Only Enchanting (19 page)

“A man does not have to slay dragons to be a hero,” she told him.

“Or wolves? Or boars? What must he do, then?”

She had no answer to that. What
did
make a man a hero?

“Go away?” he offered softly as an answer to his own question. “Is that what he must do?”

She frowned briefly but said nothing.

Silence hung between them for a few moments until he took her upper arm in a firm grip and moved her off the driveway and into the trees for a few paces, before turning her back against a broad tree trunk and setting his hands flat against the bark on either side of her head. His face was a mere few inches from her own.

“I saw something enchanting,” he said. “In a ballroom and in a daffodil meadow. And I became obsessed—with b-bedding you, I assumed. It is what one
does
assume when one finds a woman enchanting. But I have not bedded you, though the desire is there on both our parts and the opportunity has presented itself on m-more than one occasion. I am on unfamiliar territory, Agnes Keeping, and you must help me. Or not. I cannot command your help. I want you in my life, and there is only one way I c-can have you there since you are not the sort of woman to whom one offers c-carte blanche, and I would not offer that to you even if you w-were. I offer m-marriage instead with a title, a large ancestral home and estate p-plus a house in London, wealth, p-position in society, security for a lifetime. But these m-material things mean n-nothing to you, I know. I do not know what else to offer except passion. I can give you that. I can bring you alive as you have never been alive before. I can g-give you children, or I suppose I can. And yet . . . and yet you would be well-advised to r-refuse me. I am d-dangerously unstable. I must be. I told you just recently that I would never offer m-marriage to anyone, yet now I offer it to you, and I do not even know how I could have m-meant what I said then, yet mean what I say n-now. You would not have an easy life with me, Agnes.”

“Or you with me,” she said through lips that felt too tight to obey her will. “I cannot give you what you want, my lord. And you cannot give me what
I
want. You want
someone you can sweep away on a grand tide of passion so that you can forget, so that you can ignore all that still needs to be settled in your life, whatever that might be. I need someone quiet and steady and dependable.”

“So that
you
can ignore all that needs to be s-settled in
your
life?” he asked her. “Whatever that might be?”

She licked lips turned suddenly dry.

He gazed at her, his eyes very green in the double shade of the tree and the brim of his hat.

“You are wrong about me,” he said, “and you are wrong about yourself. Don’t say n-no. If you cannot say yes, at least do not say no. It is such a final word. Once it is said, it cannot be argued against without the appearance of harassment. After I have left here, I will not come b-back. You will be free of me f-forever. But I have not left yet. Say no when I am leaving if you must, but not before then. P-Promise me?”

She did not want to say no. She desperately did not want to. But she could not say yes either. How could the answer to a simple question be neither yes nor no?

After I have left here, I will not come back. You will be free of me forever.

Forever suddenly seemed like an awfully long time. Panic coiled inside her.

“I promise,” she whispered.

He lowered his hands to his sides, turned away from her for a moment, and then turned back to offer her his arm. He led her onto the driveway again, and they walked in silence to the cottage.

Dora was pulling weeds from one of the flower beds.

Viscount Ponsonby was immediately at his most charming. He complimented her on the garden, and he thanked her profusely for making Lord Darleigh tolerable to listen to on the violin and harp.

“I am a lover of animals, Miss Debbins,” he explained.
“It would break my h-heart to hear Tab and all the neighborhood cats howl in pain.”

He had Dora laughing in no time at all. And when he took his leave, he bowed elegantly to them both and sauntered away as if he had never in his life entertained a serious thought.

Dora was looking at Agnes with raised eyebrows.

“He let everyone else go off with Viscount Darleigh to look at the farms this morning,” she explained, “while he wrote some letters. But then he got bored and came down here to persuade me to go walking with him.”

“And?” Dora said.

“He rowed me over to the island,” Agnes told her. “The temple is beautiful inside, Dora. I had no idea. There is a stained glass window facing south, and it catches all the light and disperses it in a kaleidoscope of colors. And then, when we were coming back across the lake, Sophia was walking down from the house with Lady Trentham and invited me for coffee. She said you would not stay.”

“The weeds awaited,” Dora said. “Did he ask again, Agnes?”

“They will be here for less than a week longer,” Agnes said. “He says that once he has gone, he will not return. Ever. But forever is a long time, and Viscount Darleigh
is
his friend.”

“He asked again,” Dora said quietly, answering her own question. She turned to gather up her gardening tools. “Why do you hesitate, Agnes? You are in love with him, and it would be a hugely advantageous match for you. And for him.”

“I would have to leave
you
,” Agnes said.

Dora looked over her shoulder at her.

“I am a big girl,” she said. “And I was alone here for a number of years before you came.
Why
do you hesitate? Does it have anything to do with Mother?”

Agnes’s knees almost gave way beneath her—for the second time in one day. They
never
spoke of their mother.

“Of course not,” she said. “Why should it?”

Dora continued to look at her without turning fully to face her.

“You must not consider me, Agnes,” she said. “I chose my course in life. It is
my
life. I have done with it what I have wanted to do, and I am happy with it. I was happy before you came, I have been happy since you came, and I will be happy if you should ever choose to leave. You have
your
life to live. You cannot live mine too—and you do not need to live Mother’s. If you love him . . .”

But she stopped without completing the thought, shook her head, and turned back to what she had been doing. Agnes suspected there might be tears in her eyes.

“I should have come back here instead of going for coffee,” Agnes said. “You have not left any weeds for me.”

“Oh, look again tomorrow,” Dora said, “or even later this afternoon. One thing this world is never short of is weeds.”

