The Escape by Mary Balogh

7

“It is going to rain,” Beatrice observed at breakfast the next morning. She had looked up briefly from the letter she was reading.

Ben glanced toward the window and agreed that rain was a distinct possibility. It had been a pretty miserable spring so far, at least in this part of the country. It looked as if they were not going to be able to ride with Mrs. McKay after all. Perhaps it was just as well. He did not doubt the battle-ax would disapprove since she did not believe even a sedate visit to a neighbor was seemly. Though he did think it was high time Mrs. McKay thumbed her nose at the heavy restrictions that were being imposed upon her.

Perhaps the rain would hold off.

“How can boys spend such a vast deal of money when they are supposedly at school becoming the scholars of the future?” Beatrice asked, her eyes back on her letter. “And why do they apply for extra funds to their mothers rather than their fathers, who would demand an accounting of what had already been spent?”

“Precisely for that reason,” he said. “I daresay the price of sweetmeats has risen since I was at school.”

“Hmm,” she said. “But having rotten teeth pulled is just as painful.”

It started to rain in the late morning, a light drizzle at first, which might or might not turn into something more serious. By the time he had finished his luncheon, however, Ben was forced to admit that the rain had taken the first option. It was going to be too wet to ride.

He was disappointed. He went upstairs to do his daily exercises. He would not neglect those, even though he had accepted the reality that he would never recover more than very minimal use of his legs. He would not risk losing what little he had accomplished, however. At least he could get about on his own legs. Besides, there were other parts of his body that needed to be kept in good working condition.

The vigorous activity did not rid him of his restlessness. He was in a crisis period of his life, he realized.

He found his sister at the escritoire in the drawing room, writing to both of her sons and her husband.

“I feel bad about not sending word over to Bramble Hall,” he told her.

“But Mrs. McKay will hardly expect us in this weather,” she said without looking up.

“No,” he agreed. “But I thought I would go over there anyway and make our excuses in person. Would you care to come with me?”

She brushed the feather of her quill pen over her chin and looked toward the window. “You must know how you tempt me, Ben,” she said. “Letter writing was never one of my favorite activities. I daresay that proves I am not a proper lady. I must finish these now that I have started them, however, or I will put off doing so indefinitely. You do not need my company, do you? The McKay ladies will be each other’s chaperon.”

“You make me sound like a big bad wolf,” he said.

“I daresay you appear that way to at least one of the ladies,” she said. “Oh, dear, I do not usually take virtual strangers in such dislike. Convey my respects to them, if you please, Ben.”

“I shall.” He bent over her to kiss her cheek. “Give my love to my nephews and tell them not to get up to any more mischief than I did in my day.”

She snorted rather inelegantly. “I shall tell them from their Uncle Benedict,” she said, “to be good. And frugal.”

He laughed and made his slow way out of the room.

Samantha had lain awake half the night. She rose early in order to have breakfast with Matilda and try to send her on her way with some civility. But her sister-in-law neither came down to eat nor had a tray sent up to her room. And when she did come downstairs, she was dressed for travel and the carriage was awaiting her outside the front doors, already laden with her baggage.

“It is going to rain,” Samantha said. “I wish you would reconsider, Matilda, and postpone your departure at least for a few days.”

Matilda was looking pale and unwell.

“I would not remain here another hour even if snow threatened,” she said, smoothing her already-smooth leather gloves over the backs of her hands. “Father will be displeased with you, Samantha, and Mother will be disappointed. But neither of them will be surprised, I am sad to say. Father warned Matthew how it would be if he insisted upon condescending so low as to marry a Gypsy.”

Fortunately, perhaps, she swept out through the doors and down the steps before Samantha could frame an answer. A footman handed her into the carriage. She did not look back or turn her head once she was seated. It was fortunate because Samantha’s temper had snapped, or would have done if she had been left with any audience. As it was, she stood in the doorway and watched the carriage set off on its long journey, positively quivering with suppressed fury.

“I am one quarter Gypsy,” she muttered to the empty air. “Better than one hundred percent McKay.”

