The Heiress Companion (14 page)

“What a pity there weren’t more men of your opinion when I
appeared in London last,” Rowena said, attempting a lightness that she was far
from feeling. She had left the desk and stood now by the bookcase, aimlessly
running her eyes over the shelves.

“Some people don’t know quality when they see it,” he began
lightly. Stopped. Seemed to have come to a decision. “Rowena, I don’t want to
go through the same charades that Jack and Ulysses have been through in these
last weeks. I keep feeling there must be a better way to ask —” He looked at
her, a look strong enough to gather her startled attention from the books, from
the window, from any other object in the room, and fix it firmly on his face. “Marry
me, Rowena?”

With what seemed like immense effort she smiled. “Mr.
Bradwell, this is so sudden.” Her voice was dry, her smile unconvincing. More
firmly she managed to say: “Lyn, are you simply trying to keep in step with the
matrimonial air of the household? Jack and Jane —”

“To hell with my brother and Jane,” he said succinctly.

“Or is it because of Meg? I really don’t fancy being someone’s
justification, or solace, or whatever —”

“What about my wife? It’s all I asked of you. And you would
do me a great kindness if you would disabuse yourself of the notion that just
because your cousin is a pretty chit and I have an appreciative eye — yes, I’ll
tell you that now, for you’d best adjust to it! — that I was madly in love with
her.”

“It’s just a little — a little sudden.” She chuckled weakly.
“What a damnable missish thing to say!”

“I’ve been home for six weeks, Renna, and every moment I’ve
been learning about you from your cousin, from my mother — Good God, do you
think I propose to every female I meet?”

“If this weren’t entirely out of your mother’s style I would
say that she had concocted the whole thing out of piece cloth. She has been
determined to marry me off since I arrived, and pressing me to make a match for
you and — I know not with whom.”

“Mamma is wiser than she seems sometimes. Won’t you even
consider it, Renna? Can’t I appeal even to the sense in you? Do you truly wish
for nothing more than a future as a maiden aunt-companion? If you do — but you cannot.
If you will consider my suit for no other reason —”

“Do you think you are being kindly to a lost soul doomed to
unhappy maidenhood? I beg to inform you that I do very well as I am, and have
no need to be protected from a life of genteel poverty!” she said hotly, then
realized that Lyn might well be completely unaware of her wealth. No matter,
she thought. I can tell him later. If there is a later.

“Damn. I make it worse and worse. Renna, believe me: I don’t
mean to make such a mull of this. I’ve never asked anyone to marry me before.
And I don’t expect to do so again. I admit I’m not very polished at it, but I’d
not meant to make such a horse’s —”

It was too much; she began to chuckle. “Spare my blushes,
please! I do not mean to be so difficult, Lyn. It’s just that —” Her voice
dropped rather unsteadily. “It’s just that, of all the things I have wanted to
hear in the last few weeks, this is the one I thought I never would.”

He took a step closer. “If it will convince you that I am
perfectly and entirely serious, Rowena my very dear love, I shall be more
graceless still.” Without giving her time to reply, he pulled her away from the
bookcase and into his arms, looking down from his surprising height at her
confusion.

After a moment Rowena managed, with a very notable attempt
at composure, “I suppose you had better kiss me, Lyn, for if you do not I shall
kiss you, and complete the destruction of my reputation entirely.”

So he bent his head: just a little way. It was a tentative,
smiling sort of kiss. The second one was something more, breathless and fiery,
and both of them were blushing and a little startled when it was through.

Five minutes later, seated together on the sofa, they began
to talk rationally again.

“I shall have to give this ribbon up entirely.” She teased
him. “Look, you have completely torn it out of my hair. Are you always such a
savage, love?”

“Only in the midst of proposing, sweetheart. Hereafter I
shall be as meek as a lamb.”

“And bore me dreadfully, doubtless. Well, I seem to have
fulfilled my Aunt Dorothea’s predictions and become entirely mad. Madness is
pleasanter than I would have thought.”

“A consummation devoutly to be wished, in fact,” he agreed. “But
I’m still waiting for my answer. You will marry me, won’t you?”

“I had best, I suppose. Even on the continent, I should
never be allowed in anyone’s drawing room unmarried after that kiss. Caro Lamb
is nothing to it.”

