First Comes Marriage

22

ELLIOTT had reserved a box at Vauxhall Gardens. An evening at the famous pleasure gardens just south of the River Thames was something not to be missed when one was in town during the Season, and Vanessa's face had lit up with anticipated pleasure as soon as he asked her if she would like to go there.

Pleasing his wife had become of great importance to him. So had the certain kind of love he felt for her. He could not - or would not - put a name to it. He was surely not /in /love with her - it was too trivial a term. And as for simply loving - well, he had come to distrust love and did not want to put his feelings for Vanessa into that fragile category.

He trusted her. It seemed to him that her life must always have been characterized by the unconditional love she gave freely to all who were close to her, whether they deserved it or not.

He did not deserve her love, heaven knew.

And yet he knew that in her own way she loved him.

She had left him on that evening in the library as soon as he had finally got himself under control, and she had never alluded to the horribly embarrassing incident since. She had given him time and space in which to recover himself and heal.

And heal he did. He came to understand that love - if he dared use that word - did not reside in any one person. His father had let him down. So had Con. But /love /had not.

Love remained to him both as something other people gave him and, more important, as something he was capable of giving.

He was going to love his own children with a steadiness upon which they could rely for as long as he lived. And their mother would teach them, by example if not in words - though there doubtless /would /be words in plenty - that love was something that lived deep inside everyone, a bottomless well, something that could give a happy bent to their lives even during dark and difficult days.

And those children - or the first, at least - would not be too far in the future. Vanessa, he realized, must be with child even though she had not chosen to tell him yet. She had not had her courses since their marriage.

He was beginning to feel a cautious contentment with his marriage.

The visit to Vauxhall had not been arranged purely for Vanessa's benefit, however. It was mainly for Miss Huxtable and young Merton, who were going to go back to Warren Hall within a few days. Vanessa and Elliott were going with them, but as soon as Elliott had seen the boy properly settled with his tutors again, they would return to London for the rest of the Season.

Elliott had been feeling a little concerned by the ease with which the boy had taken to London. He was still years too young to enter fully into the life that would eventually be his, but he had made a number of older friends, both male and female, and was out and about most days - riding in the park, or going to the races, or examining the horses at Tattersall's, or attending the surprisingly large number of social events to which he was invited.

He was too young, and he was perhaps an easy prey to men like Con, who often accompanied him. It was time for him to be reined in and returned home, where his education would resume until he went up to Oxford.

Surprisingly, Merton had been quite willing to go. He put up no fight whatsoever when Elliott took him aside to broach the subject with him. "I cannot join any of the gentlemen's clubs yet," he said, counting the points off on his fingers, "and I cannot buy horses or a curricle or a dozen and one other things without your permission, and I cannot take my seat in the House of Lords or attend any of the most interesting of the balls and soirees. And it has become very clear to me that there are a million things I need to learn before I am allowed to do all these things. Besides, I miss Warren Hall. I scarcely had time to start to feel at home there before coming here. I will be glad to go back." The boy was going to go through a wild period before too many more years had passed, Elliott was sure. But he would come through it all relatively unscathed, it was to be hoped. He had a good character beneath all his restless energy, the result of a good upbringing.

His eldest sister insisted upon going back to the country with him. She had made her debut in society, she told Elliott firmly when he suggested that she did not need to go with Merton since he would have his tutors to keep a firm eye upon him. She could now mingle with the /ton /whenever she was so inclined - /if /she ever felt so inclined. She was very glad she had come to London for a part of the Season, but her place was with Stephen, and for the next several years, anyway, until he married, her place was at Warren Hall as its mistress. And she was not needed in London with her younger sister, as Kate was to move to Moreland House, where she would be well chaperoned by the dowager Lady Lyngate until Vanessa returned from the country.

She was not to be shaken from that resolve.

It was Vanessa who told Elliott about Allingham's offer and her refusal of it. It would have been a brilliant match for her, but according to Vanessa, her sister still carried a torch for her faithless military officer and perhaps always would.

Katherine Huxtable had wanted to return to Warren Hall too when she first knew of her brother and sister's plan to go there. She missed the quiet of the country-side, she explained. But Cecily and Vanessa between them persuaded her to stay. She had a host of admirers and would-be suitors - as many as Cecily, in fact. Perhaps, Elliott thought, she did not realize quite how fortunate she was. Many young ladies who were making their debut would have given a great deal to have just half as many.

But one thing was growingly apparent to Elliott. Life might have changed almost beyond recognition for the Huxtables, but it had not changed them. They would adjust - they were already doing so. But they would not be spoiled.

At least, he /hoped /that applied to Merton as well as to his sisters.

The evening at Vauxhall was planned, then, as a farewell party for Merton and Miss Huxtable. Elliott's mother, Cecily, Averil and her husband, and of course Katherine Huxtable were of the party too.

