The Irish Bride (13 page)

“Amelia!”

She slumped against the faded cushions in a most unladylike way. “He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go. Just ordered me into the carriage. Emma didn’t have to go. It isn’t as though I hadn’t made plans for today.”

“Mr. Daltrey will take no harm through waiting for you.”

“I don’t know what you mean. What, pray, has Mr. Daltrey to do with my plans for the afternoon?” Amelia asked, giving her mother a very blank look before turning her head to look out of the window. “I do hope we have some time to go to the shops. Emma needed to match some embroidery floss.”

“We won’t be buying anything today. Emma will have to learn to do plain sewing, not embroidery.”

“It can do no harm to look.”

“Yes, it can. We always buy some little thing that winds up costing a fortune, one way or another. We cannot afford such tricks now. Nicholas explained that we must track every farthing, not letting even one be wasted.”

“Yes, Mother,” Amelia said, repressed for the moment.

Nick swung down from Stamps’s back to open the carriage door for them, waving to Barry to stay on the box. He felt unaccustomedly nervous. Though Mr. Ferris had made it plain that they would be welcome, Nick couldn’t be sure of Rietta’s reaction. Her father had expressed doubts about springing Lady Kirwan upon Rietta. She was a highhanded girl and might be rude to his mother. Shooting his cuffs, he told himself he’d know how to handle any such behavior.

* * * *

“How do you do?” Rietta said, crossing the room to them, her smile warm and welcoming. She held out both hands, giving one to Lady Kirwan and one to Amelia. For Nick, she had a slight curtsey and a nod. Her eyes did not meet his for more than an instant.

“Lady Kirwan, may I present my sister, Blanche.” Blanche’s curtsey was more graceful than her sister’s but her smile lacked Rietta’s warmth. Nor did she speak clearly, muttering her greeting like a sulky schoolgirl.

Lady Kirwan seated herself on the settee at Rietta’s invitation. Nick’s resolution to keep Rietta within bounds evaporated, for it was plainly not needed. She was the gracious hostess to the life, inquiring into Lady Kirwan’s interests. They found in two words that their shared passion was gardening.

“Living in town, of course, I haven’t the scope to indulge in the garden of my dreams. But I know just how I should arrange things if I had the opportunity.”

“Everything good must start with a dream,” Lady Kirwan said. “You must tell me all about your garden.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I change it all the time. It is my favorite thing to think of just before I go to sleep.”

“I plan
my
garden just before I go to sleep myself. It’s so soothing.”

“Yes,” Rietta said. Nick could tell now that her smile when they first arrived had been forced and false. The way she looked at his mother at this moment was different, gentle and true. “And it’s much easier to reshape a bed or a path in ones’ thoughts than in reality.”

“Especially when one has only a single lad to help. Although I must say George Randolph listens much more attentively than his father ever did. Will Randolph had a head as hard as a stone. He’d never try anything new unless I wore him down.”

“How exhausting!” She put her hands together in a suppliant’s prayer. “One day, Lady Kirwan, perhaps you would be so kind to look over the little plans I have drawn. Purely fantastic, of course, but I so like things to be precise. The advice of someone with experience would be invaluable.”

“I should be more than happy,” said Lady Kirwan, looking up to meet Nick’s eyes. He saw nothing but approval there. “Have you them here now?”

“They are in the library, but I don’t like to impose upon you.”

“Nonsense, my dear child. Let me see them.”

Rietta excused herself. Nick sauntered to the door a moment after she went through it. With a glance, he saw that Amelia was being heartily bored by Blanche who had achieved some animation by a recital of all her social triumphs. His mother, catching his eye, gave him an encouraging nod that sent him through the doorway after Rietta.

He followed the sound of her voice. “No, she’s not ‘high in the instep’ at all, Father. She’s a very pleasantly spoken woman and I quite like the looks of her daughter. She looks as though she knows what it is to be a friend.”

“All the same, I’ll stay safe in here. I don’t mind Sir Nick; he’s a likely lad with a friendly gleam in his eye. But I’ll have no dealings with titled ladies. They look down their noses at men like me.”

