Never Call It Love (16 page)

"If
you are thinking of Moira Ashley, you are mistaken. It is not Moira that I
intend to marry."

"Who,
then?"

"Her
name is Elizabeth Montlow."

After
a long moment Colin said incredulously, "Montlow! The sister of that
Christopher Montlow, who—"

"Yes."

Fine
dark eyes fixed on his brother's face, Colin said nothing. Patrick began to
pace up and down. "I went to the Montlows' country house to try to find
where that scurvy young monster had gone. So much I told you. What I did not
tell you was that his sister was alone there. Apparently Mrs. Montlow and the
servant had remained in London. Anyway, Elizabeth Montlow is now carrying a
child, my child."

Colin
stared at him, stunned. "You mean that she, knowing how you hated her
brother, nevertheless..." He broke off, and then added, "Patrick, I
must say this. With a woman like that, how can you be sure the child is
yours?"

Patrick
stopped his pacing. "Because she is not like that! It did not happen like
that! I was angry," he went on, almost incoherently. "She had lied
under oath. She had tricked me, spirited her brother away from me before I knew
what was happening. And that night, she was up
to more tricks. She distracted
my attention, tried to get hold of the pistol..." He stopped speaking, his
face flushed.

Colin
said into the silence, "I begin to see. You took your revenge. You forced
her. And now she is to have a child."

Patrick
blazed, "I'll have none of your damned preaching!"

"I
don't intend to preach. I merely want you to know that I understand what
happened."

"All
that needs understanding is that I am sailing for England, tomorrow if
possible, and that I will be back in about three weeks with a wife." He
paused. "Forgive me, Colin. I did not mean to rail at you."

"There
is no reason to ask my pardon. I can imagine how upsetting it must be for a
bachelor to learn, at ten o'clock on a sunshiny morning... Besides, there is
Moira. She will be disturbed indeed. These past weeks I have been sure you
intended to marry her. Perhaps the has been sure, too."

"I
know, I know," Patrick said distractedly. He gave a strained smile.
"Why don't you marry her?"

"You
think she would have me, with nothing but Edgewood to offer her?" Edgewood
was the small estate that their father, the third baronet, had left to Colin.
"Besides, it has always been you she fancied, not me."

He
closed the ledger and crossed the room to place it among a number of similar
volumes on a shelf. It became apparent then that there was another reason why
Lady Moira, a woman fond of riding and dancing, had never "fancied"
Colin. He walked with a distinct limp.

Patrick
was used to his brother's limp. But this morning, already none too pleased with
himself, he felt a stab of guilt at sight of that uneven gait, almost as if
Colin's accident had happened yesterday. In fact, it had happened when Patrick
was eleven and his brother
fourteen. Proud that he was the better horseman,
even though Colin was older and at that time taller, he had challenged his
brother to put his mount over a four-foot-high stone wall. Patrick's horse had
taken the jump cleanly, but Colin's had balked. Thrown from the saddle, Colin
had suffered multiple breaks in his right leg. The bone, knitting improperly,
had left him with one leg two inches shorter than the other.

Patrick
said, "I hope you will not let my marriage make any difference to you.
Don't go to Edgewood. Let your steward go on running it I need you here."

"I
know you do." Away much of the time, and even when at home taken up with
other matters—matters that Colin was sure would bring disaster someday—Patrick
left most of the details of estate management to his brother.

"Besides,"
Colin went on, "I have always known that sooner or later you would bring a
bride here. I never had any intention of leaving when that time came."

Patrick
smiled. "Not even to take a bride of your own to Edgewood?"

"You
and I have been over that several times. I am quite content with
Catherine." Catherine Ryan, a schoolmaster's widow, with two almost grown
sons, lived in the coastal village of Haleworth, eight miles away. For the past
nine years, Colin had been a regular visitor to her neat cottage. By now their
relationship was as placid and comfortable as that of any long-married couple.

Limping
over to a liquor cabinet, he brought out a bottle of brandy and two glasses.
"I think we should drink a toast to the child," he said, handing a
filled glass to Patrick.

Patrick
said, "To the child," and drank.

"To
the child," Colin echoed. "May he be a fine son."

As
she descended the stairs, Elizabeth could feel the smoothness of the folded
piece of notepaper she had thrust down the bosom of her dress. Since Hawkins
had brought the letter up to her half an hour before, she had been standing at
the window of her room rehearsing what she must say to her mother.

The
door to the large, seldom-used main parlor was open. Mrs. Montlow stood inside,
lips pursed as she sat looking at a pair of blue brocade window hangings.
Elizabeth said from the doorway, "May I speak to you for a moment in the
side parlor?"

Mrs.
Montlow looked annoyed. "I am busy, Elizabeth. Can't you talk to me
here?"

"Please,
Mother." Elizabeth felt it would be easier to tell her in the familiar
side parlor than in this stiffly formal room.

"Oh,
very well." She moved past Elizabeth and led the way down the hall. When
she had sat down in the armchair she usually occupied, she looked up at her
daughter, standing before her. "Now, what is it?"

"I
am to be married."

"Of
course you are to be married! Why do you think I was inspecting the parlor
hangings? They must be replaced before the wedding party, Elizabeth. We can
make new ones ourselves, if you insist There is still plenty of time between
now and June."

"I
shall be married as soon as possible, not in June. And
not to Donald.
I am going to marry Sir Patrick Stanford."

Her
mother stared at her blankly. "It fa not like you to make a jest about an
important matter," she said finally, "especially a jest in such bad
taste. But then, you have not been yourself lately."

"Mother,
it is not a jest. This morning I received a letter from Sir Patrick, asking me
to marry him. By now he must be on his way here. I... I am asking you to
arrange for the first reading of the banns at tomorrow morning's church
service."

