The Reluctant Bride Collection Page 48

  “Please don’t make me put it in your hair, miss. Look, I brought some baby’s breath. It’ll look lovely draped down your neck.”

  Honora said, “The twig,” and her stomach settled.

  Mr. St. Clair arrived right on time with his brother-in-law and when Honora introduced her uncle, she laughed.

  “We really have gone about this in completely the wrong way.”

  Her uncle said, “The world is changing and quickly. My niece tells me all about steam and I am appalled at the speed of this new world.”

  “You’re not appalled at what that speed brings, though. Oranges are his favorite treat.”

  Mr. St. Clair said, “Cigars are mine.”

  Uncle Hubert perked up. “Oh, do you smoke. . .”

  And off they went into the land of ghastly manly pleasure, whence no woman could possibly want to follow.

  Aunt Gertrude said, “They’ll be awhile, I think. Do you smoke, Mr. Clarke?”

  “Not at all. I can’t stand what it does to a good coat.”

  Aunt Gertrude nodded. “Oh, I agree. Though hopefully, you like oranges?”

  Mr. Clarke professed he did and they chatted about fruit while Honora wished she’d listened about having an even number of guests.

  She’d fallen down in her duty as a hostess, purposefully– after all, who would they have invited?

  And if they’d been familiar with any other families in Manchester, why would she want another female around her Mr. St. Clair?

  Honora paused and looked at her Mr. St. Clair.

  Hers. Hers?

  Mr. Clarke caught her staring at his brother-in-law. “Forgive me, Miss Blackstock. I’m sure I can think of something more scintillating to talk about than fruit.”

  “Enjoy your conversation. Your turn will come soon enough when Mr. St. Clair and I bore everyone silly with our talk of water and coal and trains and ships.”

  Mr. Clarke and Aunt Gertrude closed their eyes in supplication but Mr. St. Clair heard her. He turned his head enough to meet her eyes and a slight smile hovered at the corners of his lips.

  Honora’s uncle continued to wax lovingly about cigars, and Mr. St. Clair continued to smile, and Honora tried to pay attention to her aunt and Mr. Clarke as they turned the conversation to London.

  There was no agreement here. Mr. Clarke had loved every bit of it and her aunt felt the opposite.

  “Now, York,” she said, “is the finest city in all of England. A wall that surrounds and a minster that watches over. Have you been?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never been able to talk St. Clair into sightseeing at Brighton or Bath. Do you think I’d have better luck with York, Miss Blackstock?”

  “Perhaps. Would he be tempted by ancient Roman artifacts? A ruined abbey? Richard III?”

  As she listed all of York’s ancient wonders, Mr. Clarke’s shoulders slumped and when she finished he said, “No. Unless there is loud machinery and unpardonable speed, he won’t care at all.”

  Aunt Gertrude shook her head. “What a shame. It’s a lovely place. I hope we can return one day.”

  When she met Honora’s shuttered eyes, she amended, “For a visit. I wouldn’t mind taking a stroll atop the wall one more time.”

  Mr. St. Clair and Uncle Hubert had wandered over during the discussion and Uncle Hubert laid his hand gently on his wife’s arm.

  “It must be the memories and not the place, my dear. What could be so special about a wall?”

  Honora looked away from their secret smiles. Away from all that they’d left behind in York.

  People and places they’d never see again.

  Memories.

  The future.

  Mr. St. Clair touched her elbow. “And do you feel the same about York, Miss Blackstock? I confess my one visit did not impress me.”

  “You’ve been to York?”

  “A pilgrimage of sorts. My father wanted me to see the minster. And the ruined abbey. But I was young, and well, disagreeable, so perhaps that colored my visit.”

  “Disagreeable, Mr. St. Clair? I can hardly believe it of you.”

  Aunt Gertrude tsked. “Letitia!”

  But Mr. St. Clair looked at the decoration in her hair and then down into her eyes and even her aunt could see that he did not look at all disagreeable now.

