“And did you notice today?” she asked him almost defiantly when she was down on the terrace beside him.
His smile deepened, and his eyes seemed to turn bluer, and she wondered what on earth she was doing even considering marrying him. He could have any woman on earth, even a few as rich as she or richer. He could not possibly want to marry her.
“I have noticed the elegance of your dress and the vividness of the color, which suits you perfectly,” he said. “I have noticed that your straw bonnet suggests summertime, as the weather itself does. I have noticed that there is no veil in sight. And—ah, yes, now that I look more closely I notice that you seem to have some slight blemish on the left side of your face. The next time or the time after that I daresay I will not notice it at all.”
Some slight blemish indeed. And the next time or the time after that, indeed. “And happy Easter to you too, Lord Riverdale,” she said rather sourly, though she had been warmed by his humor.
“Come and meet my mother and sister.” He offered his arm. “They are in the drawing room.”
She wondered if they knew, if he had warned them. She told him as they made their way upstairs, just because she was unnerved by their silent progress, how lovely the church had looked this morning with all the lilies, and he told her that there had been as many daffodils as lilies in their church.
“Golden trumpets of hope,” he said, and she grimaced.
“I felt very foolish after saying those words aloud when we were on the daffodil bank,” she said.
“But why?” he asked her. “I will always see daffodils that way from now on.”
The butler had gone ahead of them and was opening the drawing room doors, both of them, with something of a flourish. Wren felt her knees turn weak and heard a voice in her head—her uncle’s. He had spoken the words when she was ten years old and her aunt had taken her to his house in London and lifted the heavy veil from her face and he had looked at her for the first time. Straighten your spine, girl, he had said, not unkindly, and raise your chin and look the world in the eye. If you are cringing or dying on the inside, let it be your secret alone. All her life until then she had hunched and cringed and tipped her head to one side and tucked her chin into her neck and tried to be invisible. Now she straightened her already straight spine, raised her already lifted chin, and looked directly at the two ladies who were standing a short distance apart halfway across the room.
Everything seemed unnaturally bright. But of course, there was no veil between her and the harsh, real world.
“Mama, Lizzie,” the Earl of Riverdale said, “may I present Miss Heyden? My mother, Mrs. Westcott, and my sister, Lady Overfield, Miss Heyden.”
“Oh, my dear.” The older lady clasped her hands to her bosom and took a few hurried steps closer, frowning in concern. “You have burned yourself.”
“No,” Wren said. “I was born this way.” He had not warned them, then. She extended her right hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Westcott?”
The lady took her hand. “I am very relieved that you did not suffer the pain of a burn,” she said. “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Heyden. I have never been to Brambledean before even though my husband’s cousin owned it all my married life and it has been Alex’s since last year. It was a pleasure to meet some of his near neighbors at church this morning and it is a pleasure to have the chance of a longer visit with you this afternoon. Friendly connections are very important when one lives in the country, are they not?”
She was a slight, dark-haired lady with an amiable face and a gracious manner. She was of medium stature and must have been a beauty in her day. It was easy to see where her son had got his looks, if not his height. Her daughter was taller, though still more than half a head shorter than Wren. She was fairer of coloring too and pretty without being dazzlingly lovely. She was probably a few years older than her brother. She offered Wren her hand.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance too, Miss Heyden,” she said. “And may I offer condolences on your double loss just a little over a year ago? It must have been quite devastating.”
“It was.” Wren shook her hand. “Thank you.”
The earl directed her to a chair and they all sat down. The tea tray and plates of food were carried in almost immediately, and Mrs. Westcott poured while Lady Overfield passed around the drinks and pastries. Wren took two of the latter, struck by the thought that she was free to help herself to food today since there was no veil to make eating near impossible.
“Do you spend much time at your home in the country here, Miss Heyden?” Mrs. Westcott asked. “Withington House, I believe Alex called it. Wiltshire is a particularly scenic county, is it not?”
“It is,” Wren agreed. “My uncle chose it after some deliberation and much consultation with my aunt when they decided a number of years ago to buy a country home. There is another house in Staffordshire, close to the glassworks I inherited, but it is in a more urbanized area than Withington House and not as attractive. I do spend time there, however, sometimes for weeks at a time. I run the business myself, you see, though admittedly the manager there, who was with my uncle for years as his trusted right-hand man, could proceed very well without me. I do not subscribe to the notion, however, that a woman must remain at home and rely upon men to take care of everything beyond its bounds.”
There. She was speaking with what even to her own ears sounded like belligerence, like throwing down a gauntlet, as though she needed to make clear to them that she was not out to snare their son and brother merely in order to cling to him for the rest of her life. That had never been her intention. She wished to wed, yes, but marriage could never be all in all to her, as she guessed it was for most women of her class. Perhaps they did not think she was out to snare him at all, however. He was, after all, an earl and an extremely handsome man, while she was … Well. Some people had described her uncle a little contemptuously as a cit despite the fact that he had been a gentleman. Members of the upper classes often frowned upon alliances with such people.
“Oh, I do applaud you, Miss Heyden,” Lady Overfield said with a laugh that had a pleasant gurgle to it. “But how you must scandalize the ton.”
“I know nothing of the ton,” Wren said. “My uncle was a gentleman, and my aunt was a lady. I am a lady. But though my uncle had a home in London before he married my aunt, he sold it afterward and always declared that he did not miss the life he had had there. I have never craved it. We divided our time between Staffordshire and here.”
“You never had a come-out Season, then?” Mrs. Westcott asked.
“No,” Wren said. “I never wanted one or any entrée into high society. I still do not. I am quite happy with my life as it is.” Except that I proposed marriage to your son because I want someone to wed.
She was being a bit obnoxious, Wren realized, and more than a bit stiff in her demeanor. Miss Briggs would be tutting and shaking her head and making her practice a relaxed, gracious social manner again and again and yet again. She was feeling hostile for no apparent reason, for neither lady was looking at her disapprovingly or with any haughty condescension. They were very polite—as all ladies were trained to be. But surely they must have been inwardly cringing as they asked themselves why their son and brother had singled her out for this invitation to tea. They must have come to the inevitable conclusion, and they must have been horrified. They would surely pour outrage into his ears when she was gone.