Her grandfather, a Welshman about whom she knew nothing except his nationality, had married a Gypsy, who had given birth to Samantha’s mother before returning to her own people, never to be heard of again. And that sad and obscure little incident of history had had its effect upon the granddaughter of that ill-fated union. So had the fact that their daughter, Samantha’s mother, had run away at the age of seventeen from Wales and the aunt who had raised her and had ended up in London, where she had been eking out a living as an actress when Samantha’s father discovered her and married her.

“I am one quarter Gypsy and one quarter Welsh and half obscure English gentility. I am the spawn of a Welsh actress, who, like all members of her profession and nationality, was only one short rung up the ladder of wickedness from the devil himself. Or so my father-in-law once described her.”

Heavy clouds loomed overhead. It would be a miracle if it did not rain by noon. Irony of ironies, she would probably not be going riding this afternoon after all. It was a horribly depressing thought that she might after all be compelled to spend the rest of the day respectably alone and indoors.

But the first thing she did when she went back inside was to stride into the sitting room and fling the heavy curtains back as far as they would go. She was going to change them. She was going to choose something lighter in both texture and color. She looked about the room with a frown. Everything needed changing. In five years she had not really noticed how gloomy a house this was.

Matilda was at this very moment carrying stories of her wickedness to Leyland. Wickedness! For five years she had devoted every moment of her days to the care of the Earl of Heathmoor’s son. She had endured five years of disturbed nights without complaint. She had given every particle of her energy and patience. By the time Matthew died, it had seemed there was nothing of herself left. That, she supposed, was why she had felt so empty. And yet, in the eyes of the earl and his precious daughter, she was wicked and of no account because of her birth—and because after four months of real mourning she was ready to reach out to her neighbors for comfort and friendship and to partake of some quiet outdoor exercise.

She was angry. She was so furious, in fact, that she eyed those hideous ornaments on the mantel again and would surely have hurled them if doing so would have made her feel one iota better. They were not worth her ire—the McKays, that was. But no matter how firmly she told herself that, she felt hurt anyway.

Thank goodness she was so far away from them and they were sure to be as happy about that as she was.

And of course it rained.

At first it merely drizzled, leaving the cruel hope that it would not come to anything but would stop before afternoon. It rained more heavily instead and showed every sign of having settled in for the day.

Matilda would call it a just punishment.

After toying with her food at luncheon, Samantha went back into the sitting room and tried embroidering. But when her silk knotted and her fingers pulled at the knot without their customary patience and it snarled to such a degree that she was forced to cut the thread and undo the work she had already done, she set the cloth aside. She tried reading but realized after she had moved her eyes determinedly over two whole pages that she could not recall a single word. She even indulged in a little weep while Tramp set his chin on her lap and gazed mournfully at her. But whoever had said that a good cry made one feel better obviously had never tried it himself. She ended up with a blocked nose, swollen eyes, a soggy handkerchief, and a more wretched misery than ever.

Self-pity was a dreadful affliction, she thought, irritated with herself as she kissed the top of the dog’s head. She would not put up with it one moment longer. She dried her eyes, blew her nose loudly, and glared at her embroidery before picking it up and tackling it once more with firmness of purpose.

Fifteen minutes later her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the knocker banging against the front door. She looked up in surprise, her needle suspended above the cloth. Matilda? No, of course not. Lady Gramley and Sir Benedict Harper? Hardly. They would not ride in this weather, and it was unnecessary for them to come to make their excuses. Samantha could not have failed to notice that it was raining. The vicar? He had not been back since Matilda had kept him talking on the step one afternoon until the cutting wind persuaded him to leave.

“Sir Benedict Harper, ma’am,” the butler announced as he opened the door. He sounded a little dubious, but the gentleman came past him before she could decide whether it was proper to admit him or not, or—more to the point—whether she cared that it was not.

“Sir Benedict,” she said, setting aside her work and rising to her feet. “You surely did not ride over?”

She was pathetically glad to see him.

“I came by carriage,” he said, acknowledging a tail-wagging Tramp with a quelling glance. “Good afternoon, Mrs. McKay. Your sister-in-law is still indisposed, is she? I am sorry. I would not have—”

“She has gone,” she told him. “She left this morning. She would not remain here any longer to be contaminated by my wicked self.”

Oh, dear, she ought not to have phrased it quite that way. She ought to have invented an illness in the family that had taken Matilda away. It would not have been difficult. The countess was always ailing. It was too late now, though.

