Carla Kelly (26 page)

19

WORDLESSLY, she handed the note to her mother, who read it once, twice, and then sat down. “I knew that the duke would regret his hasty words,” Mama said after a moment’s reflection. She picked up the box, lifted the lid, and selected a chocolate morsel.

With a sigh of her own, Libby took the note back, crumpled it in her hand, and went upstairs to her room. The room was shrouded in darkness and smelled close with the windows shut. She opened the draperies and raised the window sash.

The moon was full and hazy with smoke from the oasts, the great slow-burning kilns where the hops were stuffed to dry. She breathed deep of the musky fragrance, remembering with an ache that it was the first noticeable thing that had greeted them as they returned to Kent, still reeling from the shock of Papa’s death two years ago.

The activity of hops harvest time had taken hold of them then and plunged them into Kentish life. Uncle William had needed their extra arms and sound good sense, and they had needed to be too busy during those days of August and September. When they finally had time to draw a good breath after Michaelmas, they belonged to Kent and were beginning to heal.

And now this season brings another change in my life, she thought, perching herself into the window. Now, in years to come, I will breathe in this bitter, pungent fragrance, this odor that is making me sleepy, and think about my wedding. Why did the duke have to send that candy now? Couldn’t he have waited two days when I would have been safely leg-shackled? Why are men so perverse?

She did not know her own mind yet, if something as harmless as a box of chocolates could set her off and spinning. The duke must have heard about her wedding from Lydia and wished to salve a guilty conscience. He had probably instructed his secretary to select a box of Copley’s, just so large and not any larger, and address a note to her. She didn’t even know if the note still crumpled in her fist was in his handwriting.

Libby spread out the note on her lap and looked at the words again. Forgive you, she thought, I should never. You were untoward and out of line and I should hope that you choke on your good intentions, for the humiliation you have put me through. Forgive you? I suppose I can, but kindly remain at a distance, or else . . . or else I might forgive you too much.

She lay awake until very late, her body worn out with the journey from Brighton to Holyoke, but her mind talking to her, whispering, cajoling, and speculating. Long after midnight she heard a gig trundling down the road, away from the Cook estate. Is that you, Anthony? she thought as she tried to find a soft spot on her bed of nails. I wish you would call here. I could bear this better if I could see your comforting bulk and hear your reassurance that I am doing the right thing.

Morning brought the doctor to her doorstep, returning from the call he had made after midnight. Unshaven and heavy-eyed, he gathered her in his arms, kissed her soundly, set her on her feet again, and told her to be a good girl for two more days.

“At least come in to breakfast,” she coaxed, clasping his hands to tug him up the front steps.

He shook his head. “I cannot, dearest. Dame Westerfield is having fits again and prophesying, and I must do what I can to soothe her and assure the relatives that they haven’t much longer of this tyranny. Give me a kiss, love, and send me on my way.”

She did as he said, clinging to him so tight that he raised his eyebrows.

“Would that I could stay longer! Two days more and then you can see me off from our own steps. Elizabeth, I love you.”

And I don’t know what I do, she thought as she blew a kiss and waved him out of sight.

As the noonday sky shimmered with heat from the oast ovens, Joseph managed to escape from the hops harvest long enough to drop by Holyoke Green. Mama hugged him and cried while he grinned and shrugged his shoulders at Libby.

He was browner, and hungry, and somehow more assured of himself. The scar was obscured by several days’ growth of beard that made Mama sigh and remark that her dear boy was growing up.

Libby fingered his chin. “You had better make plans to shave that, and soon, brother,” she warned, “if you are to give me away on Friday.”

He nodded. “Dr. Cook said the same thing last night.” He accepted bread and jam from his mother. “We have been rehearsing the march down the aisle, Libby. I take his arm and pretend he is you, and we walk down the room while he hums.”

Libby laughed and clapped her hands while he finished the bread and looked about for more. “We have been almost too busy to eat, Mama. I help the squire out to the hop bines and he stays there all day, watching the pickers.” He swallowed another slice of bread. “Libby, the gypsies are all about everywhere. Squire makes sure that I am close by the stables when they are at their lunchtime.”

