The Arrangement by Mary Balogh

 

1

When it became clear to Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh, that if he stayed at home for the remainder of the spring he would without any doubt at all be betrothed, even married, before summer had properly settled in, he fled. He ran away from home, which was a ridiculous, somewhat lowering way of putting it when he owned the house and was almost twenty-four years old. But the simple fact was that he bolted.

He took with him his valet, Martin Fisk; his traveling carriage and horses; and enough clothes and other necessary belongings to last him a month or two—or six. He really did not know how long he would stay away. He took his violin too after a moment’s hesitation. His friends liked to tease him about it and affect horror every time he tucked it beneath his chin, but he thought he played it tolerably well. More important, he liked playing it. It soothed his soul, though he never confided that thought to his friends. Flavian would no doubt make a comment along the lines of its scratching the boot soles of everyone else who happened to be within earshot.

The main trouble with home was that he was afflicted with too many female relatives and not enough male ones—and no assertive males. His grandmother and his mother lived with him, and his three sisters, though married with homes and families of their own, came to stay all too frequently, and often for lengthy spells. Hardly a month went by without at least one of them being in residence for a few days or a week or more. His brothers-in-law, when they came with their wives—which was not every time—tactfully held themselves aloof from Vincent’s affairs and allowed their womenfolk to rule his life, even though it was worthy of note that none of them allowed their wives to rule theirs.

It all would have been understandable, even under ordinary circumstances, Vincent supposed grudgingly. He was, after all, everyone’s only grandson or only son or only brother—and younger brother at that—and as such was fair game to be protected and cosseted and worried over and planned for. He had inherited his title and fortune just four years ago, at the age of nineteen, from an uncle who had been robust and only forty-six years old when he died and who had had a son as sturdy and fit as he. They had both died violently. Life was a fragile business and so was the inheritance, Vincent’s female relatives were fond of observing. It behooved him, therefore, to fill his nursery with an heir and a number of spares as soon as was humanly possible. It was irrelevant that he was still very young and would not even have begun to think of matrimony yet, left to himself. His family knew all they cared to know about living in genteel poverty.

His were not ordinary circumstances, however, and as a result, his relatives clucked about him like a flock of mother hens all intent upon nurturing the same frail chick while somehow avoiding smothering it. His mother had moved to Middlebury Park in Gloucestershire even before he did. She had got it ready for him. His maternal grandmother had let the lease expire on her house in Bath and joined his mother there. And after he moved in, three years ago, his sisters began to find Middlebury the most fascinating place on earth to be. And Vincent need not worry about their husbands feeling neglected, they had collectively assured him. Their husbands understood. The word was always spoken with something like hushed reverence.

In fact, most of what they all said to him was spoken in much the same manner, as though he were some sort of precious but mentally deficient child.

This year they had begun to talk pointedly about marriage. His marriage, that was. Even apart from the succession issue, marriage would bring him comfort and companionship, they had decided, and all kinds of other assorted benefits. Marriage would enable them to relax and worry less about him. It would enable his grandmother to return to Bath, which she was missing. And it would not be at all difficult to find a lady willing and even eager to marry him. He must not imagine it would be. He was titled and wealthy, after all. And he had youth and looks and charm. There were hordes of ladies out there who would understand and actually be quite happy to marry him. They would quickly learn to love him for himself. At least, one would, the one he would choose. And they, his female relatives, would help him make that choice, of course. That went without saying, though they said it anyway.

The campaign had started over Easter, when the whole family was at Middlebury, his sisters’ husbands and their children included. Vincent himself had just returned from Penderris Hall in Cornwall, country seat of the Duke of Stanbrook, where he spent a few weeks of each year with his fellow members of the self-styled Survivors’ Club, a group of survivors of the Napoleonic Wars, and he had been feeling a little bereft, as he always did for a while after parting from those dearest friends in the world. He had let the women talk without paying a great deal of attention or even thinking of perhaps putting his foot down.

It had proved to be a mistake.

