Mary Balogh - A Summer to Remember

Lady Freyja Bedwyn was wearing riding clothes, including boots, in the middle of the afternoon and in the drawing room. She was not at all pretty or dainty or softly feminine in demeanor. She wore her fair hair in a mass of loose, unruly curls about her shoulders and halfway down her back. She sat with one leg crossed over the other in a shockingly unladylike posture and was swinging the dangling foot while looking Lauren over from head to toe with narrow-eyed thoroughness.

Their progress down the room took only a few seconds, Lauren supposed. It seemed to take five minutes at the very least. His grace inclined his head when they were close.

“Ravensberg,” he said. His voice was soft and quite arctic in tone.

“Bewcastle?” Kit replied with his usual good humor. He might even, Lauren realized suddenly, be enjoying this reception his neighbors and erstwhile friends had obviously orchestrated for his discomfort. “I have the pleasure of presenting my betrothed, the Honorable Miss Lauren Edgeworth of Newbury Abbey. His grace, the Duke of Bewcastle, Lauren.”

Lauren found herself being regarded from a pair of keen, heavy-lidded silver eyes that had her thinking of wolves. A matter of association, perhaps? Had Kit not said that his given name was Wulfric?

“Miss Edgeworth,” he said in the same courteous, arctic tone as she curtsied. “May I present Lady Freyja Bedwyn, Lady Morgan with her governess, Miss Cowper, and Lord Alleyne.”

Yes, she had correctly identified Lady Freyja, Lauren saw as she curtsied to each of them and Lord Alleyne Bedwyn bowed to her, his eyes doing to her what his sister’s had just done, except that this time she felt as if garments were being stripped away with the progress of his eyes.

“We have come on an errand from my mother. She requests that all of you attend my grandmother’s birthday celebrations,” Kit said cheerfully. “Though we would be happy to have you put in an appearance any time before then too. A houseful of family guests will be arriving tomorrow, and we already have with us the Dowager Countess of Kilbourne and Lady Muir, her daughter.”

“Lady Redfield is kind,” his grace said. “Miss Edgeworth, have a seat. Miss Cowper, see to it that the tea tray is brought up.”

The governess got to her feet, curtsied without lifting her eyes to her employer, and hurried from the room.

Lauren took the chair indicated.

“Kilbourne,” Lady Freyja said, frowning, one long-nailed forefinger against her chin. “There is a familiarity. Ah, yes. Did not the present countess appear at Newbury under rather spectacular circumstances to prevent the earl from making a bigamous marriage?”

“In the nick of time, Free, I understand,” Lord Alleyne said with languid hauteur. “The wedding service had begun. The bride was already blushing.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” Lady Freyja said—and then looked arrested. “But the abandoned bride . . . Not you, Miss Edgeworth?” Malice gleamed in her eyes.

“You have been quite correctly informed in the matter,” Lauren said.

“But how unpardonably rude of me inadvertently to have reminded you of such a humiliation,” Lady Freyja said, still nonchalantly swinging her booted foot. “Do forgive me.”

It was just such mockery as this that Lauren had feared when she went to London. This was the first time she had actually to face it. “There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “We all speak rather too hastily on occasion.” She smiled and turned her attention to the duke. “I had time to admire the oak screen in the hall below, your grace. The carvings are remarkably well preserved. Are they original?”

For fifteen minutes, almost until the moment when they could decently take their leave, Lauren skillfully led the conversation, focusing it upon impersonal topics in which they could all participate, refusing to be cowed by the deliberate reluctance of the Bedwyns to allow the chilled atmosphere to warm by a single degree.

“Do you ride, Miss Edgeworth?” Lady Freyja asked suddenly in the very middle of a discussion on the merits of spending at least a part of the year in town.

“Of course,” Lauren said.

“To hounds?”

“No, I have never done so.”

“But you consider yourself an accomplished horsewoman?”

“It depends upon what you mean by accomplished,” Lauren said. “Of course I can—”

“Do you gallop across country?” Lady Freyja asked. “Do you jump hedges rather than find a gate to open? Do you risk your neck for the sheer thrill of feeling horseflesh between your thighs?”

One’s training as a lady could sometimes be a boon indeed. The vulgarity of those final words had been intended to shock, and they had succeeded. How could Lady Freyja speak so in the presence of gentlemen? And did she really ride astride? But not by even the flicker of an eyelid did Lauren display her intense discomfort.

“No,” she said, smiling. “In that sense I am afraid I am not at all accomplished.”

“Do you swim?”

“No.” This was not the time to boast of being able to float.

“Or play cricket?”

A gentleman’s sport? “No.”

“Or shoot?”

Gracious! “Indeed not.”

“Or fish?”

“I have never tried it.”

“Or play billiards?”

“No.”

“What do you do, Miss Edgeworth?” Lady Freyja asked, open contempt in both her voice and her eyes, having succeeded in making Lauren seem as dull and helpless as it was possible for a fellow human to be.

No one rushed to help out—not even Kit, who merely looked curiously at her. Everyone else focused upon her incredibly dull self with cold courtesy, except perhaps Miss Cowper, who looked anxious, as if she knew what it was like to be an object of Lady Freyja’s scorn.

“I have a number of the accomplishments expected of a lady of good ton,” Lauren said, looking Lady Freyja directly in the eye, “though I do not boast of genius in any one of them. I am adept at various kinds of needlework, I keep household accounts, I speak French and Italian as well as English, I sketch, play the pianoforte, sing, write letters that my family and acquaintances find legible and interesting and prompt, read books to improve my mind and conversation. Ah, and I have learned the difficult art of courtesy under all circumstances. In particular I always consider it my duty when at home to set my guests at their ease and to lead the conversation into topics that will neither embarrass them nor expose their ignorance.”

