Mary Balogh - A Summer to Remember

Now, three years later, Kit had been framing an answer to the duke’s words when the library door behind him was suddenly flung back against the bookshelves and his grace’s eyes had gone beyond Kit’s shoulder, his eyebrows rising haughtily.

“I fail to recall,” he had said, “inviting you to join me here, Freyja.”

But she had stridden into the room regardless and approached Kit’s chair, ignoring her brother. Kit had risen to make her a bow.

“You have certainly taken your time about leaving the pleasures of London behind,” she had said, tapping a riding whip against her skirt. “I am on my way out for a ride with Alleyne. If you wish to call upon me, Lord Ravensberg, you may make an appointment with Wulf and I will see if I am free that day.” She had turned to leave without waiting for his answer.

She had not changed in three years. Of slightly below medium height but generously endowed, she carried herself with proud grace. No one, even in her infancy, had ever called Freyja pretty. She was one of the fair Bedwyns and wore her thick golden hair as she had always liked to wear it, quite unfashionably, in long, loose waves down her back. Like the other fair Bedwyns, she had startlingly dark eyebrows and a dark-toned complexion. And the family nose. As a child she had been ugly to the point of freakishness. Then she had blossomed into young womanhood, and ugliness had been transformed into a startling handsomeness. She had always, from infancy on, been a spitfire.

“Lady Freyja,” Kit had murmured.

“If you had simply gone riding, Freyja,” her brother had said, still in his soft, pleasant voice, “instead of feeling constrained to announce in person your intention of not receiving Viscount Ravensberg, you might have been spared having to learn thus publicly what he has come here to inform me. He has recently become betrothed to Miss Lauren Edgeworth of Newbury. She will be coming to Alvesley within the next week or two.”

Freyja was not his sister and a Bedwyn for nothing. After a moment’s silence, she had turned her head back over her shoulder to smile at Kit—a baring of the teeth that bore a resemblance to a smile, anyway.

“Oh, well done, Kit,” she had said softly. “Well done indeed. You have learned subtleties you used not to know.”

She had left the room without another word.

Three years before, Kit had conceived a sudden, all-consuming passion for the woman who had been his playmate all through their childhood—she had always flatly refused to be excluded by her brothers and their friends even from their wildest exploits. She had seemed to return his sentiments in full measure. He had talked of marrying her and taking her back to the Peninsula with him to follow the drum. She had said nothing to discourage him. He had believed that summer that he would willingly die for her. And then, when Jerome had suddenly, without warning, announced his betrothal to her, Kit had thought he might well die of her betrayal. But that had been three years ago. Much water had passed beneath the proverbial bridge since then.

“Ah,” he said now, his mind back in his father’s drawing room, his eyes on that point just beyond the bridge where the deer forest ended, “here it comes.”

A carriage, unmistakably grand, drawn by four perfectly matched horses and escorted by outriders, had come into sight. There was no possibility that it was merely a neighbor come to call on his mother or grandmother.

Everyone was rising, he saw when he turned toward the door, even his grandmother with the aid of her cane. But of course. They would all do what was proper and come down to welcome the unwelcome guests with formal hospitality. He wished suddenly that it was a real betrothal, that it was a love match, that at last he would be able to convince his family—and keep them convinced—that he had done something that was right and responsible and good for the whole family when he had chosen the Honorable Miss Lauren Edgeworth to be his viscountess.

He would have offered his grandmother his arm, but his father was before him. He gave it to his mother instead, and they descended the stairs, walked through the echoing hall, and went out onto the steps together, without exchanging a word. He had always been the most troublesome of her three sons. If ever there were mischief to be got into—and there always had been—he had invariably been at the center of it, the instigator and main participant. But she had always loved him anyway. Sometimes she had even shed a tear over him after his father had finished with him in the study. Since his return—except for her first warm hug—he was not sure she loved him at all any longer.

The carriage was almost at the stables. Portfrey had sent them in his own coach, then, and surrounded them with all his ducal pomp. It was all so very damnably proper and ceremonial. Had he really imagined during that mad hour at Vauxhall that he could simply load her into a hired carriage the very next day and bring her here to surprise his parents with their announcement?

He moved away from his mother’s side and ran down the steps to the terrace. Deuce take it but this felt strange. He was about to see her again. Their grand masquerade was about to begin. Was she nervous?

And then the carriage rolled to a halt, one of the postilions jumped down to open the door and set down the steps, and Kit stepped forward, smiling and stretching up a hand. He was half aware of the other two ladies, but it was Lauren Edgeworth who leaned forward and set her gloved hand in his.

He had half forgotten how very beautiful and elegant she was. Her dove-gray traveling dress and bonnet, both with violet trim, appeared quite uncreased by the long journey. She looked fresh and lovely and perfectly composed.

“Lauren.” He handed her down and bent his head to kiss her cheek, though somehow he caught one corner of her mouth as well.

“Kit.”

They had agreed at Vauxhall—or rather he had persuaded her—that they should use each other’s given name, but they had not done so until now. He squeezed her hand, still clasped in his own, and grinned at her. Suddenly a two-week-long depression lifted like a physical weight from his shoulders and he felt a surge of confidence and exhilaration at the prospect of the days ahead. Lauren really had been the right choice for him, even if only for the summer. And there was to be all the challenge of getting her to change her mind about the summer’s ending. He loved challenges.

“Aunt Clara,” Lauren said as he turned back to the carriage and gave his hand to the older of the two ladies within, “this is Kit, Viscount Ravensberg. My aunt, the Dowager Countess of Kilbourne.”