Only a month after Easter his sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews had returned en masse, to be followed a day or so later by houseguests. It was still only spring and an odd time of year for a house party, when the social Season in London would be just getting into full swing. But this was not really a party, Vincent had soon discovered, for the only guests who were not also family were Mr. Geoffrey Dean, son of Grandmama’s dearest friend in Bath, his wife, and their three daughters. Their two sons were away at school. Two of the daughters were still in the schoolroom—their governess had been brought with them. But the eldest, Miss Philippa Dean, was almost nineteen and had made her curtsy to the queen just a couple of weeks before and secured partners for every set at her come-out ball. She had made a very satisfactory debut indeed into polite society.

But, Mrs. Dean was hasty to add while describing her daughter’s triumph over tea soon after their arrival at Middlebury Park, how could they possibly have resisted the prospect of spending a quiet couple of weeks in the country with old friends?

Old friends?

The situation had soon become painfully clear to Vincent, though no one bothered to explain. Miss Philippa Dean was on the marriage mart to the highest bidder. She had younger sisters growing up behind her and two brothers at school who might conceivably wish to continue their studies at university. It seemed unlikely that the Deans were vastly wealthy. They had come, then, on the clear understanding that there was a husband to be had for the girl at Middlebury and that she would return to London with all the distinction of being betrothed within a month of her come-out. It would be a singular triumph, especially as she would be securing a husband who was both wealthy and titled.

And who also happened to be blind.

Miss Dean was exquisitely lovely, his mother reported, with blond hair and green eyes and a trim figure. Not that her looks mattered to him. She sounded like a sweet and amiable girl.

She also sounded quite sensible when in conversation with everyone except Vincent himself. She often was in conversation with him during the following few days, however. Every other female in the house, with the possible exception of Vincent’s three young nieces, did everything in her power to throw the two of them together and to leave them together. Even a blind man could see that.

She conversed with him upon trivialities in a gentle, somewhat breathless voice, as though she were in a sickroom and the patient hung precariously between death and life. Whenever Vincent tried to steer the conversation to some meaningful topic in order to discover something of her interests and opinions and the quality of her mind, she invariably agreed wholeheartedly with everything he said, even to the point of absurdity.

“I am firmly of the opinion,” he said to her one afternoon when they were sitting together in the formal parterre gardens before the house despite a rather strong breeze, “that the scientific world has been in a wicked conspiracy against the masses for the past number of centuries, Miss Dean, in order to convince us that the earth is round. It is, of course, quite undeniably flat. Even a fool could see that. If one were to walk to the edge of it, one would fall off and never be heard of again. What is your opinion?”

It was unkind. It was a bit mean.

She was silent for several moments, while he willed her to contradict him. Or laugh at him. Or call him an idiot. Her voice was gentler than ever when she spoke.

“I am quite sure you have the right of it, my lord,” she said.

He almost said “Balderdash!” but did not. He would not add cruelty to unkindness. He merely smiled and felt ashamed of himself and talked about the blustery wind.

And then he felt the fingers of one of her hands on his sleeve, and he could smell her light floral perfume more clearly, an indication that she had leaned closer, and she spoke again—in a sweet, hurried, breathless voice.

“I did not at all mind coming here, you know, Lord Darleigh,” she said, “even though I have been looking forward forever to my first Season in London and do not remember ever being happier than I was on the night of my come-out ball. But I know enough about life to understand that I was taken there not just for enjoyment. Mama and Papa have explained what a wonderful opportunity this invitation is for me, as well as for my sisters and brothers. I did not mind coming, truly. Indeed, I came willingly. I understand, you see, and I will not mind one little bit.”

Her fingers squeezed his arm before letting it go.

“You will think I am forward,” she added, “though I am not usually so outspoken. I just thought you needed to know that I do not mind. For perhaps you fear I do.”

It was one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing moments of Vincent’s life, as well as being almost insufferably infuriating. Not that she infuriated him, poor girl. But her parents did, and his mother and grandmother and sisters did. It was quite obvious to him that Miss Dean had been brought here not just as an eligible young lady whom he might get to know with the possibility on both their parts of deepening their acquaintance in the future if they liked each other. No, she had been brought here fully expecting that he would make her an offer before she left. Pressure would have been brought to bear by her parents, but she was a dutiful daughter, it seemed, and accepted her responsibility as the eldest. She would marry him even though he was blind.

