Someone to Wed

“Perhaps you have heard the old saying about the grass always looking greener on the other side of the hedge,” Wren said.

“It is probably no better to be without relatives, is it?” the girl said. “I am sorry. You must be wishing you could punch me in the nose for ingratitude and insensitivity and lots of other things. Why have you not married?”

“I was perfectly happy with my life until just over a year ago,” Wren said, not pausing over the girl’s lightning-fast change of subject. “And even now I am content. I am always busy. I am a businesswoman, you see. I own a large and prosperous glassworks in Staffordshire and am extremely proud of our products, which are designed more to be works of art than merely to provide a practical function. I was involved in the business before my uncle died, but I immerse myself even more in it now. I do not want anyone to get the idea that I am a helpless woman and must rely upon my male employees to make all the decisions and do all the work.”

Lady Jessica’s eyes were shining. All signs of petulance were gone. “How absolutely splendid!” she exclaimed. “Now I envy you even more. You are very tall and you are a businesswoman. I have never heard of such a thing.” She laughed again, that same youthful, happy sound. She was facing away from her three relatives, all of whom looked briefly their way and smiled. “Is that a bruise? Or is it always there?”

It was her first mention of the blemish, and now it was almost an offhand remark.

“I have been stuck with it from birth,” Wren said.

“That is unfortunate,” Lady Jessica said, looking closely and frankly at the left side of Wren’s face. “I suppose you curse it every day of your life. I know I would. It is fortunate that the rest of your face and even this side if you ignore the color is so beautiful. Oh, dear, Mama would be looking very pointedly at me if she were here now, and quite rightly so. I ought to have pretended I had not noticed, oughtn’t I? I am so sorry.”

But Wren found herself unexpectedly smiling. “I wear a veil almost wherever I go where strangers are likely to see me,” she said. “Even indoors.”

“People must really look at you then,” the girl said. “They must see you as a lady of mystery. How splendid! Especially when you are so tall.” Her laughter had turned to girlish glee.

“Some London shops sell my glassware,” Wren said, raising her voice slightly and looking up to include the other occupants of the room. “Lizzie—Lady Overfield—and I are going to find some of them tomorrow morning to look at the displays. Would you care to accompany us? If your mother will permit it, of course.”

“Oh, I should like it of all things.” She clasped her hands to her bosom and turned her head to look across the room at the others. “Will you mind my coming too, Elizabeth? And, Cousin Althea, may I please stay here tonight so that I will be ready to go in the morning and Elizabeth and Miss Heyden will not have to come to Archer House and wait forever for me? There is a horrid soiree tonight that I have no interest in attending and I have told Mama so. Please may I stay?”

“We must ask your mama,” Mrs. Westcott said. “I shall write a note and Alex will take it to Archer House on his way back to Sidney’s. If the answer is no, I daresay he will bring word back to us and escort you home.”

She got to her feet and went to the escritoire at the far side of the room to sit and write her note, and Lady Jessica fairly bounced across the room to suggest some of the wording. The Earl of Riverdale came to take her vacated chair beside Wren.

“You have made my mother and sister happy by coming here to stay,” he said. “And we all appreciate your listening to Jessica’s woes and helping take her mind off them. You appear to have been very successful.”

“Lady Jessica is very young,” she said, “and clearly hurting on her cousin’s behalf. Sometimes it must seem almost worse to watch loved ones suffer than to suffer oneself. One must feel more helpless.”

“You will be busy with Lizzie and probably Jessica too tomorrow morning,” he said. “I shall be at the Lords. Will you come walking in the park with me in the afternoon, weather permitting? There are paths that are less public and in many ways more picturesque than the one by the Serpentine.”

Kind courtesy again? Or … what? She searched his eyes but found no answer there. She ought to say a polite no. What might have been between them had ended on Easter Sunday. She did not want to revive it—it had been somehow too painful. And surely he did not want to. She knew he had not warmed to her during those weeks of their acquaintance, and she knew equally well that her fortune in itself would be no inducement to him.

So why exactly had she come?

Why exactly had he invited her here yesterday and even asked his mother to persuade her to stay here?

“I would like that,” she said. “Thank you.”

Ten

Alexander spent a thoroughly enjoyable bachelor evening with his cousin Sidney. They dined at White’s Club and moved on to another club, where they had a few drinks with friends and he won three hundred pounds in a card game, and then on to a private party, where he lost two hundred and fifty. By the time they returned to Sidney’s rooms rather too long after midnight, they had done a great deal of reminiscing and laughing, not to mention drinking. But times had changed, they both agreed, and such evenings as this, though pleasant, were not to be craved as a regular diet as they had been ten years ago.

Alexander’s mother and sister were awaiting the arrival of Cousin Louise and Jessica when he entered Westcott House early the following afternoon. They were going to a garden party together. His mother had written to invite Cousin Viola and Abigail to come to London for a week or two, she told him.

“I am not at all sure they will come,” she said. “There is no definite event we can dangle before them as an inducement, as there was last year when we all went to Bath to celebrate Cousin Eugenia’s seventieth birthday. Her seventy-first would not sound nearly as special an occasion, would it?”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “How does Miss Heyden feel about their coming here?”

“She insists she will not be staying longer than a week,” his mother said, “and it is very unlikely they would arrive so soon. Really, though, Alex, the more I think about it, the more I despair of their actually coming. We are living in what was their home, after all, and you bear the title that was Harry’s all too briefly.”

“Wren’s glassware is absolutely exquisite, Alex,” Elizabeth told him from her position by the window. “I swear Jessica and I both gaped when we saw the display in the first shop this morning. Every piece is a work of art. I am going to wheedle an invitation to Staffordshire the next time she expects to be there. I want to watch the whole process.”

“You are going to be friends, then, are you?” he asked.

“We already are,” she said. “Here is Cousin Louise’s carriage, Mama.”

Alexander went back down with them to hand them into the vehicle and exchange greetings with the dowager duchess and Jessica.

Miss Heyden was coming downstairs as he stepped back inside. She looked elegant in a slim, high-waisted walking dress of a light blue. The brim of her straw bonnet was decorated with a veil of the same color. It did not yet cover her face.

“We are close to the park,” he told her after bowing and bidding her a good afternoon. “I hope you do not mind walking rather than riding. One is confined largely to public areas with a carriage.”