Mama clasped his hands in hers, disregarding the jam on his fingers. “Does the squire treat you well, son? It is a particular worry of mine.”

“He treats me well, Mama,” Joseph said, “and so does the doctor.” He grinned at his sister. “You will like it there, too, I know. Dr. Cook has been trying to move books out of his room so there will be a space for you. I tell him that you would not mind one of the other rooms down the hall, but he only laughs.”

Libby blushed while Joseph looked about for something else to eat. Mama took the Copley’s chocolate off the sitting-room table and held them out to her son. He plucked out a handful, eating them quickly and eyeing the clock.

“I promised the squire I would be back by the time the bailiff shouts, ‘All to work.’” He took another handful of chocolates from the box. “Libby, do you know what? I would not have thought of it, but for these. I saw the chocolate merchant only this morning.”

Libby gulped and sat down suddenly while Mama frowned. Unmindful of their reactions, Joseph pocketed the chocolate. “He was riding a neatish bit of bone and muscle as bold as life down the street in Holyoke. I don’t think he saw me, but I am sure it was the merchant.” He scratched his head. “Or is he the duke? I can’t quite remember.” He thought about it a moment and then his face brightened. “I suppose it does not matter. Good day, Mama. Libby, you should get in the sun more. You look like something half-dead.”

He was gone.

Libby whirled about to face her mother. “What game does this man play?” she asked, her voice full of exasperation.

Mama put the lid back on the chocolates. “I think he means to apologize in person, Libby.” She peered closely at her daughter’s unhappy face. “I am sure he will attempt nothing more.”

“Surely not,” Libby murmured, wishing that the high color would leave her face before Mother made some remark upon it.

The duke did not come. The afternoon dragged by as Libby packed her dresses, unpacked them, and packed them again. She heard a horse ride by and ran to the window. It was Anthony. As she watched, his horse leapt the fence in a graceful arc and he disappeared in the direction of Fairbourne. Libby pounded the windowsill in her frustration. Anthony, you don’t seem to have a grasp of what is going on, she thought. If you want me, you had better come to me.

Then she was ashamed of herself. The demands of others on his time would always supersede her own needs. He would attend because he was a doctor, and that was that. If you think you cannot bear that kind of neglect, Elizabeth Ames, she scolded herself, you had better cry off right now.

She sent no note, wrote no letter to the doctor, but prowled the house after dinner until Mama put her hands to her head and with an awful expression pointed to the door. Libby grabbed up her bonnet and bolted from the house. She walked rapidly across the field to the place where ashes from a gypsy fire still littered the ground. She poked about with her shoe, raising the ashes, wondering what to do with her life.

Is it fair, she thought, to marry a man I am not entirely sure I love? That Anthony would be faithful throughout his life, she had no doubt. It is I that I question, she thought. Will I find myself lying in his arms one night, wishing myself with someone else? Will I spend sleepless nights regretting what I have done? Will the work and worry of the life he has chosen divide us until we are two strangers sharing a house, a bed, and children?

There was no answers in the field. Her head seemed full to bursting with voices all talking to her at once, setting up such a chatter that she could not think. She wished herself back on the Promenade in Brighton, listening to Anthony’s voice alone. Her thoughts did her no credit.

She was walking slowly back to the house as a curricle pulled away from the front drive. She thought for a moment that it must be Uncle William. He had sent regrets from London that Lydia, deep in the anxieties of choosing her wardrobe, would be unable to attend the wedding, but that he would be there. Libby shook her head. It would not be Uncle William. He had never succumbed to such toys of fashion.

She waited until the vehicle was gone down the road before she let herself into the house. Her mother met her at the door, a look of vast disquiet marring the beauty of her countenance. She held a box in her hands that she gave to her daughter.

Libby looked down. “Duke’s Delight,” she read. “Oh, Mother!”

They sat down in the sitting room. Libby leaned against her mother’s shoulder.

“‘It is a special sort,’ he told me. The only box of its kind. ‘With full measure of rue,’ if I recall him rightly. He had it made up especially for you.”

