Page 49 of The Viscount's Pearl
“No, I must see her at once,” said Laurence. “And besides, the house is closed up, there will be hardly any staff there.”
“As you wish, Sir.”
“You will drop me at Belle Vue Cottage, then take the carriageup to Northdown House, rouse the staff and tell them to make ready for me.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The sunny day had faded to twilight and Frances had come back from the beach and spent an hour or so reading, although she had not turned many pages. Her eyes wandered from the book, looking about the room, before she tried again to pay attention to Donovan’s fourth volume on shells, which was failing to have its usual calming effect on her.
A sudden pounding at the door made her jump. It was an ill-mannered way to announce oneself, more suited to the back door for deliveries of coal or vegetables than the front. Who could it be? She did not have many visitors, especially after the dreaded Mrs Pagington had insisted on paying her a call in her first week and they had sat in chilly silence for half an hour, after which social calls had noticeably diminished.
The pounding came again. Frances had been used to dozens of servants, the door would never have been knocked on more than once. But here, with only half a dozen servants, sometimes callers had to wait longer. Idly curious after a boring day, she made her way into the hallway, but there was still no servant to answer the call. Sighing, she pulled it open herself.
Laurence.
He stood before her, his clothes rumpled from the journey, hair dishevelled beneath his hat brim, eyes red-rimmed with tiredness.
She stared at him before he broke the silence between them.
“Frances. Why didn’t you trust me?”
Unable to speak, she took a step backwards, but he followed her, coming close to her.
“I promised to marry you and you never told your parents,you set up –” he stared about him, “this – a – a home of your own without telling me, without…” He stopped. “Do you want to marry me, yes or no?”
A wave of relief and joy rushed up inside her and she nodded, a silent acquiescence, before bursting out with rage. “You – you did not write! You sent me away without our promise being made public – no-one knew of us, I could not claim you were my betrothed without proof. What would people have thought of me? And I – I waited and waited and you did not come and I thought –” She gave a little sob as the distress came pouring out of her. “I – thought you meant to forget all about me.”
Laurence stood before her, chastised. “I am truly sorry, Frances,” he said. “I did not think how it would seem to you, how it would feel to you. But I thought of you every day – I tried to write to you but it always went poorly – and I planned for us, for our marriage, I went to Woodside Abbey to claim you–”
“You went to Woodside? To my parents?”
“Yes. It was dreadful. They knew nothing of me, they treated me as if I were a madman.”
Frances uttered a tiny gasp of laughter and he seized the opportunity. “I am sorry, Frances, I humble myself to you. You will still marry me, fool that I am?”
She nodded again and he dropped his hat and gloves and pulled her towards him, kissed her lips softly and whispered, “Thank God. I thought I had lost you.”
She pulled away, straightened her back. “I stand by my promise to enter into a marriage of convenience with you. I am sorry to have doubted you.” She must make it plain that she had not simpered and pined for him, not let her feelings show, the overwhelming relief, the desire to have the kiss last longer, else he would think she expected more than had been agreed between them, and she had come so close to losing him once, she could not risk it again.
He stiffened, then nodded. “I am glad we are agreed,” he said. “I will go to Northdown House now, and expect to meet with you in London in a week’s time, to arrange our wedding.”
She watched him go from the window, then sank into an armchair, trembling with the violence of emotions coursing through her, understanding for the first time, but too late, that she had fallen in love with Laurence and yet was now bound to a marriage of convenience.
Chapter 13
Viscountess Barrington
The wedding preparations were underway. A relieved Lord Lilley was determined that his youngest and final daughter to be married should have a sumptuous wedding. Lady Lilley, both delighted and amazed that Frances was finally to be wed, and to someone as eligible as the new, young, rich and handsome Lord Barrington, was equally determined that the wedding should be magnificent, as much a reproach to any who had doubted her daughter’s prospects as any desire to celebrate the marriage itself.
“I don’t want…” became Frances’ useless refrain, as her mother ordered yards of white silk and Brussels lace for the wedding dress, flowers in absurd quantities to decorate everything from Frances to the wedding breakfast table and the dining room itself, as well as a bride cake of vast proportions, to be decorated all over with shells moulded from icing and then gilded.
“But you love shells! And besides, it is too late now. It has been ordered and they have carved the moulds for the shells just for your cake.”
Then there was to be a flower girl to scatter rose petals, “at least six” bridesmaids and Laurence’s carriage would be repainted for the occasion, his new coat of arms proudly displayed on it.
It all sounded too much to Frances, but she was so overwhelmed with relief at Laurence having come for her, for his promise having been kept after all, that she bowed her head and allowed the preparations to whirl giddily around her, even though none of it was what she wanted. She would have been glad of a simple wedding, she and Laurence in a quiet chapel, silence around them so that she might listen to the sacred words that would bind them together, to have the opportunity to pray that he might, in time perhaps, come to love her. This huge bustle seemed very much the marriage of convenience that they had agreed on: full of show and pomp without any true meaning at all and it made her fearful that, having begun this way, it could only ever stay that way between them. Her worry was made far worse by a talk that Lady Lilley delivered, late one evening, coming to Frances’ bedroom and telling Deborah to leave.
“Now, Frances, I must speak with you,” began Lady Lilley, her pale cheeks blushing pink. “About your wedding night and… and future intimacies between you and Lord Barrington.”
