“He is ingratiating himself with other families here. We are bound to meet up with him again, even if we ourselves do not attend the soirees where he is present.”
“I hope that I will be ample escort for you in future.”
“You were not to be seen at the Selbys' when he cornered first me and then Dacre into this ridiculous nonsense over the foal.”
“I shall not repeat that error. The entire county will say that you have me on leading strings, but I shall not leave your side if I know he is about.”
“We will be the laughingstock of the county if we are unable to leave one another's side,” scoffed Cecilia.
“So be it. You are convinced he is a threat, and I am not disposed to treat your concerns lightly. I saw how he watched you.”
“You did?”
“No need to sound so astonished. Buchan has trained me to be observant, your comfort is my first object, so consequently I keep some watch over you. Lazenby looks like a particularly hungry tiger when he sees you.”
“You are teasing me again.”
“If you choose to think so.” Ormiston turned the subject, for he had revealed more than he wished to concerning his wife and did not wish to pursue this particular conversation any further. “Now, what was it brought you here in such high commotion?”
“The ladies of the parish wish to hold a children's party to celebrate Harvest Festival, which will require the use of one of the public rooms here. I wished to know which you thought the most suitable, and, of course, to ensure that you will be in attendance on that day. I thought it would be a good way to broaden Reggie and Amelia's acquaintance in the neighborhood.”
This cheerful plan diverted both Ormiston and Cecilia from the dangerous topic of Lazenby, and they set off at once to determine where to hold the party, what entertainments should be offered, and the best time of day for such an event. Once again, they avoided any overcontentious discussion, for fear that it should lead one or the other into saying something regrettable or revealing. Easier by far to eschew any subject which might tend that way.
Since recovering from the loss of her baby, Cecilia found she had little time to reflect on any aspect of her life. Her list of obligations and duties seemed to increase from day to day. She had never before envied fictional women such as Lady Bertram of Mansfield Park, who managed to escape the endless calls on her time to lie on a chaise longue dallying with embroidery, but Ceci now found herself wistfully recalling the days of her girlhood with Lady Ketley when her most pressing concern had been which dress to put on and which engagement to attend. At Hatherley, there was always someone ready to request her opinion, require a decision, or demand arbitration. There were occasional moments of peaceâwhen she dressed for dinner, for example, a half-hour which she had deemed sacrosanctâbut all too soon that time, too, was encroached on, for Dorcas began to arrive carrying messages and revealing grievances borne by the staff.
The viscount was kept equally busy in learning his lands, so it was rare for either of them to see the other during the day, and on those infrequent occasions, the time was eaten up in discussing practical matters, such as this engagement to provide an entertainment for the children. Once they had withdrawn to their chamber, all too often they were overwhelmed by passion or weariness.
On the whole, they continued to avoid, by tacit agreement, any conversation which might lead them into the uncharted waters of their own feelings for one another. At times, one or the other strove to speak, but invariably they were distracted from their purpose, interrupted by some unfinished task or diversion.
To all at Hatherley, it was clear that the viscount and his wife were dedicated and competent in the management of their future demesne. But it was clear only to Lavauden that both Ceci and Ormiston were both being rushed into taking a far greater role at Hatherley than was strictly necessary, given the robust good health of the marquis, and the increasing contentment of both the Marchmont children. She noticed, where others did not, how few the spells of solitude were for both viscount and viscountess. Knowing Ceci as she did, she understood that her former charge must be pining for some privacy, and knowing Ceci as she did, she also knew that the viscountess would not rest until her position at Hatherley was established and her duty fulfilled to the utmost. It was no good trying to ease the burden of her situation, for Cecilia herself would not accept anything less than her utmost. It was no good, either, trying to discover exactly what difficulty Cecilia had with her husband, for the girlâ
woman
, Lavauden tried to remind herselfâhad ever fretted rather than confide her troubles in others.
