The Arrangement by Mary Balogh

5

Vincent started his morning with an hour of vigorous exercise in the drawing room. He was feeling the enervating effects of a few days of merely sitting or standing—and eating far too much of Mrs. Fisk’s fine baking.

After breakfast he went outside into the back garden, using only his cane for guidance. He knew the garden and was unlikely either to get lost or to come to great grief. He smelled the absence of the vegetable garden immediately. Not that he had been very aware of the smells when he was a boy, but he noticed them now when they were not there, especially the mint and sage and other herbs.

There were no flowers either. At Middlebury he had been trying to differentiate among the smells of different flowers and the texture and shape of their petals and leaves and stems.

The garden had not been completely neglected, though. The gardeners he paid to come in twice a month had swept the path that ran between the former flower beds. The stone bench that encircled the copper urn in which his mother had used to set a great pot of flowers each year was free of rubble. Martin had told him that the grass on the lawns had been scythed short and the hedges had been trimmed.

Vincent sat down on the bench and propped his cane beside him. He lifted his face to the sky. It must be cloudy, though there was no dampness in the air. And it was not a cold day.

If he decided to remain here for another day—and he was not at all sure he would—he would get Martin to come for a long walk in the country with him this afternoon. No matter how strenuously he exercised various muscles in the house, he always craved fresh air and the feeling of his legs moving under him, preferably in a lengthy stride. Ah, how he would love to run!

He wanted to stay a little longer. The last two days had been surprisingly enjoyable. In all the upheavals of the past six years, he had forgotten how very fond he was of the people of Barton Coombs. He had forgotten how many friends he had here, or he had assumed that for various reasons they could be his friends no longer. Several of them had promised last night at the assembly that they would call upon him here.

Yet a part of him wanted to leave without further ado. For his blindness was more apparent to him here than it was elsewhere. This was a place and these were people he had known with his eyes. Penderris Hall and his more recent friends of the Survivors’ Club, as well as Middlebury Park and his neighbors there, were places and people he had come to know only through his other senses. They were in some ways easier to deal with, easier emotionally, anyway.

Here he found himself repeatedly fighting panic. He had thought those days were past or at least receding.

And he was not sure if his desire to stay here was a genuine need to reconnect with old friends and old haunts while he made definite plans for the future or just procrastination, the knowledge that when he went home to Middlebury he must not fall into the old pattern of passive dependence. He had asserted himself in some ways—his music, his physical exercises, his ability to find his way about familiar places with just a cane or sometimes without even that. But they were just a drop in the ocean to what his life ought to be like and could be.

He sometimes wished he did not love his mother so much. She had been hurt enough as it was. He desperately did not want to hurt her more. Perhaps the answer was a wife, perish the thought, but one of his own careful choosing. Very careful.

The clouds must not be in a solid mass, after all. A ray of sunshine had just found him. He could feel its warmth and tipped his face to it, closing his eyes as he did so. He did not want to damage them with direct light from the sun, after all, did he? He smiled at the absurd thought and even chuckled to himself. That was what Flavian had said to him once at Penderris on a particularly sunny day—Flavian Arnott, Viscount Ponsonby, one of the members of the Survivors’ Club.

He missed them with a sudden ache of longing for them all to be back, safely cocooned, in Cornwall, himself included. He wondered if Hugo had gone in pursuit of Lady Muir, who had spent a week at Penderris earlier this spring after spraining her ankle down on the beach. Hugo Emes, Lord Trentham, was the one who had found her and carried her up to the house. He had then proceeded to fall head over ears in love with her—that had been obvious even to a blind man—and then, in typical Hugo fashion, he had convinced himself that the social gulf that separated them was far too wide to be breached. Hugo was a military hero and as rich as Croesus, but because he was of middle-class origin and proud of it, he was one of the most insecure men Vincent had ever known.

He would be willing to wager Lady Muir had fallen for Hugo too.

HadHugo gone after her?

The ray of sun had already been swallowed up by cloud again. There was a coolness against his face where there had been warmth. Well, it had felt good while it lasted.