  Aunt Gertrude found something on the other side of the room for Mr. Clarke to look at posthaste and Mr. St. Clair murmured, “I’d have been truly worried if there were spring flowers in your hair and not a twig.”

  “No flowers for you, Mr. St. Clair. I fear you have always been privy to my true disposition and there is no use hiding it now. I am but an open book.”

  “Now that, I doubt. But you may try and prove it by telling me what you thought of York. You did not look as misty-eyed as your aunt and uncle during the discussion.”

  Honora inhaled a deep breath, then lied. “We lived there only for a short time. Right after my mother died. I hardly remember it.”

  “You are quite nomadic, Miss Blackstock. York, London, Manchester.”

  Bath, Edinburgh, Wales. It was easier to list the places they hadn’t lived.

  She said, “When one loses something important, Mr. St. Clair, one will search the world for its replacement. Or, at least the entirety of the British Isles.”

  “Yes,” he said, and his own loss was in his voice.

  She knew he’d lost his mother, too. And was happy to let him think that’s what she was speaking of.

  He took her hand. “Have you found it yet?”

  She looked down at his gloved hand cupping hers. She didn’t dare look up; knew she couldn’t keep her thoughts off her face as she whispered, “Have you?”

  The gentlemen were pressed to come to dinner again the next week and neither one of them was reluctant to accept.

  Collin waited until they were nearly home before offering his opinion. “I will not squirrel you away from her machinations just yet.”

  George could still feel her hand in his, could still see the twig in her hair, could still smell her scent.

  He said, “Good. You would have a rough go of it.”

  “I could always write to your father.”

  George grunted.

  “But it does seem mutual, this complete loss of reason, so. . .I’ll hold off on that.”

  George murmured, “Excellent.”

  He was nervous as a school boy the day of the next lecture. Collin helped him into his coat and said, “Shall I come with you?”

  “No.”

  “But who will keep you in line?” he asked, making George wonder how out of line Miss Blackstock would let him get.

  Wondering if he should make her bring her maid inside today because the thought of sitting next to her without any kind of chaperone suddenly seemed ill-advised.

  But then, she was right there next to him. And he couldn’t remember why he wanted a chaperone. He couldn’t remember anything except his own name.

  He didn’t even notice the silence until she said, “Well, this is awkward.”

  He jerked. “It is? I was simply enjoying your company.”

  Her voice was quiet and warm when she replied, “Mr. St. Clair, you are simply ruining your reputation. I expect gruffness and irritability and a sour bite to all your declarations.”

  He said, “I detest how much I enjoy your company, Miss Blackstock. Is that better?”

  “Yes. Quite perfect. And interestingly enough, exactly how I feel about the situation.”

  But it was a step too far, this mutual declaration and he adjusted his seat.

  “Nothing may come of this. I want to warn you.”

  She nodded, still without looking at him. “I don’t mind walking down this path with you a little further.”

  He smiled. “That is exactly what I am proposing.”

  “I will warn you, Mr. St. Clair. Something may come of it.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Yes, something might. And since there is no one else to ask, I’l
l have to be gauche and direct.”

  “Oh, dear. However will I survive.”

  “About Mr. Moffat.”

  “Oh. . . Dear.”

  She opened the leaflet that had been sitting on her lap and began to read. Or at least pretend to.

  “A broken engagement, Miss Blackstock, is noteworthy.”

  She nodded her head once, sharply. She chewed on her top lip for a brief moment and then said briskly, “The truth is, Mr. St. Clair, that I didn’t like who I had to be when I was with him. And I didn’t realize until too late that perhaps I could simply be myself. I don’t blame him for calling it off. He thought he was marrying a woman sweet and kind.”

  “I met her.”

  She smiled, then stopped. “Do you miss her?”

  “. . .I didn’t know her well enough to miss her. And I doubt I would have noticed her at all if I had not met you first.”

