The Arrangement (12 page)

“Forgive me,” she said.

“And what ought I to know about you?” he asked her. “What can you tell me that will have me dashing for the door and freedom?”

“I am not respectable,” she said. “My grandfather was a baronet and my uncle, his elder son, now has the title. But both of them disowned my father long before I was born. He was the black sheep of the family. He was an adventurer and a gambler and a—a rake. Sometimes he won a fortune and we lived in sudden luxury. But it never lasted longer than a few days or weeks at most. He lost more money than he ever possessed, and we often spent weary weeks and months fleeing from bailiffs and other men to whom he owed large debts. He was handsome and charming and … and he drove my mother away, I suppose, with his philandering, though when she left, when I was five, she went with a lover and without me. It was a great scandal. She died in childbirth three years later. My father was killed in a duel five years ago. He was shot by an enraged husband. It was not even his first duel. He was notorious in so many ways. It would not be good for you to be associated with me.”

She bit her lip and closed her eyes again.

She heard him sigh.

“Miss Fry,” he said, “you are neither your father nor your mother.”

He got to his feet and took a few tentative steps in her direction, afraid perhaps that there was some obstacle between his chair and hers.

“Miss Fry.” He reached out his right hand. “Will you set your hand in mine?”

She got reluctantly to her feet, closed most of the distance between them, and set her hand in his. When he raised his other hand, she set her right one in it, and his fingers closed, warm and strong, about both.

And he went down on one knee before her.

Oh!

He bowed his head over her hands.

“Miss Fry,” he said, “will you do me the great honor of marrying me? Will you give us both a chance to realize our dreams?”

How could she think straight when she was looking down on the soft, shining waves of his hair bowed over her hands and when she felt his warm, strong clasp?

He was an impulsive man, she suspected. He would live to regret it if she said yes. Especially if—when?—he found himself all alone in one year’s time with no prospect of marrying anyone else unless she died before him. His dream was all very well for a year or two. But forever? She guessed that he was the sort of man who would eventually want a warm, loving family about him.

And what about her? But she had no choices. Or at least, she did. She could choose between two alternatives—the imperfect marriage arrangement he had suggested and destitution. That was really no choice at all.

God help her, there was really no choice.

“I will,” she whispered.

He lifted his head. And, his eyes right on hers, he smiled.

It was an intensely sweet smile.

M
artin was not talking to him, if one discounted the fact that he was
yes, my lord
ing or
no, my lord
ing Vincent’s every question or remark, his voice almost vibrating with stiff formality. He was sulking after the quarrel they had had on the way home from the vicarage.

“You are
what
?” he had bellowed when Vincent told him he was betrothed to Miss Fry. “What the blinking devil? Are you out of your bleeding
mind
? She looks like a boy, and I am not even sure that is being kind to boys.”

“Don’t make me hit you, Martin,” Vincent had said.

Martin had sneered—audibly.

“You know I can,” Vincent had reminded him. “Remember the split lip and bloody nose you got when you doubted me before?”

“Sheer luck,” Martin had said. “And you did not play fair.”

“Fair is exactly what I did play,” Vincent had told him. “Don’t make me prove that it was not sheer luck. The lady is my betrothed, and I will defend her against any insult.”

Martin had sneered a little more quietly and retreated into an injured silence.

The Reverend and Mrs. Parsons had not been quite so frank in their reactions. But there had been amazement, even stunned incomprehension, in their voices when Vincent had summoned them back into the parlor and made his announcement. Their congratulations had been hesitant, as if they had not been sure it was not all a joke, and then had sounded overhearty when they were sure he was serious. But they had agreed to allow Miss Fry to remain at the vicarage for another night or two until he had made other arrangements for her.

The trouble was, he did not know quite what arrangements to make. He had hoped, as he hurried toward the vicarage on Martin’s arm earlier, that he would discover that Miss Fry had plans, that she would have somewhere to go, some other relatives who would welcome her or at least some friends. Then all that would have been called for was a heartfelt apology for the trouble he had caused her and perhaps an offer of his carriage with Handry to take her where she chose to go. In the meanwhile, he would stay at Covington House and enjoy visiting his friends for a few more days while he awaited the return of his carriage, and prepare himself for returning to Middlebury Park.

Somewhere way back in his mind he had thought he might have to offer her marriage if there was no alternative, but he had not really expected it would come to that.

But it had.

The trouble was, he had not thought further than the proposal.

No, the trouble was, he had not even thought
as far
as the proposal!

Martin was right. He
was
out of his bleeding mind.

Should he now take her home to Middlebury with him? And marry her there? He imagined the consternation into which he would throw his mother. And soon his sisters would be swooping down upon him, and his life and his wedding would not be his own. His wedding was always going to be like that, of course, whomever he married. But with almost any other bride, there would be her family swooping from the other side as a sort of balance to his own. There would be no one to speak for Miss Fry or to fuss over her and make sure that the wedding was about her as much as it was about him, or even more so, because she was the bride and he the mere bridegroom.

It would not be fair to take her straight home with him.

And he kept remembering Edna Hamilton saying that Miss Fry had been found in the church this morning with a pathetically small bag on the pew beside her. Had she left the bulk of her belongings at Barton Hall simply because she could not carry more than one bag with her? Or did the bag, in fact, comprise all her belongings?

He wished he knew how she had been dressed—at Barton Hall when he visited there, at the assembly last night, at the vicarage this morning. He would be willing to wager, though, that she needed clothes and lots of them. And then he remembered Edna’s saying that she could not be mistaken for a servant at Barton Hall because she was not as well dressed as they.

