The Arrangement (44 page)

“You do not
mind
that I will have to remain here, then?” she asked him.

They had stopped walking, he realized.

He heaved a great sigh and
wished
he could remember the exact words he had spoken to Croft.

“I love you, you know,” he said.

She was still holding his arm. She tipped her head sideways to rest her cheek against his shoulder.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “You are always very good to me. And I love you too.”

“Ah, the inadequacy of words.” He sighed again. “And the deceptive nature of words that have so many different meanings that they become virtually meaningless. Do you remember that song I sang at Covington House?
I’d crowns resign to call thee mine.
Remember that line?”

“Yes.” She slipped her hand from his arm.

“I would do it in a heartbeat,” he told her. “If I had a crown, Sophie, or multiple crowns, as in the song, I would give them all up. For you. That is what I mean when I say I love you.”

He heard her swallow awkwardly.

“But you do not have a crown.”

“I would give up Middlebury Park, then,” he told her, “and my title. If I had to make a choice between them and you, there would not even be a contest. It is easy to say, I know, when there appears to be no danger that I will ever have to make that choice. But I would do it if I had to. There is no doubt in my mind. I love you.”

“Vincent.” One of his hands was in both of hers.

“It was not a part of our agreement, was it?” he said. “I am perfectly happy to make do with contentment, Sophie, if you do not want to be burdened with more. Really I am. And we
are
contented, are we not? It is just—Well, I am selfish, I suppose. I wanted the pleasure of saying it. Of telling you. It really does not matter if—”

“Does not
matter
?” She half shrieked the words and threw herself against him with such force that she almost knocked him off his feet. Her arms came about his neck. “You have just told me you love me to all eternity and it
does not matter
? Of course it matters. It matters more than anything in the whole wide world and throw the sun and moon and stars in for good measure. I love you so very, very,
very
much.”

“Do you, Sophie?” His arms came about her and he hugged her to himself. “Do you, my love?”

“Add a few more
verys,
” she said.

“You had better save a few for me.” He laughed against her hair, which felt as if it was breaking free of the bonds Rosina had imposed upon it.

She lifted her face to him and he kissed her.

Sounds of merry conversation and laughter and a vigorous country dance came from the ballroom somewhere behind them. In the distance an owl hooted and a dog barked. A light, chill wind caught at the edges of their cloaks.

All of which Vincent ignored for the moment, for he held all the world clasped to himself. Ah, yes, and the sun and moon and stars too.

And all eternity.

Keep reading for an enchanting sneak peek at

the next instalment in Mary Balogh’s Survivors’ Club series, coming soon from Piatkus…

T
he hour was approaching midnight, but no one was making any move to retire to bed.

“You are going to find it mighty peaceful around here after we have all left, George,” Ralph Stockwood, Earl of Berwick, remarked.

“It will be quiet, certainly.” The Duke of Stanbrook looked about the circle of the six guests gathered in the drawing room at Penderris Hall, his country home in Cornwall, and his eyes paused fondly on each of them in turn before moving on. “Yes, and peaceful too, Ralph. But I am going to miss you all damnably.”

“You will be c-counting your blessings, George,” said Flavian Arnott, Viscount Ponsonby, “as soon as you realize you will not have to listen to Vince scraping away on his v-violin for another whole year.”

“Or the cats howling in ecstasy along with the music it creates,” Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh, added. “You might as well mention that too, Flave. There is no need to consider my sensibilities.”

“You play with a great deal more competence than you did last year, Vincent,” Imogen Hayes, Lady Barclay, assured him. “By next year I do not doubt you will have improved even further. You are a marvel and an inspiration to us all.”

“I may even dance to one of your tunes one of these days, provided it is not too sprightly, Vince.” Sir Benedict Harper looked ruefully at the two canes propped against the arm of his chair.

“You are not by any chance harboring a hope that we will all decide to stay a year or two longer instead of leaving tomorrow, George?” Hugo Emes, Lord Trentham, asked, sounding almost wistful. “I have never known three weeks to pass by so quickly. We arrived here, we blinked, and now it is time to go our separate ways again.”

“George is far too p-polite to say a bald no, Hugo,” Flavian told him. “But life calls us hence, alas.”

They were feeling somewhat maudlin, the seven of them, the members of the self-styled Survivors’ Club. They had all spent several years here at Penderris, recuperating from various wounds they had sustained during the Napoleonic Wars. Although each had had to fight a lone battle toward recovery, they had also aided and supported one another and grown as close as any brothers—and sister. When the time had come for them to leave, to make new lives for themselves or to retrieve the old ones, they had gone with mingled eagerness and trepidation. Life was for living, they had all agreed, yet the cocoon in which they had been wrapped for so long had kept them safe and even happy. They had decided that they would return to Cornwall for a few weeks of each year to keep alive their friendship, to share their experiences of life beyond the familiar confines of Penderris, and to help with any difficulty that may have arisen for one or more of them.

This had been the third such gathering. But now it was over for another year, or would be on the morrow.

Hugo got to his feet and stretched, expanding his already impressive girth, none of which owed anything to fat. He was the tallest and broadest of them, and the most fierce-looking, with his close-cropped hair and frequent frown.

“The devil of it is that I do not want to put an end to any of this,” he said, “but, if I am to make an early start in the morning, then I had better get to bed.”

It was the signal for them all to rise. Most of them had lengthy journeys to make and hoped for an early departure.

