Page 87 of Libby's London Merchant
Libby laughed and clapped her hands while he finished the bread and looked about for more. “We have been almost too busy to eat, Mama. I help the squire out to the hop bines and he stays there all day, watching the pickers.”
He took another slice of bread from Mama. “Libby, the gypsies are all about everywhere. Squire makes sure that I am close by the stables when they are at their lunchtime.”
Mama clasped his hands in hers, disregarding the jam on his fingers. “Does the squire treat you well, son? It is a particular worry of mine.”
“He treats me well, Mama,” Joseph said, “and so does the doctor.” He grinned at his sister. “You will like it there, too, I know. Dr. Cook has been trying to move books out of his room so there will be a space for you. I tell him that you would not mind one of the other rooms down the hall, but he only laughs.”
Libby blushed while Joseph looked about for something else to eat. Mama took the Copley’s chocolate off the sitting-room table and held them out to her son. He plucked out a handful, eating them quickly and eyeing the clock.
“I promised the squire I would be back by the time the bailiff shouts, “All to work.” He took another handful of chocolates from the box. “Libby, do you know what? I would not have thought of it, but for these. I saw the London merchant only this morning.”
Libby gulped and sat down suddenly and Mama frowned. Unmindful of their reactions, Joseph pocketed the nut treats. “He was riding a neatish bit of bone and muscle as bold as life down the street in Holyoke. I don’t think he saw me, but I am sure it was the merchant.”
He scratched his head. “Or is he the duke? I can’t quite remember.” He thought about it a moment and then his face brightened. “I suppose it does not matter. Good day, Mama. Libby, you should get in the sun more. You look like something half-dead.”
He was gone.
Libby turned to face her mother. “What game does this man play?” she asked, her voice full of exasperation.
Mama put the lid back on the chocolates. “I think he means to apologize in person, Libby.” She peered closely at her daughter’s unhappy face. “I am sure he will attempt nothing more.”
“Surely not,” Libby murmured, wishing the high color would leave her face before Mother made some remark upon it.
The duke did not come. The afternoon dragged by as Libby packed her dresses, unpacked them, and packed them again. She heard a horse ride by and ran to the window. It was Anthony. As she watched, his horse leapt the fence in a graceful arc and he disappeared in the direction of Fairboume. Libby pounded the windowsill in her frustration. Anthony, you don’t seem to have a grasp of what is going on, she thought. If you want me, you had better come to me.
Then she was ashamed of herself. The demands of others on his time would always supersede her own needs. He would attend because he was a doctor, and that was that. If you think you cannot bear that kind of neglect, Elizabeth Ames, she scolded herself, you had better cry off right now.
She sent no note, wrote no letter to the doctor, but prowled the house after dinner until Mama put her hands to her head and with an awful expression pointed to the door. Libby grabbed up her bonnet and bolted from the house. She walked rapidly across the field to the place where ashes from a gypsy fire still littered the ground. She poked about with her shoe, raising the ashes, wondering what to do with her life.
Is it fair, she thought, to marry a man I am not entirely sure I love? That Anthony would be faithful throughout his life, I have no doubt. It is I that I question. Will I find myself lying in his arms one night, wishing myself with someone else? Will I spend sleepless nights regretting what I have done? Will the work and worry of the life he has chosen divide us until we are two strangers sharing a house, a bed, and children?
There were no answers in the field. Her head seemed full to bursting with voices all talking to her at once, setting up such a chatter that she could not think. She wished herself back on the Promenade in Brighton, listening to Anthony’s voice alone. Her thoughts did her no credit.
She was walking slowly back to the house as a curricle pulled away from the front drive. She thought for a moment that it must be Uncle William. He had sent regrets from London that Lydia, deep in the anxieties of choosing her wardrobe, would be unable to attend her wedding, but that he would be there. Libby shook her head. It would not be Uncle William. He had never succumbed to such toys of fashion.
She waited until the vehicle was gone down the road before she let herself into the house. Her mother met her at the door, a look of vast disquiet marring the beauty of her countenance. She held a box in her hands that she gave to her daughter.
Libby looked down. “‘Duke’s Delight,’” she read. “Oh, Mother!”
They sat down in the sitting room. Libby leaned against her mother’s shoulder.
“‘It is a special sort,’ he told me. The only box of its kind. ‘With full measure of rue,’ if I recall him rightly. He had it made up especially for you.”
“The Duke of Knaresborough,” Libby said, thrusting the box to one side.
Mrs. Ames touched her daughter’s hair. “A charming gentleman, Libby. So much address and good manners and everything that was proper. Your father would say he looked as fine as five pence.” She paused, hesitated, picking her words carefully, not looking at her daughter. “And I would be inclined to agree with him.”
“Did he say anything about that infamous offer?” Libby asked.
“He did. He assumed that you had told me everything. He offered his sincere apologies, and I accepted them for I felt he truly meant it.”
She hesitated, then took her daughter’s hands in a tight grip. “Libby, he was so indiscreet, for all that he means well! He told me that he loves you, will have none other, and means to offer marriage this time. Imagine!”
Libby stared at her mother. “Mama, did you tell him I was to be married in two days? He is too late!”
Marianne Ames nodded. “Certainly I did. I am hardly dead to the proprieties, daughter.”
In spite of her own misery, Libby smiled at the idea of her mother countenancing anything improper. “No one could ever accuse you of that. Oh, what are we to do? I suppose he will call again, won’t he?”