Perhaps he should have the banns called here and marry her at Barton Coombs. But that would mean a whole month of kicking his heels here, and he would have to beg the vicar and his wife to extend their hospitality to Miss Fry that long. His mother and his sisters would have time to descend upon him here, and the wedding would be no different than if he took his bride to Middlebury Park. And the Marches might cut up nasty and cause trouble. He would not put it past them to make public the less-than-savory past of Miss Fry’s mother and father. And she would need clothes even here. Any bride ought to be married in a pretty dress. Where would she find one here?

If he was not going to return to Middlebury Park, then, and was not going to remain here, where would he go to marry?

There really was only one alternative.

London.

She could shop for a bridal outfit and bride clothes there. They could marry quickly and quietly, by special license. It really would be the best plan.

It gave him a bit of a pang to think of marrying without even informing his mother and his sisters, but on the whole it seemed best for Miss Fry herself. It would put them on a more equal footing.

It would be altogether better, anyway, to present his family with a fait accompli, he decided, remembering uneasily how Martin and the vicar and his wife had reacted to his choice of bride. His mother and sisters did, after all, want to see him married. They would surely be overjoyed for him once they had recovered from the first shock of finding that he had gone out on his own and chosen a bride and married her. And if they were not, well, then, he and they would have something of a quarrel on their hands.

Good Lord, he never quarreled with his family.

How would Miss Fry shop for clothes in London with no one to guide her? Would she know where to go? How would he acquire a special license? One had to go to Doctors’ Commons, did one not? Well, even without eyes, he would find his way there. He had servants, after all, and he had a tongue in his head. How did one then arrange a wedding, though?
He would find out.
Where would they stay for the day or two or three while all this was being arranged? A hotel? A single man and a single lady?

The questions and their less-than-satisfactory answers swirled around in his head as he ate some of the rabbit stew Martin had warmed and a piece of the buttered bread. There was no point in asking Martin’s opinion. He was ignoring anything that could not be answered with a simple affirmative or negative.

At least thinking about the practical problems that needed to be solved kept his mind off the larger issue. He had offered her—he had
promised
her—both marriage and freedom. He had offered her the sort of marriage he had always deplored.

And then he thought of something that brought his mind back to practicalities. Actually he had thought of it when he was with her, though in a different context. The Survivors. Hugo—Hugo Emes, Lord Trentham, that was—had been planning to spend at least a part of the spring in London. And even if he was not there, his stepmother and half sister almost certainly would be. Miss Fry would not stay with them as a mere supplicant for employment, but she surely could have no objection to doing so as his betrothed. And perhaps Mrs. or Miss Emes would be willing to accompany her when she went shopping.

Vincent half smiled to himself. Most problems had a solution if one was determined to find it. And he
was
determined. It was infinitely more difficult to live independently and to assert oneself when one had lost one’s sight, of course, but it was by no means impossible. He suddenly felt quite eager to go home and start tackling the bigger challenges of his life.

“I do believe the stew tasted better today than it did yesterday, Martin,” he said. “And the bread could not be fresher if it tried.”

Actually he had scarcely tasted either.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Ah, a variation on a theme. He was usually
sir
.

“I will need my hat and my cane, please, Martin,” he said, getting up from the table. “I promised Miss Fry that I would take her for a walk this afternoon. It is not going to rain, is it?”

A pause, presumably while Martin looked out through the window.

“No, my lord.”

“I will not need you to accompany me to the vicarage,” Vincent told him. “I have the way memorized.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Martin,” he said ten minutes later as he went out through the front door and located the steps with his cane, “I will be married to Miss Fry within the week, I expect. All the sulks in the world will not change that. Perhaps at some time in the next five years or so you will find it in yourself to forgive me.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Well, it was better than
no, my lord
.

Vincent found his way safely down the steps and a short way along the driveway. But then he stopped at the sound of a carriage approaching along the village street, drawn, if he was not mistaken, by four horses. There was far too much noise and clatter and clopping for two. Unless it was a stagecoach or something else passing through, there was only one person in Barton Coombs to whom it could belong.

It slowed and turned in toward Covington House. Vincent stood where he was and hoped that if he was in the middle of the drive the horses would not run him down before he was seen.

He need not have worried.

“Ah, Darleigh,” the jovial voice of Sir Clarence March called. He must have lowered one of the windows on the carriage. “Taking a stroll up the driveway and back, are you? Do be careful.”

Vincent inclined his head without replying, and he listened as a thud of boots announced the descent of the coachman and then a carriage door opened and steps were let down. He heard a great commotion of descent and understood that Sir Clarence was not alone.

This was an afternoon call—in a traveling carriage and four?

“My dear wife and daughter wished to take a drive out in the country on such a lovely afternoon,” Sir Clarence said, “and how could I not indulge them, Darleigh? When you have a wife and daughters of your own, though it is to be hoped you will have sons too, you will understand what it is like to be a husband and father trying to put his foot down and live his own life. It cannot be done. One’s very happiness depends upon indulging one’s womenfolk. My womenfolk thought you would enjoy a drive in the country with us and perhaps even a stop somewhere for a little walk. My legs are not all they used to be, and Lady March is unable to walk far without becoming breathless, but young people are made of sterner stuff. Henrietta will be happy to walk with you if you should wish to take the air later in the afternoon. You must come back with us for dinner afterward. Just a simple, informal repast between friends.”