Lord Alleyne sat with pursed lips, his eyes alight with laughter, Lauren saw as she got to her feet to take her leave and the gentlemen followed suit.

“We will hope to see you all at Alvesley soon,” Kit said.

“It has been a pleasure, your grace,” Lauren said, addressing the duke. “Thank you for your kind hospitality.”

He inclined his head without taking his eyes from her. “The pleasure has been all mine, Miss Edgeworth,” he said.

Kit offered his arm and they walked the length of the drawing room again, both the silence and the eyes directed at their backs this time.

“A milk-and-water miss!” Lady Freyja said with unconcealed contempt almost before the drawing room doors had finished closing behind the departing guests. “Kit surely cannot be serious!”

Lord Alleyne chuckled. “But I believe the lady won the first round of hostilities, Free,” he said. “Quite resoundingly, in fact. She left you with your mouth gaping.”

“Nonsense!” she said crossly. “She will bore him silly within a month. Needlework, sketching, household accounts, French, Italian, singing—yawn, yawn! What can someone who looks as if she has just swallowed a prune and who sits oh-so-correctly, without touching the back of her chair, and who sips from her teacup as if she had never heard of such a thing as an honest-to-goodness thirst, and who converses on—on medieval screens, for the love of God—what can such a sorry creature have to offer Kit?”

“A word of advice, Freyja,” the duke said in the soft, pleasant voice that somehow succeeded in sending shivers of apprehension along the spines of most of the people who ever came within earshot of it. “It is always wise when one engages in any sport to look to one’s defenses and not set oneself up for an unnecessary hit.”

“I did not—” she began.

But even Lady Freyja was not proof against the haughtily raised eyebrows and steady silver gaze of his grace.

“And it is never worthy of a Bedwyn,” he concluded before vacating the fireplace and the room, “to wear the heart upon the sleeve.”

Freyja’s nostrils flared and her mouth opened. But she knew better than to fling defiance at her brother’s back. She waited until he had left before venting her fury upon a more vulnerable object.

“Do wipe that stupid grin off your face,” she commanded her younger brother, “or I may feel compelled to do it for you.”

Lord Alleyne presented her with an instant poker face that further incensed her.

“And you,” she said, stabbing a forefinger in the direction of her younger sister, “ought to be in the schoolroom. I cannot imagine what Wulf was thinking, to allow you down to receive visitors he ought not to have received at all.”

Miss Cowper rose to her feet in instant alarm.

“I daresay, Freyja,” Lady Morgan said placidly, not moving, “he expected to derive some satisfaction from watching Miss Edgeworth fall into a dither at the sight of so many sober, silent Bedwyns. I daresay he will be annoyed with Ralf for eluding the summons. But I do believe, with Alleyne and Wulf, that she is going to be a worthy foe. She did not collapse at all, did she? And Kit was laughing the whole while. I could see it in his eyes.”

“Lord Ravensberg to you,” Freyja said sharply.

“He told me,” Lady Morgan retorted, “when I was five years old and he carried me on his shoulders one day when I could not keep up to all of you, that I was to call him Kit. So you never mind, Freyja.”

She got to her feet and made a triumphant exit, Miss Cowper trotting along in her wake while Lord Alleyne chuckled again.

“Little spitfire,” he said. “She may outshine us all yet, Free.”

Lady Freyja has been hurt,” Lauren said. “No.” Kit took her by the hand and drew her arm through his. “I think not. Her pride has been bruised, that is all.”

They zigzagged their way along the gravel paths of the formal parterres, the hem of Lauren’s light sprigged muslin dress brushing against the floral clusters that spilled over from the borders. They were headed toward the wilderness walk among the trees, from which Kit had emerged a mere five minutes before with Lady Kilbourne and Lady Muir. His grandmother had walked as far as the rose arbor with them and had then tried to insist that they all leave her there to enjoy the fragrant air while they continued their walk. But Lauren had insisted upon staying with her to keep her company.

There was a quiet kindness about Lauren Edgeworth that one might well not notice unless one was observing closely. Kit was observing.

“Are you sure that is all?” she asked now.

They had spoken very little on the way back from Lindsey Hall, as if by mutual consent they had decided to keep their impressions to themselves until they had properly digested them. But now they had been thrown together again by his grandmother, who had insisted they stroll for a time while the other ladies accompanied her back to the house.

“We shared a brief romance three years ago, Lauren,” he said. “It was very brief after a lifetime of being simply friends and playmates. Then she betrothed herself to Jerome, I made an ass of myself by fighting both him and Ralf, and I went off back to the Peninsula, where I belonged. It would be absurd to imagine that she has worn the willow for me ever since. That simply is not Freyja’s way.”

“Is it yours?” They stepped beyond the parterres to cross the narrow stretch of lawn to the little humpbacked bridge spanning the stream that gurgled its way down over a stone-studded bed to join the river.

“Have I harbored a secret passion for her all this time, do you mean?” he asked. “No, of course not. It was briefly conceived, soon forgotten. Besides, Lauren, I would hardly admit to stronger emotions for her in your presence, would I? It would be in execrable taste.”

“Why?” she asked. “Our betrothal is only a temporary thing, after all. There is no need to hide the truth from me out of tact. Did you love her? Do you?”