The Temporary Wife/A Promise of Spring (55 page)

“It is all best forgotten,” Grace said, twisting the rings on her finger.

“Yes,” Ethel said, “but it must be spoken of first. Because I like you now, Grace, and I think we can become friends if there is no barrier between us. I was so wretched with guilt after you left. I thought of you with Jeremy gone when I still had my children, and with Gareth gone and Papa and Martin estranged from you. And I never had the courage to write. I wanted to, but I never could. And when you wrote and I knew you were married, and after you had accepted my invitation to visit, I wanted nothing more than to write again and tell you not to come, after all. I was too embarrassed to face you.”

“We do terrible things to our own lives and those of the people around us, don’t we?” Grace said. “So many years wasted, Ethel. But we must put them behind us. If we are to make amends, we must do so. For I have been at least equally to blame for the coldness there has been between us. How I hated you for having the respectability of marriage when I had been deserted and left with an illegitimate child. And we might have been sisters all these years.”

“Well,” Ethel said, “we will have to make up for lost time. How is Perry going to react, Grace? I do wish I could see his face when you tell him. He will make a wonderful father, you know. And I know from experience that you will be a wonderful mother.”

They smiled at each other, a little embarrassed, and both turned to observe the scenery passing the carriage windows. There would be an awkwardness for perhaps a day or two. But there would be a friendship after that. And they both felt a warmth in the knowledge, though they could not yet quite share their thoughts.

S
OMEHOW, NO ONE
quite knew how, everyone in the neighborhood knew of the impending event long before it became evident to the eye. No one doubted the integrity of Doctor Hanson. He would certainly not have violated a patient’s trust. And Grace and Peregrine told no one apart from Grace’s family and Peregrine’s mother by letter.

Of course, Mrs. Hanson had been at home to entertain Ethel while Grace had consulted with the doctor. And she had been known on occasion to whisper confidences to her close friends, the Misses Stanhope, on the strict understanding that the secret stop with them. And the Misses Stanhope were known to have the greatest trust in the silence of their friend Mrs. Morton. And Mrs. Morton was known fondly to the rest of her neighbors as a bit of a gossip. It was never malicious gossip, of course, and could therefore be readily forgiven. There was nothing malicious about spreading the glad tidings that dear Lady Lampman was in a delicate condition.

She was a little old to be having her first child, to be sure, Mrs. Courtney confided to Mrs. Cartwright, but she herself had been somewhat past her thirtieth year when she had had Susan, and Susan’s birth had been the easiest of the six she had been through, counting the stillborn one—her second. And there was certainly nothing wrong with Susan. She was quite as pretty as any other girl in the neighborhood, Miss Morton and Lady Madeline Raine included, for all they were in a class a little above Susan’s.

Dear, dear Sir Perry, Miss Letitia said to her sister with a sigh and a sentimental tear, would be so pleased. Imagine him a father and it seemed but yesterday he was a rogue of a boy up to no end of tricks. How delightful it
would be if the child turned out to be a son and they could have another little mischief to look forward to.

And to think that Lady Lampman had been married from their very own home, Miss Stanhope reminded every one of their neighbors, some of them on two separate occasions. Such a dear, dignified lady.

“Well, Viola,” Mr. William Carrington said when his wife had hurried into his library with the news after the departure of Mrs. Morton, “so Perry and his good lady have been doing their duty to the human race, have they? And decidedly tardy they have been too. How long have they been married?”

“Two years,” she said. “I just hope that it will be safe at her age, William, considering that it is her first. Poor dear lady, I do hope so.”

“She cannot be very much younger than you, Viola,” her husband said. “And we completed our family fifteen years ago. They put us to shame, do they not? I feel a distinct gleam developing in my eye. Look closely now. Can you see it?”

His wife threw up her hands and shrieked. “William,” she said. “What an idea. At our age? It makes me blush just to think of doing—you know. But to have another child!”

“Well, then,” he said, “you should know better than to regale me with such disturbing news, Viola. I am afraid I am just going to have to make you blush, my dear. I feel quite like doing—you know.”

