” Lord Chenmarth said, fixing not one but two steely eyes on his younger son.
“Oh, very well.” Elias stood and made a half-bow to the table at large. As he passed behind his brother’s chair, he clapped him quickly on the shoulder and said in a perfectly audible voice, “In my room. Later.”
Geoffrey sighed.
Lord Chenmarth took a deep breath, which he released as a long sigh. His sandy locks were worn a little longer than was the current fashion, his eyes so unlike the dark brown Geoffrey had inherited from his mother. It was, however, manifestly evident from whom Geoffrey had inherited his height and build, as well as his hair coloring. Lord Chenmarth, at age fifty, was still a decidedly handsome man, giving his son every hope of aging equally as gracefully.
But now his father’s fine features looked rather pinched as he sighed and said, “Well, my lad, there’s nothing for it, no matter how a man looks at it. Any understanding with the Bremcotts aside, you’ll have to marry the Hamilton girl. Can’t see any way around it.”
“The thing is, I was trying to be honorable. I was trying to assist her. We are cousins, after all. Shouldn’t there be some leniency between cousins?”
“Not, I am afraid,” his father said with the ghost of a smile, “when it involves revealed undergarments in public places.”
“But you’ve heard how that—”
“Oh, don’t get in high dudgeon with me. I got the story in its entirety well enough. Still, there’s no way to save the girl’s name and reputation without continuing to do ‘the honorable thing.’ She’s got money and looks, so in truth, it shouldn’t be such a terrible hardship for you. You’ll hardly be the first pair to marry where you’d rather not,” he finished his summation with a lifting of his strong chin, so that Geoffrey could see he was trying to convince himself as much as his son. He did not mention his own marriage to a certain lady, father and son both fully aware that bonding had not turned out right and fine enough.
“You’ll have to tell her,” Lord Chenmarth stated.
“Tell who?” Geoffrey asked. “Alessandra? She already—”
“Jackie Bremcott, of course. It would not be kind to let her hear it from the tattlemongers, or to read the banns in the papers.”
“There won’t be any banns. I’ve already seen the Archbishop for a special license.”
Lord Chenmarth looked shaken for a moment, but then he pushed back his chair and brusquely said, “Quite right. I’m sure Lord Hamilton wants this all wrapped up right and tight as soon as possible.” He sighed. “At least a marriage by special license is more seemly than an elopement,” he said, coming to his feet.
“Decidedly,” Geoffrey nodded, mouth grim.
“Pouting doesn’t suit you. Don’t look to blame anyone else for the bed you now find yourself having to lie in, if you’ll pardon the pun. ‘Twasn’t I who went down a side path with an unchaperoned young lady.”
“I didn’t go down the path with her—”
“No excuses, all the same. I’m off to Lord Warring’s now. You are to call on Jacqueline Bremcott, without delay,” Lord Warring ordered over his shoulder as he went purposefully from the room.
Geoffrey groaned, and leaned his head back against the high-backed chair. He closed his eyes, only to snap them open when a hand touched his shoulder.
“I couldn’t wait upstairs. I eavesdropped and heard it all. No reprieve for the once fancy free Viscount Huntingsley, poor sot!” Elias grinned down at him, then moved around to take a chair next to his brother.
“You are incorrigible,” Geoffrey scowled at him.
“I can afford to be. Younger son, and all that.”
“You’d be impossible if you were the eldest son.”
“True, true, and so we see how nature balances things for us. Take this engagement to Lessie Hamilton. Now there’s a girl with some life in her, perfect for you, not like Jackie Bremcott. Jackie’s the kind of girl I should marry, because she’d see right through any foolishness of mine, having already demonstrated much like it herself. Not that I ever would marry her, mind you.” He grinned at Geoffrey.
“Alessandra is pretty much of the same mold, is she not?” Geoffrey said languidly to disguise the fact he was faintly intrigued by his brother’s observations.
