Someone to Cherish by Mary Balogh

Ten

He was quite adamant at Christmastime,” Viola, Marchioness of Dorchester, said, “and he had not changed his mind when he wrote in February. He does not like being in town, especially during the Season, and he has no plans to come here this year.”

“I daresay,” Jessica, Countess of Lyndale, said, “he knows very well that if he comes here we are bound to arrange something for his birthday. He would hate it. Poor Harry.”

She laughed, and Elizabeth, Lady Hodges, laughed with her.

“Poor Harry, indeed,” she said.

“He wrote the same thing to me, Aunt Viola,” Jessica added.

“And to me,” Matilda, Viscountess Dirkson, said. “What a provoking boy he is, for sure. Though Charles keeps reminding me that he is no longer a boy.”

“He is a provoking man,” Mildred, Lady Molenor, said.

The five ladies, as well as Anna, Duchess of Netherby, and Louise, the dowager duchess, were gathered in the dining room at Archer House on Hanover Square, the Duke of Netherby’s London home, to discuss the matter of Harry.

“Plan B it is to be, then?” Anna said. “We will go to him since he will not come to us?”

“There was a wistfulness about him at Christmastime,” Viola said, frowning. “Marcel says I was merely imagining that Harry is not happy living all alone at Hinsford, like a hermit. He points out that it is the life Harry has chosen quite freely. But Camille agreed with me, and so did Abigail. Even Mary did. My sister-in-law,” she added in case any of her Westcott relatives had forgotten.

“Wistfulness?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, he enjoyed himself,” Viola said. “He did not even mind being mauled and pestered by all the children. He joined in every activity with enthusiasm. He scarcely stopped smiling. He seemed more reluctant than usual to go back home and even went with Abigail and Gil to Gloucestershire for a few weeks. I believe he felt his aloneness.”

“It is possible to feel more alone in a crowd than in solitude,” Matilda said. “No, Mildred, that is not nonsense, though you roll your eyes. Harry is lonely.”

“It is also possible to be alone yet not lonely,” Elizabeth said.

“But Aunt Viola says Harry looked wistful,” Jessica reminded her.

“He also enjoyed Christmas,” Louise said, “even though the house must have been very crowded and very noisy. He will enjoy a birthday party to cheer him up.”

“I hope he will enjoy it,” Viola said. “He will at least see that we all care.”

Mildred patted her shoulder, for she was desperately trying to hold back tears.

“I will never forget,” Anna said, “how gravely ill he looked when he arrived back from Paris and we all went down to Hinsford to see him.”

Matilda blinked her eyes, cleared her throat, and took charge—something at which she excelled. Their meetings, when they had a particular object in mind, did have a tendency to lose focus as various tangents were followed and one led to another.

“We need to divide up the list of letters that need to be written,” Matilda said.

Seven blotters had been spread around the table, with a neat pile of paper and an ink bottle and a quill pen above each.

“The letters do not have to be long,” Matilda continued. “We sent a copy of both plans to everyone concerned after Christmas—and that took us a long time. Now all we need do is instruct everyone to ignore plan A and familiarize themselves with plan B. Dates and times and important details are clearly stated there, and we must emphasize that everyone should follow those details to the letter. It is very important in particular that we all arrive on the same day. Better yet, we should all aim to arrive during the afternoon, within three or four hours of one another. We wish to surprise Harry, and we can do that most effectively if we all descend upon him at as close to the same time as possible.”

“Poor Harry,” Jessica and Anna said in unison, and they all laughed—even Matilda.

“Louise,” Matilda said, “write to Mother and Aunt Edith, if you will. They are coming to town soon, of course, but it is important that they arrive in time to rest for a day or two before going down to Hinsford.”

“Ought I also to mention Aunt Edith’s niece and nephew?” Louise asked. Miranda Monteith, Aunt Edith’s niece on her late husband’s side, was one of the three young ladies chosen for Harry’s perusal, though no one in the family except Aunt Edith herself knew the young woman, and even she had not seen her since she was a girl of fourteen.

“Yes, do,” Matilda said.

Viola would write to her brother, the Reverend Michael Kingsley, and his wife, Mary; Matilda to Mrs. Kingsley, Viola’s mother; Anna to Camille and Joel; Jessica to Abigail and Gil; Elizabeth to Alexander, her brother, and Wren; and Mildred to Cousin Althea, Elizabeth’s mother.

Estelle and Bertrand Lamarr, the Marquess of Dorchester’s adult twins, were not yet in London, but they were expected within the next day or two. Viola undertook to make sure they were ready to follow plan B.