“The Duke of Knaresborough,” Libby said, thrusting the box to one side.

Mrs. Ames smiled and touched her daughter’s hair. “A charming gentleman, Libby. So much address and good manners and everything that was proper. Your father would say he looked as fine as five pence.” She paused, hesitated, picking her words carefully, not looking at her daughter. “And I would be inclined to agree with him.”

“Did he say anything about that infamous offer?” Libby asked.

“He did. He assumed that you had told me everything. He offered his sincere apologies, and I accepted them for I felt he truly meant it.” She hesitated, and then paced the length of the room in great agitation of mind. She took her daughter’s hands in a tight grip. “Libby, he was so indiscreet, for all that he means well! He told me that he loves you, will have none other, and means to offer marriage this time. Imagine!”

Libby stared at her mother. “Mama, did you tell him I was to be married in two days? He is too late!”

Marianne Ames nodded, her eyes filled with tears. “Of course I did. I am hardly dead to the proprieties, daughter.”

In spite of her own misery, Libby smiled at the idea of her mother countenancing anything improper. “No one could ever accuse you of that. Oh, what are we to do? I suppose he will call again, won’t he?”

“He said he would. Problems rarely go away because we wish them elsewhere.” Mrs. Ames sat down suddenly, her face set, hard. “I blame myself. Listen to me, talking of proprieties when I was so indiscreet myself so many years ago!” She could not look at her daughter. “A fine muddle this is, Libby. I have learned such propriety over the years. Would that I had exercised it much sooner that first time your father came into the tobacco shop!”

Libby sat down beside her mother and put her arms around her. “Mama! Don’t dredge up the past like that. I, for one, am glad you did such a foolish thing. I would not be here, had you not ‘forgotten your place,’ as Grandfather Ames probably put it.”

Mrs. Ames wiped her eyes and allowed herself to be comforted. She kissed her daughter and then looked away. “I have had ample occasion to scold myself, but no, I would not have changed things, no matter how ill it has fallen out for you. I loved your papa. I love him still.”

She took another turn about the room and stood before her daughter again. “And this brings me to a bit of plain speaking. My dear, you have expressed to me your own doubts about your feelings for Dr. Cook. I suspect that this turn of events, however unwelcome, will force you to examine the quality of that relationship.”

“Mother, what are you saying?” Libby exclaimed.

“I am saying that you had better know your own mind,” her mother persisted. “When the vows are spoken, my darling, you will be a long time married. As improperly as the duke is behaving, you had better study it out carefully in your own mind and be certain that you are marrying the right man.”

Libby sat on the front steps and waited for the doctor to appear. When the evening’s chill made her rub her arms, she went indoors. Mama had set up the card table and eyed her hopefully, but Libby only shook her head. She sat in silence and growing irritation with Anthony Cook. Tomorrow was the eve of their wedding, and she had scarcely exchanged ten words with him since her return from Brighton.

Are you so sure of yourself, Anthony? she thought as she watched her mother lay out another hand of solitaire, frown over it, and cheat when she thought her daughter wasn’t looking.

“Did the duke say when he would return?” Libby asked finally as the clock prepared to strike ten.

“In the morning, my dear.”

Libby left the room without another word and trudged up the stairs to her bedroom. She almost cried to see it, books everywhere, clothes jumbled about. She wanted to rush about and put everything back the way it was and forget that she had ever given her impulsive agreement to an equally impulsive proposal. She would put everything in order again and tell Anthony that she had changed her mind. When she finally closed her eyes in exhaustion, she knew it would be for the best.

***

Libby was awake before the maid tiptoed into the room with her can of hot water. The day was already uncomfortably warm. She threw off the covers, hugging her legs close to her body and wishing that the morning would bring its usual measure of optimism to her. When it did not come, she dressed quickly in her coolest muslin and went downstairs.

Candlow brought her a note during breakfast. “I found this pinned to the front door, Miss Ames,” he said, handing it to her.

It was a page torn from Anthony Cook’s prescription book. “I was too late. I will be at your house for dinner as planned. Yours as ever, Anthony.” He had underscored “will” several times.