Elliott had chosen an evening when there was to be dancing and fireworks. And as good fortune would have it, it was an evening on which the sky remained cloudless after dark and the air remained almost warm and the breeze was only strong enough to cause the lanterns in the trees to sway slightly and send their colored lights and shadows dancing through the branches and across the numerous paths along which the revelers strolled.

They approached the gardens by river and stepped inside just as darkness was falling. The orchestra was already playing in the central rotunda, where they had their box. "Oh, Elliott," Vanessa said, holding tightly to his arm, "have you ever seen anything lovelier?" Vanessa and her superlatives! Nothing was ever just simply lovely or delicious or enjoyable. "Than the gown you are wearing or your newly cut hair?" he asked, looking down at her. "Yes, I have seen something lovelier. Infinitely lovelier, in fact. /You!/" She turned her face up to his and the familiar laughter lit it from within. "How absurd you are," she said. "Ah," he said, recoiling. "Did you mean the gardens, by any chance? Yes, I suppose they are rather lovely too now that I spare them a glance." She laughed outright, and Miss Huxtable turned her head to smile at them. "Happy?" he asked Vanessa, touching the fingers of his free hand to hers on his arm.

Some of the laughter faded. "Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, I am." And he wondered if this was it - the happily-ever-after at which he had always scoffed and that even she did not believe in. Something that had crept up quietly on them, something that did not need to be put into words.

Except that it would be strange indeed if Vanessa did not somehow /find /words and force him into finding some too.

He grimaced inwardly and then smiled to himself. "Oh, look, Elliott," she said. "The orchestra and the boxes. And the dancing area. Will we dance? Outdoors, under the stars? Could anything be more romantic?" "Absolutely nothing I can think of," he said, "except that the dance be a waltz." "Oh, yes," she said. "Oh, good," young Merton said at the same moment, his voice bright with enthusiasm. "There is Constantine with his party. He said he would be here this evening." Vanessa was so deeply in love that it was almost painful. For though she had answered truthfully when Elliott had asked her unexpectedly if she was happy, it had been only partly the truth.

He had not said anything since that night in the library, and she had been left to wonder if he resented her, if he felt she had humiliated him by forcing tears from him and refusing to leave when he had wanted her to.

Not that he /behaved /as if he were resentful. There had been a certain tenderness in his manner to her in the week since - and even greater tenderness in his lovemaking. And perhaps actions really did speak louder than words.

But she needed the words.

He had not said /anything/.

She was not one to brood, however. Her marriage was many times happier than she had expected it to be when she had taken the desperate measure of proposing marriage to him so that he would not offer for Meg. She would be content with things as they were for the rest of her life if she must.

But oh, how she longed for…Well, for /words/.

How could she possibly be anything but nine parts out of ten happy, though, when she was at Vauxhall Gardens with everyone who was most dear to her in life?

They strolled along the main avenues of the gardens as a group, drinking in the sights of trees and sculptures and arched colonnades and colored lanterns and fellow revelers, breathing in the scents of nature and perfumes and food, listening to the sounds of voices and laughter and distant music.

They feasted upon sumptuous foods, including the wafer-thin slices of ham and the strawberries for which Vauxhall was famous. And upon sparkling wines.

They conversed with numerous acquaintances who stopped briefly outside their box.

And they danced - all of them, even the dowager.

Waltzing beneath the stars was every bit as romantic as Vanessa had dreamed it would be, and it seemed to her that she and Elliott did not remove their eyes from each other while they performed the steps. She smiled at him, and he gazed back at her with that look in his eyes that surely was tenderness.

She would believe it was that. Words really were unnecessary.

But perversely, though she was mostly happy, and that was happier than any mortal could expect to be in this life for longer than a few moments at a time, there /was /that one other part to mar her joy. And it was not entirely due to Elliott's failure to say anything of any great significance since that evening in the library.

For Constantine was here - as he was at almost every other entertainment she attended. And avoiding him was as much of a strain this evening as it had been for the last week and more.

He was as smiling and charming as ever. And as attentive, despite the fact that he had come there with another party. He talked with Stephen for a while and danced with Meg. He took Cecily and Kate for a stroll, one on each arm, and did not reappear with them for half an hour.

Vanessa would have been downright uneasy if the girls had not been together. As it was, she felt - well, annoyed with him and annoyed with herself. For though she had every reason to warn her brother and sisters against him, she had not done so. She would have had to mention Mrs.

Bromley-Hayes if she had, and his theft at Warren Hall when Jonathan was still alive. She was unwilling to mention either, so she had said nothing.