Mildred took it upon herself to speak with Mrs. Leeson, mother of her eldest son’s new fiancée. Miss Leeson had a younger sister, another of the chosen three possible brides for Harry.

“Since Boris’s betrothal was announced on Valentine’s Day, when none of us were in town, Aunt Mildred,” Anna said, “we really ought to celebrate it as a family while we are all together at Hinsford. Especially if Miss Leeson’s mother and sister are to be there too.”

“That is a brilliant idea, Anna,” Elizabeth said, beaming at her.

“Splendid.” Matilda added it to the bottom of her copy of plan B. “And I will let Sally’s mama know that we will definitely be going to Hinsford.”

Sally Underwood was the third prospective bride. She was a niece of Viscount Dirkson’s first wife, a pretty, vivacious girl, though Matilda admitted she did not know her well.

There were other details to be discussed, including exactly what information they must send to Mrs. Sullivan, Hinsford’s housekeeper. But for now they all applied themselves to the task of letter writing. For the next half hour all that could be heard in the dining room was the scratching of pens and the occasional exclamation from Louise, who declared crossly at one point that her pen must have been made specifically to produce one ink blot for every ten words.

Harry did not even know that Lydia had left until after she returned.

He called on her twice on the day he had told her he would. The first time, late in the morning, when she did not answer his knock on the door, he assumed she was out. But when she did not answer during the afternoon either, he guessed that she was deliberately avoiding him. She had, after all, begged him not to return, and she was doubtless reluctant to come face-to-face with him just yet. But it must happen sometime. He had spent a couple of almost sleepless nights wondering if he had impregnated her.

She would not know yet, of course. His questions could therefore wait. If she was inside there now, holding her breath, hoping he would go away without making a fuss, he would not make things worse for her by knocking again. If she was not inside—and actually it was likely she was not, since there was no sound from the dog either—then he would be wasting his time trying to force an empty house to answer his summons. She had probably made good and sure to be away from her house all day.

He would give her a week and then try again.

But one week stretched into two.

During that time he avoided the village as much as he could, since he did not want to encounter her anywhere else but the cottage. He even missed church two weeks in a row though it was Easter. When he did socialize, it was mostly with neighbors outside the village. He dined with the Raymores one evening and went riding with Lawrence Hill and his sisters a couple of times. Lawrence rode over to Hinsford late one afternoon and stayed for dinner. Harry did walk into the village by the back way one day to spend an evening with Tom and Hannah, but there were no other guests. Just two men reminiscing about their boyhood and one long-suffering woman sewing quietly and smiling a few times and shaking her head a lot. Actually Hannah could reminisce with them over several memories, as she too had grown up at Fairfield.

Harry and Lawrence went to Eastleigh one day as escorts for Rosanne Hill and Theresa Raymore. While the ladies shopped and Lawrence looked at horses, Harry called upon the physician whom he had brought to Hinsford a while ago to have a look at Timmy Hack, and persuaded him to pay a second visit. Harry had called at the Hack cottage after his conversation with Lydia and found the situation just as she had described it. Timmy was indeed pale and listless and not recovering as well as he ought. Harry had been startlingly reminded of himself as he had been for almost two years in the hospital and convalescent home in Paris, the helpless victim of those who would have killed him with good intentions if he had not finally put his foot down and insisted upon returning to England and then upon being left alone at Hinsford to manage his own recovery. That was something Timmy could not do. He was still a child.

Harry spent most of those two weeks alone, however, reading inside the house on wet days, wandering about the park, admiring the spring flowers and the new foliage on the trees when the sun shone, or out on the home farm helping wherever he could, especially on the renovations to the old barn. He was, if the truth must be admitted, more than slightly depressed, and he did not like the feeling one little bit. He had fought suffocating, debilitating depression during the years that followed the Battle of Waterloo, first overseas in Paris and then here at Hinsford when it had seemed to him that he would never recover his full health and strength, that he would never be himself again. He had fought and won the battle. He resented the fact that it needed to be fought all over again now.

He ought not to have gone to Bath for Christmas. Or, if he had, he ought to have come back home immediately after, as he had originally planned. And he ought not—damn it—to have gone to bed with Lydia Tavernor. Against all his better judgment. Against the principles of a lifetime. Against what he knew were her principles. But like a couple of brainless idiots, with no control whatsoever over their lusts and passions, they had gone and hopelessly complicated their lives.

Someone needed to take a horse whip to him.

The solitude and contentment he had so coveted and so enjoyed for four years were suddenly feeling like something far worse, and he did not appreciate it.

Late one morning he was sitting on a stone slab beside the lake, a picturesque spot beneath a weeping willow tree, warming himself in the dappled sunlight and trying to convince himself that this was very idyllic and peaceful and all was right with the world. Instead he was feeling neglected. By his family.

