Ravishing the Heiress

CHAPTER 3

The Pact

1888

A fortnight after the dinner, lawyers from both sides sat down once more at the negotiating table. But while the new earl had capitulated to the demands of his estate, the price he asked for his surrender was as steep as the Matterhorn.

Such was the influence of youth and beauty that Mr. Graves barely grumbled over having to pay nearly twice as much for this earl. The negotiations concluded quickly and Millie once again found herself engaged to marry.

Throughout it all, she never once heard from Lord Fitzhugh himself. There were no notes, no flowers, and no engagement ring. Citing his studies, he declined a second dinner with the Graves. For the Fourth of June, the biggest holiday at Eton, a time when friends and family flocked to the school, the Graves received not a single invitation to participate in the festivities.

And why should he act differently? Were Millie Lord Fitzhugh, she, too, would furiously enjoy the final days of her freedom and waste not a precious second on those to whom she’d soon be shackled for the rest of her life.

But understanding why he was so distant only made things worse. When she wasn’t buffeted by misery, she was overcome with shame. To him, she would always symbolize everything that was unappealing about coming of age: the crushing pressures of duty, the paucity of choices, and the appalling necessity to forgo dreams to pay creditors.

No aloofness on Lord Fitzhugh’s part, however, could dissuade Mrs. Graves from dragging Millie to Lord’s Cricket Ground on the day of the Eton and Harrow game.

Cricket was popular, a pastime enjoyed by young and old, gentlemen and laborers. More easygoing parsons sometimes joined their parishioners for a Sunday afternoon match. And certainly it was the dominant game in the lives of schoolboys.

The Eton and Harrow game at Lord’s, however, was not a sporting event. Or rather, the sporting event was but an excuse for all of Society to gather for a merry daylong picnic under a fair summer sun. And since no invitations were needed at Lord’s, it was also one of the few opportunities for the merely rich to rub elbows with the blue-blooded.

For that reason, Mrs. Graves always began planning for what she and her daughter would wear to the grand event months in advance. But two years in a row, they’d had to abstain, first because of the passing of Millie’s maternal grandfather, then due to severe abdominal troubles that had left Mr. Graves in need of his wife’s and daughter’s tender attention.

This year, with no one expiring and no one remotely under the weather, Millie could only watch helplessly as Mrs. Graves, in a burst of energy, orchestrated the outing.

On the first day of the match, their beautiful landau, its boot laden with picnic baskets, was dispatched to St. John’s Wood before the crack of dawn, to secure a place for the ladies at the side of the cricket ground. The ladies themselves, however, did not leave the house until eleven o’clock, arrayed in the latest gowns from Worth’s Paris atelier.

Cricket was not the point. The point was to see and be seen—and that was best done during the luncheon hour.

They arrived just as the players were walking off the field. With an alacrity that belied her complaints of arthritic joints, Mrs. Graves leaped down from the second-best carriage that had conveyed them to the outskirts of the cricket ground, which was now ringed by carriages three, sometimes, five deep. Pulling Millie along, she joined the great stampede of spectators making for the playing field that the two teams had just vacated.

The sky was a flawless blue, the clipped lawn a lively green. Thousands of ladies in their spring best milled about, splashes of pastels everywhere one looked, set off all the better against the somber black of the gentlemen’s day coats, like gems upon the dark velvet of a jewelry box.

It was a marvelous sight, if one were of the mind to enjoy the day. Millie was not. She’d never been one to relish public attention, especially not the kind of sidelong glances she gathered in her extravagant clothes that were beyond the means of many wellborn ladies. Worse, Mrs. Graves had turned into Parvenu Mother.

Mrs. Graves was not normally Parvenu Mother: She was proud of the haute bourgeoisie respectability from which she came. Social climbing was never foremost on her mind. She did it out of duty to her husband’s kin, especially his dead father and brother, both of whom had longed fiercely to ally the family with noble blood.

But this particular occasion seemed to turn her head. She informed everyone who would stand still that her daughter, paired with the winsome Lord Fitzhugh, was going to take Society by storm. Oh, my Millie has the most charming figure on the dance floor. Oh, my Millie has the most captivating way with conversation. Oh, the worst snobs among them will admire my Millie and she will be invited everywhere.

Millie’s protestation of her mediocre appeal only made Mrs. Graves scale ever greater heights of hyperbole.