It was this sense of impotence to alter matters on behalf of Cecilia that drove Lavauden to broach matters with Buchan. They held the same sort of position in the householdâneither servant nor master, but some nebulous place in betweenâwhere they took meals with the family, provided services and companionship which went beyond contractual obligations, and had through years of service built up an understanding of their respective employers. Lavauden guessed that Buchan felt as warmly about the viscount as she did toward the Marchmont children, for he would otherwise have been quick to leave Hatherley for a new situation once the viscount was returned safely home. But here he was, and she had had cause to consult with him about the younger Marchmonts and their talents. He had seemed so calm and pleasant, his reading of Amelia and Reggie so perceptive and sensible. Surely he would be able either to set her own mind at rest, or to suggest some plan of action to help the viscount and viscountess.
When cornered by Lavauden one afternoon in the room that had been converted long ago into a studio for Ormiston, Buchan initially assumed that the Frenchwoman wished to discuss the progress of their mutual pupils. It was he who inadvertently turned the subject to the newlyweds.
“I do wish that Ormiston were more regular in his art. If the two children could see him, they would learn a great deal, but he scarcely has time to draw breath these days. It is a great pity. You have seen some of his earlier works hanging around the house, I am sure, but his work in Italy gained so much depth, so much in both technique and expression.”
“He has not been painting since his return?”
“Nothing that I have seen. He spoke of working on something recently, but only to lament that he had not enough time to devote to it.”
“Both he and the viscountess are much in demand around the estate.”
“Ay, but Hatherley managed well enough four months ago, before there was any question of their settling here, or so I understand. I have not been here any length of time myself.”
“It is a grave obligation to inherit such lands and such a house. Sawards seemed large to me, but now I have been here, I am amazed by the intricacy of running so great a household.”
“To be frank, mademoiselle, I do not see why Ormiston and Lady Cecilia need be fretted with such affairs just now. The children are well settled and would be happy to remain here with Dacre and you for support and guidance.”
“And you also.”
“Well, for a little time, I suppose. But I have it in mind to return to Scotland. I have family there. Ormiston certainly does not need me and though I am fond enough of the little ones, if I am to be honest, I should prefer older students. I have plenty of my own work to form the basis of an exhibition and I have been in correspondence with my old teachers in Edinburgh.”
“I am sure that the viscount will not let you leave so easily, Monsieur Buchan. Why, if he remains here, he will need your company more than ever. You are so close to him.”
“A newly married man would do better to make his wife close to him. But I think that is next to impossible if they remain here.”
“You do not think they are close?”
“They scarcely see each other and when they do, they are beset on all sides by claims on their time and their attention. I am astonished when I see my lord so calmly submitting to the ceaseless clamor of so many. Here is a man who would brook no interruption when working, even for sustenance.” Buchan was too discreet to mention that even Giugliana had had short shrift when Ormiston was determined to finish a painting. But he was concerned for his young friend. Here was a man with a passion for his art, expending his every energy on fulfilling his family obligations, suppressing his hunger to excel in his own field, containing his emotions, concealing from himself as well as everyone around him his true inclinations and abilities.
“What can be done?” asked Lavauden, although she had an idea that Buchan and she thought along the same lines: the viscount and his wife must be sent away for a wedding journey of some sort.
“What do you think should be done, Mademoiselle? Can Lady Cecilia be removed from the children at this stage, or are they still too upset by their bereavement?”
“If they know exactly where she is, and there is a promise that they will be reunited with her by Christmas, I think they would be happy enough here. Amelia is settled since her escapade, and, of course, the weather has improved so she has been able to go out and about.”
“In that case, I think we should put it into Lord Dacre's mind to send them away. It would certainly remove them from Lazenby's sphere, and they may return here in three or four months, by which time everyone will have realized that they are not indispensable to the smooth running of this place. For they certainly are not.”
Lavauden heartily endorsed this plan. She did not choose to explore Buchan's views of the earl, having already been fully briefed on his perfidies by Lady Ketley, but she was well aware that the nature of his interest in Cecilia had altered over the past weeks and not for the better. She and Buchan settled on how they must conduct their campaign to extract their two charges from Hatherley. That very lunchtime, she began to make innocent inquiries about the extent of Dacre possessions, while Buchan made noises about his plans for exhibiting his work, thus drawing the viscount's attention to the inevitable sorting and framing that must be done if his souvenirs of his time abroad were not to molder away.