It was the ultimate idiocy on his part.

Those letters from his mother, Jessica, and Aunt Matilda, all of which had touched upon the question of whether he intended to spend any time in London during the upcoming Season, had not fooled him for a moment. For their motive had been glaringly obvious. They wanted to lure him to town so they could put on some sort of grand party in celebration of his thirtieth birthday. And they very probably wanted to do some aggressive matchmaking at the same time. He knew the Westcott family as of old—or so he had thought. He had fully expected to hear from a few more of them soon after with the same question buried amid other news, or perhaps even with some definite reason why he ought to come or really must come.

He had indeed received more letters—one from his grandmother, and one from Anna. Neither one had made even a whisper of a mention of his going to London. Or of his birthday. Or, for that matter, of his very single state.

Had they forgotten that he had a birthday coming up? His thirtieth? Had they given up on him? Did they not care?

He was laughing out loud suddenly. Poor little spoiled boy!

He picked up a couple of loose stones from the flat rock upon which he sat to pitch one at a time at the lake. But the angle was wrong for them to skip. He was too far above the water. They all sank without a trace.

Now that he was not being pressed to go to London, he was very tempted to go after all. To get away from here for a few weeks. To kick up his heels a bit. To air out his head, whatever the devil he meant by that. But it would be madness. Easter was over and done with and the Season would be just swinging into full life. And his sudden appearance might cause someone with the last name of Westcott to recall that he had a landmark birthday soon.

He did not belong to that world any longer, and in all truth he did not want to belong. The Harry Westcott he had been at the age of twenty was not the Harry Westcott who was sitting here now, attempting the impossible by pitching stones from well above the level of the water and expecting them to skip.

He got up and went down closer to the lake to find more stones. He managed to skip the second one four times, gave himself a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, and turned to make his way back to the house.

He could not go to London.

Lydia was here. And Lydia might be with child. By him. Unless good fortune was on their side. Or unless all his instincts had been wrong on that night and she was after all the experienced widow he had thought her to be, and knew how to avoid pregnancy. Had her childlessness been a deliberate choice, by the way? Or was she barren? Or had she indeed been a virgin when he took her to bed? He could not shake off the horrible suspicion that she had been. There had been that tightness as he pressed into her, that slight flinch.

Dash it all, he could not go to London. He must find out if their … encounter had had consequences. At the very least it was surely the decent thing to go and check on her, to make sure she was all right. Her life of quiet independence was precious to her. He had put that at risk. He owed her an apology if nothing else.

It was two weeks to the day since he had called last at her cottage. Two weeks since he had gone down his own drive. He had gone out by other routes whenever he had left home during those weeks. It was time to put things to rights.

He walked down the drive the next morning under skies that threatened rain later and could see even before he reached the bottom of it that she was in her garden, kneeling down by the flower bed beneath her front window. The grass was looking a bit long, Harry noticed.

Snowball came bouncing and yipping up to the fence to greet him. Lydia looked sharply his way.

He crossed the road to the fence.

“Lydia,” he said.

She turned her face away and set down her gardening tools unhurriedly and removed her gloves. She got to her feet and rubbed her hands together before turning and looking at him again. She had not said a word.

Ah, good God. Lydia.

Lydia had stayed away for a little less than two weeks. She had had a wonderful time. Her father and brothers had admonished her, of course, when she had appeared at their door without warning in the modest private chaise the Reverend Bailey had helped her hire. They had all also hugged her tightly enough to crush bones, she had feared, and certainly to endanger her ability to breathe. Esther had hugged her and clung to her and wept over her while declaring that she had never been happier in her life.

Papa had appointed a maid to her exclusive service almost before she had set foot inside the house. And from that moment on she had not unpacked a box or lifted a water jug or a brush or any piece of clothing. She had been waited upon literally hand and foot.

She had been wined and dined and taken to call upon neighbors and had neighbors invited to come and visit her. She had been fussed and coddled and entertained and talked with from morning until night. She had been gently scolded for getting up too early in the morning and for going to bed too late at night. She had been taken to church on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday mornings and proudly displayed in the place of honor next to her father in the padded front pew that was his. She had been introduced to the vicar, “who is a single man, Lydie,” she had been told afterward. She had been introduced to Mr. Johnson, a new neighbor who was reputed to have inherited a modest fortune a year or two ago—“and is a single man, Lydie.” He had been promptly invited with a small party of other neighbors to dine a few evenings later and had been conspicuously seated beside her at the dining table.

