Fran Baker (11 page)

Stratford got no further, for Baldwin returned just then with Helen, their arms overflowing with wildflowers of all descriptions. Both immediately knew something of moment had occurred. Rose stood with her shawl slipping unnoticed from her shoulders and her face unusually flushed, while beside her, the viscount’s stony aspect was abnormally pallid.

Daniel saw the smile fading from Helen’s lips and stepped forward, saying with false heartiness, “Our expedition has been most successful!”

His words smoothed over the uncomfortable moment, but the return to Willowley was beset by a heavy air of constraint. When the old phaeton rolled to a stop before the cottage, Rose alit before either man could dismount to assist her. She went directly to her room without taking leave of them and they soon departed for their lodgings in Adderbury without again seeing her.

*****

The viscount offered his cousin no explanation and Daniel knew far better than to press for one. He did not see his lordship again until Stratford appeared from his room that evening, ready to escort the Lawrences to a supper ball given by the local squire, Sir Richard Henley. The sight which met Baldwin’s startled gaze was a vision to behold.

For once, Stratford had spared no pains with his appearance. His satin knee breeches and black velvet evening jacket enhanced his lordship’s dark coloring and masculine build. Daniel enviously wished that he might show to such advantage, but knew it was not the fine clothes that made Colin so devilishly handsome. It was perhaps a pity that Busick was not attendant upon the viscount, for he would have been highly gratified to discover a diamond pin stuck neatly into the folds of Stratford’s impeccably tied cravat, while a gold signet ring graced the little finger of his lordship’s right hand. Altogether, Stratford looked very much the lord of the realm that he was and Baldwin acknowledged this fact with a firm whistle.

“I must say, cous’, I’m dazzled,” he said, smiling. “You’ll lay all the country girls out flat, you know.”

“I’ll wager there’s
one
I don’t impress, for she’ll very likely say this proves I am nothing more than a dandified fop!”

“What can you mean? Miss Helen—”

“No, it’s her sister, Miss Rose I mean,” Stratford explained. “It’s easy to see why the two of you deal so well together—you have in common the utmost disapproval of my lifestyle,” he added between gritted teeth as they left the inn.

Baldwin digested this in silence, wondering what game his volatile cousin was hatching now, for he knew that Colin in a temper would stop at nothing to get his way. And it was clear that the temper of the afternoon had not abated a jot. It did not promise for a pleasant evening, and Daniel began to wish heartily he had never come to Willowley.

In truth, Colin was intent upon showing Miss Rose Lawrence just how wrong she was, that he could, in fact, be the very soul of social decorum. She would soon see that the Viscount Stratford was a man her sister should feel honored to marry, and he hoped she would then be regretting her condemnation of his character.

Disappointment awaited him, however, for Miss Lawrence was not a member of the evening’s party. Nothing said to her during the afternoon could prevail upon Rose to attend the Henleys’ ball. Both Mama and Nell were going and that, she said firmly, meant she must stay to watch over the boys for they all knew Esmond was next to useless and Mrs. Mosley, though a very fine soul, could not soothe away George’s nightmares as she could. Nell was not inclined to disagree, but Griffen, thinking he had detected a certain warmth in Mr. Baldwin’s attitude, had uttered a protest. It had been in vain. Rose was staying home.

Stratford’s polished manners covered over his frustration at the news of her absence, but Daniel noted the lines pulling at the edges of his mouth and thought for an instant of pleading a sudden bellyache. He gave it up and was soon rolling along with the Lawrences in the viscount’s elegant coach, listening with resignation to Susanna explain just which combination of restoratives had enabled her to make this excessively exerting and, to her view, decidedly dangerous outing.

Rose watched the progress of the carriage from her bedroom window until it could no longer be seen. She then took herself to her nephews’ room, where she passed an agreeable hour playing the damsel in distress for her two heroic knights. After tucking the boys into bed with a story and a kiss, Rose tried to while away the hours with a book. When she found herself reading the same page for the third time, she set it down and took up her needlework. When she pricked her finger while pulling out a set of badly placed stitches, however, she gave up all attempts to occupy herself and went to her room. There she spent a considerable amount of time sitting before her mirror. But at last she decided with regret that there was nothing of a mysterious misty morning about her eyes and, with a melancholy sigh, climbed into bed.