It took nearly a fortnight of gentle direction and a second brooding visit from Lazenby before Dacre, Ormiston, and Cecilia all managed to conclude that it would be beneficial if the newlyweds took a tour of the Irish estates. Buchan and Lavauden were relieved when the packing and preparations began. There was a chance, after all, that the viscount and his wife might come about.
Seventeen
As Ormiston watched his wife sleeping, he reflected on what he had learnt about her in the past months. She loved to read, she loved to eat apples, she could sew most delicately, but equip her with a pencil and she could not draw a recognizable flower. She was an extraordinary horsewoman and a talented manager of people, with the ability to inspire even an insignificant chambermaid to take some pleasure in the drudgery of her position. She loved to dance but could not sing a note; she adored following the fashions, yet once she was dressed she never fussed and fretted at her clothes or checked her reflection in a mirror. She tried to be kind about everyone but occasionally allowed a suppressed talent for mimicry to emerge when recounting the visits she had made or received that day. She would fulminate and rant against her neighbors if she heard of them behaving with injustice or cruelty, yet she would suavely greet them and maneuver them into confronting their own folly. She was admirable, interesting, short-fused, and engagingly easy when faced with her own failings, always ready to laugh at her own slips of judgement. She had certainly taught him a great deal about himself and about the workings of his fellow men.
The candle on the bedside table flickered beside him, casting a trembling glow over Cecilia's prone body, throwing shadows on her smooth skin and causing highlights to gleam in her dark hair. She was beautiful also, so beautiful that at times he felt he could never have enough of the sight of her, that he wanted to watch her and would be quite content to follow her around the estate like a well-trained spaniel, gazing always on the way she moved and the delicacy of her features and the grace of her limbs. Since her illness, she had filled out once more, so she was soft and rounded, supple and warm.
Why he could not say directly or show her plainly that he loved her, he did not know. He knew that she was rare and precious, that he was fortunate beyond all he deserved to have married this woman. Still, he could not speak. It was not a simple, childish impulse to withhold his profession of love until he could be sure of her feelings, or at least he did not believe it was so simple. He turned the matter over. He was afraid to declare himself because she might feel compelled to stay with him out of pity. He was too cowardly to confess that he was devoted to her because he remembered so vividly the anger that had flashed in her eyes when they were in Paris. Sometimes he thought she was still angry with him. Something he had said or done or failed to do five years before still lay between them, so that even if he did speak his heart to her, she would mock or mistrust his words. Behave as well as she might, play the wife as fully as she did, her essential lack of confidence in him leached into every aspect of their lives together. There seemed to be no remedy but to show her with his every action that she was mistaken in him, that he could be constant and true to her.
Now there was Lazenby to contend with. It seemed as though there would never be a time when he and Cecilia could simply love one another and take joy in that love, without any interference from any outside agency. It was not that he feared that Cecilia could be lured by Lazenby. She had made it perfectly clear that she regarded the earl with deep mistrust and a skepticism which veered at times toward disdain, until she remembered that his tongue and his tales might menace her own family and amended her own behavior accordingly. No, there was no danger of Cecilia succumbing to his dubious charms. But he was a distraction and a hazard, yet another of the increasing calls on their time.
Perhaps a visit to Ireland, as Dacre had suggested that morning, was the answer. It would give him time alone with Cecilia, without the thousand-and-one distractions they both seemed prone to, from his daily fencing with Reggie to her unceasing visits to all and sundry throughout the neighborhood. She had greeted the idea coolly, but perhaps that was because she was innately reserved whenever a proposal was put to her. Ormiston had remarked that since coming to Hatherley, she quelled her more spontaneous reactions.
