The Arrangement by Mary Balogh

9

Sophia was having her hair cut, an absurdity, she had thought when Lady Trentham first suggested it to her, for her hair was very short already. But here she was, at the mercy of Mr. Welland and his scissors and his flying fingers.

“He cuts my hair when I am in town,” Lady Trentham had explained. “I chose him, as I chose my dressmaker, because he does not speak with a French accent. I have no objection whatsoever to a French accent on the lips of a Frenchman or -woman, but you would not believe, Miss Fry, how many Englishmen and -women affect one in the belief that it will suggest superior skill and draw superior customers.”

Like Sir Clarence and Lady March,Sophia had thought.

Mr. Welland had clucked over Sophia’s hair and declared in a distinctly cockney accent that her last stylist ought to be flogged to within an inch of his life at the very least.

“The last stylist was me,” Sophia had confessed rather sheepishly.

He had clucked once more and gone to work.

They were not alone in his workroom. Lady Trentham sat facing them and watching with apparent interest. So did the Countess of Kilbourne, her sister-in-law, who had sent a note last evening to ask if Lady Trentham would be at home for a call this morning and who had been invited to join the shopping trip instead.

“You must not be overawed by her title,” Lady Trentham had assured Sophia. “There is no one less high in the instep than Lily. She grew up in the tail of an army as a sergeant’s daughter and married my brother when her father died. A long, long saga followed that event, but I will not trouble you with the full story now. May I invite her to accompany us?”

“Yes, of course,” Sophia had said, awed anyway.

And this morning after she had arrived at Lord Trentham’s house and greeted her sister-in-law with a hug and bidden Mrs. and Miss Emes a good morning with a beaming smile, the countess had been introduced to Sophia and had looked her over frankly from head to toe. Sophia was wearing one of her own dresses, having declined Lady Trentham’s offer of one of hers.

“You are to be Viscount Darleigh’s bride?” she had asked. “Oh, my dear, we are going to have such fun this morning. Are we not, Gwen?”

And she had startled Sophia by darting forward and hugging her. She was herself exquisitely lovely, with a face that looked as if it always smiled.

Finally Mr. Welland seemed to be finished. Sophia was alarmed at the amount of hair that had fallen to the floor about her feet. Was there any left on her head? He had not placed her before a mirror, as she had expected.

“I have shaped your hair and thinned out the bulk, you will understand,” he told her now, handing her a glass and inviting her to hold it up before her face. “That does not mean I wished to cut your hair shorter. It ought to be longer.”

Sophia gazed at her image in some astonishment. Her hair hugged her head in soft curls and framed her face with wispy waves. It looked neat and tame and not at all its usual wild bush.

“It is very chic,” Lady Kilbourne said. “It shows up your heart-shaped face. And the color is adorable.”

Lord Darleigh had explored her face with his hands when they were on their way to the river and had said, when he came to her chin, that her face was heart-shaped. Sophia had always thought it was round.

“If the lady wishes to look like a cherub, she will keep her hair this way,” Mr. Welland said. “But she will not show off the best feature of her face if she does. I will show you what I mean.”

And as Sophia watched in the glass, he pressed his fingers through her hair at the sides and held it back from her face so that it looked smooth over her temples and ears.

“See the classic lines of the cheekbones?” he said. “If the lady wears her hair back like this and piled on top, these cheekbones will be cast into prominence and her neck will look more elegant and her eyes will be more alluring. So will her mouth.”

Sophia stared at herself in the glass and saw someone who looked, by some illusion, if not actually pretty, at least womanly.

“Oh, goodness, you are quite right, Mr. Welland,” Lady Trentham said. “But it is for Miss Fry to decide if she will grow her hair. Even if she does not, there is a great deal to be said for cherubs.”

“Especially well-dressed cherubs,” Lady Kilbourne added, getting to her feet, “which is what Miss Fry will be by the time the three of us have finished with her today. Shall we move on?”

