Elizabeth Mansfield (30 page)

She stood up and made for the door, but he jumped to his feet and caught her arm. “No!” he said, baffled. “You aren’t making sense!” He whirled her around so that she fell against him, and he held her fast. “Look at me, Letty,” he ordered, lifting her face and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t love me? Is that it?”

She looked up with a level gaze. “I’m not trying to tell you anything,” she said in a voice that strained to remain steady. “We’ve already said too much. Perhaps, sometimes, a man and a woman are not suited, no matter what they feel for one another. Let me go, Roger. It’s for the best.”

He stared at her uncomprehendingly, but the firmness in her eyes seemed unanswerable. There was a frightening finality in her expression. His arms dropped from her, and she stepped back. She took one last look at his face, which was clouded with bewilderment and a kind of numb despair, and she ran
from the room.

But even when she had closed the door behind her, climbed the stairs to her room, undressed in the darkness, and lain, wide-eyed, in her bed through the weary hours of the night, she could not erase from her mind the look of his face, staring at her with the haunting persistence of a reproachful ghost.

Brandon opened his eyes to bright sunlight streaming into the little window set in a dormer on the other side of his room. His head felt clearer than it had last night, and the sunlight seemed to offer some hope that today might turn out to be less wretched than yesterday. He yawned, stretched, and wondered how long he’d slept. He felt as if he’d slept a week. He raised himself on his elbow to see if he could ascertain the position of the sun to give himself some inkling of the time of day. In front of the window he saw a blur of something that looked like red-gold hair. Puzzled, he put out his hand, felt gingerly on the top of the table for his spectacles, and carefully put them on. His vision cleared, and he looked again at the red-gold blur. “Prue!” he gasped.

She was sitting on the window seat, watching him with a half smile. “Good morning, Brandon,” she said with unusual sweetness.

“What on earth—?” He sat up in bed, pulling the blankets up to his neck. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you mean here, in your room, or here in an inn on the road to Gretna Green?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” he answered, bemused. “Does Letty know you’re here?”

“Yes, indeed. We arrived last night and had dinner together.”

“We?”

“Roger and I.”

“Oh, is Roger with you?” Brandon asked with a feeling of relief. “Good. Then I’ll be able to borrow some blunt.” He put his hand to his forehead as his last conversation with Letty came back to him. “I was idiotic enough to go off on an elopement without a farthing in my pocket.”

“I’m not at all surprised,” Prue remarked cheerfully. “You need someone to remind you of such mundane matters. After all, you have more important things on your mind.”

Brandon frowned and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Even if that remark is meant as a slur on my studies, I shall ignore it. I have no wish to bandy words with you. Why have you come, anyway? Does Roger think he can stop our plans?”

“I believe he already has.”

Brandon peered at her. “What? Is Letty going to marry him after all?”

“I don’t know. But I believe she’d decided not to marry
you,
” Prue explained matter-of-factly, though her eyes were fixed on his face attentively.

“Oh? She has? Why?”

“I think she feels that you don’t quite suit.”

“I see,” Brandon said thoughtfully.

Prue came up to his bedside. “You don’t seem very brokenhearted, Brandon,” she remarked casually.

“I’m not. To be honest, it was to be a
mariage de convenance,
as the French say.”

“And how would the Greeks say it?” Prue teased.

He glared at her for a moment and then returned to his train of thought. “I didn’t think it a very
good idea, even from the beginning. But since Letty and I had both decided we wanted no more of love, we thought we might brush through. But I think Letty is wise to change her mind. The affair augered ill, and it would not do to ‘purchase regret at such a price,’ to use the words of Demosthenes.”

“Why do you want no more of love, Brandon?” Prue asked brazenly. “And don’t answer in the words of Demosthenes, if you please. I’d like to hear your own words.”

“I fell in love once,” he said, with a sidelong glance at her face, “but I found the experience too painful.”

“Did you? Why?”

“Because the young lady was frivolous, unpredictable, and an incorrigible flirt,” Brandon said sternly.

“Was she?” Prue said softly, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Yes, she was,” Brandon declared, throwing caution to the winds. “She called me a stuffy prig, pushed me out of a carriage in the most callous way, and the last time I saw her, she was in the arms of a man-about-town old enough to be her father.”