And the thought of a wife, a carefully chosen wife, reminded him of another reason why he really needed to get away. He had almost fallen into a neat trap last evening. It had been foolish and naïve of him, especially as he had known the Marches were out to net him. And even if he had not known it himself, Martin had warned him. When he had stepped out of the inn with Miss March because she complained of the stuffy heat of the assembly room, he had reacted as she must have known he would, like a puppet on a string. He had been desperately thankful for the arrival of Miss Fry in that deserted alley.

Miss Fry. Sophia Fry. A small lady with a light touch. And a soft, slightly husky voice. And a strangely appealing conversation that had replayed itself in his mind when he lay down after returning home. An exchange of dreams, which in many ways were not dissimilar, though their circumstances were as different as they could be. According to Martin, who had danced all night, she had not danced at all and had disappeared early, soon after talking with him.

Without her intervention, he might be in danger today of finding himself a betrothed man. Betrothed to Henrietta March, of all people. He had not liked her as a girl. He did not like her now. She had spoken last evening of nothing but her well-born friends and her beaux and her connections with the highest echelon of the ton, and she was the star of every anecdote and had had the last, witty word in every remembered altercation. Sir Clarence March he abhorred as much as he ever had. Lady March was enough to raise the short hairs along the back of his neck.

He had had a narrow escape. Was he now safe? Now that he was fully on his guard? But he had been on his guard before.

He could hear footsteps approaching along the path from the house—the firm tread of Martin’s boots, and someone else’s. Male, almost definitely. Ah, and a third tread, lighter, more feminine.

“Here are Sam and Edna Hamilton to see you, sir,” Martin said.

“Sam!” Vincent got to his feet, a smile on his face, his right hand outstretched. “And Edna. How good of you to come. Do sit down. But is it warm enough out here for you? Should we go into the parlor instead?”

“Vince!” His old friend and partner in crime gripped his hand and pumped it up and down. “We hardly had a chance for a word last evening. You were swaddled about by Miss Waddell’s ladies.”

“Vincent,” Edna Hamilton, the former Edna Biggs, said, and she stepped forward to hug him and set her cheek against his for a moment. “I might have waited for you if I had known just how handsome a man you were going to grow into.”

“Hey, hey,” Sam protested as Vincent laughed. “None of that. I am not so bad looking myself.”

“Do let us sit out here,” Edna said. “The clouds are about to move off entirely, and it is beautifully warm in the sunshine. My feet are sore from last evening. I very nearly danced them off the ends of my legs.”

“Vince will think you very ungenteel, Ed,” her husband commented. “Ladies are not supposed to admit that they even have legs.”

They talked of the assembly as they settled on the bench, and they reminisced about the childhood they had all shared. They laughed a great deal. And then Edna changed the subject.

“Oh, Vince,” she said, “have you heard what has happened to that little mouse of a woman who lives with the Marches?”

“Miss Fry?” Vincent said, frowning.

“Is that her name?” she asked. “You took pity on her last evening and spoke with her for a few minutes, did you not? No one even knew for a long time whether she was a servant at Barton Hall or a poor relation, but the servants disowned her when asked. We should have known, of course, for she is always far more poorly dressed than any of them. Anyway, she has been turned out. The Reverend Parsons found her in the church this morning, sitting pale and silent in one of the pews, a pathetically small bag beside her. He took her into the vicarage, and Mrs. Parsons gave her breakfast and a room to lie down in—she was turned out last night, apparently, and spent what was left of it in the church pew. But no one knows what will become of her, poor thing. No other servants are needed at the vicarage—and she is not a servant anyway. I suppose someone will help her somehow.”

“She is better off away from the Marches, if you were to ask me,” Samuel said. “Anyone would be. We came to invite you to our house this evening, Vince. We will try to gather more of the old crowd there too and have a rollicking good time. We will even get Martin to come, if we may. What do you say?”

It took Vincent a few moments to comprehend what had just been said to him.

“What?” he said. “Oh, yes. Certainly. My thanks to both of you. That would be splendid. What time?”