*   *   *

It was Imogen’s turn that night. It did not happen often. She was always very well in control of her thoughts and emotions. Almost always, anyway. People who did not know her as well as her fellow Survivors did might assume that her marble exterior went right through to her heart. And even to them she did not reveal much of herself these days except an undying affection for the six of them and an unwavering readiness to support them in any way she could. It would have been easy to assume she was healed, except that none of them ever made that mistake. Of all of their wounds, hers went deepest and were the least likely to heal. Ever.

“I hope,” she said, “I did not make an utter idiot of myself this morning.”

“Everyone assumed you had tramped about and stood about for too long, Imogen,” Hugo assured her. “Everyone loves a frail lady.”

“What a ghastly image,” she said, but she looked relieved nevertheless.

Apparently, when they had stopped outside the gamekeeper’s hut this morning to listen to the estate manager’s account of something or other, Imogen had collapsed to the ground in an insensible heap, and various persons had gone running for a chair and water while Hugo scooped her up in his arms and Ralph fanned her face with a large handkerchief.

“The door of the hut was propped open,” she explained. “Anyone might have got inside. Children . . .”

“But the gamekeeper was right there,” Ben pointed out.

“And he always keeps the door locked when he is not,” Vincent added. “One lock is at the very top of the door, well out of the reach of any child. I have a firm policy on safety. Everyone knows it.”

“I know, Vincent,” Imogen said. “I am so sorry. I
know
your employees are not careless. I really do not know what came over me. I see guns all the time. I have made myself see them. I have even been out shooting. George has taken me three times now, and one of those times I actually fired my gun.”

She shuddered and covered her face with her hands.

“I looked at those guns this morning,” she continued, “and I suddenly saw them pointing at my face with no one behind them. They were just waiting for me to reach around and take hold and fire.”

She was gasping for breath, and Flavian walked up behind her and set a hand against the back of her neck while Vincent, seated beside her, fumbled for her knee and patted it.

“Will I
never
forget?” she asked. “Will
none
of us ever forget?”

“No, we will not,” George said, his voice quite cool and matter-of-fact. “But neither will you ever forget that he loved you, Imogen.”

“Dicky?” she said. “Yes, he did.”

“Or that you loved him.”

“Did I?” She tipped her head downward, and Flavian massaged her shoulders lightly with both hands while Vincent patted her knee. “I had a strange way of showing it.”

“No,” Vincent said. “It was the
best
way anyone could possibly show love, Imogen.”

She made a choking sound but then pulled herself together and lowered her hands and looked as calm as ever.

No, none of them would ever forget.

He
never would, Flavian thought—which was a strange thought, when he suspected there were still all sorts of things he did not even remember. But he would never forget
one
thing. One thing, two persons.

Would he ever forgive?

“I am going away at first light tomorrow,” he said abruptly. “I’ll be gone for a few days, but I’ll be b-back.”

They all looked at him in surprise. He had been thinking about it all afternoon but had made no definite decision until this precise moment. His whole life these days seemed to be governed by sudden impulses.

“Going away for a
few days
, Flave?” Vincent asked. “When this is our final week together?”

“I have some urgent business to attend to,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

They all continued to look at him—even Vincent, whose sightless gaze missed his face by only a few inches. But none of them asked the obvious question. None of them would, of course. They would not intrude. And he did not volunteer the answer.

“If you are going far, Flave,” Ralph said, “take my curricle. Just be sure to leave my team at a decent posting inn. You can pick them up on your way back.”

“It’s London,” Flavian said. “And thank you, Ralph. I will.”

“If you are leaving at cockcrow,” George said, “we had better get to bed. It is already well after midnight.”

*   *   *

But I have not left yet. Say no when I am leaving if you must, but not before then. Promise me?

And Agnes had promised. It had been a remarkably easy promise to keep. How could one say no—or yes, for that matter—when one was not given the chance? For four whole days she had not set eyes upon Viscount Ponsonby even once, and the visit was almost at an end. After he had gone from here, he had told her, he would not return. Ever.

Well, he might as well be gone now, and she might as well start getting over him now.

If she had not been a lady long practiced in quiet self-control, Agnes thought as the days crawled by, she would surely start throwing things—preferably things that would smash.

She was on the rotating church sick visiting list with Dora, and it was their turn this week. Not that they ignored ailing or aged neighbors at other times, but this week attending to them was their official responsibility. Dora took along her little harp wherever they went so that she could provide some soothing music—and occasionally a lively tune to entertain the children or to set aged toes to tapping. Agnes took along small watercolor sketches of wildflowers she had painted especially for such occasions and propped them on mantels or tables close to the sick person and left them there.

She was glad of the distraction. The visits helped pass
the days and stopped her from expecting a knock on the door every waking moment. She looked forward fervently to the time when she could stop counting days and pick up the threads of her life again and be at peace once more.

Though she suspected that peace would not come easily once hope was gone. And she shuddered at the idea that it was
hope
she still felt.

On the fifth day Lady Harper called with Lady Trentham just after Agnes and Dora had arrived home. Lady Trentham had come to beg the favor of a viewing of Agnes’s paintings. Both ladies looked at them all with flattering attention and much appreciation, though they would not stay to take tea. They had come on an errand from Sophia and had one more call to make, upon Mr. and Mrs. Harrison. They had already been to the vicarage. Sophia hoped some of her friends and Viscount Darleigh’s would come up to the house this evening for cards and conversation and refreshments.

“Do say you will both come,” Lady Trentham said, looking from Dora to Agnes. “We will be at Middlebury Park for only one more day after today. How the time has flown. It has been lovely, though, has it not, Samantha?”

“It has been a pure joy,” Lady Harper said, “to observe such a very close-knit friendship as that of our husbands and the other five. I do wish, though, that Viscount Ponsonby had not gone away.”

Agnes’s heart and stomach plummeted in the direction of her slippers, and it felt as though they collided on the way down.

“He has left?” Dora asked.