He stood still, gazing at her as the butler shut the door behind him. He glanced at the window, she noticed. It was fully visible for the first time in months.

“Gone?” he said. “Not to return, do you mean? This did not have anything to do with the fact that you were to ride with me, did it? Beatrice did agree to come with us, you know.”

It was too late for evasion.

“Nothing short of complete isolation behind the black veil of our mourning for the next eight months would have suited Matilda’s sense of propriety, Sir Benedict,” she told him. “I am not sure by what exact rule book she and my father-in-law live, but I have never heard of anyone else’s living by it, for which mercy I am truly thankful. The Earl of Heathmoor is a law unto himself and always has been. Perhaps the book is his own. Indeed, I believe it must be.”

Her voice sounded brittle, she realized, even on the brink of hysteria. She was terrified he was going to go away again, which would, of course, be the best thing he could do—for both of them. He would not appreciate having to listen to her pour out all her self-pitying woes. And she needed time to compose herself before conversing with anyone.

“I came to explain why we could not go out riding,” he said, “though I daresay the reason is self-evident. I came to see if Lady Matilda had recovered from her cold and to offer her my sister’s good wishes for her restored health. I will take my leave, ma’am, since you have no companion or chaperon and we cannot withdraw to the garden as we did at Robland a couple of days ago.”

It would be quite the right thing to do, of course. But she could not bear to be alone again. Not yet. How foolish to have allowed someone like Matilda to have discomposed her so very much.

“Please stay,” she said. “Do sit down. I am sick of propriety and even sicker of my own company. And why should I not entertain a guest who has been kind enough to call upon me despite the pouring rain?”

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “because that guest is a single gentleman and you are a single lady without a companion.”

She sighed. He looked uncomfortable standing there leaning on his canes. He must be desperate to leave. But loneliness and low spirits had made her selfish, not to mention indiscreet.

“Did you come, then, just to inform me that it is raining and to inquire after Matilda’s health?” she asked him.

He hesitated. And then he took her completely by surprise. “Hang Lady Matilda’s health,” he said. “And your house has windows. They are not even almost completely covered by curtains today. I came to see you.”

And if she had thought he looked uncomfortable a few moments ago, it was nothing like what she felt now. The very air in the room felt as if it had been charged with something dangerous.

But—hang Lady Matilda’s health. She could not help but smile.

“Oh, do sit down,” she said. “Why should you leave just because Matilda is not here?”

He made his slow way to the chair she had indicated and sat. She reseated herself and they stared at each other.

Now what? At least in Lady Gramley’s garden the day before yesterday there had been flowers to look at and the sky and the house. And there had been sounds even if she had been unaware of them at the time—birds, insects, wind, grooms in the stables. Here even Tramp was silent. He had stretched out before Sir Benedict, his chin on the man’s boot.

“Did you love him?” he asked abruptly.

She raised her eyebrows. Had she expected him to talk about the weather? He was talking about Matthew? It was a horribly impertinent question. It demanded a sharp set-down.

“I was head-over-heels in love when I married him,” she said. “Such euphoria cannot be expected to last forever, of course. There is really no such thing as happily ever after, Sir Benedict.”

“How long had you been married before he was injured?” he asked.

“Two years,” she told him. “I spent the first year with him and the second, after his regiment was sent to the Peninsula, at Leyland Abbey in Kent with my in-laws.”

“And you fell out of love because of his injuries?”

“No.” She gazed broodingly at him for a few moments. She ought to repel him by telling him how impertinent and intrusive his question was. “It did not take me long after my marriage to discover what I ought to have realized before. He could not live without the admiration of men and the adulation of women. He was handsome and dashing and charming. Everyone adored him. But he—”

Ah, she really ought not to be talking so about her own husband.

“But he adored no one except himself?” he suggested.

How could he have guessed that? But he was exactly right. Matthew had seen everyone beyond himself as nothing more than an attentive, admiring audience. She doubted there had ever been anyone in his life whom he really knew or wanted to know, herself included. Even during the last five years he had seen her as he wanted to see her, an obedient and attentive wife, created for his comfort. He had never known her. Not even half.

“His wounds did not change him?” he asked.