  She finally turned her head to face him and he said, “I’m confusing myself. I know it was you, always.”

  She sounded infinitely sad as she said, “No. This is me.”

  “Miss Twiggy.”

  “Yes.” She smiled tightly and leaned closer, staring into him with wide eyes and whispering, “There was no impropriety on either of our parts. I actually think. . . I think it was quite brave of him. He did something that I was unwilling do and it would have been much easier if I had been the one to call it off. He sacrificed his honor and saved us both from a very unhappy future.”

  “He was a scoundrel for calling it off. Not brave at all. And I would thank him heartily if I could.”

  He turned forward and didn’t look at her again. Couldn’t look at her again.

  But when she sat back in her seat, he said conversationally, “Would you care to take a stroll with me after the lecture? With your maid, of course.”

  “I would love it.”

  Miss Blackstock opened her umbrella, hoping to protect herself from the Manchester drizzle. Her maid trailed a few feet behind them, and George wondered just how a tiny mouse of a woman was supposed to keep her mistress safe from any man who didn’t want to be a gentleman.

  Miss Twiggy said, “So, tell me about your three brothers, your father.”

  He groaned and she chuckled wickedly. “You don’t get along?”

  “No. At least not with my father.”

  She waited.

  “He has plans for me. Has always had plans, even before I was born.”

  “They disagree with your own?”

  “I don’t have any plans.” George nearly stopped when he admitted to it. Why it was so shameful, he didn’t know, but he felt heat flood his face and he cleared his throat. “My father’s plans have always been there, right in front of me. Perhaps having no plans at all was the only way I felt I could have my own.”

  “So what are these diabolical plans of his?”

  “Oh, I suspect anything less than archbishop will disappoint him.”

  She laughed, and then realized he’d been completely serious.

  He said, “My father has grand plans for all his sons though I suspect he is destined to disappointment regarding me. Have you ever felt, Miss Blackstock, like you were living a lie? That every day another piece of the real you was being sloughed off, and that one day you would wake up and there would be nothing left at all?”

  She tripped and he grabbed for her elbow, catching her before she could fall. She looked up at him, the umbrella forgotten and the drizzle coating her stricken face.

  She whispered, “Yes,” and he hauled her up.

  “Forgive me. I did not mean Mr. Moffat. I wasn’t thinking at all.”

  He picked up her umbrella and her maid came over to fuss and Miss Blackstock stood there in the rain letting them.

  When she was put to rights and they finally began moving again, George said, “Enough about me, I think. What of your family?”

  She laughed weakly. Humorlessly.

  “I don’t know that my father ever had any plans for me but I think it’s safe to assume I have not achieved them.”

  “And your mother?”

  “I loved her.”

  George said quietly, “That is a lovely epitaph, Miss Blackstock.”

  She adjusted her umbrella and cleared her throat. “She spent her life trying to give my father a son and died doing it. And when she died. . .I wanted to die, too. My aunt came to take care of me and stayed when my father remarried. And when my father’s new wife gave birth two years in a row, I left to live with my aunt permanently.”

  They walked a ways in silence before George asked, “And they’ve been good to you?”

  “Better than I deserve. They’ve treated me not as a child but as an equal. As an adult.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  She nodded. “There is a kind of peace one feels when the people who know every one of your ugly secrets loves you. When they would follow you to the ends of the earth to help you get back what you lost. Good people who would give up their comforts, their home, their souls for you.” She said softly, “I wish with all my heart that it had been enough to know that they would have and had not actually required them to do it.”

  George helped her across a busy street, his hand lingering on hers.

  “Manchester is fairly terrible. But I am glad you left London, even if it cost your aunt and uncle their souls.”

  She smiled at him, the stricken look that had remained in her eyes since she’d tripped finally fading.

  She took her hand back slowly and said, “Mr. Clarke followed you to Manchester. You must know the cost family will sometimes pay.”

  “Only too well. He reminds me of all he left behind in London with regular consistency.”