“Thank God for the conventions!” Mr. Bradwell breathed
devoutly, and kissed the tip of her ear.

“But Lyn?” She looked at him seriously, the smallest of smiles
waiting in the corner of her mouth. “Do you think we should perhaps wait until
tomorrow to announce
our
engagement?”

“I suppose so; after all, Jane and Jack have precedence,” he
agreed judiciously. Another long, sweet kiss. “But by the day after tomorrow we
had best be formally betrothed or I shall not answer for your reputation or
mine.”

“Very well, Mr. Bradwell, on the day after tomorrow
we
shall be the happy couple. That is, of course,
providing that your mamma and Dr. Cribbatt do not surprise us after all.”

Lady Bradwell proved unable to affiance herself to the
doctor, or to anyone else, before dinnertime, and afterward, when the party was
gathered in the drawing room, Lord Bradwell pleased the company (with the
possible exception of his sister-at-law-to-be) by announcing his engagement to
Jane Ambercot. Ulysses, who had arrived early in the afternoon to visit with
Margaret, was applied to in his capacity as head of the Ambercot household, and
his consent was readily and publicly supplied, with a few exhortations not to
be such an abominably slow-moving couple when they were wedded. Lord Bradwell
tried, with an effort quite visible on his beaming countenance, to produce a
suitably tart reply, but in the end only laughed and thanked his new brother.

“I say, Miss Rowena, if Ambercot’s marrying your cousin and
I’m marrying Janie, that relates you to our family, don’t it?”

Rowena sternly ignored the secret, sharing smile from Lyn
and answered noncommittally that she supposed that it did.

“Indeed, and it means that Mr. Lyndon will be related to our
family as well,” Eliza said sweetly. “Ought I to call you cousin, sir?”

“I think...” Lady Bradwell answered for her son with the
barest touch of frost in her voice, “that Lyn will do very well for now, child.
Have you not always called him so? Or some variation on that? Well, I am ready
to drink to our happy couples! May all you children be blessed with happiness,
virtue, and more children for me to amuse myself over.” The old lady raised her
glass of ratafia solemnly and drained it. “Now, I think I have had a little
more excitement than Dr. Cribbatt and his excellent assistant would prescribe.
I plan to retire before tea.” Totally unaware of the looks exchanged by several
members of the company, she raised herself from her chair. “Renna, my dear, can
I trouble you to assist me to my room?”

“Certainly, but I shall trouble you not to talk nonsense.
There is no trouble to it.” Exchanging a smile she thought unseen with Lyn,
Rowena draped a shawl across Lady Bradwell’s shoulders and offered her arm.

“Good night, my dears,” Lady Bradwell called from the
doorway, and was answered in a disorganized chorus of good nights and sleep
wells.

Once out of the room, however, Lady Bradwell appeared to
recover a good deal of her strength. “We have pulled it off — even Jack and
Jane, dear foolish children that they are,
cannot
announce their engagement and cry off again twice in one lifetime! I begin to
see hope. Now if only —”

“You can marry Mr. Bradwell off, you will be perfectly
happy,” Rowena finished for her.

Lady Bradwell regarded her with a speculative eye. “Well, of
course, child. Then it would only be to wait for the first grandchildren. I
find I am becoming dreadfully dynastic in my old age. Are you sure I cannot
persuade you to take on Lyn’s case, Renna?”

“As matchmaker? Now, really ma’am,” Rowena began, privately
a little ashamed of her resolution to keep her secret even one night.

Lady Bradwell continued her scrutiny. “You know very well
what I mean, girl. I’ve a notion, what’s more, that you don’t altogether
dislike the idea of Lyn.”

“Surely it’s more to the point whether he dislikes the idea
of
me
, Lady B.”

“Either my eyes are better than you give me credit for, my
dear, or yours are very bad indeed. Well, I shan’t meddle — not just now, in
any case. When you, or Lyn, or both of you come to your senses, I shall be
waiting to hear about it.”

“Ma’am.” Rowena’s voice was serious now. “What makes you
think that we should suit?”