They went on their way a short while later, and Vincent sat where he was a few minutes longer before going in search of Martin. He found him in the kitchen. He was about to warm up the remains of yesterday’s stew and butter some bread. Luncheon would be ready in a quarter of an hour or so, Martin told him.

Vincent had no appetite.

“I need to go to the vicarage,” he said. “The sooner, the better. Will the food spoil?”

“I haven’t actually started getting it yet,” Martin said. “I did not know how long you would be. Sam was always a talker. So was Edna.”

“I need to go now,” Vincent said. “Lend me your arm, Martin. It will be faster than tapping my way along the street with my cane.”

“Confessing your sins will not wait, will it?” Martin asked him.

Surprisingly, Sophia had slept, though she had no idea for how long. She sat on the edge of the bed after waking, not knowing what else to do. Mrs. Parsons found her there and took her down to the parlor, where they sat drinking coffee and eating freshly baked biscuits until the vicar came in from his study, beaming and rubbing his hands together and looking awkward.

She would take the stagecoach to London, Sophia assured them when they asked if she had any plans. Sir Clarence March had given her money to get there. And yes, she would be fine, and yes, she knew people there. They would help her find employment. They must not worry about her. They had been very kind.

Her mind had been numb all night as she sat in the church. Now it was a great tumble and jumble of thoughts and anxieties and blank terror, all of which she must hide from these kindly people. She had no intention of becoming a burden to them.

She was accustomed to hiding from people, even when she was in their plain sight.

She knew no one in London, no one she would care to seek out, anyway. She did not know how to go about finding employment, though perhaps she ought to have found out as soon as her father died. She had been fifteen, after all. But she had gone to Aunt Mary instead, as any gently born lady would, and had been trapped in dependency ever since. There were employment agencies. She would have to find one and hope that her family background and lack of experience and total absence of recommendations would not make it impossible for her to find something. Anything. But what would she do while she searched? Where would she go? Sir Clarence knew the cost of a stagecoach ticket to London, and he had given her that exact amount with nothing extra, even for light refreshments on the journey.

She tried to picture herself getting down from the stagecoach in London, her journey at an end, and succeeded all too well.

She wondered if anyone in Barton Coombs needed help. The landlord at the Foaming Tankard, perhaps. Would he give her employment, even if her only payment was a broom cupboard to sleep in and one meal each day?

It was as if the vicar had heard her thoughts.

“I have made inquiries, Miss Fry,” he said, his kindly face full of concern, “but there seems to be no employment to be had anywhere here in Barton Coombs for a young lady. Or for any sort of female for that matter. My dear wife and I would be happy to have you stay with us for a day or two, but…”

His voice trailed away, and he turned his head to look helplessly at Mrs. Parsons.

“Oh, but I would not dream of imposing upon your hospitality any longer than necessary,” Sophia said. “I shall go on tomorrow’s stagecoach if I can discover what time it leaves.”

“I will pack a bag of food for you to take with you,” Mrs. Parsons said. “Though there is no big hurry. You may stay for a night or two if you wish.”

“Thank you. That is—”

Sophia did not complete the sentence, for there was a knock on the outer door, and both the Reverend and Mrs. Parsons turned their attention all too eagerly to the door of the parlor, as though they believed the knock had been upon it. And then indeed there was a tap on the door and the housekeeper opened it from the other side.

“It is Viscount Darleigh, ma’am,” she said, addressing Mrs. Parsons.

“Ah.” The vicar rubbed his hands again and looked pleased. “Show him in, then, show him in. What an honor and a pleasant surprise, I must say. I am delighted that I am home.”

“Indeed,” his wife agreed, smiling warmly as she got to her feet.

Sophia cringed back in her chair. It was too late to flee the room, though where she would flee to if she could, she did not know. At least he would not be able to see her.

His man brought him to the door and then left. The vicar hurried across the room and took his arm.

“Viscount Darleigh,” he said, “this is an unexpected pleasure. I trust you enjoyed last evening’s little festivities? It is always good to celebrate occasions like homecomings with one’s friends and neighbors, is it not? Come and have a seat, and my good wife will go and make sure the kettle has been put on to boil.”