Snowball had been treated with amusement and affection and gross indulgence. She was going to look even more like a ball if they stayed much longer, Lydia had thought a few times.

They had all assumed, of course, that she had come to stay. Or at least that she was persuadable. And perhaps for the first few days she had been. It had been so lovely to relax, to lower all her defenses. It had been a huge relief to discover after she had been there a mere two days that her night with Harry had not had consequences. During the first week she had been able to forget about that night. Or, if that was impossible, as of course it was, at least to look back on it as though it were something that had happened a long time ago to someone else.

She had not stayed, however. It had not taken long for her to feel a bit stifled by all the attention and overwhelmed by the never-ending company and talk and laughter. She had never been alone, except at night. Even when she had tried a few times to withdraw to her room for a bit of solitude, someone had been sure to tap on her door and poke a head around it to ask if there was anything wrong, if perhaps she had a headache and needed a draft of something to ease the pain. If she had tried to take a solitary walk in the park to enjoy the peace of nature, her father or one of her brothers or even Esther, who was not supposed to exert herself, had soon fallen into step beside her—“to keep you company, Lydie.” And if it was one of the men—or more than one, as it often was—he had been sure to remind her that she must never wander out of sight of the house if she was alone. “A woman can never be too careful, Lydie.” Familiar words she remembered from her youth.

James clearly adored Esther, as she did him. But he fussed over her constantly and hovered. He stopped her from doing a thousand things—the number was probably exaggerated, Lydia admitted to herself—she wanted to do. Those things were either unwise or unsafe, or they would tire her or threaten her delicate health or bore her or give the wrong impression to other people. Or—and this one Lydia had found most irksome—she must not worry her pretty little head over them. If Esther expressed an opinion on any subject, though she did not often do so, James would be sure to admonish her, gently and affectionately, for speaking on a topic she could not possibly comprehend or for taxing her brain more than was good for her or for worrying over something the men would take care of.

“Esther,” Lydia had said one day when they were alone, “do you not want to scream sometimes when Papa or James fuss over you and want to do everything for you but breathe? Even think?” She had laughed to soften the harshness of her words.

But Esther had looked at her as though she had sprouted an extra head. “Oh, but Lydia,” she had said, “they are wonderful. That I love James to distraction goes without saying, of course. But that when I married him I should also have gained such a father and such brothers makes me wonder sometimes what I ever did to deserve such rich blessings. They care for me and protect me. I … Well, I really ought not to say anything about my own papa and my brother. But I will say this much. They were never anything like yours, Lydia. How fortunate you have been. And to have married the Reverend Tavernor, who was wonderful, though I only met him that once, when he brought you here for my wedding.”

Lydia had grown very fond of Esther during those two weeks. She was unfailingly sweet and affectionate. But Lydia doubted they could ever be close friends. They were too different in temperament and perspective.

So she had known by the end of the first week that she could not stay indefinitely. During the second week she had still enjoyed being there. And she had consciously loved her family and appreciated who they were as persons. But she had begun to long for her little cottage and her kitchen and her flower beds. She had begun to miss her neighbors and friends. And she had begun to long to see Harry again, to try to apologize to him if she could, to see if she had hurt him in any way, though it was far more likely he had shrugged off that incident as relatively unimportant. Men were like that, were they not? Their emotions did not get all tangled up with their pleasures.

Ah, but she was surely being unfair. She did not believe he had just been grabbing an opportunity for casual gratification that night.

Papa had not liked her decision to return home, and he had been very vocal about telling her so. James did not like it either. Nor did William. Anthony, who had come home from university for Easter, had already returned to Oxford for his final term and so had no chance to voice an opinion. Esther wept.

But home Lydia had come, with far more pomp and bluster than when she arrived. For Papa, of course, had insisted upon sending her in his own carriage with a coachman and a footman up on the box and a maid inside with her, as well as two outriders to deter any would-be highwaymen. He would have accompanied her himself, as would either James or William, but she had put her foot down and insisted that she would not so inconvenience any of them. Esther had looked frightened over her insubordination, but she had won the day after making a nasty threat.

“If you try to insist,” she had warned the three men, “then I shall simply walk away in the middle of the night, taking only Snowball with me for protection.”

“Ah, Lydie,” her father had said reproachfully, and for a moment she had thought she detected tears in his eyes.

