The Arrangement (18 page)

Germane took his leave after a while, and Hugo suggested that Vincent accompany him to his study.

“It’s a grand notion, is it not?” he said, clapping a hand on Vincent’s shoulder as they walked. “Me with a study. But I owe it to my father to show an interest in all the businesses, Vince, and actually I
am
interested. More than that, I am getting involved. And my father was quite right about the man he left in charge of everything. He is an intelligent, earnest, conscientious soul who manages the businesses with meticulous care—except that he has not one grain of imagination. Nothing will ever change with him in charge, and everything in life must change or stagnate and wither away, as we all very well know. Sit here and I will sit behind this large oak desk of mine. It is a pity you cannot see. I now look quite important and imposing, and you look like a lowly supplicant.”

“You are going to settle here in London as a businessman, then, are you, Hugo?” Vincent asked. “How does Lady Trentham feel about that?”

He heard Hugo sigh.

“She loves me, Vince,” he said. “
Me
. Just as I am, without any conditions attached. It’s the grandest feeling in the world. She would accept it even if I
did
want to stay here all my life. I don’t, though. I want to spend most of my time in Hampshire, at Crosslands, and Gwendoline has all sorts of ideas on how to transform the house into a home and the large garden into a park. I have turned into that most embarrassing of all creatures, you know—a happily married man. Easy to say, I suppose, when I have been married for all of two days. But I am confident it will last. You may call me naïve for believing so, but I
know
. And Gwendoline knows the same thing. And that brings us to you.”

“I ran away from home,” Vincent told him. “That is why no one knew where I was when you sent your invitation. I ran because my mother and sisters had decided that I will be far more comfortable if I am married. They began the campaign in earnest after Easter by inviting a young lady and her family to Middlebury, and it soon became obvious that she had come, not to be courted, but to accept my addresses. She even told me that she
understood
and that she
did not mind
.”

Hugo chuckled, and Vincent too smiled. Had he expected words of sympathy?

“So I ran,” Vincent said. “Martin and I went to the Lake District for a few weeks of sheer bliss, and then I went, on impulse, to the old house in Somerset. My intention was to relax there in quiet solitude, not to let anyone know I was home. I was quickly disabused of that notion.”

He proceeded to give Hugo a brief account of everything that had happened after his arrival.

“And so here I am,” he concluded. “Here
we
are.”

“And you could think of no alternative to marrying her,” Hugo said.

“None that was satisfactory,” Vincent told him.

“And so Lord Darleigh rode blindly to the rescue,” Hugo said.

“I need a wife, Hugo,” Vincent explained. “I will have no peace from my family until I wed. Sophia needs a home and someone to care for her. No one ever has really cared, you know. It will work. I will make it work.
We
will.”

Even if that meant giving each other the freedom eventually to live alone—stupidest of stupid ideas.

“You will.” Hugo sighed. “I have every confidence in you, Vince.”

The library door opened at that moment.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Lady Trentham asked.

Vincent turned his head. “Is Sophia with you?”

“She is lying down,” Lady Trentham told him. “I suspect she is already asleep. She will come down for dinner. While you are busy tomorrow making arrangements for your wedding, Lord Darleigh, I shall take Miss Fry shopping for bride clothes if I may. She needs a great deal, as well as a good haircut. May I assume that we have carte blanche to spend whatever needs to be spent?”

“Of course,” Vincent said. “And please do not allow her to persuade you that she needs only the very barest of necessities and the plainest and least expensive of everything. I am sure she will try.”

“You may depend upon me,” Lady Trentham said. “She will look presentable when I am finished with her.”

“She tells me she is not ugly enough to turn heads,” Vincent said. “But she believes she is hopelessly unattractive.”

“She is not ugly enough to turn heads, lad,” Hugo assured him. “I did not even notice her in the carriage when you first arrived.”

“Not many women are astonishingly pretty,” Lady Trentham said. “Even fewer are ravishingly beautiful. But we women are experts at making the most of what we have. I will do my best tomorrow to show Miss Fry how to make the most of her assets. Her hair is a lovely color, and she has the eyes to go with it. She has a wide mouth and a lovely smile, though I have seen it only once. And she has a slight figure that will look light and dainty when she is wearing the right clothes. But I understand, Lord Darleigh, that you have already discovered one of her finest assets. She does indeed have a pretty voice, low and a little husky. I may not have noticed if she had not mentioned that you had told her so. We sighted people are often neglectful of the power of sound.”

Vincent smiled at her.

“If you are trying to reassure me, ma’am,” he said, “I thank you. But there is no need. I do not care what Sophia looks like. I like her.”

“It is she who needs the reassurance,” she told him. “And you should care what she looks like, Lord Darleigh. Every member of your family and all your friends will see her and respond to her appearance. And she will respond to what she sees in her glass and in the eyes of those who behold her. You need to care. But of course, you are already doing so, for you have brought her here to shop. She looks like the veriest waif, you know. Her aunt should be thoroughly ashamed of herself for passing on clothes even her servants would scorn to wear. And she cuts her own hair and has made a horrid mess of it. And she looks somewhat undernourished. Her eyes are too large for her face. You need to care how she looks.”

Vincent frowned. She was right, he decided. It was all very well for him to assure Sophia that he did not care. But
she
probably did.

“Will you stay here tonight?” Hugo asked. “You will be very welcome.”

“I’ll take a room at a hotel if you can recommend one,” Vincent said.

“We will go over to George’s after dinner,” Hugo suggested. “He is in town for a week or two. And Imogen is staying with him. She came for the wedding, to my eternal surprise and gratification. Flavian is here somewhere too—he was my best man, in fact. And Ralph is in town. George will no doubt persuade you to stay with him. You were always his special pet.”

