First Comes Marriage

21

VANESSA had expected her task of introducing her sisters to the /ton /to be an onerous one. She was as new to society as they were, after all, even if she /was /married to a viscount, heir to a dukedom. She knew practically nothing and no one.

But it turned out not to be very difficult after all. All that had been needed was her respectable position as a lady married to a gentleman of the /ton/. Elliott more than qualified in that role.

They were something of a curiosity, the three sisters. Vanessa because she had recently married one of England's most eligible bachelors.

Margaret and Katherine because they were the sisters of the new Earl of Merton, who had turned out to be very youthful and very handsome and very attractive despite - or perhaps because of - a certain lack of town bronze. And Margaret and Katherine had the added attraction of being rare beauties.

The /ton, /Vanessa soon learned, was always avidly interested in seeing new faces, hearing new stories, getting wind of new scandals. The story of the new earl and his sisters having been found in a remote country village, living in a cottage smaller than most people's garden shed - the /ton /also had a strong tendency to hyperbole - captured the collective imagination and fed drawing-room conversations for a week or more. As did the fact that one of those sisters had captured the hand, if not the heart, of no less a personage than Viscount Lyngate. She was /not /a beauty, and therefore one must not suppose that it was a love match - though if it was not, it was strange that he had not married the /eldest /sister. And there was a positive swell of interest when word spread that Mrs. Bromley-Hayes had been dropped like a hot brick as Viscount Lyngate's mistress after she was seen in company with the viscountess one afternoon in Hyde Park.

The viscountess's prestige rose significantly.

The Huxtables were invited everywhere fashionable people were invited - to balls, soirees, concerts, picnics, Venetian breakfasts, dinners, theater parties… The list was endless. They could, in fact, have been busy merrymaking every day from morning to night. Well, perhaps not morning as they defined it. Most people slept until past noon, having danced or played cards or conversed or otherwise diverted themselves almost all night long.

It amused Vanessa to discover that an invitation to breakfast actually was an invitation to a meal beginning in the middle of the afternoon. It amazed her that most people seemed perfectly content to begin their day in the afternoon and end it early in the morning.

What a sad waste of daylight and sunshine!

She accompanied her sisters to numerous entertainments, but she did not have to make any great effort to introduce them to people whose names she often could not recall herself or to find conversational groups for them to join or partners for them to dance with. As Elliott had predicted, they met the same people almost wherever they went, and names, faces, and titles soon became more familiar.

Margaret and Katherine soon acquired friends and acquaintances, and each very quickly had a court of admirers - as did Vanessa herself, to her great amazement. Young gentlemen whose names she scarcely remembered asked her to dance or offered to fetch her refreshments or to escort her on a stroll about a garden or dance floor. One or two even offered to drive her in the park or to ride on Rotten Row with her.

It was not an uncommon occurrence, of course, for married ladies to have their cicisbei. And she remembered Elliott telling her at the theater that it was quite unexceptionable for a married lady to be escorted in a public place by a man who was not her husband.

It spoke volumes to Vanessa about the state of marriage among the /ton, /though she had no wish to behave as others did. If Elliott could not be with her, she preferred the company of her sisters or her mother-in-law to that of some strange gentleman.

She was not unhappy during the weeks following her presentation at court.

She was not particularly happy either.

There had been something of a reticence between her and Elliott since the day on which she had confronted him over the matter of Mrs.

Bromley-Hayes. They were not estranged. He accompanied her to many entertainments, especially in the evenings. He conversed with her whenever the opportunity presented itself. He made love to her each night. He slept in her bed.

But there was…something. Some sense of strain.

She believed him, and yet she was hurt. Not hurt that he had had a mistress before marrying her - that would have been unreasonable. Hurt perhaps because he had visited his ex-mistress after marrying her and would have said nothing to her if she had not found out on her own. And hurt perhaps because Mrs. Bromley-Hayes was beautiful in every imaginable way - physically at least.

There was nothing wrong with her marriage, Vanessa kept telling herself.

There was only everything right with it, in fact. She had a husband who paid attention to her, who was faithful to her, who had sworn to remain faithful. She was well blessed. What more could she ask for? /His heart?/ If one had the moon and the stars, must one be greedy for the sun too?