“Oh, Alessandra’s a proper one, and all that, but how to say it? She sees things clearly. And when she talks, she actually means what comes out of her mouth. She’d never tell you she likes your waistcoat when in truth she thinks it a fright. She’d find some good in it, or manage to let you know in the kindest manner possible, so you’d not feel like you’d made a cake of yourself.”
“And how do you know so much of ‘Lessie,’ as you are wont to call her?” Geoffrey asked, his voice drawling slightly.
Elias eyed his big brother for a minute speculatively, then answered easily, “She’s closest of all the cousins to my age. We always romped around together at those family gatherings, while our elder siblings looked down their noses at us. So when I see her out and about, I give her a bit of my time.”
“I’ve never noticed her ‘out and about.’”
“Still looking down that nose then,” Elias assured him. “It’s big enough to blind you, apparently.”
Geoffrey “hmphed,” resisting the urge to feel his nose—which wasn’t big at all, he was sure—then sighed and rolled his eyes toward the carved and gilded rococo ceiling over his head as he announced, “After Jacqueline, I’ve got to tell Mother next.”
“Horrors!” Elias cried with a mock shudder.
“My sentiments exactly. I cannot care to have another peal rung over my head.”
Elias, unable to sustain silence or even a shred of respectful sympathy, said, “I’d love to see it, but, before you ask, I absolutely refuse to go along and possibly share in her censure.”
Geoffrey chose to give Elias no further satisfaction on that score. Instead, he found himself asking, “So, do you find her pretty? Alessandra?”
Elias managed to not grin any more widely, but his voice was smooth as silk when he answered, “More than pretty. When last I saw her, she was growing into an actual beauty.”
“Yes, she has rather.”
They finally allowed themselves to look directly into each other’s eyes. Though their dispositions were far from being alike, instead of having been brothers who hated each other all during their youthful years, they had been grand companions. They had shared every kind of adventure, and knew each other well, the friendship they had formed spilling over naturally into adulthood. And now they could only see in each other’s eyes how nearly inconceivable it was that Geoffrey, the responsible elder brother, should find himself in the position of having—however unintentionally—compromised a girl into marriage. The thought flashed between their interlocked eyes, held and twisted between them tautly, until suddenly there was no stopping their instantaneous and mutual laughter.
The servants were not shocked when, after all these years of similar occasions, a few minutes later they saw the two young masters, aged twenty-three and twenty, running up the stairs. The elder was threatening the younger with imminent and dastardly death caused by all manner of grisly attacks, the sum of which were, however, related in what was clearly a largely jovial fashion.
***
Feeling caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Geoffrey chose to bear his parent’s displeasure first, rather than Miss Bremcott’s. The one might scold, but the other might well cry. So to Mama’s house he went.
He rose to his feet as his mother stepped into the front salon where her butler had placed him. Tension immediately filled the room, a residual awkwardness left from when her two sons had chosen their father’s home over hers, more than a decade ago.
A tall, elegant woman, Lady Chenmarth made an impression of poise and grace when she entered a room. Her mouth shaped into a smile upon seeing him, but Geoffrey saw something else—worry?—in her eyes. Dark eyes, like his, always tinged with a sadness that made him feel guilty, even though he could not name his sin.
“I’m so pleased you’ve come to call,” Mama said as she sat on a divan opposite where he resumed his chair. This twinged his sense of guilt again, and perhaps he knew its source after all, for it had been a six month since he’d last come to visit.
“I’ve come to tell you I’m getting married.”
Her brows rose, but beneath the gentle question on her face he thought he saw a flush of true pleasure; he didn’t know much about her anymore, but he knew she longed for grandchildren.
“I will have to call upon Lady Bremcott—” she began.
“I’m not marrying Miss Bremcott, Mama. Two days hence I shall marry Lord Warring’s youngest, Alessandra Hamilton.”
Lady Chenmarth thought about this, her mouth shaped in a small “o”, clearly from surprise. “I had no idea you’d developed a tendre for Warring’s girl.”