Moonshadows slid across her face as she lay remembering each word, each look his lordship had given her that day. She vividly brought forth the timbre of his voice, the light in his ebony eyes, the tilt of his dark head, and she burned with a longing to show him how well she could read him.
She
would not tremble at the passionate promise of those full lips!

Slipping a hand beneath her cheek, she turned on her side and tried resolutely to put such thoughts away. But they would not refrain from popping out of the darkness with haunting clarity. She felt her only hope lay in his rapid removal to London and yet she desired nothing less. She pictured Stratford whirling through the squire’s ballroom with her beautiful sister in his arms and did not even bother to wipe away the tears as they rolled silently onto her hand.

Those who attended the Henleys’ party found it, for the most part, sadly insipid. The country dances were nearly as boring, remarked the viscount to his cousin, as the belles dancing them. Nothing met with his approval. And when he had raised a disdainful brow for the fifth time to some encroaching guest, Helen could barely control her increasing anxiety. It was an unhappy fate that led Stratford to decide it was time to settle upon a wedding date. When he mentioned the matter as they were sweeping the room together in a waltz, his fiancée fell to stammering nervously, forgetting all the modish airs she had been trying desperately to wear all evening.

“I—I have not thought of it,” she replied miserably in answer to his demand for her to name the day.

“Well, my dear, it must be thought of,” he said in a cutting tone. “See if you can bring yourself to do so by morning. We shall discuss the matter then.”

She thought him very annoyed with her and all attempts to hide her wretchedness withered. She barely got through the last of the waltz and later wondered how she managed the rest of the evening. Though nothing had yet been announced, she had been forced to endure the sly congratulations and knowing looks from their neighbors and to receive them with some semblance of happiness. Helen longed only for her bed throughout it all and she fairly flew up to her room, with only a hurried goodnight whispered to his lordship, as soon as they returned home.

She crept as quietly as she could about the room, trying not to disturb Rose in the next bed. But Rose was still fully awake. She lay silent, however, not wishing to hear about the evening, not wishing to reveal her own depressing thoughts. It was not until she heard a muffled sob emerge from the other bed that she sat up. On the second such sob, she slipped from her bed to the edge of her sister’s.

“Helen, dearest, whatever is wrong?” she asked softly.

“N-nothing,” Helen claimed, giving way to tears in earnest.

“Shh, you silly babe,” Rose murmured. She gathered the quivering girl into her arms and held her firmly until the weeping died away. “Now, tell me what happened to make you cry.”

“It is the viscount,” Helen said on a hiccough. “He—I—I made him most monstrously angry with me!”

“Well,
that
, let me assure you, is nothing to cry over! It is his lordship’s habit to lose his temper with everyone. Why, you must know he was very angry with
me
just this afternoon.”

Her light tone calmed Helen considerably and she was able to continue with some composure. “He asked me to set a wedding date and when I told him I hadn’t thought of it, he—he looked at me with his lids drooping over his eyes as if—as if I were—oh, some contemptible toady! And he said—oh, so coldly!—that I must give it thought and that we should discuss it in the morning!”

Recalling her promise not to again tease her sister about the folly of this match, Rose squeezed Helen tightly and said, “You must not let him frighten you so. You must simply give him the direct stare and tell him to quit being so nonsensical.”

“B-but he was quite odious! He looked like a very d-devil!”

“He is no more of an ogre than Freddy! He is just a spoiled, impatient boy, much used to getting his own way.”

“Now it is
you
who are being nonsensical!” Helen returned, achieving a tremulous smile.

Rose could do naught but privately agree.

Chapter 8

The occupants of the crowded breakfast room at Appleton were silent. Esmond’s attention was, as usual, riveted upon the tome propped up before his plate, his unattended food growing cold. Rose sat beside him watching Helen’s food progress slowly from side of her plate to the other as her fork nudged it listlessly along.