She had avoided Constantine on her own account, though he always smiled at her and would have approached, she knew, if she ever gave him the slightest encouragement. She could have avoided him for the rest of the Season, she supposed, especially as she was going to be away from London for the next week or so. But avoidance had never been her way of dealing with life. When he returned Cecily and Kate to the box and would have returned to his own party, Vanessa leaned forward in her seat. Elliott was talking with a few of his male acquaintances. "And will you walk with me too, Constantine?" she asked.

He smiled warmly at her, and it struck her that it was a great pity she had lost a cousin so soon after finding him. He was undoubtedly capable of great charm. He bowed to her and offered his arm. "It would be my pleasure," he said. As soon as they had moved away from the box, he bent his head a little closer to hers. "I thought you had fallen out with me." "I have," she said.

His face was grave, but his eyes laughed in the lamp-light as they turned onto a broad avenue. He raised his eyebrows, inviting an explanation. "It was not well done," she said, "to introduce Mrs. Bromley-Hayes to me and my brother and sisters and Cecily at the theater. And it was not well done to bring her to Cecily's come-out ball. I expected better of you. You are our /cousin/." Some of the laughter had faded from his eyes. "It was not," he agreed. "I apologize, Vanessa. My intention was never to hurt you or your family. Or Cece." "But you did," she said. "Cecily and Stephen and Meg and Kate do not know that they were exposed to a tasteless indiscretion for all the /ton /to see. But I do. And I was the one most affected, apart from Elliott, whom I assume you deliberately set out to embarrass. Did you assume, Constantine, that I would not confront Elliott with what I learned from Mrs. Bromley-Hayes the day after the ball, though she lied to me? Did you assume that our marriage would be damaged from deep within, rather as a tumor might silently destroy the body? If you did, you assumed wrongly. My marriage has not been destroyed and my happiness has not been dimmed. Though it has in one way. I was happy to discover you when we came to Warren Hall. I instantly loved you as a cousin and I soon liked you as a person. I would have been your friend for the rest of your life and welcomed your friendship for the rest of mine. We could have been /family/. But you maliciously destroyed any such chance, and I am sorry for it. That is all I have to say." All the laughter was gone from his eyes now as he maneuvered her to one side of the path so that they would not be mowed down by a boisterous group that was approaching from the opposite direction. "Anna /spoke /to you?" he asked. "She told you that she was still Elliott's mistress, I suppose? She would not have expected that you would confront him with your knowledge and discover her lie so soon. I am sorry." She looked reproachfully at him but said nothing. "And I must confess /my /lie," he said after a short silence. "For of course I /did /hear about your meeting with Anna in the park. She told me herself. I am sorry, Vanessa. I really am. My quarrel is with Elliott, and I chose to embarrass him without ever considering the harm I would be doing you too. Believe me, that was never my intention." "You have a quarrel with him because he knows you for who you are," she said. "I side with him, Constantine. And your apology means nothing to me. I hope I will never see you again. I will never voluntarily speak with you again." /"Who I am," /he said with soft emphasis as they stopped walking. "A thief and a debaucher, I suppose." A /debaucher/? Was there something else Elliott had not told her, then?

But if there was, she did not want to know. "Yes," she said. "And you cannot deny the charge." "Can I not?" He smiled, a tight, mocking expression.

She gazed up at him as someone jostled her in passing, hopeful that against all reason he would offer some explanation. "You are quite right," he said instead, making her an elegant bow. "I cannot deny either charge, Vanessa, and /will /not. And so I must stand a villain in your eyes. And you are at least partly justified in your opinion of me. I will return you to your box, if I may. I do not suppose you wish to walk farther with me." "I do not," she said.

They turned to walk back the way they had come, not touching or speaking. But they had not gone far before Vanessa could see Elliott striding toward them, a frown on his face. "I return your viscountess unharmed," Constantine said when they came up to him, all the mockery back in his face and his voice. "Good evening to you, Vanessa. And to you too, Elliott." And he strolled away without a backward glance. "It was I who invited /him /to walk with /me,/" she explained. "I have been avoiding him. But I realized I needed to tell him how disappointed I was with his behavior at the theater and at Cecily's come-out ball. I needed to tell him why I will not speak to him again except as strict courtesy dictates. And I needed to tell him that I /know /about him. He mentioned debauchery as well as theft." "Ah, yes," he said, taking her arm and leading her off the main avenue onto a narrower, more shaded path. "But you need not know about that, Vanessa. Ah, but I suppose you do. There are young women in the neighborhood of Warren Hall, some of whom were once servants at the house, who are now bringing up their illegitimate children alone." "Oh," she said. "Oh, no." "Oh, yes, I am afraid," he said. "But let us not speak anymore of Con, Vanessa. Tell me about Hedley Dew instead." She turned her face toward him in the darkness. "About Hedley?" she said, sounding surprised. "After I spoke to you about my father," he said, "it struck me that you now knew a secret part of myself that you ought to know as my wife.