“Really?” Prue said, lowering her lashes in quite fetching remorse. “That was quite dreadful of her, and I’m sure she must be very sorry.”

“Do you think so?” Brandon asked, his heart beginning to leap about in his chest in a most disturbing way.

The lowered lashes fluttered. “Oh, yes, I’m sure of it.”

“But I thought … It seemed to me … that she had set her heart on becoming Mrs. Eberly.”

“Gudgeon! How could she, when her heart has been set on a much more … scholarly type of gentleman?”

“Prue!” He grasped her hands. “You can’t mean it!”

“Brandon,” Prue said, her lips curled in a mischievous smile and her eyelids fluttering up at him distractingly, “have you ever … kissed anyone?”

He leaned toward her, pulse racing and mind bedazzled in a most unscholarly way. “I’m … afraid not,” he admitted, somewhat breathlessly. “I’ve always been too preoccupied … with the Greeks … to kiss anyone.”

“Neither have I,” Prue said, her arms stealing around his neck, “but I don’t think it can be very difficult …”

***

Letty had had a most troublesome night. She had reviewed her conversation with Roger over and over. The pain in his eyes had haunted her, but she could think of nothing she could have done to avoid the necessity of causing him pain, short of agreeing to marry him. That she couldn’t do. Nothing had changed. It was still clear that he wanted a wife who was—how had he put it?—“delicately reared and sensitive.” After all the talk, all their time together, all the occasions when they had seemed to be attuned to each other, he still expected her to be the girl her aunt Millicent had described to his mother so many months ago—well-bred, gracious, serene, dutiful, and obedient. To play that role, to live with Roger in the polite, indifferent manner of so many other “arranged” marriages, would be more than she could bear. But as the night had worn on, and she had tried to imagine what that life would be like and to compare it to the life that now faced her—a life in which she would dwindle into an old maid, to play the fond aunt to her sisters’ children, to be the “extra guest” at dinner parties, to take in cats to have something to love, and to spend her old age dreaming of what might have been—she couldn’t help but
wonder if the proper and discreet life offered by Roger might not be more bearable than
that.

She couldn’t answer. She was completely ignorant of married life, her father having died before she was old enough to have made sensible observations about her parents’ life together, and Aunt Millicent, too, having been widowed early. Perhaps she should discuss the matter with Roger, openly and honestly, as he had suggested. They had been able to talk about Mrs. Brownell quite satisfactorily. Perhaps she could bring herself to explain to him that she was not the delicate, obedient, polite girl that he had supposed her to be. Even if he then decided that she was not a proper wife for him, she would at least have the satisfaction of seeing that haunting look of pain leave his eyes.

By the time the first faint light of dawn had crept into her window, she had decided that she would talk to him first thing in the morning. With a feeling of contentment such as she had not had in weeks, she’d closed her eyes and fallen into a peaceful sleep.

When she awakened, she knew at once that the morning was far advanced. The sun was high in the sky and the voices from the taproom below had the loud, bustling sound that comes when the whole world is wide awake. Guiltily, she washed and dressed and hurriedly went to find the others. Brandon’s door was ajar, and she tapped and entered.

Brandon was still in his bed, Prue unnecessarily feeding him soup. When they looked up and saw Letty in the doorway, Brandon looked sheepish. “She insists on treating me like an invalid,” he explained quickly. “I’ve told her repeatedly that my fever has quite gone.”

“But a day of rest is very beneficial after a fever, is it not, Letty?” Prue asked. “Roger thinks that we may stay another day, if we wish.”

“A day of rest is very beneficial,” Letty concurred, and added with a grin, “It’s so pleasant to see the two of you getting on so well.”

“Wish us happy, Letty,” Brandon announced, smiling shyly.

Letty looked from one to the other delightedly, and Prue ran to her and enveloped her in an excited embrace. “Oh, Prue,” Letty sighed, “I
am
happy for you both.”

Finally, Letty found an opportunity to refer to the subject that had brought her. “Where is Roger?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s gone,” Prue said, returning to her duties with the soup.

