Jane, inspecting the dishes of food in the breakfast room, suddenly felt sick and picked up only a slice of toast.Fairfaxkissing Honor.Perhaps at just the moment when she was kissing Joseph.Even the toast looked too heavy for her stomach.
"He surely will offer for me after we have been to Templeton Hall, do you not think?" Honor was saying. "His intentions are really quite clear, I do believe.Escorting me to Vauxhall last evening, dancing with me all night, kissing me, inviting me to join his house party for two weeks.Hecould hardlynot ask. What do you think, Jane?"
Jane broke her toast into small pieces and moved them about her plate. "Is that what you want, Honor?" she asked. "Do you really wish to marry Viscount Fairfax?"
"What female in her right mind would not wish it?" Honor said. "I just hope he does not like spending all his time in the country, Jane, and that he is not wholly attached to those two babies. He could not possibly be that staid, could he?No man who is that handsome would not wish to cut a dash in society for at least part of each year."
"I believe he does like to spend his time in his own home and with his children," Jane said quietly.
Honor pulled a face. "I suppose one cannot have everything one wants in life, can one?" she said. "Now, if we could just combine Mr.Sedgeworthand Lord Fairfax, Jane, we could produce one perfect gentleman.The sense of adventure of the one and the looks of the other.Then we really could make a wager, Jane, to see who would have him, and we could fight to the death."
No, Jane thought, if they could only combine the quiet domesticity of the one with the unthreatening physical presence of the other, then she would wager with any woman and fight for her man. She sighed.
"Jane," Honor said, "youare not in the dismals, are you? But of course, once one is betrothed it must seem irksome to have to wait for the wedding and the wedding journey. Are you going to be fitted for your trousseau before we go into the country? There will be little time afterward if you are to be married in the summer. Oh, do let me come and help you choose, Jane. You know I have an eye for color and design. And you must be fashionable if you are to go to places like Paris and Vienna and Rome. I am so very envious. Have my eyes turned quite green yet? Well, I can wait no longer. I do not care if Mama is cross as a bear when her sleep is disturbed. I have to go up to speak with her. Lord Fairfax is coming after luncheon to ask if I may accompany you to Templeton Hall."
"Do you not regret all the balls and such you will miss for two weeks, Honor?" Jane asked.
"Pooh," she replied. "There is no one exciting to make my staying here worthwhile. There is Henley, of course, but I really think he is too old. Do you not agree, Jane?"
She did not wait for an answer. She was already on the way to wake her mother.
Fairfax was eager to be gone. The five days between the Vauxhall party and his departure for Templeton Hall passed with fair rapidity only because there was plenty to keep him busy. There was business to attend to and shopping to be done. He had to take gifts home for the girls. There were people to visit and take his leave of. There were letters to be written, instructing his housekeeper on the number of guests and their servants to expect. And there was the visit to be paid to Sir Alfred and Lady Jamieson to arrange for their daughter to accompany Miss Matthews the following week.
He had some regrets for the haste with which he had issued the invitation. He hoped he was not tying his own hands. Would it seem to an unbiased observer that his invitation was a natural prelude to a marriage proposal? After all, she was the only unattached lady he had invited. But he reassured himself. It was perfectly natural that heinviteher to accompany Miss Matthews, her cousin. He did not wish to be forced into marrying Miss Jamieson. She was extremely pretty and very lively. But he knew there could never be any real friendship between them. He would very quickly become bored with her company.
He was a little uneasy at the exuberance with which she and her mother received him the afternoon after Vauxhall. It seemed almost as if they were expecting an offer there and then. He must be very careful at home not to give the girl the impression that she was there as his intended bride.
He was still stunned bySedgeworth'sbetrothal to Miss Matthews. Looking back, he supposed he should have recognized the signs. Those two had been quite friendly for some time, and clearly Sedge had invited her to accompany him to Vauxhall. But he had become so used over the years to believing that his friend was a confirmed bachelor that he had been taken completely by surprise.