The bill was to be sent to Lord Darleigh, Sophia knew. She had no idea how large that bill would be, but if Mr. Welland had a titled lady for a client, it probably would not be insignificant. She felt uncomfortable about it, but what choice did she have? Being wealthy was something she would have to grow accustomed to. Perhaps it would be easier after she was married.

There followed hours of shopping for everything under the sun, or so it seemed to Sophia. There were stays and other undergarments and nightgowns and stockings and shoes and bonnets and gloves and garters and parasols and reticules and fans and cloaks and spencers, among other things. And, of course, there were the dresses, which fell into two categories, those that were ready-made and needed only minor alterations, all of which must be done today or tomorrow at the latest, and those that were to be made from patterns and sent on to Middlebury Park at a later date.

“I cannot possibly need so many,” she protested when Lady Trentham listed all she would need to start with.

“But they are not just for your personal comfort and pleasure,” Lady Kilbourne reminded her gently, a hand on her arm as they sat in the carriage, moving from one shop to the next. “They are for your husband’s pride and pleasure too. Oh, I know he is blind and will not see any of your dresses and other finery. But he has hands and will feel them.”

Sophia felt herself blushing.

“And other people will see you,” the countess added. “You are going to be Lady Darleigh, you must remember. Your appearance will reflect upon your husband.”

“They will think I married him for his title and money,” Sophia protested. “They will think I trapped him because he is blind.”

Lady Trentham looked assessingly at her.

“But of course they will,” she surprised Sophia by saying. “I must confess that for the merest moment yesterday, I thought it too. And what are you going to do about it, Miss Fry?”

Sophia stared at her wide-eyed, waiting for the answer to be provided for her. Had Lady Kilbourne thought it too? Did she still? Did Lady Trentham still have doubts about her? Unconsciously she lifted her chin.

The countess exchanged a glance with her sister-in-law, and her eyes danced with merriment.

“Precisely,” she said. “That is exactly what you must do.”

“I like him,” Sophia said fiercely. “And I am enormously grateful to him. I am going to make his life so comfortable that he will not even miss his sight. I am going to—Oh, people may say what they wish. I will not care. And he will not care. He will be too busy enjoying the comfortable life I will provide for him.”

For one year.

And he did not want yet another woman fussing over him.

“Oh, bravo,” Lady Trentham said, laughing. “Lily, we must stop provoking the poor lady.”

“But we got the answer we expected,” Lady Kilbourne said, laughing too. “Little people are often more fierce than their larger counterparts, and you are very little, Miss Fry. Even smaller than Gwen and me. We should perhaps form a league of little people. We would terrify the world. And then rule it.”

And, surprisingly, Sophia laughed too. Oh, how good it felt to share laughter and absurdities with other people.

“I shall sketch a picture,” she said, “and we will use it as a banner when we march upon … What shall we march upon?”

“White’s Club,” Lady Kilbourne said without hesitation. “That bastion of male pride and supposed male superiority that no respectable woman dares walk near. The Little League will march on it and demand equal rights.”

They all enjoyed a gleeful laugh.

Sophia endured being measured and poked for what seemed like hours, and she looked through pattern books until all the designs began to look alike. She selected fabrics and colors and trims until she felt she could do it no more. And all the time she listened to the advice and opinions of her companions, though they were never domineering and always deferred to her final judgment. They did quite firmly steer her away from vivid colors, however, which she was inclined to choose at first since it seemed to her that every garment she had owned in the last five years was faded and near colorless. But bright colors, Lady Trentham explained, would swallow her up and make her invisible within them.

“And I believe,” she said, “you have been invisible long enough, Miss Fry.”

And they steered her away from heavy fabrics, like brocades and some velvets, which she would have chosen for several garments, for it seemed to her that she had been cold most of her life. But heavy fabrics would drag her down, Lady Kilbourne told her, and her smallness and daintiness were assets she ought to emphasize. She discovered that fine wool, thin of texture and light of weight, was just as warm as some of the heavier fabrics. And shawls and stoles—ah, there were so many pretty ones, she discovered—were marvelous for warmth and could look attractive and dress up an otherwise plain gown.