“You are kind,” Viscount Darleigh said. “I realize how ill-mannered it is of me to come without warning when you must be about to sit down for luncheon, but I particularly wished to talk with Miss Fry. May I? Is she still here at the vicarage?”

Oh, Sophia thought, mortified, as she clutched her hands very tightly in her lap, he had heard. He must have come to apologize—not that anything was his fault. She hoped he would not offer to go and intercede with Sir Clarence on her behalf. It would be useless. Besides, she would not go back there now even if she could. She had been an abject nobody for too long. Destitution was better than that—a rash and foolish thought, when nothing could possibly be worse than destitution. Her stomach somersaulted within her, or felt as if it did.

Being a poor relative was about the worst thing in the world to be, she had sometimes thought. But there was worse.

“Miss Fry is here now in this very room, my lord,” the vicar said, indicating her with an arm the viscount could not see.

“Ah,” Lord Darleigh said. “And you are here too, are you, Mrs. Parsons? My manners have certainly gone begging. Good day to you, ma’am. May I beg the favor of a private word with Miss Fry? If she is willing to grant it to me, that is.”

Sophia bit her lip.

“You have heard what happened, have you, my lord?” Mrs. Parsons asked. “I do not care what Miss Fry did to cause Sir Clarence and Lady March to turn her out at gone midnight last night—she will not say and we have not pressed her on the matter. But it is a disgrace that they did it, and Miss Waddell is getting up a committee of ladies to go and tell them so. We do not usually interfere—”

“My dear,” the vicar said, interrupting her.

“We will leave you to have a private word with Miss Fry,” Mrs. Parsons said, nodding and smiling encouragingly in Sophia’s direction.

And she and the vicar left the room after the latter had led Viscount Darleigh to a chair.

He did not sit down on it.

Sophia gazed up at him in some dismay. He was the very last person on earth she wanted to see today. Not that she blamed him for what had happened. She most certainly did not. But she did not need his sympathy or his offer to intercede with Sir Clarence on her behalf or…

Why had he come?

She found his presence, especially his standing presence, horribly intimidating. She could hardly believe she had actually talked with him last evening, told him her most secret dreams, listened to his, just as if they had been equals. In a sense they were equals. She sometimes forgot she was a lady born.

“Miss Fry,” he said, “this is all my fault.”

“No.”

His eyes turned unerringly her way. “You were turned out because you foiled a plan involving me last evening. I ought to have been able to foil it myself and am ashamed that it fell to you to rescue me, a perfect stranger. I am deeply in your debt.”

“No,” she said again.

He wore a form-fitting coat of green superfine, buff-colored pantaloons, and shiny Hessian boots, with white linen and a simply tied cravat. As usual, there was nothing ostentatious about his appearance, only perfect correctness. Yet somehow he looked so suffocatingly masculine and powerful that Sophia found herself trying to press back farther into her chair.

“Can you tell me,” he asked her, “that that is not the reason you were turned out? And, I suppose, the fact that I lingered at your side after we returned to the assembly room.”

She opened her mouth to speak, thought of lying, thought of telling the truth…

“No, you cannot.” He answered his own question. “And what are your plans now? Do you have other relatives to go to?”

“I shall go to London,” she told him, “and seek employment.”

“Do you know someone who will take you in and help you in the search?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she assured him brightly.

He stood there, frowning down at her, his steady blue gaze only slightly to one side of her face. The silence stretched a little too long.

“You have nowhere to go, do you?” he said. It was not really a question. “And no one to help you.”

“Yes,” she insisted, “I do.”

Again the silence.

He clasped his hands behind his back and bent slightly at the waist.

“Miss Fry,” he said, “you must allow me to help you.”

“How?” she asked. And then, more hastily, “But it is quite unnecessary. I am not your responsibility.”

“I beg to disagree,” he told her. “You need employment if you have no other relatives to take you in. Genteel employment—you are a lady. I could ask my sisters—but it would take too long. I have a friend in London. At least, it was his plan to go there this spring. He has vast and prosperous business interests there and will surely have something suitable to offer you or be able to find you something elsewhere if I provide you with a letter of recommendation.”

