Lord Astor was not entirely displeased with his morning’s work.
Arabella was not feeling nearly so complacent. She buried her face against George’s neck, talked to him, and played with him in order to hide her dreadful discomfort.
There she was, in the middle of the pasture at Parkland, in company with a very handsome young gentleman who looked for all the world as if he must have stepped off a street in London. And she had just accepted his marriage proposal. She had had no idea how to go about doing so, and no idea how to proceed with the conversation now that it was all settled.
It was only now perhaps that she realized fully how very secluded a life they had all led during her youth. They had never been anywhere farther than five miles from home or met anyone except the inhabitants of that area and the occasional visitor. She really had no idea how to converse with as grand a gentleman as Lord Astor, or what to converse about. And she had no idea how she would go on when they went to London. What would she do there, and how should she behave? The prospect was suddenly quite terrifying.
She had assured Lord Astor that she would know her duty. Would she? Beyond obeying him, what would her duty be? And she had told him that she would try to make him comfortable. How did one go about making such a grand gentleman comfortable?
If only he were at least fifty years old and white-haired or bald!
If only he were not quite so handsome.
And if only he did not stand there in the pasture so poised and elegant and so disapproving of poor George’s affectionate nature.
Oh, she should not have made the sacrifice, Arabella thought, stooping finally and picking up a stick for George to run and fetch. She was being punished for the sin of pride. For she had felt proud of the fact that she was willing to sacrifice her own future for Frances’ sake. One should be thoroughly humble and selfless when making a sacrifice, else it was none. She was being punished, all right.
“Shall we return to the house for luncheon, my lord?” she asked abruptly, thankful for her conversational inspiration.
He bowed and offered her his arm. Arabella stared at it, blushed, linked her own through it, and blushed even more deeply.
Oh, dear God, she wished he were not so handsome!
Chapter 3
LORD Astor made arrangements for the banns to be read at the village church the next Sunday and the two following weeks. The wedding was set for one month from his arrival at Parkland Manor. Country living had never been greatly to his liking, but he succeeded in keeping himself quite well-occupied in the interim. He spent time with his bailiff both in his office and out on the estate. He had no intention of living at Parkland a great deal and no intention of displacing his future mother-in-law and her daughters from their home. But it was as well to be familiar with his new property, he decided.
In addition, he found himself much in demand in local society. Almost every member of the gentry for miles around called at Parkland within two weeks of his arrival, and as often as not issued an invitation to tea or dinner or to an evening of cards. When there were no visitors and no invitations to be honored and no estate business to be attended to, then he walked or rode out with two or more of the ladies of the house. There was much beauty to be seen in the surrounding countryside, decked as it was in all its fresh spring splendor.
But almost never was he alone with his future bride. He was not sure if it just happened that way or if she actively organized it so. He realized that Arabella was a very innocent and inexperienced young lady and lived in a secluded country area where everyone’s business was frequently everyone else’s. It would not do to be alone with her often or for any length of time. Besides, he had no great wish to be alone with her. He did not imagine he would find that they had much in common with each other, and he would doubtless find her interests tedious. There would be time enough to condition himself to her conversation after they were married.
On the other hand, he had expected that there would be moments when they would be thrown together even when in company. When they were out walking, he had expected to have her on his arm. When sitting in the drawing room at Parkland or in someone else’s, it was to be expected that much of the time he would sit next to his betrothed. As it happened, he far more frequently had Frances on his arm during walks, or even her mother. Arabella usually ran on ahead with her dog and the excuse that she had spotted some primroses that must be picked. And she habitually seated herself as far away from him as possible in the drawing room and struck up an animated conversation with whoever was closest to her. Never with him.
Lord Astor could not help suspecting that his betrothed deliberately avoided his company. Why it should be so, he was unsure. He had not found females to be in the habit of avoiding him, even before he came into his present title and fortune. Quite the contrary, in fact. It must be that Arabella had either an aversion to him or a great shyness of his person. She was certainly not generally shy—she was something of a prattler with almost everyone else of both genders. Then, of course, she was familiar with everyone but him.
Was she afraid of him? Lord Astor found the idea somewhat novel. But he supposed it possible. Her experience of life was very limited, the extent of her acquaintances necessarily small. The presence of a fashionable stranger in her home—a stranger who was her betrothed, moreover—was quite possibly bewildering.