She very obviously did mind.

He was angry with his mother and sisters for assuming that mental deficiency was one effect of blindness. He had known they wished him to marry soon. He had known that they would proceed to matchmake for him. What he had not known was that they would choose his bride without a word to him and then practically force him into accepting their choice—and in his own home, moreover.

His house, in fact, was not his own home—that realization came like an epiphany. It never had been. Whose fault that was must be examined at some future date. It was tempting to blame his relatives, but … Well, he would have to think the whole matter over.

He had a niggling suspicion, though, that if he was not master here, the fault lay with him.

But for now he was in an impossible situation. He felt no spark of attraction toward Miss Dean, even though he believed he would very probably like her under different circumstances. It was clear she felt nothing for him but the obligation to marry him. He could not, though, allow both of them to be coerced into doing what neither of them wanted to do.

As soon as they had returned indoors—Miss Dean took his offered arm and then proceeded to steer him along with gentle but firm intent even though he had his cane with him and knew the way perfectly well without any assistance at all—Vincent went to his private sitting room—the only place in the house where he could be assured of being alone and of being himself—and summoned Martin Fisk.

“We are going,” he said abruptly when his valet arrived.

“Are we, sir?” Martin asked cheerfully. “And what clothes will you be needing for the occasion?”

“I will need everything that will fit into the trunk I always take to Penderris,” Vincent said. “You will doubtless decide for yourself what you need.”

A low grunt was followed by silence.

“I am feeling especially stupid today,” Martin said. “You had better explain.”

“We are going,” Vincent said. “Leaving. Putting as much distance between us and Middlebury as we possibly can in order to evade pursuit. Slinking off. Running away. Taking the coward’s way out.”

“The lady does not suit, does she?” Martin asked.

Ha! Even Martin knew why the girl had been brought here.

“Not as a wife,” Vincent told him. “Not as my wife, anyway. Good Lord, Martin, I do not even want to marry. Not yet. And if and when I do want it, I shall choose the lady myself. Very carefully. And I shall make sure that if she says yes, it is not simply because she understands and will not mind.”

“Hmm,” Martin said. “That is what this one said, is it?”

“With the softest, gentlest sweetness,” Vincent said. “She is sweet and gentle, actually. She is prepared to make a martyr of herself for the sake of her family.”

“And we are running away where?” Martin asked.

“Anywhere on earth but here,” Vincent said. “Can we leave tonight? Without anyone’s knowing?”

“I grew up at a smithy,” Martin reminded him. “I think I could manage to attach the horses to the carriage without getting the lines hopelessly tangled up. But presumably I won’t have to risk it. I suppose you will want Handry to drive us? I’ll have a word with him. He knows how to keep his lips sealed. Two o’clock in the morning, shall we say? I’ll come and carry your trunk out and then come back to dress you. We should be well on our way by three.”

“Perfect,” Vincent said.

They were about one mile on their way when Martin, occupying the seat opposite Vincent’s in the carriage, his back to the horses, reported that it was three o’clock.

Vincent refused to feel guilty—and of course was consumed by nothing but guilt. And by the conviction that he was the world’s worst cad and coward, not to mention worst son and brother and grandson. And gentleman. But really, what else could he have done, short of marrying Miss Philippa Dean or publicly humiliating her?

But would she not be equally humiliated to learn that he had fled?

Arrghh!

He chose to believe that behind any momentary humiliation she might feel would be an enormous relief. He was sure she would be relieved, poor girl.