At least, Nick thought in relief, he’d not suffered the usual fate of eavesdroppers. But then, he already knew Mr. Ferris liked him. It was Rietta’s sentiments that were in doubt. It had been unexpectedly hard to meet her eyes. The way she contrived never to look at him directly had told him that their kiss still lay between them. He wondered how many times she’d found herself reliving that moment. He’d lost count of the number of times it had enlivened his thoughts.

“Very well, though I wish you would change your mind,” Rietta said, and Nick peered around the doorframe to watch her kiss her father’s cheek. Surely not the behavior of a shrew....

“I’ve left Lady Kirwan and Miss Amelia with Blanche. It’s important they should come to know her well, don’t you think?”

“Eh? Whyfore? ‘Tisn’t she they’ve come to see.”

“No, but as you will not come out...”

“Don’t be so silly, child. Tis you Sir Nick has his eye on this time.”

“So he says, but I do not believe it.” She turned the bracelet on her wrist, keeping her eyes on that as she tried to express her feelings. “I cannot trust a man who, having seen Blanche, claims to prefer me. Such a man cannot exist. She is so very beautiful.”

“So she is,” Mr. Ferris said, sighing. Then he rallied. “Yet you are not so ill-favored that no man would look on you. Many men prefer a nice, mature woman to a heedless girl.”

Nick thought that that could have been more felicitously phrased. Rietta was no matron, staid and soft, but a creature of passions and strong will.

“Besides which,” Mr. Ferris added, laughing in his throat, “can you picture our Blanche knowing the first thing about being the wife of a landowner? You’d take to it like a duck takes to living in a pond. Have it all understood in a fortnight.”

“As the point will not arise, Father, I don’t think we need discuss it any further.” She stirred the papers on Mr. Ferris’s desk. “Did you answer the letter from Cathcart and Dean?”

“I read it over. It seems a capital notion on the face of it.”

“Dig deeper,” she said with a dry laugh. “It’s their notion but your capital. I don’t believe they’ll find vast quantities of coal beneath the northern ice cap, and the cost of outfitting a research vessel is too great a burden for our present resources.”

“You are too cautious, Rietta. Not every businessman is a hurly-burly fly-by-night sort of fellow. Take this gent here,” he urged, stirring among his papers. “He’s made a solid study of the existence of leprechauns and wants me to help back his work for the honor of Ireland. Now I can’t refuse an appeal like that! Think of what it would mean to Ireland.”

“It seems to me that the credit of our country abroad is quite low enough without dragging the wee people into it,” Rietta said.

“Wist!” Mr. Ferris looked about his chair carefully, especially scrutinizing the corners and the mirrors. “It’s terribly chancy to talk so with them so fresh from their winter rests.”

“Yes, Father,” Rietta said, her smile indulgent. “I’ll tell Arabella to leave a cup of milk by the fire tonight for them.”

Nick shrank back as she came out again into the hall. This time, however, he was careful not to startle her when he made his presence known. Nevertheless, it was only by a sudden clutch that she kept hold of the portfolio of papers in her hand. “Sir Nicholas! I thought you were still in the drawing room.”

“My mother sent me after you.”

“Did she? Why?”

“You were away so long.”

“Pray assure her I rarely get lost in my own home.”

“You don’t? Then tell me—what’s this room?” Nick asked, crossing behind her to open a door on the other side from the library.

“The dining room, as you well know since you have dined here recently,” she said, peering past him perhaps to see what he found so interesting.

“Show me.” He took her hand and drew her inside. He felt her unwillingness yet she followed him into the dim, stuffy room. The air was heavy with stale candle smoke through which the silver goblets and ewer on the sideboard gleamed as though with obscured moonlight. The room itself seemed to sleep, waiting for the clock to strike the dining hour when it might wake for a brief moment of conviviality before falling again into another twenty-four hours of slumber. It was not what Nick would have chosen for his proposal, given the wide world to choose from, yet it would serve.

“Sir Nicholas, I must go back. Your mother is waiting.”

“Stay with me a moment and we’ll go back together. She would rather wait to hear good news than none.”

“What good news?” She had a sweet frown, three vertical lines between her straight brows. He knew already that this was her doubtful look.

“The best news. A marriage between two people she thinks well of. I can tell she admires you already.” He stepped a little away from her so that he might read all of her.

Her puzzled frown increased. “You have hinted at this before; it is a game I do not like.”