She bought ready-made day dresses and one evening gown and a walking dress and a traveling outfit. All had to be shortened and taken in at the waist and bosom. And she ordered so many different dresses to be made to suit so many different types of occasions that she simply lost count and relied upon the judgment of her two companions, whom she trusted, little as she knew them. Afterward, she did remember one outfit more than any other simply because it had made the dressmaker raise her eyebrows almost to her hairline and had had Lady Kilbourne smiling in such a way that it would be more accurate to say she grinned. Sophia ordered a riding outfit that included breeches as well as a skirt.

“You ride?” Lady Trentham asked her. “Astride?”

“Neither,” Sophia admitted. “But Lord Darleigh has told me I may do whatever I wish to do when we are married, and I have always wanted to ride. He must have horses in his stables.”

“I think he must,” Lady Trentham agreed.

And then there was the one outfit that was bought ready-made and had to be altered before anything else so that it could be delivered to Lord Trentham’s house before evening today.

Her wedding outfit.

“But it is to be just Lord Darleigh and me and the clergyman,” she had protested at first. “By special license.”

“It is to be your wedding day nonetheless,” Lady Trentham said. “It is the day you will remember most vividly for the rest of your life, Miss Fry. And you will always remember what you wore. You are to be a bride.”

Sophia blinked back the tears that had sprung to her eyes and protested no more.

“Lord Darleigh stayed at the home of the Duke of Stanbrook last night,” Lady Trentham said. “Lady Barclay is staying there too. She came to London for our wedding. I would not be at all surprised if after Lord Darleigh has obtained the special license today he will find a few other members of the Survivors’ Club at the duke’s house too waiting to greet him. Hugo has gone there. You know about the Survivors, I suppose?”

Sophia nodded.

“I am sure they will all want to attend Lord Darleigh’s wedding,” Lady Trentham said. “They all adore him, you know. He is the youngest among them, and the sweetest. And I know Hugo’s stepmother and half sister would love to attend. So would I. And from the way Lily is looking at me, I would guess that she would like to be there too with my brother. I would like to put on a wedding breakfast for you after the ceremony. Will you allow it, Miss Fry? I do not wish to bully you into anything you do not want. You must say if you would prefer to have a completely private wedding. And of course, Lord Darleigh’s wishes must be consulted too. But … will you allow it?”

“Please?” Lady Kilbourne added. “It is ages since I was last at a wedding. It is three days since Gwen’s.”

Sophia sat in the carriage staring from one to the other of them. She was the mouse. No one ever saw her or spoke to her. She had never had friends—well, almost never. No one had ever loved her, except her father in his own careless way, though he had never been more demonstrative about it than to ruffle her hair occasionally as he told her that they would have to tighten their belts again for a while as he had just had a run of bad luck at the tables or the race track.

Yet now about ten people wished to attend her wedding? One of them wanted to put on a wedding breakfast for her? It was all for Lord Darleigh’s sake, of course. She understood that. But Lady Kilbourne, as far as Sophia knew, had never even met him. Mrs. Emes and her daughter had met him only briefly yesterday while they had spent all evening with her and part of this morning too.

Lord Darleigh had sacrificed a wedding with his family about him for her sake, she knew. Now he had a chance to have a few of his very closest friends with him for the occasion. And she had a chance to have with her at her wedding some ladies who appeared to like her. It seemed incredible. Did her new hairstyle have something to do with it? But Mrs. Emes and Constance Emes had not seen it yet, and they had been kind and amiable both last evening and at breakfast this morning.

Was it possible to have friends at last? She bit her lower lip.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “if it is what Lord Darleigh wishes.”

The two ladies exchanged identically satisfied smiles.

The shopping expedition was over at last and they returned home. She would need to get busy, Lady Trentham declared. She had a wedding breakfast to organize. Though she must write a note to Lord Darleigh first to send over to Stanbrook House.

The Survivors’ Club had only ever met as a body at Penderris Hall in Cornwall during the spring. It seemed strange and wonderful to be together here in London, which was such an unknown to Vincent. Only Ben—Sir Benedict Harper—was absent. He was in the north of England, staying with his sister.