They went to the Lake District and spent three blissful weeks there. It was reputed to be one of the loveliest parts of England, though much of its beauty was lost on a blind man, of course. Not all of it, however. There were country lanes to stroll along, many of them parallel to the banks of Lake Windermere or some other, lesser lakes. There were hills to climb, some of them requiring strenuous effort—and stronger winds and more rarefied air as a reward when they climbed high. There was rain and sunshine and chill and warmth, all the wonderful variety of English weather and countryside. There was a boat ride, on which he could pull the oars himself, and horse rides—with Martin at his side but never touching him. There was even one glorious gallop across flat land, which, in Martin’s careful estimation, did not hide any unexpected dips or potholes. There was birdsong and insect croaks and the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle to listen to. There were all the myriad smells of the countryside, most notably heather, to many of which he had been oblivious in the days when he could see. There was sitting to meditate or merely to stretch the four senses that remained to him. There were his usual strengthening, body-building exercises to be performed daily, many of them outdoors.

There was peace.

And ultimately there was restlessness.

He had written two letters home—or, rather, Martin had done it for him—the first two days after he left, to explain that he needed some time alone and that he was perfectly safe in his valet’s capable hands. He had not explained either where he was at the time or where he was going. He advised his mother not to expect him home for a month or so. He confirmed everything in the second letter and assured her that he was safe and happy and in good health.

Miss Dean and her mama and papa and sisters would presumably have returned to London in time to secure her some other eligible husband before the Season was out. Vincent hoped she would find someone to fulfill the dual demands of duty and personal inclination. He sincerely hoped so, both for her sake and for the sake of his conscience.

He could go home, he decided at last. The Deans would be long gone. So, probably, would all three of his sisters. He would be able to have a frank talk with his mother and grandmother. It was high time. He would assure them that he was more than happy to have them live at Middlebury, where he could know that they were both comfortable and secure. Or he would be equally happy if they wished to move to Bath. The choice must be theirs, but they must not feel compelled to stay for his sake. He did not need them, he would explain as tactfully as he could. He did not need their assistance in his day-to-day living. Martin and the rest of his well-staffed household were perfectly capable of catering to all his needs. Neither did he need their assistance in finding him a bride to make his life more comfortable. He would find a wife for himself when he judged the time to be right.

It would not be easy to get his mother to accept the truth of what he would say. She had dedicated herself to learning to be mistress of a large home and estate, and she had done superlatively well. Too well, actually. By the time he had arrived at Middlebury, one year after her, he had felt like a little boy returning from school to the care of his mama. And because it had soothed her to see herself in that role, and because his new home and his new life had bewildered him, even overwhelmed him, he had not made a strong enough effort from the start to assert himself as the man of the house.

He had been only twenty years old, after all.

He did consider going back to Cornwall for a while to stay with George Crabbe, Duke of Stanbrook, as he had done for a few weeks in March—and for a few years following his return home from the Peninsula after losing his sight in battle. George was his very dearest friend. But, though he did not doubt the duke would welcome him and allow him to stay as long as he wished, Vincent would not use him as an emotional crutch. Not any longer. Those days, and those needs, were long past.

His years of dependency were past. It was time to grow up and take charge. It was not going to be easy. But he had long ago realized that he must treat his blindness as a challenge rather than as a handicap if he wished to enjoy anything like a happy, fulfilled life.

Sooner or later, then, he must return to Middlebury Park and begin the life he intended to live. He did not feel quite ready yet, however. He had done much thinking in the Lake District, and he needed to do more so that he would not return and simply fall back into the old routine, from which he would never be able to extricate himself.

He was done with the Lake District, though. He was restless.

Where else would he go but home?

The answer came to him with surprising ease.

Of course. He would go … home.

For Middlebury Park was only where he had lived for the past three years, the stately home he had inherited with his title and not set foot inside until three years ago. It was very grand, and he liked it well enough. He was determined to settle there and make it his own. It was not yet really home, however. Home was Covington House, where he had grown up, an altogether more modest dwelling, not much larger than a cottage actually, on the edge of the village of Barton Coombs in Somerset.

He had not been there in almost six years. Not since he left for the Peninsula, in fact. Now he had a sudden hankering to go back again, even though he would not be able to see it. It had happy associations. His childhood and boyhood years had been good ones despite the near poverty in which they had lived even before the death of his father when he was fifteen.

“We are going home,” he announced to Martin one morning after breakfast. He could hear rain pelting against the windows of the small cottage on Windermere he had rented for a month. “Not to Middlebury, though. To Barton Coombs.”

