Simply Perfect (6 page)

“I
do
envy you,” he said again. “You did not stroll passively along the highway life appeared to have set before you but have stridden purposefully along a path of your own making instead. That is admirable.”

She set a gloved hand on the top bar of the stile, not far from his elbow, and turned her head to look into his face, though he doubted she could see much of it in the darkness.

“And you have not done so?” she asked him. She sounded like a stern schoolteacher calling a pupil to account.

He chuckled softly.

“When one is endowed with the courtesy title of marquess at birth and knows that one day one will be a duke with all the wealth and privilege and responsibility that come with the title,” he said, “one does not think often about escaping onto a new path. One
could
not. There is such a thing as duty.”

Though he
had
dreamed of escape…

“But there is always choice,” she said. “Life need never be bland. Duties can be shirked, or they can be performed with a minimum of effort and enthusiasm, or they can be embraced with firmness of purpose and a determination to excel.”

“I hope there is no question pending,” he said, laughing. “You are not about to ask me into which of the three categories I fit, Miss Martin, are you?”

“No,” she said. “I beg your pardon. I have grown too accustomed to haranguing my girls. Enthusiasm and a sense of purpose atone for any number of sins, I believe, and surmount any number of hurdles. Passivity is what I find hard to tolerate. It is such a
wasteful
attitude to life.”

He doubted she would fully approve of him, then. He had done well at school, it was true, and had always striven for excellence. He had been a voracious reader ever since. He had spent a great deal of time with his father's steward as a boy and very young man, learning the business and duties of being a large landowner, and he had always kept himself informed of what went on in both the upper and lower Houses of Parliament since one day—if he survived his father—he would be a member of the latter. But his father appeared to have resented his efforts—
as if you are waiting with bated breath for my demise,
he had said irritably once when Joseph returned, wet and muddy and happy from an inspection of a new drainage ditch at Anburey with the steward.

And so Joseph's adult life had been an essentially idle one—as was that of most of his peers, it was true. He kept an eye on proceedings at Willowgreen, the home and modest estate his father had granted him on his twenty-first birthday, though his desire to remain close to Lizzie in London stopped him from going there as often as he would like. His life had not been characterized by any particular vice or excessive extravagance—unlike that of most of those same peers. He paid his servants and all his bills promptly and gave generously to various charities. He did not gamble to excess. He was not a womanizer. There had been the usual succession of brief sexual encounters when he was a very young man, it was true, but then there had been Sonia, and then Lizzie—and just before Lizzie there had been Barbara. All well before he was even twenty-five.

He clenched his hand on the bar of the stile and unclenched it again, gazing off at the fading line of the sunset as he did so. For a number of years now his life had felt essentially empty, as if much of the color had been drawn from it, leaving behind far too many shades of gray. An essentially passive life.

But now at last he was being nudged into taking a giant step that he had determinedly avoided for years. He would marry Portia Hunt before the year was out. Would marriage improve the quality of his life, restore the color to it? After the nuptials he would proceed with the immediate duty of putting a child in his nursery. That might help—though the very thought of fathering a child caused a tightening in his chest that felt like grief.

For still and always there would be Lizzie.

He became aware suddenly that they had not talked for a while and that he was still opening and closing his hand, only inches from Miss Martin's.

“I suppose,” he said, lowering his foot to the ground, “we ought to make our way back. The breeze is starting to feel chilly.”

She fell into step beside him again but made no attempt to revive the conversation. He found her company curiously restful. If he had been walking with Miss Hunt or almost any other lady of his acquaintance, he would have felt obliged to keep some light chatter going, even if it were about nothing at all of any significance to either of them.

Miss Claudia Martin, he thought, was a woman to be respected. She had character in abundance. He even thought that he would probably like her if he ever got to know her better.

It no longer puzzled him that she was Susanna's friend.

“Shall we make a start at the same time tomorrow morning?” he suggested when they had arrived back at the inn and he had escorted her to the top of the stairs.

“The girls and I will be ready,” she said briskly as she removed her gloves. “Thank you for the walk, Lord Attingsborough. I needed it, but I would not have dared venture out alone. There
are
severe disadvantages to being a woman, alas.”

He smiled at her as she extended a hand to him, and he took it in his. But instead of shaking it and releasing it as she had surely intended, he raised it to his lips.

She withdrew it firmly, turned without another word, and had soon disappeared inside her room. The door closed with an audible click.

That
was a mistake, he thought, frowning at the closed door. She was certainly not the kind of woman whose hand one kissed. Her fingers had clasped his firmly, not lain limp there waiting for him to play the gallant.

Dash it, that had been gauche of him.

He descended the stairs and went in search of company. From the sounds that proceeded from behind the taproom door, he guessed that not many of the other guests had yet retired for the night.

He was glad about it. He felt suddenly and unaccustomedly lonely.

Flora had fallen into a doze, her head flopped over to one side, her mouth open. Edna was gazing pensively out the carriage window. So was Claudia.

Whenever she could see him, she gazed with a frown at the Marquess of Attingsborough, mounted on another hired horse and looking as smart and as fresh as he had yesterday morning when they set out from Bath. He was remarkably handsome and charming. He was also—she hated to admit it—surprisingly good company. She had thoroughly enjoyed their walk and most of their conversation last evening. There had been a certain novelty about walking outdoors during the evening with a gentleman.