  And he decided right then to share his ugly secrets with her.

  Because he knew hers. Her broken engagement.

  And he wondered what she would say about his odd family when she had her own.

  “Though, he had little say in moving to Manchester with me. Mr. Clarke’s father was a farmer and he is my valet as well as my brother-in-law.”

  She looked at him with surprise, but he was gratified to find no censure.

  “That is not a relationship you hear of everyday.”

  “No.” George shook his head. “I loved his sister, and when she married my brother it helped to have Collin with me. It helped to not be alone even if it sometimes hurt to look at him.”

  Miss Blackstock tilted her head to the side and studied him. “You loved his sister, and she married your brother.”

  George nodded.

  “Your eldest brother,” she said as if that explained it, and he laughed. The first time that he’d ever laughed at his broken heart.

  “No. My twin.”

  She sucked in a quick breath and George answered before she even asked.

  “He’s not anything like me.”

  “Then perhaps she was the brave one. Painfully, heartbreakingly brave. And I would thank her heartily if I could.”

  George smiled at his own words. And knew when he deposited her at home that he wouldn’t ever want to get off this path.

  And the next evening, sitting down to dinner next to Miss Blackstock and across from Mrs. Turpin, Mr. Turpin at the head of the table and Collin diagonal, George was even more certain.

  Dinner was a close and comfortable family affair; he and Mr. Turpin happy to talk cigars– the flavors, the brands, their favorites.

  And he grinned when both Collin, “Not at the table, please,” and Mrs. Turpin, “After dinner, we will leave you and Mr. Turpin to smoke all you like, Mr. St. Clair,” interrupted them.

  Miss Blackstock smiled. “Now you know. Should you ever tire of anyone’s company, simply bring up the subject of cigars and they will banish you themselves.”

  “I will remember for the next time I visit with my father.”

  Mr. Turpin spoke up. “Is your father a vicar as well, Mr. St. Clair?”

  Collin threw a long glance at George, who said
carefully, “My father is the Viscount St. Clair.”

  Mrs. Turpin froze with her fork half-way to her mouth and Miss Blackstock said slowly, “I suspected you were the son of somebody. I didn’t expect. . .that.”

  George felt a tad gratified that his father’s title was so unwelcome; he’d thought the same thing himself a time or two.

  “We all have our embarrassing relations. Remember, I am only a vicar.”

  Miss Blackstock said, “We could hardly tell, tonight.”

  “I don’t have to be condescending and self-righteous all the time.”

  “I’m simply surprised you can turn it off. You being a vicar and a lord’s son.”

  Collin nodded agreeably with her and George said to the both of them, “I can only turn it off when I am in the most agreeable of company.”

  Mr. Turpin smiled at the pretty compliment to his niece, though Mrs. Turpin still seemed shaken.

  Miss Blackstock cocked her head. “You must mean my aunt and uncle then because you have been disagreeable oft enough in my company.”

  Collin snorted into his drink, sending himself into a short coughing fit, and Mrs. Turpin’s color rushed back into her cheeks after the apparently devastating news of who George’s father was.

  “Oh, Mr. Clarke,” she cried and patted Collin’s back solicitously as he continued coughing.

  George watched, smiling, and said, “I must mean them.”

  Six

  Before the ladies left the dining room to the men, George nodded at Collin. Collin sighed, spared a glance for Miss Blackstock, then, finally, nodded.

  Giving his blessing, and George smiled at his friend and then swallowed.

  George helped Miss Blackstock with her chair and when Collin distracted Mr. and Mrs. Turpin with a question, George quickly followed her out of the room.

  “Miss Blackstock, my father is. . .difficult. There’s no getting around that.”

  She continued to the sitting room, saying over her shoulder, “I have never met a father who wasn’t.”

  “Met many, have you?”

  She quoted the bible, proving her point. “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. . . Ephesians 6:4.”

  George took a breath. “Every vicar’s wife should be able to quote the bible.”