Finally Mrs. Graves ran into an old friend who knew all about Millie’s imminent ascension as the Countess Fitzhugh and who was already convinced that Millie would set a new standard of popularity as a Society hostess. As a result, their conversation revolved around Millie’s trousseau, her wedding breakfast, and her honeymoon.

As Mrs. Graves waxed poetic about a honeymoon in Rome, which she herself would have enjoyed, were it not for Mr. Graves’s virulent objection to eating nothing but macaroni for two continuous weeks, the crowd shifted, revealing Lord Fitzhugh.

He stood amidst a flock of uniformed Eton students and their butterfly-bright sisters. There were at least five girls, but he had eyes only for one, a beautiful young lady with jet-black hair and lips of the loveliest pink Millie had ever seen, the color of Mrs. Graves’s prize peonies.

Millie was envious, but not overly alarmed at first: It was only too normal for a young man’s attention to be drawn to a beautiful young woman. Then she saw that the earl’s gaze was not one of mere interest, but of desperate yearning, as if he were a prisoner in his cell, staring at the tiny square of sky allotted him.

It shattered Millie. For all her hair-rending over his reluctance to marry her, she’d yet to consider that he might be in love with someone else. But he was, wasn’t he, desperately in love? And desperately unhappy for the loss of his beloved.

She was frantic to hide herself. He must not see her. He must not think that she’d come to be near him. And he must never, never know that she felt anything for him besides a polite obligation.

God heard her prayers: The warning gong sounded. Millie tapped Mrs. Graves on the sleeve. “The game is to resume soon, Mother. Shall we return to our carriage?”

Mrs. Graves scoffed at her suggestion. “No one gets off the field until at least the second gong.”

A look around showed that, unfortunately, Mrs. Graves was right. The happy crowd remained firmly affixed. Laughter boomed like artillery shots all around her, each one leaving a new dent on her heart.

She glanced toward the earl, hoping he hadn’t seen her. But just then he looked in her direction. Their eyes met. And the expression on his face—a recoil of the soul—told her everything she already knew and could no longer deny.

She wrenched her gaze away, crushed beyond all endurance.

The second warning gong rang, louder and more strident. And with it came the police, ready to enforce the resumption of the game, if need be. But of course the elegant crowd who attended the Eton and Harrow game would never be mixed up with the police. Ladies and gentlemen melted from the playing ground, back to the stands, the benches, and the carriages.

Mrs. Graves’s visiting, however, continued for another hour. Millie was glad for the excuse to turn her back on the game. But everywhere they went, there seemed to be a young boy nearby, a cricket fanatic who pestered his mother and sisters to watch the goings-on. The earl’s name came up all too often.

Did you see that? Fitzhugh just sent one clear over the boundary. That’s six runs! shouted an Eton enthu-siast.

No, not another one out of bounds! At least it touched ground, so only four runs, grumbled a Harrow supporter. Fitzhugh already scored ninety. When is he going to be dismissed?

At last they returned to their landau and ate their picnic luncheon.

“Shall we go now?” Millie asked Mrs. Graves.

“Of course not,” answered Mrs. Graves. “When the match breaks for tea, we will go to the Eton pavilion and have your fiancé present his friends to you.”

His mates had to know how he truly felt. They’d probably already commiserated with him. Should Mrs. Graves begin to express her great delight, oblivious to the earl’s distaste for his imminent trip to the altar—Millie could well imagine the snickering.

“But we have not been invited to approach the Eton pavilion and we—”

Mrs. Graves placed her gloved hand over Millie’s. “My dear, you must not feel apologetic about this marriage. Never forget all that you are bringing to the marriage and never consider yourself inferior simply because he is young and handsome. He is getting the better bargain here. Do you understand?”

The real question was, did he understand?

He did not. And he would not.

Mrs. Graves touched Millie’s cheek. “I love your father dearly, but how I wish he were not so needlessly stubborn on the matter of your marriage. You should have a husband who treasures you, for no man can possibly be more fortunate than the one who has your hand.

“But reality being what it is, I have brought you here today. Do not hide, my love. And do not retreat. I know it will not be easy for you. But it will only be worse if you lock yourself in a cupboard. Hold your head high. Stake out your ground. So he hasn’t invited us when he should have. That means it is up to you to make your presence felt, to compel him to publicly acknowledge your position in his life.”

She couldn’t. She had nothing in her to compel anyone. She only wanted to disappear.