It seemed that the answer was yes.

Katherine treated her court of admirers much as she had done in Throckbridge. She smiled kindly and indulgently upon them all, granted them all equal favors, /liked /them all. But when asked, she would admit that there was no one special among them. "Do you not /want /someone special in your life?" Vanessa asked her one morning when they were taking a brisk walk through an almost deserted park. "Of course I do," Katherine said with something of a sigh. "But that is it, you see, Nessie. He must /be /special. I am coming to the conclusion that there is no such person, that I am looking for an impossibility.

But that cannot be so, can it? Hedley was special to you, and Lord Lyngate is. How I envied you when I watched you waltzing together at Cecily's come-out ball. If it has happened to you twice, is it too much to ask that it happen to me just once?" "Oh, it will," Vanessa assured her, taking her arm and squeezing it. "I am glad you will settle for no less than love. And what about Meg?" Their sister was not with them. She had gone to Hookham's library with the Marquess of Allingham. "And the marquess, you mean?" Katherine said. "I do believe he is seriously courting her." "And will she have him?" Vanessa asked. "I do not know," Katherine admitted. "She seems to favor him. Certainly she pays no attention to anyone else, though there are several eligible and personable gentlemen interested in her. She does not behave as if she were in love, though, does she?" It was true. Meg was far more concerned with trying to control Stephen's movements and with encouraging Kate to enjoy herself as much as she was able and with assuring herself that Vanessa was happy than with forging a new life for herself.

Yet the marquess, who really was an amiable gentleman, was very attentive.

And Crispin Dew was married. There was no point in pining any further for him. Ah, easy for /her /to say, Vanessa thought. "Meg never will talk about herself, will she?" Katherine said. "I have never particularly noticed before, but it is true. That is why I never knew about Crispin Dew, I suppose. Oh, Nessie, did she care for him so very much?" "I fear she did," Vanessa said. "But perhaps given time she will find someone else. Perhaps he will even be the Marquess of Allingham. She seems to enjoy his company." But it was a hope soon to be dashed.

When Vanessa arrived at Merton House one afternoon a week or so later, she found Stephen in the hallway, about to go out with Constantine. They were to go to the races. He was frowning. "Dash it all, Nessie," he said, "when will Meg learn that she is my sister, not my mother? And when will she learn that I am seventeen years old, going on eighteen, and far too old to be kept in leading strings?" "Oh, dear," she said, "what has happened?" "Allingham came here earlier," he said, "and asked to speak with me. It was dashed decent of him since I /am /only seventeen and he must be twice that and Meg is twenty-five. He came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to her." "Oh, Stephen," Vanessa said, clasping her hands to her bosom. "And…?" "And of course I said yes," he said. "I was delighted actually. He does not have the best of tailors or boot-makers, perhaps, but he rides to an inch and is reputed to be the devil of a fine fellow and it doesn't really matter that he is not very tall. He has /presence/. And Meg has spent enough time with him in the last few weeks, the Lord knows. One could be forgiven for thinking that she would welcome an offer from him." "But she did not?" she asked. "Refused him out of hand," he said. "Ah," Vanessa said. "She was not fond enough of him after all, then?" "I dashed well don't know," he said. "She refuses to say. Says that has nothing to do with anything. She had made that infernal promise to Papa and she is going to keep it, by God, until I am twenty-one and Kate is married." "Oh, dear," Vanessa said. "I thought perhaps she would consider that things have changed somewhat." "As they dashed well have," he said. "I am /Merton /now, Nessie. I have land and a fortune and a /life/. I have new friends. I have a future. It is not that I don't love Meg. It is not that I am not grateful for all she has done for me since Papa died. I will /never /forget, and I will /always /be grateful. But I resent having to account for my every movement every single hour of the day. And I resent being made the cause of her rejecting the best marriage offer she will probably ever have. If she does not like him well enough, then fine. I applaud her having the gumption to refuse him. But if it is not that… If it is just me…

Ah, this must be Constantine."

He brightened considerably.

Vanessa had no wish to come face-to-face with their cousin. She patted Stephen's arm. "I'll see what she has to say," she said. "Have fun." "Oh, I will," he said. "Constantine is a capital fellow. So is Lyngate, Nessie, I must confess. He keeps an eye on me, it is true, but he does not try to put leading strings on me." He left the house without waiting for Constantine to knock on the door.