“Child, what makes
you
think that any two people should suit? You’re both bright, handsome people with
a little more than the common share of sense and ambition, and thankfully, each
of you knows when to laugh. For God’s sake, Rowena, even if I’m wrong about you
and my boy — although I misdoubt that I am; it seems perfectly obvious to me — don’t
settle for someone who doesn’t share your sense of humor. It’s all very well
for Jack and Jane to wed, for neither one of them looks at things the way you
do, or I, or Lyn; but did you marry someone like Jack you’d be bored and
fractious within a month. Now, you know I’m rather partial to my Lyn — don’t
smirk at me, you odious chit — but I do think that you two
would
suit. And it would make me very happy.”

“Well, ma’am.” They had reached Lady Bradwell’s room and
Rowena was about to ring for the maid to come and attend her mistress. “Whatever
happens, I thank you for loving me well enough to want me for your favorite
son. And just now, I shall thank you more particularly for going to sleep. You are
looking a little gray and weary, and whatever your son’s opinion of me, it will
not redound to my credit if I permit you to fall sick again.”

Rowena left her mistress in Taylor’s admirable hands and
descended to the saloon again only to find that the men had retired to the
library to drink a few healths to the ladies and each other. Jane, Eliza, and
Margaret sat quietly talking in the parlor and after a time, when the
congratulatory noise from the library grew stronger, Rowena suggested that
Eliza spend the night, and that all of them retire in short order. It was an
anticlimax after the celebration of dinner, and Rowena had privately hoped for
a minute alone with Lyn before she slept. Nonetheless she summoned Mrs. Coffee
and had a room prepared for Eliza, seeing to the girl’s comfort before taking
herself to her own room.

On the dressing table was a note, inscribed in a small,
precise hand. “Breakfast? I love you. Lyn.” Smiling, Rowena undressed, washed,
and slipped into bed, where she fell asleep quickly to dream of Lyn and warm
days of happiness.

o0o

After a very good night’s sleep, Rowena woke before the maid
arrived to kindle the fire. She lay in bed luxuriously for half an hour,
watching sunlight establish itself in the room, and chatted cheerfully with the
girl when she entered with a kettle of hot water and the tinderbox.

“What time is breakfast laid out, Kitty?”

“Abaht half-seven, miss, though nawone’s theer at table
afore nine, mawstly.”

“Well, I think I shall go down early this morning. Is it as
fair out as it looks from my window?”

“’Tis a fine, fair day, miss. Wi’ you need me annymahr?”

Rowena, examining the fine, fair day for her herself from
the window, dismissed the maid and, after reading Lyn’s brief note two or three
times and scolding herself for romantic foolishness, began to wash. It was not
quite eight when she arrived in the breakfast room; Lyn was already there,
being served coffee by Drummey. He rose, greeted her, and when the butler had
retired to fetch hot water for tea, crossed the room to kiss her.

“Lyn, if you promise to kiss me every morning before tea I
think I shall like being married very much. It improves this hour immeasurably.”

“You got my note?” he asked from a vantage point just above
her right ear, where the breath from each word tickled her distractingly.

“Of course. It’s a wonder it isn’t torn and tattered by now.
It’s such a short, sweet little thing I have read it fifty times already this
morning.”

“Next time I’ll write something a little longer and meatier,
darling. I’m sorry I didn’t see you after you took Mamma up last night, but....”

“I shall have to accustom myself to being abandoned for your
jollifications with the men,” Rowena answered in tones of deep martyrdom. “After
all, a woman’s place —”

“Good God, Rowena, I beg you not to start! If you’re going
to lecture me a platform on the martyrdom of females — I shan’t believe you at
all. You’re not the sort of woman who would lend herself to being ill used in
any case. And you’re much too beautiful for me to
want
to leave you solely to look at my brother’s face of your friend Ambercot’s! On
the other hand,” — he smiled at her — “I did feel rather celebratory last
evening. Do you blame me?”

Chuckling, Rowena gave up the expression of dignified
resignation she had assumed. “Not in the least. I felt so myself, and believe
me, Lyn, it was very hard to keep from telling your mamma what was afoot when
she pressed me to make a match for you.”

“Well, love, today we can tell her you have complied with
her wishes. On all counts.” He pressed a kiss on the nape of her neck. “What
did Mamma say?”

“Nothing terribly important. Only, she does love you, Lyn,
and I think she will not be unhappy when we give her our news.”