“Yes, Mother,” she said.

“Good.” Mrs. Graves patted Millie on her shoulder. “Now let me close my eyes for a moment. Then we will show our magnificent selves to Lord Fitzhugh. And he’d better be properly awed and pleased.”

Mrs. Graves napped. Millie wrestled with her handkerchief. The boy in the next-over carriage narrated the general goings-on, thankfully not bothering with the names of the individual players.

Abruptly the boy fell silent—midsentence. Millie glanced his way, wondering whether he’d choked on something he was eating. But the boy only stared ahead, his jaw halfway to the ground.

He was not alone. The other occupants of his carriage—parents, a sister, and a brother—wore similar expressions of frozen astonishment. Around them, other people in other carriages also stopped what they were doing to stare in the same general direction.

Millie turned around and beheld the most beautiful woman on God’s green earth. A mythological creature, surely, Helen of Troy reincarnated or Aphrodite herself, down from Mount Olympus to rendezvous with her Adonis.

She probably did not walk, but glided over the ground. Her cream lace parasol shielded a face that was at once flawless in its symmetry and unsettling in some indescribable way that separated the beautiful from the merely pretty. Millie could swear that the clouds, which had shielded the crowd from the sun for the past half hour, allowed one brilliant ray to fall on the woman, to illuminate her singular beauty, because it would have been a discourtesy for such loveliness to not also be perfectly lit.

Impossibly enough, she approached the Graves carriage.

“Miss Graves, is it not?” she asked, smiling.

Her smile was so stunning that Millie nearly tumbled backward. She had to fish around for her voice. And was she Miss Graves?

“Ah…yes?”

“I know it is rude to introduce oneself, but seeing as we are going to be family soon, I hoped you wouldn’t mind terribly.”

Millie had no idea what the stranger was talking about. In fact, she barely heard any words, her attention entirely taken by the movements of the woman’s lips. But she was sure of one thing: No matter what the woman wanted, no one would ever, ever mind.

“No, no, of course not.”

“I am Mrs. Townsend. And this lovely young lady is my sister, Miss Fitzhugh.”

Until Mrs. Townsend introduced her companion, Millie hadn’t even noticed that there was anyone with her. Indeed there was, a tall, slender redhead who was quite pretty in her own right.

“Very pleased to meet you both, I’m sure,” said Millie, still agog at Mrs. Townsend’s beauty.

“You are engaged to marry my twin,” said Miss Fitzhugh, who had noticed that Millie had lost all powers of reasoning.

“Oh, of course.”

He had sisters. Millie knew that. And now that she’d been jolted out of her daze, she even remembered that the sisters had been abroad, Miss Fitzhugh at school in Switzerland, and the incomparable Mrs. Townsend in the Himalayas, on safari with her husband.

“Mr. Townsend and I started back as soon as we learned of the previous earl’s passing. We traveled as fast as we could, but we crossed the channel only yesterday,” explained Mrs. Townsend, “after retrieving Miss Fitzhugh from Geneva.”

At first Millie had thought Mrs. Townsend as ageless as a goddess, but the latter was actually quite young, barely over the cusp of twenty.

“And I am glad we hurried,” continued Mrs. Townsend. “It was not until we landed that we learned the date of the wedding had already been set.”

Mr. Graves, not wanting to lose another potential son-in-law to the vagaries of fortune, had demanded that the wedding take place as soon as the financial agreements had been reached. But Lord Fitzhugh refused absolutely: He would not marry while he was still at school. The ceremony had therefore been scheduled the day after the end of summer term, a little more than two weeks away.

“Our brother is a very fine young man—the finest there is,” Mrs. Townsend went on. “But he is a man and as such can be relied upon to know nothing of what needs to be done in case of an engagement and a wedding. Besides, he can’t orchestrate anything from Eton. But now that I am back, we shall proceed apace, beginning with a garden party to introduce you to our friends, a dinner to celebrate the engagement, and of course, when you have returned from your honeymoon, a ball in your honor—a country ball, that is, since London will have emptied by then.”

Millie had thought herself completely disillusioned. It was not true; there had been one last barrier of hope around her heart: A belief that at least some of Lord Fitzhugh’s disdain had not been his own, but a reflection of his family’s aversion at the kind of marriage he must contract to keep their fortunes afloat.

Now that his sisters had shown themselves to be kind and helpful, Mrs. Townsend offering to throw her weight behind Millie’s entry into Society, Millie had no more excuses to turn to.