Margaret was tight-lipped and uncommunicative when Vanessa arrived in the drawing room and explained that she had just been talking with Stephen. "The trouble with our brother," Margaret said, "is that he thinks his new circumstances have added four years or so to his life. But the truth is, Nessie, that he is still a boy, and a boy who is becoming more rebellious by the hour." "He is a boy who perhaps needs a somewhat less firm hand on his reins," Vanessa suggested. "Oh, not you too," Margaret said, clearly exasperated. "He should be at Warren Hall with his tutors." "And soon he will be," Vanessa said. "He also needs to become acquainted with the world that awaits him when he reaches his majority. But let us not quarrel over him. The Marquess of Allingham has paid his addresses to you?" "It was very obliging of him," Margaret said. "But I have said no, of course." "Of course?" Vanessa raised her eyebrows. "I thought perhaps you were growing fond of him." "Then you thought wrongly," Margaret said. "You of all people ought to know that I cannot even consider marriage until I have fulfilled the obligation to our family that I took on eight years ago." "But Elliott and I live close to Warren Hall," Vanessa said. "And Kate will reach her majority in a few months' time. Stephen will be at university for most of the next several years. By that time he will be a full adult." "But that time is not yet," Margaret said.

Vanessa tipped her head to one side and regarded her closely. "Do you not /want /to marry, Meg?" she asked. /"Ever?"/ Crispin Dew had much to answer for, she thought.

Margaret spread her hands on her lap and contemplated the backs of them. "If I do not," she said, "the time will come when I will have to live at Warren Hall with Stephen's wife as the mistress. Or at Finchley Park with you. Or with Kate somewhere and /her /husband. I suppose the time will come when I will marry anyone who is kind enough to offer. But not yet." Vanessa stared at her bent head. There was a lengthy silence. "Meg," she said eventually, "Stephen probably does not know about… about Crispin, unless Kate has said anything to him. He thinks your refusal of the Marquess of Allingham is all about /him/." "And so it is," Margaret said. "No, it is not," Vanessa said. "It is about Crispin." Margaret lifted her head to look at her, a frown creasing her brow. "Stephen needs to know that," Vanessa said. "He needs to know that he is not responsible for keeping you from happiness." "Stephen /is /my happiness," Margaret said fiercely. "As are you and Kate." "And so you put fetters upon all of us," Vanessa said. "I love you dearly, Meg. I love Kate and Stephen too. But I would not describe any of you as /my happiness/. My happiness cannot come from another person." "Not even Lord Lyngate?" Margaret asked her. "Or Hedley?" Vanessa shook her head. "Not even Hedley or Elliott," she said. "My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones." Margaret got to her feet and walked to the window to stare down on Berkeley Square below. "You do not understand, Nessie," she said. "/Nobody /understands. When I made my promise to Papa, I knew I was making a twelve-year commitment - until Stephen reached his majority. I am eight years into that commitment. I am not going to shrug free of the remaining four years just because our circumstances have changed, just because you are happily married and Kate is being courted by half a dozen or more eligible gentlemen and Stephen is chafing at the bit to be free. Or because I have had a good offer and might go off to Northumberland to begin a new life and leave Kate and Stephen to your care and Lord Lyngate's. This has /nothing /to do with Crispin Dew. It has nothing to do with /anything /except a promise freely made and gladly carried out.

I /love /you all. I will /not /abandon my duty even if Stephen finds it irksome. I /will /not." Vanessa moved up beside her and wrapped an arm about her waist. "Let's go shopping," she said. "I saw the most glorious bonnet yesterday, but it was royal blue and would not suit me at all. It will look quite ravishing on you, though. Come and see it before someone else buys it. Where is Kate, by the way?" "She has gone for a carriage ride with Miss Flaxley and Lord Bretby and Mr. Ames," Margaret said. "I have more bonnets than I know what to do with, Nessie." "Then one more will be neither here nor there," Vanessa said. "Let's go." "Oh, Nessie." Margaret laughed shakily. "Whatever would I do without you?" "You would have more room in your wardrobe, that is for sure," Vanessa said, and they both laughed.