And then he had spoiled a memorable evening—and restored her initial impression of him—by kissing her hand when bidding her good night. She had been extremely annoyed with him. They had enjoyed a sensible conversation of equals—or so it had seemed. She had not needed to be dropped a crumb of his gallantry just as if she were any silly flirt.

She could see that it was raining again—it had been drizzling on and off all morning. But this time it was more than drizzle. And within moments it was more than just a gentle rain.

The carriage stopped, the coachman descended from his box, there was the sound of voices, and then the door opened and the marquess climbed into the carriage without benefit of the steps. Claudia moved to the far side of the seat as he sat beside her. But carriage seats were not really very wide. Nor was a carriage interior very large. He instantly seemed to fill both. Flora awoke with a start.

“Ladies,” he said, smiling and dripping water all over the floor—and doubtless over the upholstery as well, “pardon me if you will while I travel with you until the rain stops.”

“It is your own carriage,” Claudia said.

He turned his smile on her and she had an unwilling memory of the warmth of those smiling lips against the back of her hand.

“And I hope it is not too uncomfortable,” he said, “or the journey too tedious. Though that is a forlorn hope, I daresay. Journeys are almost always tedious.”

He smiled about at each of them.

Claudia felt somehow suffocated by his presence—a remarkably silly feeling. But why could the rain not have held off? She could smell the damp fabric of his coat and his cologne. She could also smell horse, as she had yesterday. Try as she would, she could not keep her shoulder from touching his while the carriage bounced and swayed as it bowled along the highway.

What nonsense to be suddenly so discomposed—just like a green girl, or a silly spinster. What utter nonsense!

He asked the girls questions about school—skilled questions that had even Edna responding with more than just blushes and giggles. Soon they seemed quite at ease with him. And he, of course, looked perfectly comfortable as if it were an everyday occurrence with him to be sharing his carriage with two exschoolgirls and their headmistress.

“You told me last evening,” he said eventually, settling his shoulders against the corner of the seat and rearranging his long legs in their mud-spattered leather riding boots so that he did not crowd any of them—though Claudia was
so
aware of those legs, “about your planned employment and hopes for success. What about your dreams, though? We all dream. What would your lives be if you could have any wish come true?”

Flora did not hesitate.

“I would marry a prince,” she said, “and live in a palace and sit on a golden throne and wear diamonds and furs all day long and sleep on a feather bed.”

They all smiled.

“You would not sit on a throne, though, Flo,” Edna pointed out, ever the realist, “unless you were married to a king.”

“Which can be easily arranged,” Flora said, undaunted. “His father would die tragically the day after our wedding. Oh, and my prince would have twenty younger brothers and sisters and I would have a dozen children and we would all live together in the palace as one big, jolly family.”

She sighed soulfully and then laughed.

Claudia was touched by those last details. In reality Flora was so alone in life.

“A worthy dream,” the marquess said. “And you, Miss Wood?”

“My dream,” Edna said, “is to have a little shop as my mama and papa did. But a
book
shop. I would live among the books all day long and sell them to people who loved them as much as I and…” She blushed and stopped.

She had strung more words together in that one speech than Claudia had heard her utter during the whole journey.

“And one of those customers would be a handsome prince,” Flora added. “But not
my
prince, if you please, Ed.”

“Perhaps Edna dreams of someone more humble,” Claudia said. “Someone who would love books and help her run the bookshop.”

“That would be foolish,” Flora said. “Why not reach for the stars if one is dreaming? And what about you, my lord? What is
your
dream?”

“Yes,” Edna added, looking at him with eager eyes. “But don't you already have everything?” And then she blushed and bit her lip.

Claudia raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“No one ever has everything,” he said, “even those who have so much money that they do not know what to spend it on. There are other things of value than just possessions that money can buy. Let me see. What is my greatest dream?”

He folded his arms and thought. And then Claudia, glancing at him, saw his eyes smile.

“Ah,” he said. “Love. I dream of love, of a family—wife and children—which is as close and as dear to me as the beating of my own heart.”

The girls were charmed. Edna sighed soulfully and Flora clasped her hands to her bosom. Claudia looked on with skepticism. His answer had very obviously been crafted for their benefit. It was, in fact, utter drivel and not a genuine dream at all.

“And you, Miss Martin?” he asked, turning his laughing eyes on her and making her wonder for an unguarded moment what it might feel like to be nearer and dearer to his heart than its own beating.

“Me?”
she said, touching a hand to her bosom. “Oh, I have no dreams. And any I did have are already fulfilled. I have my school and my pupils and my teachers. They are a dream come true.”

“Ah, but a fulfilled dream is not allowed,” he said. “Is it, young ladies?”

“No,” Flora said.

“No, miss. Come on,” Edna said at the same moment.

“This game must be played by the rules,” the Marquess of Attingsborough added, resettling his shoulders so that he could look more directly at her. His eyes looked very blue indeed from this distance.

What
game?
What
rules? But she had been undeniably interested in hearing from the other three, Claudia conceded. Now it was time to be a good sport.

She felt very resentful, though.

“Oh, let me see,” she said, and willed herself not to flush or otherwise get flustered. This was remarkably embarrassing before two of her pupils and an aristocratic gentleman.