Someone to Wed (Westcott 3)

Her governess had expended much time and effort upon teaching her to take mincing ladylike little steps, and she had learned. She had not marched into the drawing room at Brambledean a few days ago, for example. But she still strode almost everywhere, especially when she was outdoors, her long legs moving in easy rhythm.

He walked comfortably beside her. She did not know many men. She did not know many people, for that matter. But most men she had met were shorter than she. Her uncle had been a whole head shorter. The Earl of Riverdale was a few inches taller, a fact that must put him over six feet.

She really had not expected him to come again, even though he had asked if he might. He had mentioned no specific day and that had seemed significant to her. She wished she were dressed a little more becomingly, but she had scorned to keep him waiting while she changed and restyled her hair. Besides, she was wearing a bonnet now.

“That is a rose arbor beside the house?” he asked, nodding in its direction.

“Yes,” she said. “My aunt’s creation and pride and joy. She loved her garden, and her garden loved her. I could plant a row of flower seeds at the correct distance from each other and at the correct depth and time of year. I could cover them carefully with soil and water them diligently—and never see them again. In the end I suggested an equitable division of labor. She would plant and I would enjoy.”

“Do you miss her?” he asked. “And your uncle? How long exactly has it been?”

“Fifteen months,” she said. “I thought the pain would grow duller with the passing of time. Then I thought that once my year of mourning was over and I put off my blacks, I would also put off the worst of my grief. And perhaps that has happened. But sometimes I think that grief is preferable to emptiness. At least grief is something. I have come to realize, I suppose, that they are not just dead. They are gone. There is nothing there where they were.”

They had walked through the copse of trees and crossed the humpbacked stone bridge, which five years ago had replaced a battered old wooden one over the stream that bubbled downhill and that she could watch and listen to for hours when she was alone. And they came to the top of the long slope that formed the western boundary of the garden. A week or two ago it had been thickly carpeted with golden daffodils and their bright green leaves. Some of them had died back, but there was still an impressive display.

“The rose arbor is lovely in the summer,” she said, “but I have always had a preference for the bank here in spring. The daffodils grow wild.”

“And you prefer wildness to cultivation?” he asked her.

“Perhaps,” she said. “I had not thought about it that way. But there could not possibly be a lovelier flower than the daffodil. A golden trumpet of hope.” She felt decidedly silly then. Golden trumpet of hope, indeed.

“Can we go down?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “They look even lovelier from down there.”

He offered his hand. She hesitated. She did not need assistance. She had been up and down this bank a thousand times. She had sat in the midst of the daffodils, hugging her knees. She had lain among them, arms spread wide, feeling the earth spin beneath her and watching the sky wheel overhead. But if she was going to marry him—and that was a large if on both their parts, it seemed—she was going to have to grow accustomed to his acting the gentleman. Miss Briggs had taught her all about the little details of gentility—how a gentleman was expected to behave toward a lady, how she was expected to behave toward him. She set her hand in his and it closed warmly and firmly about her own as they made their sedate way down, making her feel almost dainty, almost feminine. She usually half ran down the slope. Sometimes she even flapped her arms like wings and shrieked. Would not he be scandalized …

Perhaps, she thought when they had reached the bottom, their backs almost touching the rustic wooden boundary fence, gazing upward—her hand was still in his—perhaps if she wore yellow, or green, or some color other than the gray or the lavender of half mourning, she would recover her spirits more quickly. Perhaps the emptiness would seem less empty. Could the color one wore affect one’s spirit?

“You were very fond of them,” he said.

He was talking about her uncle and aunt again. She knew it was not just idle chatter. She knew he was trying to get to know her. He would probably want her to get to know him too. She had not thought of that in advance. She had somehow expected to choose a man almost upon instinct alone, with just a little research and very little personal acquaintance, make her offer, be accepted, marry him, and … And what? Live happily ever after? No, she was not that foolish. She just wanted to be married. All the way married. She wanted the physical things, and she wanted children. Plural, very definitely plural. She had not given much if any thought to getting to know her chosen husband, to allowing him to get to know her. It was almost as though she had expected their lives as a couple to begin on the day they met. No outside world. No histories. No baggage.

It would not be like that. Not with him, anyway. I will not marry you for your money alone, Miss Heyden. He had not ruled out marrying her. He had not even said that he would not marry her for her money. But he would not marry her just for the money. Which really meant that he would not marry her at all.

Do you value yourself so little …

“They were my life and my salvation,” she told him. “I knew we would lose my uncle. He was eighty-four years old, and his heart was weak and his breathing was sometimes labored. He did not take to his bed as often as many men in his condition would have done, and he never complained. He was still more active than perhaps he ought to have been and his mind was still sharp. But he had slowed down considerably, and we were all aware that the end was approaching. It would have been dreadfully sad, and I would have mourned him for a long time. But it would have been … What is the word? Acceptable? Everyone in the natural course of things loses elderly relatives. No one lives forever. But Aunt Megan’s death just before his was so sudden, so totally unexpected that—” She swallowed but could not go on. She did not need to, however. Her meaning was clear, and his grip on her hand tightened in obvious sympathy.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I am not the only person who has ever lost loved ones. You too have lost people you loved.”

“My father,” he said. “He frequently exasperated me. He lived his life upon far different principles from my own. He lived to enjoy life, and enjoy it he did. Perhaps it was not until after his death that I realized just how much I had loved him—and how much he had loved me.”

By unspoken consent they began to climb the hill again, picking their way among the daffodils so as not to crush any of them.

“Your aunt was elderly too?” he asked.

“Oh, not at all,” she said. “She was fifty-four. She was thirty-five when she took me to call upon the man who would become my uncle at his home in London. She went there to ask if he would help her find employment. She had once worked for him as companion to his first wife, who was an invalid for many years. He married Aunt Megan a week later and we went to live with him. They were happy. They shared their happiness with me and adopted me. I was the most blessed of mortals. I still am. He left me a vast fortune, Lord Riverdale. You will be entitled to know how vast, of course, if you decide to take matters further between us.”