Letty’s heart lurched. “G-Gone?” she managed.

“He thought
someone
should return to Bath as soon as possible to inform the families that all is well. He said that he is impatient to return to London, at any rate, and saw no point in cooling his heels here.”

All Letty’s old misery descended on her again with a sickening thump. “When did he leave?” she asked in a voice she scarcely recognized.

Prue and Brandon, absorbed in their new happiness, did not notice her perturbation. “Not long ago,” Prue answered absently. “Why?”

But Letty didn’t answer. She turned and went quickly down the stairs. The innkeeper was clearing the remains of a single breakfast from the table in the private parlor. “Has Lord Denham gone?” she asked urgently.

The innkeeper turned and answered deferentially, “Yes, Miss, I b’lieve so. Just ’ad ’is ’orses put to, not two minutes since.”

Letty, still hoping desperately that he had not yet gone, ran out the door. There in the courtyard, Roger was helping the boy who served as ostler, porter, and errand boy to adjust the reins. She stopped in her tracks and took a quick breath of relief. Roger, not seeing her, was about to swing himself up to the box when she called his name. He turned and saw her running across the courtyard toward him with
an expression of joy not unlike the look she had had on her face when she had discovered his presence the day before. Completely bemused, he stood and stared until she came up to him. “Oh,” she sighed breathlessly, grasping his arm, “I’m so
glad
you haven’t gone!”

He looked at her with a wry smile. “Your greetings could well become the delight of my life,” he said drily, “if I hadn’t been told that they have no significance and that I mustn’t refine too much upon them. Is there something I can do for you before I leave?”

She cast him a sidelong glance. His eyes looked weary and his mouth strained. His hair had been carelessly combed, and a lock fell tantalizingly over his forehead. She itched to brush it away with her hand. But she merely cast her eyes to the ground. “Have you a few minutes to spare? I would like to talk to you.”

She could see him stiffen. “I’m really rather pressed,” he said coldly. “I’m eager to return to Bath and then to start for London before nightfall.”

“I see.”

He hesitated. “I thought you had said everything you could last night.”

“Not everything.”

“Very well, then, what is it?” he asked impatiently. Even to his own ears he sounded childishly sullen.

“May we walk a little way?” she asked shyly, with a glance at the ostler who suddenly began to polish a brass fitting energetically. “I noticed from my window that there’s a pretty little garden at the back …”

“Of course,” he said contritely, and fell into step beside her.

For a while they walked in silence while Letty shored up her failing courage. “It’s difficult for me to explain, Roger, but I want you to understand why I couldn’t … why I can’t …”

“It’s not at all necessary, Letty,” he said in a strange, detached way that pierced her heart. “You have finally convinced me that your refusal is final. There is not the slightest need for you to make me any explanations. Although I appreciate your kindness in wishing to do so.”

He made a little bow and turned to go. Letty watched him, quite nonplussed. She could not let him go like this. “But, Roger,” she said quickly, “I don’t want to explain because of kindness. It’s only because … I love you so very much …”

He stood stock still for a long, breathless moment. Then, running his fingers through his hair in a gesture of helplessness, he said in a tightly controlled voice, “Letty, all this is very confusing to me—”

“Yes, I know.” She put out her hand. “Please come with me. There’s a little wooden bench back there, just wide enough for the two of us …”

He took her hand and let her lead him to the bench. They sat down, and he faced her tensely. He couldn’t wait to hear what she would say, even though he was convinced it would end with the same pain. Why, he asked himself, am I subjecting myself to further torture? But wild horses could not have dragged him away.

Still clinging to his hand, her eyes lowered, she began. “You’ve told me many times, my dear, that you think me delicately bred, refined, and … obedient. That’s what everyone thinks. Lady Glendenning’s dutiful daughter.” She turned her lustrous eyes to him in earnest appeal. “Roger, can’t you see that I’m not that girl? Would Lady Glendenning’s dutiful daughter refuse to marry the man her family so much desires for her? Would
she
lie and evade and make up false betrothals and elope with the man her sister loves? And … and … would
she
feel as I do about … about what happened at Vauxhall?”