“You would do that for me?” She swallowed. “Would he listen to you?”

“We are very close friends.” He frowned. “If only I could be perfectly sure he was there. The Duke of Stanbrook also talked of spending part of the Season in London. Perhaps he will be there even if Hugo is not. But where would you stay while you wait to be settled into employment?”

“I—” But he had not believed in her mythical friends.

“Hugo would perhaps take you in for a short while,” he said. “If he is there.”

“Oh, no.”

“His stepmother and his half sister live with him in his London home,” he explained. “They would surely not mind—”

“No,” she said, feeling quite distressed. It was one thing to knock upon someone’s door with a letter of recommendation and a plea for employment. It was quite another to beg to be given lodgings in a stranger’s house. “Oh, no, my lord. It is impossible. You and I are strangers. You do not know me well enough to vouch for me to that extent, even to your closest friend. It would be rash of you, it would be an imposition upon him and his mother and sister, and it is something I could not possibly bring myself to do.”

He still frowned down at her.

“I am not your responsibility,” she said again. But her stomach was feeling decidedly queasy. What was she going to do?

The silence stretched between them. Should she say something to dismiss him? But perversely she did not want him to go, she realized suddenly. There was a terrifying emptiness yawning ahead, and she was not sure she wanted to be alone to gaze into the abyss. She gripped the arms of her chair more tightly.

“I think you must marry me,” he said abruptly.

She gaped inelegantly, and it was surprising she did not push herself right out through the back of her chair.

“Oh, no.”

“I hope,” he said, “that is an exclamation of surprise rather than an out-and-out rejection.”

And suddenly, surprisingly, she was angry.

“It was not my intention,” she said, her voice breathless. “It was never my intention, Lord Darleigh, to be in a sort of competition with Henrietta to see who could trap you first and most effectively. That was never my plan.”

“I know.” He was still frowning. “Pray do not distress yourself. I am well aware that you have set out no lures for me, that what you did last evening was done out of the goodness of your heart.”

How could he possibly know that?

“And you think you must show your gratitude by marrying me?” she asked him.

He stared silently for a few moments.

“The thing is,” he said, “that I am grateful and that I do feel responsible. If I had used my head, I would have refused to budge from just outside the door of the inn with Miss March and you would not have had to come to the rescue and thereby incur the wrath of your aunt and uncle. I am responsible for you. And I like you, even though that liking is based purely upon the strength of what you did and our short conversation afterward. I like your voice. That sounds ridiculously lame, I know. But when you cannot see, Miss Fry, sound and the other senses become far more acute. Normally one likes the look of someone to whom one feels attracted. I like the sound of your voice.”

He was offering her marriage because of her voice?

And was he saying he found her attractive?

“It is a good thing,” she said, “that you cannot see me.”

He stared again.

“You look like a gargoyle, then, do you?” he asked.

And then he did something that had Sophia gripping the arms of her chair even more tightly. He smiled slowly, and then the smile developed into something else. A mischievous grin.

Oh, all those stories about his boyhood must be true.

But he looked suddenly human, a real person shut up inside all the pomp and trappings of a viscount. And a handsome, elegant viscount at that.

And he had dreams.

“If I did,” she said, “people would notice me. Nobody ever notices me, my lord. I am a mouse. It is what my father used to call me—Mouse. Never Sophia. And for the last five years there has always been a the placed before the word so that it has no longer been even a name but a simple label. I am not a gargoyle, but a mouse.”

His grin had faded, though the smile remained. His head had tipped slightly to one side.

“I have been told,” he said, “that the best and most famous actors are invisible people—or mice, perhaps. They can project the character they play on stage to perfection, but in their own right they can be quite unremarkable and can escape detection even from admirers who are looking for them. And yet all the richness of their talent is contained within themselves.”

“Oh,” she said, somewhat startled. “Are you saying that I am not really a mouse? I know that. But…”

“Describe yourself to me, Miss Fry.”

She rubbed her hands along the arms of her chair.