Ormiston had also noticed that once Lavauden had put the idea into his head, his father had been quick to encourage a visit to Ireland, while on the more uncomfortable issue of barring Lazenby from Hatherley, the marquis had dallied. Dacre's reluctance was understandable, Ormiston supposed, for it was no easy thing to place a distance between oneself and any intimate. Of course, Dacre had become polished at giving his mistresses their congé, but this, Ormiston could see, was different. There was no overt reason to get rid of the man. By every measure, his behavior had been impeccable since Cecilia's illness, for it had been Jane Selby who had pushed Cecilia into the wager of her riding. Whatever one might suspect of the man, he did play his hand with subtlety.
If Ormiston or Dacre could have seen Lazenby at that moment, they would have had ample grounds for casting him beyond the social pale. The earl was in his cups, in a bed,
not
his own at Edenbridge, accompanied by a dashing young woman with a fall of dark brown curls, a kittenish face, and rather watery blue eyes, familiar to anyone at Hatherley as the wife of Mr. Featherton, a local lawyer who had ridden out that day on an errand invented by the master of Edenbridge. Lazenby was not entirely sure that the delectable Sally understood that theirs was a mere dalliance until his other plans came to fruition, but he didn't feel equal to emphasizing the impermanence of his attachment for her. Not just now, when she had demanded a lengthy and wearying amorous performance, not just now when his head was pounding with the port he had consumed. Not just now when all he wished was for silence and sleep and Cecilia. He hauled himself out of bed, reflecting that he was getting too old for this kind of adventure.
“I must go now, Sallyâotherwise your servants will find me out.”
“Stay a while, my lord.” She did not yet dare call him Alexander, although he was free enough with her name. And to her mind, to call him Lazenby sounded cold and still a little familiar.
“No, girl, I must be gone.”
“But when shall I see you again?”
Lazenby muffled his prevaricating response by dragging on his shirt and casting about beneath the bed for the rest of his clothes. He hauled on his trousers, wrenched on his waistcoat and jacket, and continued groping for his stock and boots.
“When shall we meet?” asked Sally again.
“I will send you a note. Good night, little vixen.” Lazenby, carrying his boots, slipped away in his stockinged feet, his stock dangling about his neck, his head pounding, and stifling the impulse to tell Sally Featherton that she was mistaken if she imagined he would be returning to her bed.
But it was Mrs. Featherton who had the good fortune to break the news, nearly a week later, to Earl Lazenby of the forthcoming bride journey of the viscount and his wife. Mischievous Daphne Selby had invited the Feathertons to a small supper partyâonly twenty around the table, noted Lazenbyâand seated him next to Sally. “How elusive you are, my lord.”
“Closeted with my man of business, I am afraid. A dull stick, intent on quelling my every pleasure. What excitements have transpired during my brief retreat?”
“None whatever, and fewer are likely. We were so hoping for a ball at Hatherley, but now it transpires that Lord and Lady Ormiston are travelling to Ireland. We are palmed off with some paltry children's party.” Sally Featherton pouted in distress, and missed Lazenby's own astonishment.
“Ireland? Whatever takes them there?”
“Oh, business, businessâwhen is it ever anything but business? They go to inspect estates and speak with tenants and make improvements that no one wants instead of staying put and doing their duty by us dull dogs!”
Lazenby could hardly have put it better himself. How he was expected to find a rich bride while the Ormistons waltzed about Ireland he could not imagine. Still less could he use the interval between introducing himself to his rich paragon by flirting (and more) with the delicious viscountess. It was tiresome. It was inconsiderate, and really, thought the earl as he puffed on his cigar and sipped on his port in a most abstracted fashion, it was his public duty to prevent this rash excursion. He excused himself early from the Selbys' dinner and continued to ponder the question as his coach returned him homeward.
Lady Cecilia was in the garden when he called. After a short delay, he was walking across Hatherley's lawn and up a rise of land to where the viscountess stood, examining her latest project, the construction of a simple stone summerhouse with an unobstructed view of the house itself. The building appeared to be well advanced, with the windows nearly in place.