There had certainly been tears in hers when she left, hugged boneless and breathless again before she climbed into the carriage, and then waved after until the carriage turned a corner and they were lost to view. Then she had wept some more. For of course she knew—she had always known—why her father was so protective of her, his only daughter. He had adored her mother, set her up on a pedestal, felt unworthy of her, since he had been a wild man about town when he fell in love with her. He blamed himself for her death so soon after giving birth to his fourth child and the fact that Lydia had been deprived of her mother at such a young age. Oh, he had never spoken these things aloud, but Lydia knew. She had been eight years old. She had understood far more than her father and brothers probably realized. She could no longer allow him to dominate and protect her, but she loved him enough to hurt at times. Oh, love was not just a soft, feel-good emotion. Sometimes it tore painfully at the heart.

But now she was home. And happy. So was Snowball. Mrs. Bartlett had seen the bustle of her arrival yesterday and had brought over a bowl of soup and two freshly baked bread buns for her evening meal and welcomed her home but would not stay because she could see that Mrs. Tavernor was pale with fatigue and then stayed for a full hour anyway, telling her every tidbit of news and gossip from the past two weeks.

This morning Lydia was tackling the mess of her front garden. For of course grass and weeds—and even flowers, to a lesser degree—did not stop growing just because one was away from home. She was kneeling on the overlong grass beneath the front window, waging war upon weeds in the flower bed and planning to call at the smithy later to see if Reggie would come and scythe her grass soon, when Snowball started to yip and bark and bounce enough that Lydia knew someone must be coming along the street—or down the drive. She turned her head to see.

Ah, the moment had come. And she was not sure her knees would support her if she tried to stand.

Perhaps, she thought, he would merely nod and go on his way. But he crossed the road and came right up to her garden fence.

“Lydia,” he said.

And she wanted to weep. For no reason whatsoever that she would have been able to explain to herself. She set down her gardening tools, pulled off her gloves, and rubbed her hands to rid them of the grains of soil that had got underneath the gloves—all with slow deliberation so she could collect herself before standing and turning toward him and looking fully at him.

“I got home yesterday,” she said. “And the garden is a mess.”

And so was she. A mess, that was. She had forgotten just how overwhelmingly gorgeous he was.

“Got home?” he said, frowning. “Have you been away?”

He did not know? Oh.

Oh.

“I went to spend Easter with my father and brothers,” she told him. “And my sister-in-law. She is in a … delicate way.”

“I did not know you were gone.” He rested one hand on top of the fence and looked down. “Be quiet, Snowball. I see you.”

Snowball settled on the grass, gazing upward.

“That was why I got no answer when I called here twice on the same day,” Harry said, looking back at her. “I thought you were avoiding me. But I suppose you were.”

“It was Easter,” she said lamely.

“Lydia.” He looked at her for long moments before continuing. “Are you with child?”

Oh goodness. She felt color flood her cheeks. “No,” she said. “Oh, no, I am not.”

His hand was gripping the fence, she noticed. But he only nodded briefly and said nothing more. He had come that day, then—twice? But not since then? He had not known she was away. Yet it felt as if she had been gone forever.

“Harry,” she said. “I am sorry—”

“Please do not be,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish. “I am sorry too. But it would be better, perhaps, if we did not belabor the point. You found your family well? Your sister-in-law too?”

“Yes,” she said. “My father had a nasty chill a month or so ago, but he is quite better now.”

“I am glad,” he said.

They were talking like polite strangers, making stilted conversation. It was almost impossible, as she looked at him now, simply but elegantly dressed like a country gentleman, to believe that they had actually made love in the house behind her. That they had been naked together …

“The weeds did not stop growing while I was gone,” she said.

“Why should they?” he asked. “They are as eager to survive as any other living thing.”

“I suppose,” she said.

He dropped his hand from the fence and took one step back. “Are you planning to attend the assembly at the inn on Thursday evening?” he asked her.

Ah, the spring assembly that always happened soon after Easter. She had always attended while Isaiah was alive. He had disapproved of the frivolity of dancing and would never dance himself—nor, consequently, had she—but he had not considered it actually sinful. And he had judged his presence to be necessary, as it was at all village events, so that he could open it with a prayer of blessing and thanks. She had always found that prayer a little embarrassing.

“I will be going,” Harry said.

So would almost everyone else. It was a much-anticipated event. Each family took food, so the tables positively groaned with it. The music was always lively, the dancing vigorous, the conversation loud and merry. She had always behaved with quiet decorum while her heart danced to the music and her toes tapped, even if only imperceptibly inside her slippers. She had not attended last year, as she had been in mourning.

“So will I,” she said. “Probably.”

He nodded. “I will see you there, then,” he said. And he turned and walked away. But not along the street into the village, as she had expected, but back up the drive in the direction of home. He had come specifically to call upon her, then, had he? After two weeks of not even knowing that she was gone?

Snowball scrambled to her feet and protested his leaving, but he did not look back.

“I will probably go,” Lydia said softly.