Sir Benedict was the slowest to get to his feet. He had to gather his canes to his sides, slip his arms through the straps he had contrived, and haul himself painstakingly upward. Any of the others would have been glad to offer a helping hand, of course, but they knew better than to do so. They were all fiercely independent despite their various disabilities. Vincent, for example, would leave the room and climb the stairs to his own chamber unassisted, despite the fact that he was blind. On the other hand, they would all wait for their slower friend and match their steps to his as they climbed the stairs.

“P-pretty soon, Ben,” Flavian said, “you are going to be able to do that in under a minute.”

“Better than two, as it was last year,” Ralph said. “That really was a bit of a yawn, Ben.”

They would
not
resist the urge to jab at him and tease him—except, perhaps, Imogen.

“Even two is remarkable for someone who was once told he must have both legs amputated if his life was to be saved,” she said.

“You are depressed, Ben.” Hugo paused mid-stretch to make the observation.

Benedict shot him a glance. “Just tired. It is late, and we are at the wrong end of our three-week stay. I always hate goodbyes.”

“No,” Imogen said, “it is more than that, Ben. Hugo is not the only one to have noticed. We
all
have, but it has never come up during any of our nightly sessions.”

They had sat up late most nights during the past three weeks, as they did each year, sharing some of their deeper concerns and insecurities—and triumphs. They kept few secrets from one another. There were always some, of course. One’s soul could never be laid quite bare to another person, no matter how close a friend. Ben had held his own soul close this year. He
had
been depressed. He still was. He felt chagrined, though, that he had not hidden his mood better.

“Perhaps we are intruding where no help or sympathy is wanted,” the duke said. “Are we, Benedict? Or shall we sit back down and discuss it?”

“After I have just made the herculean effort to get up? And when everyone is about to totter off to bed in order to look fresh and beautiful in the morning?” Ben laughed, but no one else shared his amusement.

“You
are
depressed, Ben,” Vincent said. “Even I have noticed.”

The others all sat again, and Ben, with a sigh, resumed his own seat. He had so nearly got away with it.

“No one likes to be a whiner,” he told them. “Whiners are dead bores.”

“Agreed.” George smiled. “But you have never been a whiner, Benedict. None of us has. The rest of us would not have put up with it. Admitting problems, asking for help or even just for a friendly ear, is not whining. It is merely drawing upon the collective sympathies of people who know almost exactly what you are going through. Your legs are paining you, are they?”

“I never resent a bit of pain,” Ben said, without denying it. “At least it reminds me that I still have my legs.”

“But—?”

George had not himself fought in the wars, although he had once been a military officer. His only son had fought, though, and had died in Portugal. His wife, the boy’s mother, perhaps overcome with grief, flung herself to her death from the cliffs at the edge of the estate not long after. When he had opened his home to the six of them as well as to others, George, Duke of Stanbrook, had been as wounded as any of them. He probably still was.

“I will walk. I
do
walk after a fashion. And I will dance one day.” Ben smiled ruefully. That had always been his boast, and the others often teased him about it.

No one teased now.

“But—?” It was Hugo this time.

“But I will never do either as I once did,” Ben said. “I suppose I have known it for a long time. I would be a fool not to have done so. But it has taken me six years to face up to the fact that I will never walk more than a few steps without my canes—plural—and that I will never move more than haltingly with them. I will never get my life back as it was. I will always be a cripple.”

“A harsh word, that,” Ralph said with a frown. “And a bit defeatist?”

“It is the simple truth,” Ben said firmly. “It is time to accept reality.”

The duke rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers.

“And accepting reality involves giving up and calling yourself a cripple?” he said. “You would never have got up off your bed, Benedict, if you had done that from the start. Indeed, you would have agreed to allow the army sawbones to relieve you of your legs altogether.”

“Admitting the truth does not mean giving up,” Ben told him. “But it does mean assessing reality and adjusting my life accordingly. I was a career military officer and never envisaged any other life for myself. I did not
want
any other life. I was going to end up a general. I have lived and toiled for the day when I could have that old life back. It is not going to happen, though. It never was. It is time I admitted it openly and dealt with it.”

“You cannot be happy with a life outside the army?” Imogen asked.

“Oh, I can be,” Ben assured her. “Of course I can. And will. It is just that I have spent six years denying reality, with the result that at this late date I still have no idea what the future
does
hold for me. Or what I want of the future. I have wasted those years yearning for a past that is long gone and will never return. You see? I
am
whining, and you could all be sleeping peacefully in your beds by now.”

“I would r-rather be here,” Flavian said. “If one of us ever goes away from here unhappy because he c-couldn’t bring himself to confide in the rest of us, then we m-might as well stop coming. George lives at the back of beyond here in Cornwall, after all. Who would want to c-come just for the scenery?”

“He is right, Ben.” Vincent grinned. “
I
would not come for the scenery.”

“You are not going home when you leave here, Ben,” George said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Beatrice needs company,” Ben explained with a shrug. “She had a lingering chill through the winter and is only now getting her strength back with the spring. She does not feel up to moving to London when Gramley goes up after Easter for the opening of the parliamentary session. And her boys will be away at school.”

“The Countess of Gramley is fortunate to have such an agreeable brother,” the duke said.

“We were always particularly fond of each other,” Ben told him.

But he had not answered George’s implied question. And since the answer was a large part of the depression his friends had noticed, he felt obliged to give it. Flavian was right. If they could not share themselves with one another here, their friendship and these gatherings would lose meaning.