When Vincent had first arrived at Penderris Hall, deaf as well as blind, it was George Crabbe, the Duke of Stanbrook himself, who had spent almost every minute of every hour of every day in his room with him, stroking his hand and his head, often cradling him in his arms for hours on end so that he would know the only human contact he could experience—touch. He had fought those cradling arms like a madman on more than one occasion, lashing out with all the strength of his terror, but the arms had never fought back or tensed or tried to imprison him. They had never abandoned him.

Vincent doubted he would have survived without George. Or if he had, he would have been a raving lunatic long before his hearing returned.

“It will be good to see him again so soon. And Imogen,” he said. Imogen Hayes, Lady Barclay, was the only woman member of the Survivors’ Club, having lost her husband to torture in the Peninsula, a torture she had witnessed. “And you too, Hugo. I have wondered if you went after Lady Muir when you left Penderris. I am so glad you did.”

“Well, I am too, lad,” Hugo said, “though she did not make it easy for me.”

“If you had heard his first proposal to me, Lord Darleigh,” Lady Trentham said, “you would not wonder at it.”

Vincent grinned. They sounded very pleased with themselves, the two of them. He could hear the smile in both their voices.

S
ophia was having her hair cut, an absurdity, she had thought when Lady Trentham first suggested it to her, for her hair was very short already. But here she was, at the mercy of Mr. Welland and his scissors and his flying fingers.

“He cuts my hair when I am in town,” Lady Trentham had explained. “I chose him, as I chose my dressmaker, because he does not speak with a French accent. I have no objection whatsoever to a French accent on the lips of a Frenchman or -woman, but you would not believe, Miss Fry, how many Englishmen and -women affect one in the belief that it will suggest superior skill and draw superior customers.”

Like Sir Clarence and Lady March,
Sophia had thought.

Mr. Welland had clucked over Sophia’s hair and declared in a distinctly cockney accent that her last stylist ought to be flogged to within an inch of his life at the very least.

“The last stylist was me,” Sophia had confessed rather sheepishly.

He had clucked once more and gone to work.

They were not alone in his workroom. Lady Trentham sat facing them and watching with apparent interest. So did the Countess of Kilbourne, her sister-in-law, who had sent a note last evening to ask if Lady Trentham would be at home for a call this morning and who had been invited to join the shopping trip instead.

“You must not be overawed by her title,” Lady Trentham had assured Sophia. “There is no one less high in the instep than Lily. She grew up in the tail of an army as a sergeant’s daughter and married my brother when her father died. A long, long saga followed that event, but I will not trouble you with the full story now. May I invite her to accompany us?”

“Yes, of course,” Sophia had said, awed anyway.

And this morning after she had arrived at Lord Trentham’s house and greeted her sister-in-law with a hug and bidden Mrs. and Miss Emes a good morning with a beaming smile, the countess had been introduced to Sophia and had looked her over frankly from head to toe. Sophia was wearing one of her own dresses, having declined Lady Trentham’s offer of one of hers.

“You are to be Viscount Darleigh’s bride?” she had asked. “Oh, my dear, we are going to have such
fun
this morning. Are we not, Gwen?”

And she had startled Sophia by darting forward and hugging her. She was herself exquisitely lovely, with a face that looked as if it always smiled.

Finally Mr. Welland seemed to be finished. Sophia was alarmed at the amount of hair that had fallen to the floor about her feet. Was there any left on her head? He had not placed her before a mirror, as she had expected.

“I have shaped your hair and thinned out the bulk, you will understand,” he told her now, handing her a glass and inviting her to hold it up before her face. “That does not mean I
wished
to cut your hair shorter. It ought to be longer.”

Sophia gazed at her image in some astonishment. Her hair hugged her head in soft curls and framed her face with wispy waves. It looked neat and tame and not at all its usual wild bush.

“It is very chic,” Lady Kilbourne said. “It shows up your heart-shaped face. And the color is adorable.”

Lord Darleigh had explored her face with his hands when they were on their way to the river and had said, when he came to her chin, that her face was heart-shaped. Sophia had always thought it was round.

“If the lady wishes to look like a cherub, she will keep her hair this way,” Mr. Welland said. “But she will not show off the best feature of her face if she does. I will show you what I mean.”

And as Sophia watched in the glass, he pressed his fingers through her hair at the sides and held it back from her face so that it looked smooth over her temples and ears.

“See the classic lines of the cheekbones?” he said. “If the lady wears her hair back like this and piled on top, these cheekbones will be cast into prominence and her neck will look more elegant and her eyes will be more alluring. So will her mouth.”

Sophia stared at herself in the glass and saw someone who looked, by some illusion, if not actually pretty, at least womanly.

“Oh, goodness, you are quite right, Mr. Welland,” Lady Trentham said. “But it is for Miss Fry to decide if she will grow her hair. Even if she does not, there is a great deal to be said for cherubs.”

“Especially well-dressed cherubs,” Lady Kilbourne added, getting to her feet, “which is what Miss Fry will be by the time the three of us have finished with her today. Shall we move on?”

The bill was to be sent to Lord Darleigh, Sophia knew. She had no idea how large that bill would be, but if Mr. Welland had a titled lady for a client, it probably would not be insignificant. She felt uncomfortable about it, but what choice did she have? Being wealthy was something she would have to grow accustomed to. Perhaps it would be easier after she was married.

There followed hours of shopping for everything under the sun, or so it seemed to Sophia. There were stays and other undergarments and nightgowns and stockings and shoes and bonnets and gloves and garters and parasols and reticules and fans and cloaks and spencers, among other things. And, of course, there were the dresses, which fell into two categories, those that were ready-made and needed only minor alterations, all of which must be done today or tomorrow at the latest, and those that were to be made from patterns and sent on to Middlebury Park at a later date.