Vincent had spent the evening at Stanbrook House on Grosvenor Square with the Duke of Stanbrook and Imogen, Lady Barclay, his distant cousin, and they had sat up late talking before going to bed. And today, after spending the morning procuring a special license from Doctors’ Commons in company with George, and then making arrangements for the nuptials to be solemnized the next morning at St. George’s on Hanover Square, they had returned to Stanbrook House to find Hugo and Ralph—Ralph Stockwood, Earl of Berwick—there too as well as Flavian Arnott, Viscount Ponsonby.

Miss Fry had been borne off, as planned, Hugo reported, to be outfitted from head to toe for her wedding and her new life. His wife had gone with her, and so had the Countess of Kilbourne, her sister-in-law.

Vincent hoped Sophia would not feel overwhelmed.

“They will look after her, lad,” Hugo assured him as though he had read Vincent’s thoughts. “Woman power or something hideous like that. It is better to stay far away from it and let them do what they must do.”

“Goodness me,” Flavian murmured on a sigh. “Is this you, Hugo? The hero of Badajoz? The ferociously scowling giant? Is this what three days of marriage have done to you? One can only shudder at the p-prospect of what one week will do.”

“It is called the acquiring of wisdom, Flave,” Hugo said.

“Heaven defend me,” Flavian said faintly.

“You would deny women all power, Flavian?” Imogen asked sweetly.

“Oh, not you, Imogen,” he said hastily. “No, no, not you. I have no wish to be fixed with your steely look every time I glance at you. Your steely look is nasty and is inclined to interfere with my digestion. Let us change the subject. Tell us about your b-bride, Vince, my boy. And tell us why you are marrying in such indecent haste. Imogen has refused to divulge a single detail. It is not her story to tell, she assured us before you came back with George. A hopeless gossip she makes.”

Vincent told them everything, with the omission of the maddest of the details, of course. By the time he had finished, he was surprised to find that one of his hands was in both of Imogen’s. She was not normally the demonstrative sort.

“Marrying Miss Fry is what I want to do,” he said as if there had been a chorus of protests from his friends. “It may sound as if I was coerced into offering for her, and I admit that if circumstances had not been what they were, I would not be doing what I am about to do. But I am not sorry it has happened. And I want to make it perfectly clear—to all of you.” He moved his head about the room as though he could see them all. “I want to make it clear that she did not in any way whatsoever maneuver matters so that I would be obliged to marry her. She is utterly blameless. I had the devil’s own job getting her to accept my offer even though she faced a bleak future if she said no.”

“You look, Vince,” Ralph said, “as if you are about to challenge us collectively to pistols at dawn.”

Vincent relaxed a bit and laughed.

“Is she a b-beauty?” Flavian asked. “Or have you heard she is? Hugo? You have seen her.”

Significantly, Hugo said nothing.

“It may surprise you to know, Flave,” Vincent said, “that I do not care the snap of two fingers what she looks like except how her looks may affect her happiness. She describes herself self-deprecatingly. She is small and slender. That I do know. She has short curly hair, which is auburn, and eyes she cannot identify as definitely either brown or hazel but a bit of both. She has smooth-skinned cheeks and a wide mouth. She has an attractive voice. I like it and I like her. Hugo, anything to add?”

“Not when you ask me in that tone, lad,” Hugo said hastily. “Gwen and Lily will see to her, you may depend upon it. I believe a hairdresser was first on the agenda this morning. And then lots of dressmakers. The aunt with whom she has been living deserves to be horsewhipped. Her dresses look like half-threadbare sacks and she looks as if she has not been eating all that she could. But those things can be put right.”

“Yes,” Vincent said. “Can and will.”

Imogen was patting the back of his hand.

“Vince,” Ralph said, “you are too good for the rest of us. You are too good for this world. Were you this bad when your eyes worked?”

“I intend to be happy, you know,” Vincent told him, grinning. “Marriage does sometimes bring happiness, it seems. Look at Hugo. I can’t do that literally, of course, but I can hear him.”