He did wonder how she would cope with the removal to London, especially as she would be arriving there at the start of the Season. How would she be able to meet all the members of thebeau mondewho would be there in force, and how converse with them and behave as a married lady of her station would be expected to behave? He would consider it a great annoyance to have to cope with an abnormally shy wife. He would be compelled either to escort her everywhere and stay close to her side or to neglect her and leave her to amuse herself at home.
It was in an attempt to deal with the problem that Lord Astor approached Arabella’s mother to suggest that her eldest daughter accompany her sister to London after the wedding. He had at first been reluctant to make the suggestion. He had no strong desire to have the beautiful older sister in his home as a constant reminder of his disappointment in finding that she was not his chosen bride. He did not wish to have always before his vision the contrast between his plain wife and her lovelier sister.
But he had changed his mind. He did not expect to spend much of his time at home anyway, once he had conveyed his wife back to town. And together the sisters would be able to entertain each other. He would have less need to spend his time with his wife. Besides, after a week or more spent at Parkland Manor, Lord Astor was finding Frances a trifle less attractive than he had at first thought her. She was beautiful, yes. But he was frequently called upon to talk with her during a walk or at table or in the drawing room. And he found her conversation trivial and sentimental. Her tendency to dissolve into tears at the slightest hint of a tender topic began to irritate him.
Lord Astor had not had a great deal to do with ladies. He had conversed with them at assemblies and at balls, of course, but never for long enough to become bored by any shallowness their beauty might hide. With his mistresses he was not much concerned with conversation at all. It mattered little to him if they were silly or shallow or suffered from excessive sensibility, provided they satisfied him in more essential ways.
Indeed, he would have been congratulating himself on not having to marry Frances after all if he did not suspect that Arabella would prove to be an even less interesting bride. And at least the elder sister would have been lovelier to look upon.
By the time the month drew to its end, Lord Astor was feeling resigned to his lot, as he had expected to do. He had not found the time quite as tedious as he had expected, but he would be glad to be back in town, back in his familiar haunts with his familiar companions. He would, of course, be forced to make some effort to introduce his wife to theton, but on the whole that would not be too onerous a task. He usually frequented quite a number oftonevents anyway. And she would have her sister to keep her company during the daytime and after the first half-hour of evening entertainments. On the whole, he felt, his normal way of life would not be seriously disrupted by his marriage. And Lord Astor was quite well-pleased with his normal way of life.
Arabella was feeling less resigned than her betrothed as the day of her marriage drew closer. She had had little enough courage when Lord Astor first arrived and made her his offer. That little drained away drop by drop as the days passed. News of her betrothal traveled fast, as did all news of even lesser import in the region of Parkland. And the news brought with it every last one of their acquaintances, eager to wish her well, even more eager to be presented to the new Viscount Astor.
And Arabella became more and more aware as the days passed of how superior her betrothed was in both appearance and manners to even the most splendid of her neighbors. There had been the time not so long before when she had blushed every time she was forced to be in company with Mr. Thomas Carr. Yet Mr. Carr looked quite ordinary when he stood talking with the viscount outside church on the first Sunday. And Theodore had always appeared to be a fine figure of a man. Now he appeared just a little too solid in build and just a little too ruddy of complexion.
The viscount conversed with ease with everyone. He did not appear uncomfortable with the rector’s talk of books as Mr. Carr always did, or avoid talking with the gentlemen farmers about crops as the rector did, or feel it beneath his dignity to converse with the ladies as several of the other gentlemen did.
And he clearly favored Frances. Arabella had known he would. She had fully expected it. And she deliberately arranged it so that he would have Frances or Mama to talk with instead of her whenever they were out walking or when they did not have visitors. She would not draw attention to her plain and childish person, and she would not force him to listen to her unpolished conversation. She was not in any way his match. He must find her dull. He must regret terribly having to marry her when Frances might have been his bride.
Arabella was not at all cheered by the favorable impression made on the neighborhood by her betrothed. She did not bask in the glory of her position as his intended bride. She merely felt a dreadful embarrassment. The contrast in their appearance and manners was glaringly noticeable, she believed. Everyone must think that it was a poor match—for him.