With a heavy heart, though, Vanessa arrived home at Moreland House a couple of hours later. The unhappiness of one's loved ones was often harder to bear than one's own, she thought - and Meg was undoubtedly unhappy.

Not that /she /was unhappy. It was just that…

Well, it was just that she had known delirious happiness during her honeymoon and again for a few days before and after her presentation.

And that happiness had made her greedy for more.

She could not force herself to be contented with a marriage that was just workable and agreeable.

She was, of course, almost certain that she was with child. Perhaps /that /would make a difference. But why should it? She was merely performing the function for which he had married her.

But oh, dear - she was pregnant with Elliott's child and her own. With /their /child. She so desperately wanted to be happy again. Not just happy within herself, despite what she had said to Meg earlier. She wanted to be happy with /him/. She wanted him to be ecstatic with joy when she told him. She wanted…

Well, she wanted the sun, of course.

How very foolish she was.

There were not many free evenings. It seemed like a rare treat when one occasionally presented itself.

On one such evening Cecily had gone to the theater with a group of friends, under the chaperonage of the mother of one of them. Elliott retired to the library after dinner. His mother, who sat drinking tea and conversing with Vanessa in the drawing room, could not hide her yawns and finally excused herself, pleading total exhaustion. "I feel," she said as Vanessa kissed her cheek, "as if I could sleep for a week." "I daresay one good night of uninterrupted sleep will suffice," Vanessa said. "But if it does not, then I will chaperone Cecily at the garden party tomorrow and you may have a quiet day. Good night, Mother." "You are always so good," her mother-in-law said. "How very glad I am that Elliott married you. Good night, Vanessa." Vanessa sat alone for a while, reading her book. But the growingly familiar feeling of slight depression settled upon her and distracted her attention from the adventures of Odysseus as he tried to return to Ithaca and his Penelope.

Elliott was downstairs in the library and she was up here in the drawing room during a precious evening when they were both at home. Would this be the pattern of their married life?

Would she /allow /it to be?

Perhaps he would come up here if he knew his mother had gone to bed and she was alone.

Perhaps he would resent her going down there.

And perhaps, she thought finally, getting resolutely to her feet and keeping one finger inside the book to mark her place, she ought to go and find out. This was her home too, after all, and he was her husband.

And they were not estranged. They had not quarreled. If they drifted apart into a distant relationship, then it would be at least partly her fault if she had not tried to do something about it.

She tapped on the library door and opened it even as he called to her to come in.

There was a fire burning in the hearth even though it was not a cold evening. He was seated in a deep leather chair to one side of it, a book open in one hand. The library was a room she loved, with its tall bookcases filled with leather-bound books lining three walls and its old oak desk large enough for three people to lie across side by side.

It was far cozier than the drawing room. She did not blame Elliott for choosing to sit here for the evening. Tonight it looked more inviting than ever. So did he. He was slightly slouched in his chair. One of his ankles was resting on the knee of the other leg. "Your mother is tired," she said. "She has gone to bed. Do you mind if I join you?" He scrambled to his feet. "I hope you will," he said, indicating the chair opposite his own, on the other side of the fire.

A log crackled in the hearth, sending a shower of sparks upward into the chimney.

She sat and smiled at him and then, because she could not think of anything to say, she opened her book, cleared her throat, and began to read.

He did likewise, without the throat clearing. He no longer slouched. He had both feet on the floor.

Her seat was too deep for her. She either had to sit with straight back against the rest and feet dangling a few inches off the floor or with feet flat on the floor and back arched like a bow against the rest or with feet flat on the floor and back ramrod straight and unsupported.

After a few minutes, during which she tried all three positions and found none of them comfortable, she kicked off her slippers, curled her feet up on the seat beside her, settling her skirt about her as she did so, and nestled the side of her head against the wing of the chair. She gazed into the fire and then glanced at Elliott.

He was looking steadily back at her. "It is not ladylike, I know," she said apologetically. "My mother and father were forever telling me to sit properly. But I am short and most chairs are too large for me. Besides, I am comfortable like this." "You /look /comfortable," he said.

She smiled at him and somehow neither of them resumed reading. They just looked at each other. "Tell me about your father," she said softly.

She had kept remembering his mother telling her that she had hoped he would be different from his father. Elliott never spoke of him.