“I am small,” she said. “Five foot nothing. Well, five foot two. I am small in every way. I have the figure of a boy. I have a nose my father used to describe as a button and a mouth that is too wide for my face. I cut my hair very short because … well, because it curls too much and is impossible to control.”

“The color of your hair?” he asked.

“Auburn,” she said. “Nothing as decisive as blond or raven. Merely auburn.”

She hated talking about her hair. It was her hair that had led to the destroying of her soul—though that was a ridiculously theatrical way by which to describe a little heartbreak.

“And your eyes?”

“Brown,” she said. “Or hazel. Sometimes one, sometimes the other.”

“Definitely not a gargoyle, then,” he said.

“But not a beauty either,” she assured him. “Not even nearly a beauty. Sometimes when my father was alive, I dressed as a boy. It was easier when … Well, never mind. No one ever accused me of being an impostor.”

“Has no one ever told you that you are pretty?” he asked.

“I would only have to look in the nearest glass,” she said, “to know that they lied.”

He did one of those silent stares again.

“Take a blind man’s word for it,” he told her, “that you have a pretty voice.”

She laughed. She felt absurdly, pathetically pleased.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

Suddenly she was engulfed in a tidal wave of temptation. She gripped harder. She would be leaving permanent indentations in the arms of the vicarage chair if she was not careful.

“I cannot do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

Only for a thousand reasons. At least.

“You must know,” she said, “that the whole village is buzzing with talk about you. I have not heard much of it, but I have heard enough. It is said that you left home a while ago because your relatives were trying to make you marry a young lady you did not really wish to marry. It is said that they have set their minds upon finding you a wife. Everyone here has been speculating about who, if anyone, will suit you among the young ladies with whom you are familiar. And, of course, my uncle and aunt made a determined effort last evening to catch you for Henrietta. You are set about by people who are scheming to get you married, though their motives differ widely. I will not add to that crowd, Lord Darleigh, by marrying you just because you are kind enough to feel responsible for me. You are not responsible. Besides, you told me yourself last night that your dream does not include a wife.”

“Do you have any active aversion to marrying me?” he asked her. “My blindness, for example?”

“No,” she said. “The fact that you cannot see is a handicap, but you do not seem to treat it as one.”

She did not know him. But he really did look fit and well muscled. She knew he had been blind for several years. If he had sat in a chair or lain on a bed most of that time, he would not look as he looked now. His face was weather-bronzed too.

“Nothing else?” he asked. “My looks? My voice? My … Anything?”

“N-no,” she said.

Except that he was a titled, wealthy, privileged gentleman despite the blindness, and lived in a mansion far larger than Barton Hall. And that he had a doting mother and sisters. And twenty thousand pounds a year. And that he was handsome and elegant and made her want to cower in a corner, worshiping from afar—even from within her mouse hole. Actually, that would make a splendid cartoon, except that she would have to capture his splendor without satire and she was not sure she could do that. Her charcoal almost always viewed the world through a satirical eye.

“Then I beg leave to press my suit,” he said. “Miss Fry, please marry me. Oh, very well. We are both young. We both admitted last night that we dream of independence and of being alone to enjoy it, unencumbered by spouse or children. But we also recognized that dreams are not always reality. This is reality. You have a frightening problem; I feel responsible for helping solve it, and I have the means of solving it. But our dreams need not completely die if we marry. Quite the contrary. Let us come to some sort of arrangement that will benefit us both in the immediate future and offer us both hope for the longer term future.”

She stared back at him. Temptation gnawed at her. But she did not understand quite what he offered.

“In what way,” she asked him, “would marriage to me benefit you, Lord Darleigh, either in the shorter term or the longer? Apart from soothing your conscience, that is. It is perfectly obvious how it would benefit me. There is not even any point in making a list. But what would such an arrangement, as you call it, offer you? And what do you mean by that word—arrangement? How does it differ from just plain marriage?”

Marriage to her would offer him absolutely nothing whatsoever. That was what. Again, there was no point at all in making a list—there would be nothing to put on it. It would be a blank page with a wistful little mouse gazing up at the emptiness from a bottom corner.