This marriage would crush her.

She could not run. She could not hide. And the wedding was in two weeks.

When the idea came, it was as fully formed as Athena, leaping out of Zeus’s forehead. Millie only wondered that she hadn’t thought of it earlier.

Or perhaps she had, in all the days and nights since it became clear that she was going to become Lord Fitzhugh’s wife. Beneath her trying not to imagine the worst, perhaps she had been planning for just that.

Mrs. Graves woke up shortly after Mrs. Townsend announced her plans for the party, the dinner, and the ball. Millie’s participation was no longer needed, leaving her free to examine and refine her plan, while pretending to listen to the discussion.

At teatime, the walk to the Eton players’ pavilion was very long—and all too short.

The introductions to Lord Fitzhugh’s friends were a blur. Millie was grateful for Mrs. Townsend, in whose presence the young men could barely form coherent sentences, let alone remember that Lord Fitzhugh did not want to marry this mousy girl to whom they were being presented.

Then, quietly, she made the request to Lord Fitzhugh for a word. Thanks to the magnetic pull of Mrs. Townsend, all Lord Fitzhugh had to do was lead Millie a few paces away from the eager cricket players trying to impress his sister. The noise of the crowd milling about gave Millie and her fiancé all the privacy they needed.

He was leaner than she remembered, warier, his tone quiet. “What may I do for you, Miss Graves?”

Was this how he would always speak to her, with this meticulous, distant politeness? “I have been thinking about what you said the other day. You made me realize that yes, I have been forced into this. I was never given any other choice, never told that there was any other way to justify my existence on this earth but to be the conduit that united the Graves name with a lineage nobler and more ancient.

“It is a stupid goal. But such are the circumstances of our lives that we must hold our noses and proceed, or we shall both be far worse off. With your predecessor, there was no question that I would be expected to produce an heir as soon as possible. But—dare I assume you are not in as much of a hurry to rush headlong into fatherhood?”

He glanced to his left. She did not follow the direction of his gaze but she had no doubt that if she did, she would find the young lady he loved. “You would be correct,” he said. “I have no desire to fill nurseries anytime soon.”

“Neither do I. I do not want to become a mother in the immediate future. And perhaps not even in the intermediate future.”

“So what do you propose? A nonprocreation covenant?” There was a grim humor to his voice, but none in his eyes.

“Something a little more comprehensive: a covenant of freedom.”

He tilted his head; for the first time he appeared interested in the conversation. “What is it?”

“We say our vows and then, until the time comes for the matter of heirs, we live unencumbered—as if we’d never married. Notice I do not say as if you’d never been left the title. I cannot help you there: Unless you find a general willing to tolerate a lord in his ranks, you will not have a career in the army. But in everything else you should do as you wish: travel, enjoy your friends, woo all the ladies you care to. Go to university if it’s what you’d like. There will be no nagging wife to answer to when you come home. No responsibilities; no consequences.”

“And you? What will you do?”

“The same, except for the obvious differences, of course: There are certain things an unmarried girl does not do and I will hold myself to that standard. That aside, I will enjoy being the mistress of my own household. And I will not have to worry about how I will get on with my husband—at least for some years.”

He was silent. In the afternoon sun, his cricket kit was brilliantly white, his person sensationally beautiful.

“Well, what do you think?”

“Sounds tempting. Any catches?”

“None whatsoever.”

“All good things come to an end.” He didn’t sound as if he believed her entirely. “When does this covenant expire?”

She hadn’t thought of a specific time limit, except that it should be long. “How about in six years?”

Six years was outrageous. Even if he halved the length, she should still have enough time to put herself back together again.

“Eight,” said her fiancé.

He’d never touch you if he had the choice.

By now she should have become numb to the humiliation of this marriage, but her heart choked with pain. She squared her shoulders and offered him her hand to shake. “We are agreed, then.”

He glanced down at her outstretched hand. For a moment his impassiveness foundered. His expression turned harsh with rebellion—but only for a moment. The deal was done, the contract signed. He had no choice; what he wanted was besides the point.

When his eyes met hers again, they were quite blank—the gaze of the dead.

“Agreed,” he said, shaking her hand. His voice was equally blank, a wall that concealed his fury. “Thank you.”

She trembled inside. “No need to thank me: I did it for myself.”

A truer word she never spoke.