He continued to stare at her for a while. Then he turned his gaze on the fire and set his book down on the table beside him. "I adored him," he said. "He was my great hero, the rock of my existence. He was the model of all I aspired to be when I grew up.

Everything I did was done to please him. He used to be away from home for long spells at a time. I lived for his return. When I was very young, I used to camp out at the gates of the park watching for his horse or carriage and on the rare occasion when he came while I was there, I would be taken up beside him and made much of before my mother and sisters could have their turn. When I was older and started getting into scrapes with Con, my behavior was always tempered by the fear of disappointing my father or inciting his wrath. When I began sowing wild oats as a young man, part of me worried that I would never be worthy of him, that I would never measure up to the standard he had set." He was silent for a while. Vanessa did not attempt to say anything. She sensed that there was more to come. There was pain in his eyes and his voice, a frown line between his brows. "There was never a closer, happier family than ours," he said. "Never a husband more devoted to his wife or a father more devoted to his children. Life was in many ways idyllic despite his long absences. It was filled with love. More than anything else in this world I wanted a marriage and a family like his. I wanted to bask in his approval. I wanted people to be able to say of us, 'Like father, like son.' " Vanessa let her book close on her lap without marking her place and clasped her arms with her hands, though she ought not to have been cold when she sat so close to the fire. "And then a year and a half ago," he said, "he died suddenly in the bed of his mistress." Vanessa stared at him, shocked beyond words. "They had been together for more than thirty years," he told her, "a little longer than he had been married to my mother. They had five children, the youngest fifteen, a little younger than Cecily, the eldest thirty, a little older than me." "Oh," Vanessa said. "He had provided well for his mistress in the event of his death," he said. "He had placed two of his sons in steady, lucrative employment.

The third was still at a good school. He had found respectable, well-to-do husbands for his two daughters. He had spent as much of his time with that family as he had with mine." "Oh, Elliott," she said, so aware of his pain that her eyes filled with tears.

He looked at her. "The funny thing was," he said, "that I knew about my grandfather and /his /other family. His mistress of more than forty years died only ten years ago. There were offspring of that liaison too. I even knew that it was a sort of family tradition - a way in which we Wallace men proved our masculinity and our superiority over our women, I suppose. But it never once occurred to me that perhaps my father had upheld that tradition too." "Oh, Elliott." She could think of nothing else to say. "I believe," he said, "the whole world must have known except me. How I could /not /have known, I do not know. I spent enough time here in town after I came down from Oxford, heaven knows, and I thought I knew everything that was happening among the /ton, /even the seamier goings-on. But I never heard so much as a whisper about my own father.