“Good day, Lazenby. Look how our building is coming along! It even has fireplaces so we may use it in the winter.” Cecilia was pleasant as always, her enthusiasm for the project lending vivacity to her even features. “Dacre huffed and puffed so when I first suggested it, but he is quite taken with the project now, and badgers Ormiston to start painting his great portrait of the house without delay.”
“But I hear there must be some delay, for you are going away?”
“How did you hear that? We have scarcely decided for ourselves!”
“At Jane Selby's table, one always hears the latest doings of all one's neighbors. It is better than the
Thunderer
.”
“Or the
Stamford Gazette
. Yes, there must be some delay, but we are planning to return before Christmas. Do you get much snow here?”
“Sometimes in January and February. Rarely before then. Where are you going?”
“To Waterford County in Ireland. Dacre has not visited his estates there for years, I believe, so we are sent as inspectors or emissaries. The truth is that Ormiston is restless. He claims he has not spent an uninterrupted five-month at Hatherley since he was a child.”
“Why can he not go on his own?”
“He could, but I am eager, too. If we sort well together on this journey, who knows but that I may persuade him to visit Italy. I so long to see Italy. My father went there on his Grand Tour, and we have such lovely things as a result. Intaglio cabinets, exquisite ceramics, and, of course, some wonderful paintings. Like Ormiston's Guardi.” Cecilia's diversionary tactics did not succeed. Lazenby swung the conversation back to Ireland.
“How do you reach these estates in Waterford? Do you sail from Liverpool or Bristol?”
“I know none of the details. You will have to inquire of Ormiston. He is in charge of our arrangements.”
“Do you know when you depart?”
“As soon as can be contrived. Next week, ten days, no more than a fortnight, I believe. But here is Will nowâyou may ask him direct.”
Ormiston clambered up the rise and came forward to shake Lazenby by the hand before bestowing a kiss on his wife's brow.
“Good day to you, Lazenby. By the time we get back from Ireland, we shall be able to meet here for hot toddies and sledging.”
“So I gather. A belated wedding trip?”
“I am not sure that Ireland in the autumn is the most salubrious spot for a wedding trip. Southern France or Tuscany, perhaps, but I have heard that Ireland is prone to damp and chills at this time of year. But Dacre tells me we have pressing business there, and one can hardly deny one's father. Ceci is good enough to keep me company, though I fear I have earned Reggie and Amelia's disgust for spiriting away their sister.”
“It will be my pleasure to entertain them in your absence.” The undertaking had escaped Lazenby's lips before he had quite understood that he would make it, though why he should suddenly take such an interest in nursery brats was incomprehensible to him.
“How kind of you, Lazenby! But well beyond the bounds of friendship,” exclaimed Ceci. “The children have more than enough to occupy them, what with lessons, the Harvest party, and all manner of diversions.”
“I shall be popping around to see Dacre while you are gone, so I will be able to spare a moment or two for your brother and sister. But tell me, Ormiston, what route are you taking?”
“Liverpool seems most convenient, although Ceci assures me that a longer sea crossing would not trouble her. Have you travelled to Ireland yourself?”
“Five or six years ago, for the hunting. You will find good sport there, and fine horseflesh, which I am sure will interest Lady Cecilia.”
All three began strolling back to the big house, chatting most amicably about Ireland and Lazenby's experiences there. The earl did not notice the glances that the couple exchanged, but he did note that Ormiston's arm firmly encircled his wife's waist, and they walked together smoothly, as though quite accustomed to each other's pace.
The afternoon passed quite comfortably, or so it would have seemed to an observer. Yet, once Lazenby had made his bows and departed, Ormiston and Ceci found themselves sighing in simultaneous relief. They grinned at one another.
“How wearing it is to be watching one's tongue so carefully!” said Ceci.
“Does that mean you do not guard your tongue when we are alone?”
“Almost always.”
“There is no need for flippancy. There should be no need for flippancy.” Ormiston could not mask the hurt in his eyes. Cecilia's smile faded. She reached out toward him, but his hands did not rise to meet hers. She dropped them once again by her side and took a step away from him.