Hedley Dew is, I believe, the secret part of yourself and perhaps there is more about him that you need to tell me." The path had narrowed, and he released her arm in order to set his about her shoulders and draw her against his side. She was slender and warm, and it occurred to him that he had come to find her body infinitely enticing. Her hair smelled of some subtly fragrant soap. "He was delicate and dreamy all his life," she said. "He always preferred to sit in some secluded, scenic spot outdoors and talk than to join the other children in their boisterous games. I befriended him at first because I felt sorry for him - I would rather have joined in the games. But he knew a great deal - he was intelligent and he read voraciously - and he dreamed big dreams. As he grew older, he included me in those dreams. We were going to travel the world and immerse ourselves in the cultures of all sorts of people. He… He /loved /me. He had the loveliest smile, Elliott, and eyes one could fall into. He had /dreams /one could fall into." They came to a wooden seat beside the path and he drew her to sit on it.

He kept his arm about her. "And then one day I woke up from those dreams," she said, "to the realization that reality was a far harsher thing. He was ill. He was probably dying. I think I knew that before almost anyone except perhaps him. And he wanted me. He loved me. I loved him too, but not in /that /way. My parents had always told me that I would probably never marry because I was so much plainer than Meg and Kate and other girls from neighboring families. I /wanted /to marry, though, and of course Hedley was a dazzlingly good catch - he was Sir Humphrey Dew's son. He lived at Rundle Park. I do not think even so that I would have married him if he had not needed me. But he did. Marrying him was one thing I could give him, one dream of his that I could bring true for him. It was so obvious that none of the others would come true." She was shivering and her hands fidgeted in her lap. There was pain in her voice. He withdrew his arm from about her, shrugged out of his evening coat, and set it about her shoulders, holding it in place with his arm. "I did not want to do it," she said. "He was ill and dying and I was neither. I…did not find him attractive despite his great beauty. I have felt so much guilt over that. I told so many lies. I told him over and over again that I adored him." "And you regret that?" he asked her. "No!" she said vehemently. "What I regret is that I could never make it the truth. Oh, that is not quite true either. I /did /adore him. I loved him with all my heart and soul. But I did not /love /him." Even just a few weeks ago he would have shaken his head with exasperation at such muddle-headedness. Now strangely he knew exactly what she meant. He could understand the fine distinctions between different kinds of love. "What you /did /give him," he said, "was the best of all loves, Vanessa.

It was the pure gift of a love that gave and gave and took nothing in return." "Except that I did take too," she said. "He gave as much as I did, Elliott. He taught me so much about living life one day at a time, about finding joy in small things and laughter in the face of tragedy. He taught me about patience and dignity. And he taught me not to cling. He taught me how to let go, how to… He told me before he died that I must love again and marry again and be happy again. He told me I must always laugh. He - " She swallowed, and he could hear the gurgle in her throat.

He buried his nose in her hair and kissed the top of her head. "He loved me," she said. "And I loved him. I /did/. I am sorry, Elliott.

I am truly sorry. I /did /love him." He set his free hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. He kissed her, tasting the salt of tears on her cheeks and on her lips. "You must never apologize for that," he said against her lips. "And you must never deny it to yourself. Of course you loved him. And I am glad you did. You would not be the person I have come to know you as if you had not loved him." Her hand came up to cup the side of his face. "You are not still /terribly /sorry you married me?" she asked him. "Was I ever?" he asked her. "I think you were," she said. "You would never have chosen me left to yourself. I am plain, and I quarreled with you a number of times." "I suppose you /were /something of a pest," he said, "now that you remind me." She choked with laughter - as he had intended. "But never plain," he said. "Just beauty in disguise. And no, I am not sorry, terribly or otherwise. I am not sorry at all." "Oh," she said, "I am so glad. I have made you comfortable, then? And a little bit happy?" "And a little bit pleasured?" he said. "All three in fact, Vanessa. And you?" "And I am happy too," she said, kissing him softly on the lips with the old pucker.

It never failed to arouse him.

It was time for some grand declaration, he supposed. It was the time when, if he were not already married to her, he ought to go down on one knee with a flourish, take her hand in his, declare his undying love, and beg her to make him the happiest of men.

Since they /were /already married, he ought to -

There was a loud crack and whoosh from somewhere close by, and his thoughts were shattered as Vanessa shot to her feet. /What the devil?/ "The fireworks!" she cried. "They are beginning, Elliott. Oh, do let us hurry and go and see. Look!" She pointed upward to a fountain of red sparks that had appeared above the treetops. "Have you ever heard or seen anything more exciting in your life?" "Never," he said with a grin as she found his hand in the darkness and drew him - in his shirtsleeves - along the path at a smart trot.