My mother knew - she had always known. Even Jessica knew." She tried to imagine how his whole world must have shattered just over a year ago. "Everything," he said as if he had read her thoughts. "Everything I knew, everything I had lived and believed - /everything /was an illusion, a lie. I thought we had our father's undivided love. I thought perhaps I was extra-special because I was the son, the heir, the one who would take his place eventually. But he had a son older than I and one almost exactly the same age and three other children. It was hard to grasp that fact. It is /still /hard. All those years my mother was nothing to him except the legal wife who had provided him with the legal heir. And I was nothing to him except that legal heir." "Oh, Elliott." She unfolded her legs from the chair, got to her feet, not even noticing her book thudding to the floor, and hurried across to him. She sat on his lap, burrowed her arms about his waist, and nestled her head against his shoulder. "You do not know that. You were his /son/. Your sisters were his /daughters/. He did not necessarily love you the less because he had other children elsewhere. Love is not a finite commodity that will stretch only so far. It is infinite. Don't doubt that he loved you. Please don't." "All those lies," he said, setting his head back against the chair. "About how busy he had to be in London, about how much he hated leaving, and then about how much he had missed us, how lonely he had been without us, how very glad he was to be back home. All lies, doubtless repeated to his other family when he returned to them." She lifted her head to look into his face and drew her hands free so that she could smooth her fingers through his hair. "Don't," she said. "Don't doubt everything, Elliott. If he said he loved you, if you /felt /he loved you, then no doubt he did." "The point is," he said, "that none of this is rare. I could name a dozen other such instances without even having to think too hard. It comes of living in a society in which birth and position and fortune are everything and strategic marriages are the norm. It is common to seek sensual delights and emotional comfort elsewhere. It is just that I did not know it of my father, did not even suspect it. Suddenly I was Viscount Lyngate with precious little preparation for all the duties and responsibilities that were now mine - my fault, of course. I had been a careless young blade for far too long. And suddenly I was Jonathan's guardian. All of which I would have handled, suddenly and unexpectedly as they had come to me. I was my father's son, after all. But just as suddenly and unexpectedly I was - " "Robbed of your memories?" she suggested when he stopped talking abruptly. "Yes. Made to realize they were all false, all a mirage," he said. "I was cut adrift in a world I did not know." "And," she said, "all the joy and love and hope fled from your life." "All the stupid, naive idealism," he said. "I became a realist very fast, almost overnight. I learned my lesson quickly and well." "Oh, you poor, foolish man," she said. "Realism does not exclude love or joy. It is made up of those elements." "Vanessa," he said, lifting a hand and setting the backs of his fingers against her cheek for a moment, "we should all be as innocent and optimistic as you. I was until a year and a half ago." "We should all be as /realistic /as I," she said. "Why is realism always seen as such a negative thing? Why do we find it so difficult to trust anything but disaster and violence and betrayal? Life is /good/. Even when good people die far too young and older people betray us, life is good. Life is what we make of it. We get to choose how we see it." She kissed him softly on the lips. But she would not belittle a pain he had still not come to terms with even after well over a year. "And then you lost your closest friend too?" she said softly. "You lost Constantine?" "The final straw, yes," he admitted. "I suppose I was partly to blame. I marched over there, to Warren Hall, with crusading zeal to do my duty by Jonathan, quite prepared to ride roughshod over everyone involved with him if necessary. Perhaps I would soon have learned to be less obnoxiously zealous if all had been as it ought. But it was not. It quickly became apparent to me that my father had trusted everything to Con and that Con had taken advantage of that trust." "In what way?" she asked him, her hands framing his face.

He sighed. "He stole from Jonathan," he said. "There were jewels. Heirlooms. Almost priceless ones, though I daresay they did bring a handsome price. Most of them had disappeared. Jonathan knew nothing of them when asked, though he remembered his father showing them to him at one time. Con would not admit to taking them, but he would not deny it either. He had a look on his face when I spoke to him about them, a look with which I was long familiar - half mockery, half contempt. It was a look that told me as clearly as words that he had indeed taken them. But I had no proof. I did not tell anyone. It was a family shame that I felt obliged to hide from the world. You are the first one to know. He was /not /a worthy friend. I had been as deceived by him all my life as I had been by my father. He is not a pleasant character, Vanessa." "No," she agreed sadly.

He closed his eyes. His hand fell to his side again. "Lord," he said, "why have I burdened you with all this sordid family history?" "Because I am your wife," she said. "Elliott, you must not give up on love even though it seems as if everyone you loved betrayed you.

Actually it was only /two /people out of everyone you have known, precious as those two were to you. And you must not give up on happiness even if all your happy memories seem to be hollow ones. Love and joy are waiting for you." "Are they?" He looked wearily into her eyes. "And hope," she said. "There must always be hope, Elliott." "Must there? Why?" And then, as she watched, her palms still cupping the sides of his face, she saw tears well into his eyes and spill over onto his cheeks.

He jerked his head away from her hands and uttered an oath that ought to have brought color to her cheeks. "Damn it," he said, following up the first oath with a milder one. He was feeling around for a handkerchief and found one. "Dash it all, Vanessa. You must excuse me." He was trying to lift her off his lap, push her away, exclude her. But she would have none of it. She wrapped both arms about his neck, drawing his face down to her bosom. "Don't shut me out," she said against his hair. "Don't keep on shutting me out, Elliott. I am not your father or Constantine. I am your wife.

And I will never betray you." She turned her face to rest one cheek against the top of his head as he wept with deep, obviously painful sobs and gasps.

He was going to be terribly embarrassed when he stopped, she thought. He had probably not shed a tear for years. Men were foolish about such things. It was a slur on their manhood to weep.

She kissed his head and one temple. She smoothed her hands through his hair. "My love," she murmured to him. "Ah, my love."