He felt behind him for the arms of the chair to which the Reverend Parsons had led him and sat down at last. He looked a little less intimidating. Or perhaps not. For now there was an illusion, as there had been last evening, that they were just two friendly equals having a cozy chat. Yet … Well, there was nothing equal about them except a basic gentility of birth.

“If one considers the facts purely from a practical and material perspective,” he said, “ours would be an unequal match. You have nothing and no one and nowhere to go and no money. I have property and fortune and more loving relatives than I know what to do with.”

And that was that. There was really no more to be said.

She stared into the abyss and felt as though her stomach had already descended into it.

“There is no other perspective,” she said.

“Yes, there is.” He was silent again for a few moments. “I ran from home six weeks or so ago, as you have heard. I have not made a good start on my life as Viscount Darleigh of Middlebury Park. I have allowed myself to be ruled by all the well-meaning people surrounding me there. And now they have decided it is time I married, and they will not be satisfied until the deed is accomplished. I want to change things, Miss Fry. How much easier it would have been if I had asserted myself three years ago. But I did not, and there is no going back. So where do I start now? Perhaps in taking a wife home with me. Perhaps I will have the courage to start again and start differently if I have someone at my side who is undeniably mistress of Middlebury. Perhaps it is the very thing I need. Perhaps you will be doing me as great a favor as I will be doing you. If I can persuade you to agree, that is.”

“But to choose a stranger,” she said.

“It is precisely what my relatives wished me to do six weeks ago,” he said. “She had been brought to Middlebury by parents who needed to marry her well. She had no personal wish to be there. We had no previous acquaintance. She was a sacrificial lamb. She told me she understood and she did not mind.”

“Ah,” she said. “But clearly she did?”

“Would you mind?” he asked her.

“Marrying a blind man? No,” she said. But what was she saying? She was not agreeing to marry him. “But I would mind forcing you into something you do not want to do, with someone you do not know and someone who could bring nothing into the marriage except, perhaps, that she really would not mind.”

He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair and looked as though he was searching for words.

“Was this the arrangement you spoke of?” she asked. “That you offer me material comfort and I offer you the courage to become the master of your own domain?”

He exhaled audibly.

“No,” he said. “Remember our dreams.”

“Our impossible dreams?” She attempted a laugh and then wished she had not when she heard the pathetic sound she made.

“Perhaps not so impossible.” He sat forward suddenly, and his face looked earnest and eager and boyish. “Perhaps we can have both them and marriage.”

“How?” They seemed mutually exclusive concepts to her.

“Marriages,” he said, “perfectly decent ones, are undertaken for all sorts of reasons. Especially marriages of the upper classes. Often they are alliances more than love matches. And there is nothing wrong with an alliance. Often there is a great deal of respect, even affection, between the partners. And often they live lives that are quite independent of each other even while the marriage survives. They see each other from time to time and are perfectly amicable with each other. But they are free to live their own lives. Perhaps we could agree to such a marriage.”

The very idea chilled her.

He was still looking eager.

“You could eventually have your cottage in the country,” he said, “with your flowers and your chickens and cats. I could eventually prove to myself that I can be master of Middlebury and of my life alone. We could have a marriage now, when we both need it, and freedom and independence and a dream come true in the future. We are both young. We have plenty of life ahead of us—or we can hope for plenty.”

“When?” She still felt chilled—and tempted. “When could we move from the one phase of our marriage to the other?”

He stared past her shoulder.

“One year?” he said. “Unless there is a child. It is a real marriage I propose, Miss Fry. And the begetting of an heir is a duty I must look to sometime. If there is a child, our dream will have to be postponed, at least for a while. But a year if there is no child. Unless you would rather make it longer. Or less. But I think we would need a year to establish ourselves as Viscount and Viscountess Darleigh of Middlebury Park. And we ought to do that. Would you agree to a year?”

She had not agreed to anything. She felt a little as though she were about to faint. She could be married and have her life of quiet contentment? Could the two coexist? She needed time to think, and lots of it. But there was no time. She lowered her chin to her chest and closed her eyes.

“It would be madness,” was all she could think to say.

