“I imagine he has property, for a wife would only burden him if there was nowhere for her to live.”
“You are correct. There is an estate in Warwickshire, your own county.”
Rosina’s spirits rose. Come, this was more encouraging. At least she was eliciting some detail. Her own desperate need urged her to probe further. If she could only know enough of the gentlemen, perhaps she might be emboldened to think of — hope for? — such a solution. She gave him a speculative look.
“You have not mentioned the circumstances of his birth beyond the fact of his gentility.” She paused, but Mr Ottery had nothing to say. Rosina’s fingers travelled only half knowingly to her upper chest, as if to quiet the uneven flutters there. “I would guess that your client is titled, or there would be no need for this … charade. Nor, if his degree was very high, would he marry by this means, risking his name with the Lord only knows what obscure family connection.”
The lawyer, Rosina saw, was beginning to look amused. She could not help smiling. “You are surprised?”
“That fairly describes it, ma’am.” He gave out a laugh. “I have not met with this level of deduction in any other candidate.”
Rosina’s thoughts clouded. “Perhaps they had none of them as insistent a need to glean the truth.” The reminder of her purpose here threw her into acute consciousness. Heavens, she was falling into it so easily! Abruptly, she rose. “I think I have wasted enough of your time, Mr Ottery.”
The lawyer stood, coming quickly around the desk. “Pray don’t go, Miss Charlton. I assure you, there is no cause either for alarm or distress. You are young, and perhaps you do not know how circumstances now and again so arrange themselves that a gentleman feels himself forced into taking a course of action which might be considered unusual, to say the least. But as to my client’s reasons, they are intensely personal. I beg you to believe, however, that his proposition is both simple and honest. May I beg you to sit down again?”
So much understanding sounded in his voice that Rosina allowed herself to be persuaded. But as she re-seated herself, she was once again struck by that unaccountable feeling of being observed. Almost involuntarily, she cast another searching glance about the room. No, they were alone. It must be the lawyer’s own regard making her nervous.
Or perhaps, she thought, catching sight of the portrait over Mr Ottery’s shoulder, it was a trick of those charismatic painted eyes. She shivered and dragged her attention back to the matter at hand.
The lawyer was outlining the details of the gentleman’s stipulations. “My client proposes, upon my advice, that his wife should be passed off as a female to whom he has been betrothed by a long-standing arrangement made between the parents or guardians of both parties. The lady in the case will be supposed to have lived retired in the expectation of his addresses being paid in due course. It will therefore not be considered particularly odd, my client believes, should his wife continue to live in a quiet way upon his estates.”
Rosina frowned in painful concentration, trying to follow the thread of his discourse. It did not quite ring true. Besides, this was a matter of acute importance in her own case.
“Forgive me, but why should his wife do so, if she is marrying the man of her expectations, whose social standing cannot be in question? Would she not rather suppose that the marriage would bring her into contact with the circle of his friends?”
“A just observation. But the case is that my client has been abroad for many years, and his acquaintance with such a circle is but slight. He has no desire to increase it, and will himself therefore be content to live in a similarly restricted manner.”
This was so exactly what Rosina wanted for herself that anxiety rose up once more. She did not wish to become so deeply enmeshed in this affair that its attraction became great enough to tempt her. A marriage of convenience, which would ensure a lifetime’s security at the trifling cost of marrying a stranger, with the added advantage that she might live in the obscurity she craved? It would be difficult indeed to find anything to equal it. What in all conscience was there to be said against it, beyond her own deep-rooted dislike of selling herself for profit?
Oh, but there was one thing. Her heart sank. How could she have overlooked the one aspect of the matter that would, at a blow, render it impossible? An uneven beat started up in her pulses. She looked at Mr Ottery, and was obliged to swallow on a dry throat. Could she bring herself to speak of it? She must. It was unthinkable to continue ignorant of the answer.
“There is one thing...” Her voice died. She drew another painful breath and tried again. “The gentleman must wish, I suppose, to be provided with—”
Heavens, she could not even say it! Even less could she look at the man across the desk. His eyes — worse, the hateful eyes of that horrid portrait! — must see clearly her confusion, for she felt heat rising in her cheeks.
The lawyer’s voice came, devoid of all expression. “Naturally, my client will wish to be provided with an heir.”
Rosina’s breath sighed out. He had guessed it. Relieved of the necessity of speaking of the matter, she almost forgot her reason for asking it. Until Mr Ottery spoke again.
He coughed delicately. “Such a matter will be arranged at the convenience of my client. There is to be no aspect of the marriage vow excluded in the agreement.”
What did that mean? Her eyes flew up, meeting the blandness of Mr Ottery’s gaze. No doubt that she would be expected to obey — in all things. At the convenience of a stranger who was obliged to advertise for a wife? Oh, she could not! It was to escape one vile trap only to fall into another. She said nothing, forming mentally the resolve to leave this place at the termination of this horrid interview, and apply immediately instead for a post as housekeeper, which was all the occupation she felt fit to obtain.
“There is one further proviso,” said the lawyer, as coolly as ever. But his eyes watched her narrowly, Rosina thought. “It will be impossible for my client’s prospective wife to meet him prior to the wedding.”
On her return to Withibrooke, it had been this last that had formed the chief topic of discussion between Gatty and herself.
“Can it be that the gentleman’s age is against him?” had wondered her nurse.
“It cannot be that, for Mr Ottery gave me to understand that he has a year or so yet to reach thirty. No, he must be deformed, or crippled. Perhaps he is a dwarf.”
“It does seem so, my dove, I must say. Mayhap the man has a horror of women. One of these fellows they call a molly.”
“Or he is merely ugly, or extremely fat.”
Whatever it was, they had been agreed that this reluctance to meet a female with whom he expected to spend his life must betoken some deficiency of person. Which meant, as Rosina had pointed out with a shudder, that the conjugal duties involved constituted a fate more undesirable than the one for which she had been intended.
“Nor,” had said Gatty worriedly, “since I can’t settle it in my mind that this housekeeper business will perfectly answer the purpose, can we yet be certain you have escaped it.”