“William,” she said, blushing quite sufficiently to draw a roguish gleam to his eye. “Not here. Someone might walk in at any moment. Oh, do pray remove your hand and behave yourself.”

“In our room, then,” he said. “You may precede me there, Viola, since you would clearly die of mortification to have me lead you there in full view of the servants.”

“William,” she said. “Sometimes I think you will never grow old gracefully.” She withdrew from the room without further argument.

Her husband closed his book and replaced it on the shelf unhurriedly before going in pursuit.

T
HE EARL OF
Amberley, his mother, and his sister were preparing to leave for London and the Season when Mr. Courtney broke the news to them during a visit with his daughter.

“I am so very glad for Perry,” Lady Amberley said to her son when they were alone. “He is a man who needs to be surrounded by children. I have been very much afraid that they were unable to have a family of their own.”

“I think the marriage has been quite successful,” Lord Amberley said. “They seem fond of each other, would you not say, Mama?”

She nodded. “He seems so devoted to her that I wonder sometimes if perhaps she is a domestic tyrant,” she said, and frowned. “But that is unkind. I do hope I am wrong. And I am glad that she is to have a child. Every woman should have that experience.”

It seemed that Mrs. Hanson was not privy to all her husband’s secrets. Word certainly did not get past the doctor that Lady Lampman’s baby was in fact not her first. He had completely hidden his shock behind the cool professional manner that he presented to all his patients under all circumstances. But the fact might certainly make the birth a little easier for her, he had explained, though there was no knowing when the pregnancies were fifteen years apart. There were, however, dangers to both the mother and the child when the mother was well past her thirtieth year.

Lady Lampman was, of course, in good health and had looked after herself well and kept herself fit, he said. Her chances were good. But he would not lie to her and assure her that there was no danger.

Grace lied to Peregrine in that one detail only. She assured him on that first night and during the months to come that there was no danger at all beyond the ordinary. And she refused utterly to give in to fear. It was there, and sometimes she awoke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. But she was not going to give in to it. She would curl into Peregrine’s sleeping form for warmth and comfort and concentrate on her happiness.

And she was very, very happy. Happier than she had been at any time in her life. Happier than she had ever dreamed of being. If only she could live through this pregnancy. If only the child would live and be healthy. If only it could be a son. A son for her to give her husband.

But she would not think of the ifs. She was going to give Perry an heir. She was not going to give him a chance ever to regret marrying a woman so much older than he. She was going to make sure that never again would the laughter be in danger of dying out of his life. And the future was hers. Theirs. He had taken her back. He had wanted her, said that he had missed her, said that she would always have remained his wife even if she had gone off with Gareth.

And she had his child in her, making her tired, making her feel nauseated in the mornings, growing in her, very much there in her even though he did not show for several months or move in her enough for her to feel. She had all the bulk and weight and ungainliness of advanced pregnancy to look forward to and all the agony of childbirth. She was entirely, utterly, deliriously happy.

L
ORD
S
ANDERSFORD HAD
left Amberley Court the day after the dinner given there in his honor. He sent his regrets to Mrs. Morton, with the explanation that urgent and unexpected business made his immediate return home imperative.

Everyone at Reardon Park had attended the dinner, though Priscilla had confided to Grace with a giggle that it was a great shame that Lord Eden was not still there. But Lady Madeline would be there, and Walter Carrington, who was very young, to be sure—only one year her senior—but of pleasing appearance and easy manners.

Lord Sandersford, dressed with London elegance, looked extremely handsome and had clearly set out to behave with the most engaging of manners. But Grace was not to be intimidated. She did nothing during the evening to seek him out and nothing to avoid him. When he suggested after dinner that she partner him for a hand of cards with Lady Amberley and Mr. Carrington, she complied with a smile for all three and a remark to Mr. Carrington that he would not find her so easy to defeat as he had at Christmas. And she briefly touched Peregrine’s hand with her fingertips when he rested it on her shoulder as he came to stand behind her.