“No game. I will marry no one but you.”

“Then you many no one.” She paced one step up and back, turning about in her agitation. She seemed to struggle to find enough breath to speak. “I-I don’t know why you should make such a fool of me. These protestations do not move me because I do not believe them. Shall a man marry a woman whom he never saw in his born days less than a week since?”

“Yes, it happens all the time.”

“Where does it? Arabia? China? The moon? For you are moon-mad if anybody ever was.”

“I can’t say about the moon. But in the other places, you would have been married long ago to a man you’d never seen before your wedding day.”

“And you’d have half a hundred concubines. Well, go. They’re waiting for you.”

Nick laughed. “I’ve never heard a woman say that word before.”

“What? Concubines? Solomon had quite a few, according to the Bible. And, by the way, Jacob labored seven years before he got a wife. Not a few days.”

“As I recall, Jacob married the wrong sister. I won’t have that wished upon me, even by you.”

“Then go to Blanche and make your proposal. You have a title and she has a wish to be Lady Kirwan. It seems you are made for one another.”

“Stop throwing Blanche at me, if you please. I confess I was much taken with her looks when first we met. She is a painter’s dream and if I had a portrait of her I’d hang her in a place of pride.”

“As I thought—” Rietta began, but Nick interrupted her.

“But paintings don’t need to talk to be pleasant in the home, and women must do so. The first call I made at this house cured me of whatever infatuation I felt for her.”

“You are in the minority, sir. My sister is very generally admired, even by those who know her well.”

“For some reason, Rietta, you are more proud of Blanche’s looks than of your own. Yet yours are nothing to be despised because they have a pleasant soul behind them. Your sister is a painted puppet whose looks have spoiled her humor. Let other men sit at her feet and play the dog, wagging their tails when she smiles and whimpering when she frowns. I won’t.”

She looked at him with her head slanted slightly to one side, the way a painter judges his own canvas. “No. I can see that. I apologize. Sir Nicholas, for thinking you were only attempting to flatter me to reach Blanche. Some other man tried this ploy once and ... and hurt me rather when the truth was exposed.”

The tinge of color increased in her cheeks at this admission. “You are wrong,” she continued, blushing stronger still- “My soul is not pleasant. It is dark and angry. Sometimes I grow so filled with darkness that I must...” She tossed her head, lightening her too-somber mood. “Have you not heard that I am the most shrewish of women? That my father lives under the cat’s foot? That I am a monster of unkindness toward my sweet younger sister?”

“Rietta ...,” he said with too much warm understanding for her peace of mind. She pulled loose the hand that he’d somehow taken in possession.

“But these are not things with which to trouble you, sir. You have done me the honor, unmistakably, of proposing that you and I marry. I thank you from the depths of my heart but I must refuse you.” She dipped a simple, respectful curtsey and started to leave.

He stepped between her and the door. His eyes were searching. ‘Tell me why not. I’m a clever man and can clear away many impediments.”

Rietta laughed a little at his boast, countered by his anxious eyes. She had never had a proposal of marriage before. It left her feeling flustered and much too warm about the cheeks. She wanted to be certain that she did not hurt her hurried lover’s feelings but she felt somehow that nothing less than the truth would do for Nick,

“I do not know you well enough, nor, were we the oldest of friends, I could still never be parted from my father and my sister. They need me. For the rest...” Rietta hesitated. If it was hard to put feelings into words, it was a thousand times harder to express a lack of emotion. English at times was an emotionally understaffed language. But not even lilting Irish had anything softer than a blunt, “You do not love me, Sir Nicholas.”

She saw him struggle with the lie like a man with a fish bone in his throat. She saved him from it by saying, “Nor do I love you. Such a marriage—whatever happens in Arabia or China—could never flourish here.”

She left him. Only she knew that to keep him from a lie, she’d told one herself. Could love happen in mere days? Rietta scoffed at the notion. She’d fallen for him in the first hour of their meeting.

Chapter Eight

Nick hadn’t ridden
a hundred yards from the Ferris’s door before knowing that he had every reason to be grateful to Rietta for her no. He must have been mad to propose marriage to her, a woman who was all but a stranger. What had prompted so rash an act? If she’d accepted him, he would have found himself in a most insupportable position.