He was equally surprised that Miss Matthews had acceptedSedgeworth. He had assumed when she refused him that she was choosing a life of spinster-hood. To find only two weeks later that she had accepted his friend was a humbling experience. Yes, very humbling, he had to admit. When he really thought the matter over, he realized that his chagrin at being refused had a great deal of conceit in it. How could any woman refuse him? The question sounded quite dreadful when he put it in quite that way, but it was the way he had reacted nonetheless. And how could any woman prefer JosephSedgeworthto him? Again when he put the question into words in his mind, he fairly squirmed with embarrassment. Was he really that conceited? He had not thought himself so. But he must be.
Was that the image he had projected for Miss Matthews when he made his offer? Was that why she had refused him? Was that why she had accused him of treating her like a commodity? He had to admit, though very ruefully, that perhaps she had had some justification.
So he tried to be happy for his friend and for the woman he had wanted to marry. Why should she not refuse him if she wished? And why should she not choose to marry Sedge? He had to applaud her good taste. Sedge would be a kindly and a loyal husband. And she would not be tied down to a sedentary life as she would have been with him. He listened to Sedge-worth's enthusiastic praises of his betrothed without betraying by word or chance expression that he also had proposed to her.
And he tried to adjust his mind to thinking of her as his friend's betrothed. He no longer avoided her company but tried to concentrate on rebuilding the quiet friendship that had grown between them before he thought of making her his bride. He tried to prepare his mind for her presence at Templeton Hall and found after a few days that he genuinely looked forward to having her there.With Sedge, of course.He did not know Lord and Lady Dart very well. But he did know that he could expect some pleasant conversations with bothSedgeworthand hisfiancee. And he wanted her to meet his daughters. Why, he did not quite know. Paternal pride, he supposed.
And it was to his daughters that his thoughts turned most during those five days, with an impatient eagerness to be gone. He was to set out a day before the others so that he would be able to welcome them properly to his home. On horseback he hoped to make the journey in one day. In that case he would have a two-day advantage over his guests.
"There will be a very good view of the Hall over to your right in just a minute,"Sedgeworthsaid. He was bending from his horse's back in order to look into his sister's carriage, where the ladies rode. "It is built on a rise of land, a quite inspired choice of location, as you will see."
"Are we really almost there?" Honor asked. "I am frightfully relieved, as I do not mind saying. Not that this is not a very well-sprung carriage, Joy, but after two days on our delightful English roads, even good springs fail to disguise the bumps."
"Having to spend a night at an inn does not help matters either, does it?" Lady Dart said agreeably. "I always believe that inns must purchase their furniture from special manufacturers.Especially the mattresses.There must be competition to see who can produce the lumpiest."
"The gentlemen have all the good fortune," Honor said. "They have been able to ride all the way."
Jane did not participate in the conversation. She was watching the window on the right side of the coach, waiting for her first glimpse of Templeton Hall. She tried not to show her eagerness, but she could feel her heart thumping and her breath quickening.
And there it was. She sat forward and stared, oblivious now of the impression she might be making on an onlooker. It was still a few miles distant but clearly visible on a rise of land above fields and woods. It was a strange mixture of architectural styles, Joseph had told her. The original manor had been built in Elizabethan times, but almost every viscount since had added something. From this distance, however, it looked massive and imposing.
The carriage rolled down a dip in the road and the house was lost to view behind the roadside hedge. Soon now, Joseph said, they would turn into the elm-lined driveway that stretched for well over a mile before reaching the house. She would see him again soon. It was three whole days since she had set eyes on him. Would he be outside to greet them?
Jane sat back in her seat suddenly, casting a conscious glance at her two chattering companions. She had realized the turn her thoughts had taken and was horrified atherself. She must not allow such thoughts. She had freely betrothed herself to Joseph, and she looked forward to a good marriage with him. She must forget this childish infatuation for their host. She must guard against seeing him as anything else but her host and herfiance'sfriend for the next two weeks.
She closed her eyes briefly when the carriage turned into the shady tree-lined driveway that would lead eventually to the house. This might have been hers. She might have been coming home now with her husband. No. No! She resolutely opened her eyes and gazed at the passing trees. She breathed in the scent of green vegetation.
He was outside. The main doors, leading out onto a cobbled terrace, were open wide. Two footmen were visible inside, but their master was standing at the foot of the steps, his hands clasped behind him, a smile on his face. He must somehow have seen their approach. Jane's stomach turned over.