Rose’s own sparse breakfast—a cup of tea and a slice of buttered bread—joined the forces of the ignored as she pondered the latest developments in what promised to be Helen’s calamitous courtship.

The melancholy of the night before had lifted as Rose’s calm good sense reasserted itself. She might suffer from unrequited love, but she would not, like some heroine in a Minerva novel, fall into a decline because of it. She had her family to occupy her and though her future might be termed clear, it was by no means bleak. It was Helen’s future that darkened her normally bright eyes.

At the head of the table, Griffen did nothing to spur conversation amongst his family. He alone was busily downing his breakfast with a vigor that more than made up for the disinterest of the others. His wife was eating with his mother (whose habit it was to break her fast in bed), leaving him free to devote himself to his meal. Ham, eggs, fish and bread were swept rapidly from his plate to his mouth.

Thus, coming upon the scene some minutes later, Sarah Charville found her family very much self-absorbed and not at all social.

“You might be rehearsing for one of Shakespeare’s tragedies! Whatever is the matter with you all?” she asked cheerily as she came in. She was surprised when her sisters both started at her quip. She was even more so when she saw the color fade from Helen’s face.

“Hullo,” Griffen said between gulps. “What brings you here?”

Slipping into the chair opposite Esmond, Sarah cast a surreptitious glance at Helen as she explained, “I’ve brought Joseph over for the day. I trust you shan’t mind, but Anna had the fever all last night, and though she seemed more fussy than ill this morning, I thought it better to remove the baby. You know how the least little sickness overcomes him.”

“Oh, poor Anna! Is there anything we can do for her?” Helen asked with genuine concern.

“No, she’s already on the mend. I’ve no doubt Anna will be her usual pert self by evening.”

“Have you got time for a cup of tea?” Rose asked, rising.

“Yes, thank you, though I cannot stay too long. John will be anxious, you know, for he has not the least notion of how to go about settling Anna when she fusses.”

“Well, I’m very sorry Anna is poorly,” Rose said as she moved from the scarred mahogany sideboard to place a steaming cup before Sarah. “But I shall be glad to have the baby. I was amazed at how well he is walking! The next thing you know he will be dancing,” she added teasingly.

“Speaking of dancing,” Sarah said over her teacup, “it’s a great pity you weren’t at the Henleys’ last night to see the stir the viscount caused.”

“I can well imagine it,” she murmured without inflection.

“His dress, his elegance, his air all set the neighborhood talking. Helen was the most envied person there, I can tell you.”

Helen bowed her head in embarrassment, but before she or Rose could make a response, Esmond astounded them all with one of his abrupt observations.

“I’d not have thought that one of Homer’s Cimmerians would have suited Helen,” he pronounced precisely as if he were discoursing upon some abstract subject and not his sister’s fiancée. Without waiting to see the effect of his comment, Esmond retreated once more into his book.

Though his comparison had completely mystified the majority of his audience, Rose, who was of a more bookish bent and had actually read many of the classics, was much struck with the aptness of the description. Seeing Helen’s stricken look, however, she decided the less said about the Viscount Stratford this morning, the better. So she turned to Sarah and asked whether she had yet seen Mama.

“Yes, I took Joseph to see her before handing him over to Mrs. Mosley. She and Nell were recounting last night’s social triumph. Mama positively gloated over paying off an old score with Mrs. Houston by refusing to make her an introduction to Lord Stratford.”

Rose laughed at this, though somewhat perfunctorily.

Sarah’s tone changed when she continued. “Dearest,
why
weren’t you at the squire’s?”

“I am well past the age of parties—”

“Nonsense!” Her sister shooed her excuse away with a wave of her hand. “You are no such thing. Why, Mr. Young asked specifically after you, Rose. And you know he would only need the merest encouragement to declare himself, for he has been dangling after you this age and more.”

“Please! I dare say I was not meant for marriage—”

“Pooh! You should be caring for your own babies, not mine.”

“What’s all this talk of marriage?” Griffen demanded, looking up from his plate to swivel his gaze from one sister to the other. “Has Young made you an offer, Rose? Why have I not heard of it?”