“I will not trap you into marriage, Percy,” she said.
“Nor I you,” he assured her, “though I did recklessly endanger you last night before I knew therewasno danger.”
A stream of people was pushing its way through a gap in the gorse bushes at the bottom of the lawn, accompanied by noise and laughter and general exuberance—Mr. Eldridge; his twin sisters; Mr. Galliard with young Geoffrey held firmly by the hand; Meredith; and the two gentlemen who had been riding earlier with the earl. The little boy slipped his hand free of his grandfather’s at sight of the earl and came hurtling across the lawn, arms spread wide, mouth piping high-pitched news about building a sand castle and getting his shoes and stockings wet in the sea and going inside a big, dark cave and not being one little bit frightened.
The earl opened his own arms, caught the hurtling figure, and swung him about in a high circle before setting him down again.
Imogen’s heart constricted a little. She had disciplined herself into thinking of her barrenness as a blessing in disguise. If there had been children, she would not have been able to accompany Dicky to the Peninsula. She would have been without the memory of that last year and a bit with him—thegoodmemories. But perhaps, she thought now, if there had been children he would not have gone himself. Perhaps he would have stayed and somehow reconciled himself to the difficult situation with his father. Perhaps he would still be alive and here now.
Pointless thoughts!
It was disconcerting, though, to see that the Earl of Hardford was fond of children, or of this child, anyway. Would he make a good father? Or would he be neglectful of his own, leaving them to the care of his wife and nurses and tutors and governesses? He had the example of loving parents, though, and of a close-knit larger family.
For a moment she allowed herself the indulgence of longing for life the way it might have been, but she soon stifled the feeling. That was the trouble with letting down some of her guard. She had allowed herself a short vacation in which to take a lover, and now other thoughts and feelings were trying to creep—or gallop in.
“And are we to look forward to a grand ball in celebration of Percy’s birthday, Lady Barclay?” Viscount Marwood asked her with a grin as the rest of the group came up with them. He had a smugly happy-looking twin on each arm. Meredith was on Mr. Welby’s arm.
“Oh, grander even than that,” Imogen assured him, and there was general whooping and laughter as though she had made the joke of the decade.
“And you thought you could turn thirty only once, Perce,” Mr. Welby said. “Hard luck, old chap.”
She and Percy continued on to the dower house as the group continued on its way back to the hall, but Imogen did not miss the wink Mr. Welby directed at the earl.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the dower house.
“Entertainments in the country usually end at a decent hour of late evening rather than at an indecent hour of the early morning as they do in town,” he said when they were standing at the gate, one on each side of it. “Will we be back before midnight tonight, do you suppose?”
“Normally I would say a definite yes,” she said. “However, the neighborhood will be buzzing with excitement at the presence of so many visitors at the hall, and Mrs. Payne likes to demonstrate that she is no rustic. It may be later.”
He set his hands on either side of her own on the gate without actually touching them.
“And how late would betoolate, Lady Barclay?” he asked her.
“Dawn,” she said. “Dawn would be too late.”
“We must hope, then,” he said, “that Mrs. Payne will let us go significantly before dawn. I do not like to be rushed in the pursuit of my pleasure.”
“We will hope,” she agreed. Beneath the brim of his tall hat, his eyes looked one shade darker than the sky.
He nodded, patted the back of her right hand, and turned to stride away back across the lawn, the heavy folds of his greatcoat swinging enticingly against the outsides of his boots.
Imogen went to look for snowdrops. There were five new blooms.
Spring had been defined for the past five years by the reunion with her fellow members of the Survivors’ Club in March. And now? Oh, and now there was an awakening of gladness in her that the earth was coming alive again, as it always did without fail, to overcome winter. Light to dispel darkness, color to replace drabness, hope to...
But no. She would keep it as an external rejoicing. The world was out there, beyond the bounds of her own being. And it was sprouting to new and exuberant life again, as it always would. Her heart lifted a little with it.
She blinked away tears—again?—before going indoors.
***
Mrs. Payne would be well able to hold her own as the hostess of a London drawing room, Percy decided during the evening. She was a bit brittle and hard-edged when not laying on the charm for him and his guests, but she knew how to control a largish party of diverse individuals.
The Kramer sisters, who seemed to like totake charge—he would wager they were on every committee ever devised by the local church—suggested music soon after everyone had arrived and even pulled their chairs and their mother’s into the small makings of a circle about the pianoforte that sat at one side of the drawing room. They would indeed have music, Mrs. Payne said with a graciousness that cut like a knife,aftersupper when it could make them mellow before they went home.
She directed the admiral to see that everyone had a drink—there was an impressive array of bottles and decanters on a long sideboard as well as a jug of lemonade and a large silver coffeepot and matching teapot covered with a plump cozy. She ushered some of the older guests into a smaller room that adjoined the drawing room and settled them about a few tables that had been set up for cards. She selected Sidney and Arnold as team leaders to pick teams for charades—a perfect choice of activity when a largish number of her guests were young people. And even some older folk enjoyed being silly once in a while. Miss Wenzel, almost bouncing with excitement on her chair, was particularly good at guessing even the most obtusely acted-out words, and Alton was an excellent actor and did not appear to mind making an ass of himself.
Before the excitement of the game could pall, Mrs. Payne summoned a group of servants to roll back the carpet and then took to the pianoforte herself to play a few vigorous country dances for the young people. Four couples might have stood up with ease, six at a bit of a squash. There were eight couples for every dance and a few bumped elbows and trodden toes and one slightly torn hem and a good deal of laughter. A ninth couple was a physical impossibility, however, Percy discovered during the third such dance when he tried to edge onto the end of the line with Lady Quentin. Mrs. Payne actually stopped playing in order to tell them so.