“Oh, they did. Or perhaps they changed only the circumstances of his life rather than his essential character.” She turned her gaze on the fire. “His nose had been cut by a saber and broken. His face was not very badly disfigured after it had healed, but he refused to be seen by anyone except his valet and me. He would not have a mirror in his room. He was crushed by what he thought of as the loss of his good looks, as though they were his very identity. If his health had been good apart from that relatively minor disfigurement, perhaps he would have recovered some of his old confidence and swagger. But his health was not good.”

“Beatrice tells me you were devoted to him,” he said.

“How could I not be?” She looked back at him. “He was my husband, and I cared about him. I ought not to have said anything negative about him. He is not here to contradict me or to retaliate with a listing of all my shortcomings.”

“Sometimes, as I told you a couple of days ago,” he said, “one needs to speak from the heart to people who understand and can be relied upon to keep a confidence.”

“And I can rely upon you?” she asked. “Even though you are little more than a stranger to me?”

“You may rely upon my discretion.”

She believed him. She remembered what he had said about his friends at Penderris Hall.

“He did not deserve such a very harsh and prolonged ending to his life,” she said. “I never ever wished that for him.”

“And you do not deserve to be left feeling guilty that you are still alive,” he said. “I told you about Hugo, Lord Trentham, who went out of his mind after successfully leading a Forlorn Hope in Spain. His chief torment—it plagued him for years after and still does to a certain degree—was that he survived intact while all his men either died or were horribly injured. Yet he led that attack of volunteers from the front with extraordinary courage. You must forgive yourself for being alive, Mrs. McKay, and for wishing to go on living.”

“And for wanting to dance?” She half smiled at him.

“And even for wanting to ride.”

“Enough of me and my petty miseries,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “What of you? Why exactly are you staying in such a remote corner of England with your sister? It seems a very retired sort of life for a gentleman of your age.”

“My age?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Your face has known suffering,” she said, feeling the heat of a flush in her cheeks. “You could be any age between twenty-five and thirty-five. Or even—”

“I am twenty-nine,” he said. “Beatrice needed a few more weeks at home to recover from her indisposition over the winter, but it was necessary for Gramley to go up to London to take his seat in the House of Lords. Their boys are away at school. I had nothing better to do with my time, so I came here to keep her company.”

“Lady Gramley is fortunate to have such an attentive brother,” she said.

“You are not so fortunate in your brother?” he asked. “Your half brother?”

“John is a clergyman and has the charge of a busy parish and of a wife and three children,” she told him. “And he was opposed to our father marrying my mother.”

“Why?” he asked. “Just because she was not his mother?”

“At least partly for that reason, I am sure,” she said. “His mother had been much respected and beloved by all her neighbors.”

He was looking closely at her. “And your mother was not?”

She ought to just say yes or no and leave it at that.

“My mother was an actress when my father met her in London,” she said. “She was also the daughter of a Welshman and a Gypsy. It was not a combination designed to endear her to her stepson. Or to the more genteel of my father’s neighbors, especially when she was so much younger than he and so beautiful and vibrant.”

“Ah,” he said and regarded her in silence for a few moments while she waited for him to continue. This was the moment, perhaps, when he would recover his manners and take a hasty leave—or as hasty as he was able without making his distaste too obvious. “That would explain your vividly dark coloring. I have wondered where the foreign blood came from. It comes from your Gypsy grandmother.”

“It is not really foreign blood, though, is it?” she said. “There have been Gypsies in Britain for generations. But there has not been much intermarriage and they have kept their distinctive looks.”

He regarded her quietly again, but there was a slight smile on his face. She could not decipher its meaning.

“Is she still living?” he asked. “Your grandmother, I mean? Or your grandfather?”

“My grandmother left to return to her own people when my mother was an infant,” she said. “I know nothing of my grandfather except his nationality. My mother left Wales at the age of seventeen and never went back. She almost never talked about her past. Perhaps she would have done if she had lived longer.”

Silence stretched between them again.

“Perhaps,” she said, “you feel the need to leave now, Sir Benedict?”

“Because I am compromising your virtue?” he asked. “Or because you are half Gypsy and may compromise mine?”

“One quarter,” she said testily. “I am one quarter Gypsy.”