After
a long moment, Mrs. Montlow said slowly, "What you have told me makes no
sense whatever. That man, out of all the men in the world. I cannot believe he
has even written you such a letter, let alone mat you would accept his
proposal. Why, you have never even exchanged a word with him."

"But
I have. I met him at a ball at Lord and Lady Armitage's, winter before last You
weren't feeling well enough to attend, remember? And then after... after the
trial, he came here."

Mrs.
Montlow clutched the arms of her chair. "Here? To the Hedges? Why?"

"He
wanted to know what ship Christopher had taken. I told him I didn't know."

"He
was here with you while you were alone in the house?"

"Yes."

Mrs.
Montlow's eyes, wide with alarm now, swept her daughter's slim figure.
"Elizabeth! Could it be that you have done something...
dishonorable?"

Yes,
Elizabeth wanted to say, I perjured myself. Instead she said, "Mother, are
you sure you want to know what happened in this house while you were in
London?"

They
looked at each other. After a moment, Elizabeth saw the dawn of horrified
comprehension in her mother's
eyes. Mrs. Montlow's lips moved. "That devil.
That black-hearted devil. No!" she cried. "I don't want you to tell
me about it."

She
leaned back in her chair, her breathing ragged. Swiftly Elizabeth turned toward
the cabinet that held the smelling salts. "No, I am all right," Mrs.
Montlow managed to say. At least, she was thinking, the man was willing to
marry Elizabeth. And Christopher would be safe. Surely not even that Irish
devil would hunt down his own brother-in-law.

Elizabeth
said, "Then you will see to the posting of the banns?"

"Yes,"
Mrs. Montlow whispered. "Yes, my darling girl."

"And
will you do one thing more for me, a... a very difficult thing? Donald will be
here very shortly. I cannot, I simply cannot..." Her voice broke. She
waited a moment, and then went on, "Will you tell him that Sir Patrick has
proposed to me, and that I have decided to accept? Just that, nothing more.
Once you have told him that, I will come down and say good... I will come down
and speak to him."

"Yes,
I will tell him." She, who had always looked younger than her age, now
looked years older. "Elizabeth, perhaps I have not been a good mother to
you. Always I have been too much taken up with Christopher."

"Nothing
that has happened has been your fault, Mother."

Mrs.
Montlow went on, as if Elizabeth had not spoken, "But my son seemed to
need more of my attention than my strong, sensible daughter. It never meant I
loved you less." Even as she spoke, she realized, guiltily and helplessly,
that that was not true. Always it was her handsome, wayward son who had held
first place in her heart.

Elizabeth
glanced at the mantel clock. "Please, Mother,
please don't
cry. I know you love me. But right now I must get upstairs. I am afraid that
Donald..."

"I
know." Mrs. Montlow took a handkerchief from inside the lacy cuff of her
dress and dried her eyes. She said, shoulders straightening, "Go on
upstairs. I will tell him."

About
ten minutes later, standing rigidly at the window of her room, Elizabeth heard
the front-door knocker strike, and then Donald's footsteps going along the
lower hall. Not more than another ten minutes passed, although it seemed to
Elizabeth an eternity, before Mary Hawkins said from the open doorway,
"Miss Liza."

Hawkins
had stopped calling her that when she was fourteen. Elizabeth turned around.
The older woman's face, filled with pity and sorrow, told her that her mother
had already broken the news to Hawkins.

"Mr.
Weymouth is alone in the side parlor now, miss."

"Thank
you, Hawkins."

On
legs that felt wooden, she moved down the stairs and back along the hallway to
the side parlor. Donald stood in front of the unlighted fireplace. His face was
as white as if he had bled from some actual although invisible wound. But at
least such a wound would not kill him, Elizabeth told herself desperately.
Donald would live, and assume the spiritual leadership of this parish, and
eventually marry some gentle, loving woman.

He
said, "Your mother tells me that while I was in Bath, you formed... formed
another attachment...."

"Yes."

Something
died out of his eyes, perhaps a faint hope that Mrs. Montlow had been mistaken.
"I suppose that is why you have been so strange ever since I returned. You
were afraid to tell me."

"Yes."

"It
is impossible for me to comprehend, of course. I
could not imagine my own affections...
But I know such things happen."

He
stopped. Throat closed, Elizabeth found herself unable to speak.

"Sir
Patrick is a handsome man," he went on, "and a baronet." His
lips stretched into a parody of a smile. "Compared to him, a country
parson is scarcely a dashing figure."

She
cried, "Don't say things like that."

"I
don't say it to reproach you. It is just that I am trying very hard to
understand."

Pray
God, Elizabeth thought, that you never do.

He
said, "You will go to Ireland to live, I suppose."

"I
suppose."

In
the ensuing silence, the ticking of the mantel clock sounded very loud. At last
he said, "Then there is nothing left to say, except to wish you..."
Apparently he could not even say that, because he broke off and walked past
her, not touching her, to the doorway. There he turned.

"Elizabeth,
if you ever need me at any time, and for any reason whatsoever..."

She
dared not look at him, lest her self-control break entirely and she run sobbing
into his arms. Back turned to him, she said, "I know."

Standing,
motionless, she listened, for what she knew was the last time, to his footsteps
moving away down the hall.

The
Stanford carriage, drawn by two perfectly matched grays, moved briskly along
Ireland's southeastern coast. Sometimes, when the road dipped into a valley,
the blue waters of the Irish channel, breaking into foam on a pebbly beach,
were very close. Other times, the sea was far below, its waves invisible. Now
and then, as the curving road approached a headland, Elizabeth caught a glimpse
of heavy seas foaming high against a cliff.