“Mhmm,” Martin said noncommittally as he gathered up the dishes from the table.

“You will be glad?” Vincent asked.

Martin too was from Barton Coombs. His father was the village blacksmith there. The two boys had gone to the village school together, for there had been no money for private education for Vincent despite the fact that socially he was a gentleman. The blacksmith fancied having a son who could read and write. Vincent had learned his lessons, as had his sisters, from his own father, who had been the schoolmaster. Often he and Martin had played together. Most of the neighborhood children had, in fact, regardless of social rank or financial status or gender or age. It had all been rather idyllic.

Vincent’s well-to-do maternal uncle had returned from a long residence in the Far East when Vincent was seventeen and had purchased a commission for his nephew. Martin, upon hearing the news, had come to Covington House, hat clutched in hand, to ask if he could go too as Vincent’s batman. That position had not lasted long, as it turned out. Vincent had lost his sight during his very first battle. But Martin had remained with him as his valet, even during those early years when Vincent had not been able to pay him. He had stubbornly refused to be turned off.

“My mam will be glad to see me,” Martin said now. “So will my dad, though no doubt he will make the usual grumbling quips to his anvil about his one and only son choosing to be a gentleman’s valett.”

And so they went.

They traveled all through the last night of the journey, weary as they were, and arrived at Covington House at first light—or so Martin informed him. Vincent would have known it himself, though, as soon as the carriage stopped moving and the door was opened. He could hear a few birds singing with that almost echoing clarity that was peculiar to the predawn period. And the air had a freshening feel to it that suggested an end to night but not quite a start to day.

There was no real need for secrecy except that Vincent would rather no one know he was at Covington House, at least for a while. He did not want to be a curiosity to old friends and neighbors. He did not want them trekking to his door to pay their respects and to satisfy their curiosity about what a blind man looked like. And he did not want anyone writing to his mother and bringing her hurrying here to look after him. He probably would not stay long anyway. He just needed enough time to get his thoughts in order.

A house key had always been kept above the lintel on the inside of the potting shed behind the house. Vincent sent Handry to see if it was still there. If it was not, then Martin was going to have to climb through the window into the wine cellar. It was very doubtful anyone had thought of mending the catch on it in the last six years, since it had never been mended throughout Vincent’s boyhood. It had been a regular middle-of-the-night escape and reentry route, in fact.

Handry came back with the key. It was looking slightly rusty, he reported, but it fit in the lock of the front door and turned with a grinding sound and a little persuasion. The door opened.

The house smelled neither musty nor stale from being shut up, Vincent discovered. The cleaners he paid to come in once a fortnight must be doing a conscientious job. There was a smell, though, an indefinable something that brought back memories of boyhood days and of his mother and his sisters as they had been when they all lived here. Even faint memories of his father. It was strange that he had never noticed the smell while he lived here—perhaps because he had not needed to notice smells in those days.

He felt about the hall with the aid of his cane. The old oak table was still where it had always been, opposite the door, the umbrella stand beside it. Both were draped with holland covers.

“I know this house like the back of my hand,” he told Martin, pulling the cover off the stand and placing his cane in it. “I am going to explore it on my own. And then I am going to lie down in my room for an hour or two. A carriage is not designed for sleeping in, is it?”

“Not when it has to travel over English roads,” Martin agreed, “and there isn’t any alternative that I have discovered. I’ll go and help Handry with the horses. And then I’ll bring your bags inside.”

One thing Vincent particularly liked about Martin Fisk was that he cared for all his needs without fuss and bluster. Best of all was the fact that he did not hover. If Vincent walked into the occasional wall or door or tripped over the occasional object lying in his path or even once in a while tumbled down a flight of steps or—on one memorable occasion—head first into a lily pond, then Martin would be there to deal with any cuts and scratches and other assorted consequences and to make appropriate or inappropriate comments without any sentiment creeping into his voice.

He even occasionally informed his master that he was a clumsy clod.

It was better—ah, infinitely better—than the solicitous care with which almost everyone else of his acquaintance smothered him.