“Why?” He sounded anxious. Anxious that she would say no? Or that she would say yes?

She could not think. But one thought popped free.

“What if there was a child,” she asked, “and it was a girl?”

He thought about it and then … smiled.

“I think I would rather like to have a daughter,” he said, and then he laughed. “Another female to rule my life.”

“But what if?” she persisted. “What if you were still without an heir?”

“Then … Hmm.” He thought again. “If we became friends during our year together, and I see no reason why we should not, then we would not have to be strangers for the rest of our lives, would we? We would not be separating, only living apart because it suited us to do so. Perhaps we would both be quite happy to come together again from time to time.”

For enough time to have a child? Or another child?

She still felt light-headed. She tried to think rationally.

“What if the time should come, Lord Darleigh,” she asked, “when you wished to marry someone with whom you had fallen in love?”

“I am unlikely to meet any such person at Middlebury,” he said. “I hope to become less reclusive than I have been for the past three years—indeed I am determined to be—but it is a quiet village. Besides, it is a risk run by everyone who marries, is it not? The danger that one will meet someone one wants more? When one does marry, however, one pledges one’s loyalty to the person one marries and that is that.”

There had to be a hole in that argument large enough to drive a stagecoach and four through. And she thought of one. Men had needs, did they not? She had learned that during the years she had lived with her father and his friends. What about Lord Darleigh’s needs? According to the arrangement he suggested, she would be leaving him when he was twenty-four unless she was increasing.

How would he satisfy his needs after that? Mistresses?

She opened her mouth and drew breath, but she could not bring herself to make the point.

He made it for her.

“We could get together occasionally anyway,” he said. “We need not be strangers. Provided it was by mutual consent, of course.”

There was another of those short silences.

“What if you should meet someone and fall in love?” he asked her.

“I would turn away from it,” she told him. “I would be loyal to my marriage.”

And by her answer had she crossed the line into seriously considering his proposal?

Oh, she must not take it seriously.

But what was the alternative?

She hugged her hands about her arms, as though she were cold.

“You do not even know me,” she said, realizing too late that she did not need to make that point if she was not considering saying yes. “I do not know you.”

He did not immediately reply.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“To my sight, you mean?” he said. “My mother’s brother came home from long years in the Far East. He is a merchant and a businessman, very prosperous. My father was not very long deceased at the time and my mother was struggling harder than ever to make ends meet. My uncle wanted to take my sisters to London to find them eligible husbands, which he actually did with great success, and he wanted to take me into the business. But the thought of sitting behind a desk all day, even if only for a few years until I had earned promotions, depressed me. I begged him to purchase a commission for me instead, and I went off to war with an artillery regiment at the age of seventeen. I was bursting with pride and eagerness to prove myself, to show that I was as brave, as resourceful, as steadfast as the most seasoned of veterans. In the first hour of my first battle in the Peninsula, I was standing beside one of the great guns when it was fired. Nothing happened, and I stepped slightly forward, as though I thought to see the problem and set it right and win the whole war then and there for the allies. The gun fired, and the last thing I saw was a bright flash. I really ought to have been blown to glory. There ought to have been so many pieces of me raining down upon Spain and Portugal that no one would have found and identified a single one of them. But, when I was carried off to a field hospital, I was perfectly intact except for the fact that when I recovered consciousness I could neither see nor hear.”

Sophia gasped in horror.

“Hearing returned after I had been back in England awhile,” he said. “Sight never did, and never will.”

“Oh,” she said. “What was it like—”

But he had held up a staying hand, and the other, she noticed, had curled tightly about the arm of his chair, just as her hands had about the arms of hers a few minutes ago. His knuckles were white.

“I am sorry,” he said, and his voice sounded unaccountably breathless. “I cannot talk about that, Miss Fry.”

“Forgive me,” she said.

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

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

She bit her lip and closed her eyes again.

She heard him sigh.

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

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

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

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

And he went down on one knee before her.

Oh!

He bowed his head over her hands.

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

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

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

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

God help her, there was really no choice.

“I will,” she whispered.

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

It was an intensely sweet smile.