“Nauseating, is it not?” Ralph said.

Vincent continued to grin. “And soon there will be two of us. The Survivors’ Club may not survive the shock.”

“We survived the wars,” George said. “I daresay we will survive a couple of decent marriages too. Since your family will not be in attendance at your wedding tomorrow, Vincent, and Miss Fry has none worth speaking of, may we all come? Or would you rather we did not?”

A wedding with no guests seemed like a bleak thing—though a necessary one, he had thought when he planned it.

“I would indeed like you all to be there,” he said. “But I will have to ask Sophia if she minds. The whole point of coming here rather than returning to Middlebury Park for our wedding was that the balance of guests would not be all on my side.”

There was a tap on the drawing room door at that very moment and George’s butler murmured to him that a letter had just been delivered by private messenger—for Viscount Darleigh.

“My wife’s handwriting,” Hugo said.

Vincent got abruptly to his feet. Had something happened to Sophia?

“Will someone read it to me?” he asked. “George?”

He heard the rustle of paper. There was a brief pause, presumably while George scanned the contents.

“Ah,” he said. “Lady Trentham asks, Vincent, if you have any great objection to her organizing a wedding breakfast for thirteen persons at her home and Hugo’s tomorrow. Thirteen? Goodness me. Ah, she has listed names here, and we are all included. So are Mrs. and Miss Emes, Mr. Philip Germane—your uncle, I believe, Hugo—and the Earl and Countess of Kilbourne. Apparently Miss Fry has already approved both the breakfast and the guest list.”

Vincent smiled and sat down again.

“Then it seems you are all invited to a wedding tomorrow,” he said. “St. George’s at eleven o’clock. I could not get here in time for your wedding, Hugo, so I shall compensate by having one of my own.”

“The devil,” Flavian said. “Another wedding? I may not survive the ordeal. But for you, Vince, I shall take the risk. I will be there.”

“You complain, Flavian,” the duke said. “There is yet another wedding in a little less than one month’s time, and I will of necessity have to remain in town for it. So will Imogen, since it concerns family. My nephew.”

“The heir, George?” Ralph asked.

“None other,” the duke said. “Julian was a bit of a scamp as a boy, but he has found someone of whom he seems genuinely fond. He brought her here the day before yesterday for my inspection, I suppose. Not for my approval, I am happy to say. He did not ask. The poor girl was clearly awed.”

“Of course she was,” Imogen said. “You always tend to poker up on such occasions, George, and you are formidable enough even when you are not pokered up. Poor Miss Dean. I felt for her.”

“Miss Dean?” Vincent asked, arrested.

“Miss Philippa Dean, yes,” George said. “You do not know her, do you, Vincent?”

“Ah, I believe her family is from Bath,” Vincent said. “My grandmother lived there for years before moving to Middlebury Park to keep my mother company. The Deans were her close friends.”

“Shall I write to Lady Trentham for you, Vincent?” Imogen asked. “I daresay she would like a quick answer to her question. A wedding breakfast to organize in less than twenty-four hours is not an easy thing.”

…someone of whom he seems genuinely fond.

Oh, Vincent hoped so and that the fondness worked in both directions. Guilt concerning Miss Dean had been niggling at him ever since he fled from home. And she was marrying a duke’s heir? Her family would be pleased.

“No need, Imogen,” Hugo said. “I’ll go home and tell Gwendoline myself. I have the feeling I have married a woman who will take this sort of thing in her stride.”

“If your chest was puffed out any farther, Hugo,” Flavian said, “you might discover you cannot see your feet. I’ll be on my way too, George. All this talk of matrimony has given me a c-craving for space and fresh air.”

“I’ll come with you if I may, Hugo,” Vincent said. “I want to hear from Sophia’s own lips that all this is not overwhelming her.”

“I promise not to poker up tomorrow when I meet her at your wedding, Vincent,” George said. “Apparently I look formidable enough anyway.”

“You are not going to let me forget that, are you?” Imogen commented.

Good Lord, Vincent thought as Hugo took his arm, tomorrow was his wedding day.

Tomorrow!