He was an ungrateful wretch, he knew.

Actually, his fellow members of the Survivors’ Club treated him much as Martin did. It was one reason why he loved his annual stay at Penderris Hall so much, he supposed. But then all seven of them had been badly wounded in the wars and still bore the scars inside or out or both. They understood the frustrations of too much sympathetic care.

When he was alone in the house, he made his way to the sitting room on his left, the room in which all the daytime living had been done. Everything was as he remembered it and where he remembered it, except for the fact that all the furniture was covered. He moved through to the drawing room, larger and less used than the other room. Sometimes there had been dancing in the drawing room. Eight couples had been able to form for a country set with some comfort, ten with a little less comfort, twelve at a squeeze.

There was a pianoforte in this room. Vincent found his way to it. Like everything else, it was hidden beneath a cover. He was tempted to pull it off, to lift the lid over the keyboard and play. But the instrument must be horribly out of tune.

It was strange that he had never learned to play it when he was a lad. No one had even thought of suggesting that he might. The pianoforte was for the girls, an instrument of torture peculiarly their own—or so Amy, his eldest sister, had always claimed.

Strangely, now that he was here, he missed all three of them. And his mother. Even his father, who had been gone for eight years now. He missed those carefree days of his childhood and youth. And they were not even so very long ago. He was only twenty-three now.

Twenty-three going on fifty.

Or seventy.

He sighed and decided to leave the cover where it was. But standing there at the pianoforte, his hands resting on the top of it, his head bowed, he was suddenly smitten by a familiar tidal wave of panic.

He felt the blood drain from his head, leaving it cold and clammy. He felt the breath cold in his nostrils and so thin that there seemed not enough of it to inhale. He felt all the terror of the unending darkness, of the sure knowledge that if he closed his eyes, as he did now, and opened them again, as he did not, he would still be blind.

Always and forever.

With no reprieve.

No light.

Not ever.

He fought to control his breathing, knowing from long experience of such episodes that if he lost control of it, he would soon be gasping for air and even losing consciousness until he came out of his swoon, perhaps alone, perhaps—much worse—with someone hovering over him. But still sightless.

He kept his eyes shut. He counted his breaths again, trying to concentrate upon them to the exclusion of all the thoughts that teemed and tumbled through his mind.

In. Out.

After a while he opened his eyes again and loosened his grip on the top of the pianoforte. He lifted his head. He would be damned, he thought, before he would allow the darkness to encroach upon his inner being. It was enough that it was there outside himself for all time. His own stupidity in battle had caused the outer darkness. He would not compound that youthful folly by allowing the light that was within him to be doused.

He would live his life. He would live it to the full. He would make something of it and of himself. He would not give in to either depression or hopelessness.

He would not, by God.

He was desperately tired. That was the problem, he supposed, and it was easily solved. He would feel better after a bit of a sleep. He would continue his exploration of the house after that.

He found the staircase with no trouble at all. And he found his way up it without mishap. He found his room without having to feel his way along the wall. He had done it in darkness on numerous occasions when he had sneaked out of the house and in again before daylight.

He turned the knob on his door and stepped inside the room. He hoped there were at least blankets on the bed. He was too tired to worry about sheets. But when he found the bed, he discovered that it was made up as if he had been expected—and he remembered his mother saying that she had left instructions with the biweekly cleaners that the house always be kept ready for the unexpected arrival of a family member.

He removed his coat and boots and cravat and lay down gratefully between the sheets. He felt as if he could sleep for a week.

Perhaps he would spend a week here, alone and quiet in these achingly familiar surroundings, unencumbered by any company other than Martin’s. That should be enough time to get his head firmly on his shoulders so that he could go back to Middlebury Park to live and not merely to drift onward.

He had given instructions that the carriage be hidden from sight without delay. He had told Martin to inform anyone who asked that he had come alone to visit his parents at the smithy and that his master had granted him permission to stay at Covington House. Martin would have to tell only one person and within an hour everyone would know.

No one would know he was here too.

It all sounded like bliss.

He fell asleep before he could fully enjoy the feeling.