Lord Sandersford gave her an enigmatic smile when she took her leave of him later in the evening. “I will be leaving here in the morning, Grace,” he said.

“Will you?” she said. “I will wish you a safe journey, then.”

“No regrets?” he asked. “No last-minute panic? If you are to change your mind, it must be done now, Grace. I have decided that I will not be coming back.”

“I am happy here, Gareth,” she said. “Very happy.”

“Damn him,” he said, taking her hand and lifting it to
his lips. “I never thought to lose a lady I fancied to a damned milksop. It is a humbling experience, my love.”

“Good-bye, Gareth.” Grace smiled.

“W
HAT A VERY
strange man,” Lady Amberley said to her son after luncheon the next day, their guest having taken his departure. “Why did he come, do you suppose, Edmund?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” he said. “But I was watching him last evening. I had the strangest feeling that perhaps he is sweet on Lady Lampman.”

“On Lady Lampman?” she said. “Oh, surely not. He is such a very handsome and charming man.”

“Lady Lampman is not without beauty,” he said. “I think she was probably extraordinarily handsome as a girl. I sometimes wonder about her past. There was never a mention of a family while her brother was alive, was there? Yet last spring she and Perry took themselves off to visit that family. And now a mysterious suitor from the past perhaps?” He grinned.

“Nonsense, Edmund,” she said with a laugh. “You cannot possibly make a romantic figure out of Lady Lampman for all that I like and respect her.”

“I think she probably jilted Sandersford at the altar twenty years ago,” Lord Amberley said, “and ran away with her brother to hide from his wrath. And now he has found her again and is trying to convince her to run from Perry. Grand romance triumphant at last.”

“Edmund!” She laughed merrily. “Now I know what you must do during all the hours you like to spend alone. You are writing novels. Your secret is out. My son the novelist.”

“She, in the meantime, has grown passionately fond of Perry,” Lord Amberley said. “And the lover has been
sent on his way disconsolate. He will doubtless expire from a broken heart.”

“I have not been better entertained in years,” she said, getting to her feet. “I would love to stay to hear more, dear, but I have promised to go with Madeline to visit Viola. It is time to return to ordinary, mundane life. How sad!” She bent to kiss her son’s cheek as she left the room.

S
PRING ALWAYS BROUGHT MIXED BLESSINGS TO THOSE
who lived most of their days in the countryside or in a small village remote from any large urban center. There was the splendor of new life all around—new leaves on the trees, new flowers to cover the earth with color and fill the air with fragrance, new calves and colts to frisk about on spindly legs, new lambs with fresh white coats to frolic among the more staid, dirtier numbers of their elders, new warmth from a kindlier sun. And there was greater freedom and comfort of travel. One could bear to sit in a carriage for half an hour without piled blankets and heated bricks. And there was relief from winter chilblains.

But spring also took away to London or other large centers whole families, whose presence was sorely missed. Always the Earl of Amberley and his family. Last year Sir Peregrine and Lady Grace Lampman. This year the Carringtons. And Lady Lampman’s family, whom everyone agreed were most genteel and amiable, returned home at the end of March. All were missed. And it would be summer before everyone could be expected to return and the round of social events be well enough attended to make them worth organizing again.

It was already quite evident to the eye that the rumors concerning Lady Lampman’s delicate condition were
quite correct when unexpected and very welcome news reached the village from Amberley. The earl was returning early from London with the countess and the twins and Sir Cedric Harvey, close friend of the former earl’s and a regular summer visitor at the court. And if that were not enough to raise everyone’s spirits, there was the added detail that Mrs. Oats, the housekeeper, had been instructed to prepare for the arrival of three or four other visitors a week later. And then, as a final touch of pleasure, the Carringtons too returned home.

In the event, the return of the Carringtons was by no means the least of the events. Mrs. Carrington visited Mrs. Morton the day after her return home and left that poor lady in a perfect dither, since by the time her visitor had left, there were not enough hours left in the afternoon in which to call upon all her acquaintances with the news. She decided upon the Misses Stanhope, since at least she would have the satisfaction of observing the effects of the startling announcement on two separate faces.