“Ah, well, I am reassured, then,” he said. “One half might have been difficult to overlook.”

She looked sharply at him. His face was sober, but there was laughter in his eyes.

“Has it dogged you through your life?” he asked. “The fact that you have Gypsy blood, that is? And it is impossible for you to hide it. It may be only one quarter of your heritage, but it accounts for almost the whole of your looks.”

She lifted her chin and said nothing.

“All your very beautiful looks,” he added. “I am sorry. I have embarrassed you on an issue about which you seem sensitive. Yes, Mrs. McKay, I do feel the need to take my leave. But for propriety’s sake. Your propriety.”

She had been feeling uncomfortable with him and irritated that he had somehow persuaded her to reveal such private aspects of her life. How did he do that? Was it just that she was unaccustomed to having social dealings with anyone? But she was not ready yet to be alone.

“Why did you want to see me?” she asked him. “It is what you admitted a few minutes ago—that you came to see me.”

“I did not expect to find you here alone,” he protested.

“But you did. And you stayed.”

“I did,” he agreed. He lifted a hand to rub a finger along the side of his nose. “I certainly did not want to see you last week. I had wronged you horribly and I hated having to come to make my apology. I did not much want to see you two days ago, but since I was the one to suggest that you call on Beatrice, it would have seemed mean to sneak away on my horse and have you find no one home at all.”

“You saw me coming, then?” she asked him. “You were returning from your ride?”

“I was just setting out, actually,” he said. “And, yes, I saw you. And I enjoyed our conversation in the garden. I suppose I have been starved for female company, entirely by my own fault, and you seemed a safe companion.”

“Safe?”

“You are a widow and only partway through your mourning period.” He grimaced. “I apologize. I am making a mess of this. I am not interested in any flirtation. I am not in search of a wife. I—”

“And if you were,” she said, “you would be searching in the wrong place. I am not in the market for a husband.”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. I enjoyed your companionship a few days ago, Mrs. McKay. It is not often one can relax with a member of the opposite sex who is not a relative.”

“And so I am safe because I am a recent widow,” she said. “But what if I were not still in mourning?”

He stared at her for a few moments.

“Then you would not seem safe at all,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I would be tempted to … engage your interest,” he said.

“My affections, do you mean?”

“Affection is not always necessary.”

She settled her back against the cushions behind her. “You mean you would be tempted to seduce me?”

“Absolutely not.” He frowned. “Seduction is onesided. It suggests a certain degree of coercion or at least of deception.”

Samantha could actually feel her heart thumping in her chest. She could hear it pulsing in her ears. “Sir Benedict,” she said, “how has our conversation come to take this turn?”

He smiled at her suddenly, and there was a strange fluttering low in her abdomen, for it was a smile of considerable charm. It was almost boyish—except that it was not really boyish at all.

Oh, this was absolutely not safe! How dared he? She really ought not to have let him stay.

“I believe it must have a great deal to do with the absence of Lady Matilda,” he said. “I doubt we would have spoken of much other than the weather and the state of one another’s health if she had been here.”

“No, indeed,” she agreed fervently. “But we need not worry anyway, need we? I am a recent widow and so I am safe company.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

“What a very unmannerly question,” she said. “A woman never tells, sir. Younger than you, though. I believe my first impression of you was an accurate one after all. All that language and bad temper! You are no gentleman.”

But she spoiled the effect of her words by laughing. He smiled back at her.

“I am going to ring for the tea tray,” she said, getting to her feet. “Would you like something other than tea?”

“Sherry, if there is any.”

She pulled the bell rope. Tramp raised his chin for a moment, sensed that her rising did not offer any treat for himself, and lowered it again onto Sir Benedict’s right boot. Silly dog. Did he not realize that the man did not like him?

She gave the order to Rose but did not immediately sit down again. She felt uncomfortable and moved to the window, where she stood looking out. The rain had not eased.

He would be tempted to engage her interest if she were not a recent widow, he had openly admitted. She ought to have crossed the distance between them there and then and slapped his face. Or she ought to have demanded that he leave.

But it was by far the nicest thing anyone had said to her for a long, long time.

Oh, dear, she feared she would hug to herself the memory of his impudent words for days to come. How pathetic she was!