She was a smart, handsome lady with shrewd eyes and proud demeanor.

“Ma’am,” he said, making his bow to her after handing her down.

“And Gwendoline, Lady Muir, my cousin.”

He handed down the younger lady, who was very small, very blond, and very pretty. She looked at him with sparkling, frankly assessing eyes as he bowed to her.

Then it was time to turn and make the introductions to his family, who were waiting on the steps. All was accomplished in a manner that was perfectly smooth, perfectly civil. If Lauren was feeling any misgivings, any nervousness, she certainly was not showing it. Neither were his parents showing in any way at all that their son’s betrothal was anything but perfectly acceptable to them. His grandmother, when they were introduced, even took Lauren’s hand in her good one and drew her down for a kiss.

“Pretty,” she said, nodding in that way she had of indicating that she would say far more if she could. “Might have . . . known . . . Kit would choose a . . . pretty one.”

Lauren showed no discomfort at having to wait an inordinately long time for the short sentence to be completed. She was smiling—yes, actually—and giving his grandmother her full attention.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she said.

But Kit had suddenly noticed Sydnam standing on the top step, inconspicuous in the shadow of one of the pillars, half turned so that his left side faced out. Kit took Lauren by the elbow.

“There is someone else I want you to meet,” he said and led her up the steps. He half expected Syd to flee through the open door, but he stood his ground. “My brother Sydnam. Lauren Edgeworth, my betrothed, Syd.”

If she felt shock as she saw him fully, she gave no sign, not even a stiffening of her elbow against his hand. When viewed from his left profile, Syd was as extraordinarily good-looking as he had been all his life. But as soon as he turned, the beholder could see his empty right sleeve pinned neatly against his coat, the purple marks of the old burns discoloring and immobilizing the right side of his face and neck, and the black patch over his right eye socket. Beauty and the beast occupying the two halves of the same body.

Syd held out his left hand, and she did not hesitate to take it in her left so that they could exchange a handshake that was not awkward.

“Mr. Butler.”

“Miss Edgeworth, welcome to Alvesley,” Syd said. “Has your journey been very tedious?”

“Not at all,” she replied. “I had the company of my aunt and cousin, you see, and the knowledge that Kit would be here waiting for me at the end of it.”

Kit looked at her appreciatively. She sounded so warmly convincing that he felt a foolish lurching of pleasure in the region of his heart.

But his mother was, as always, the perfect hostess. She would accompany the ladies to their rooms, she told them, coming to join them on the top step, so that they might have an opportunity to freshen up before tea was served in the drawing room. She took Lauren’s arm, drawing her away from both her sons, and led the way inside while Lady Kilbourne and Lady Muir followed behind. Lady Muir limped, Kit noticed.

Gwendoline was playing the pianoforte while the Earl of Redfield stood behind the bench, turning the pages of the music for her. The countess and Aunt Clara were seated side by side on a love seat nearby, alternately listening to Bach and conversing with each other. Sydnam Butler was sitting on the window seat at the opposite end of the drawing room, where he had been ever since they had moved here from the dining room following dinner, slightly turned so that his right side was in the shadow of the heavy velvet curtains. What had happened to him? Viscount Ravensberg—Kit—moved about the room, smiling, genial, occasionally interjecting a remark into a conversation, but not becoming a part of any group, and never approaching his brother.

He looked restless, rather like a caged animal of the wild.

Lauren had spent almost the whole evening seated beside the dowager countess, Kit’s grandmother, close to the fire, though she had obliged the company by taking her turn briefly at the pianoforte. She had told the old lady about Newbury Abbey, about the weeks she had recently spent in London, about the few entertainments in which she had participated there. She had also listened. It was not easy to do when the dowager’s speech was halting, punctuated by long, painful pauses as she tried to form words. It was tempting to interrupt, to supply the words she knew were about to be spoken, to complete sentences whose endings she could guess long before the words were out. It was what the earl and countess tended to do, Lauren had noticed both at tea and at dinner. Perhaps they were embarrassed for her in the company of guests. Perhaps they thought they did her a kindness. But it seemed unfortunate to Lauren.

She listened, giving the old lady her full attention, keeping her expression bright and interested. Nevertheless there was a great deal of time in which to think and observe. She had been welcomed to Alvesley with meticulous courtesy but perhaps without warmth. But she had not expected warmth. Courtesy was enough. Kit had played his part well. He had looked so delighted to see her, in fact, that Gwen had been totally beguiled. She had come into Lauren’s room before they went down to tea together, hugged her, and beamed at her.

“Lauren,” she had said, “he is quite gorgeous. That smile! And when he kissed you for all to see as soon as your feet touched the ground, I could have quite swooned with the romance of it.” She had laughed merrily. “You said he could be quite outrageous.”

That last remark had not been a criticism, though the kiss, brief peck though it had been, had almost robbed Lauren of her poise.

There had been almost no communication between him and his parents since her arrival, she had noticed. All three of them had spoken with her, with Aunt Clara, with Gwen. But not with one another. They were very upset with him, then, over this betrothal when they had hoped for another for him? And perhaps none of them could forget that he had fought with his elder brother three years ago, presumably over the woman they had both wanted to marry, and that afterward the earl had sent him away and told him never to return. How bitter an experience it must have been for the earl to see his eldest son die and suddenly to have his exiled second son as the new heir. And how doubly bitter to Kit to know that his banishment had been revoked only because of his elder brother’s death.