Page 2 of A Gentleman’s Offer

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FOUR DAYS LATER

It was a truth universally acknowledged, Dominic reflected, that two persons of high rank might become engaged to be married as effective strangers, without having spent any time at all alone together and without having the least idea of each other’s true nature. Whether such behaviour should be described as sensible or advisable – that was another question entirely. But that was not, it must be admitted, a particularly helpful question for a man to ask himself as he dressed, with habitual care, for his own betrothal party.

Dominic had, of course, been alone, briefly and for the first time, with the Honourable Miss Nightingale when he had asked for her hand and she accepted. But those few moments could hardly have been said to further their acquaintance in any meaningful way.

He had been expected in Grosvenor Square, the day he proposed, and was punctual, after his brief formal conversation with her elderly father the day before. The butler’s face reflected his knowledge of the circumstances; the tall young footmen standing impassively in the hall no doubt knew it too. He was shown into her aunt Greystone’s drab sitting room, where the young lady awaited him, composed, pale and silent.

An inner door had rather pointedly been left perceptibly ajar, making Dominic all too conscious that the older lady must surely be lurking behind it in the adjoining chamber, listening. Had he been overcome with lover-like ardour, impelled to overstep the bounds of propriety, no doubt she’d have bustled in and set matters right. Since he had felt no such compulsion to make urgent love to Miss Nightingale – the very idea was ridiculous – he’d never know what the eavesdropping duenna might have said or done. Perhaps any hint of a serious conversation, any attempt by him to ask his new fiancée if this bloodless and old-fashioned marital arrangement was really what she wanted in life, might have produced the same result, or even a far swifter interruption. Indeed, signs of overwhelming passion on his part, though improper, might have been excused much more easily by the lady’s so-called protectors. Better an excess of enthusiasm than the merest hints of doubt or reluctance on either side, he mused cynically as he tied his snowy cravat now, frowning unconsciously into the cheval glass as he adjusted its folds.

But it was not to be that sort of marriage. Not a passionate one. Presumably it would have to be, one day, or rather night – or what would be the point? – but at present the strictest decorum was being observed. This, perhaps, was why none of it felt quite real to him, as though all of this were happening to someone else and he a mere detached observer. He had no means of knowing how she felt.

Sir Dominic De Lacy – Beau De Lacy, as the polite world knew him – was famous throughout the haut ton for his address, for the exquisite refinement of his manners and his dress, and the ironic detachment with which he viewed the world. No doubt the words in which he expressed his admiration and proffered his suit to the young lady had been superbly chosen, polished to perfection, and of course not inappropriately or unfashionably ardent. He couldn’t recall what he’d said, now, just a few short weeks later, and it really didn’t matter. The fact that it didn’t matter struck him suddenly as terrible. Surely it was the kind of important thing a man should remember forever?

He pushed the unhelpful, uncharacteristically dramatic thought away, putting on his immaculately tailored black evening coat with his young valet’s silent, reverent assistance. He’d always disliked melodrama, the display of excessive and uncontrolled emotion – perhaps because his widowed mother was so deeply devoted to it – and his whole persona had been constructed quite deliberately in opposition to the concept. He was unfailingly cool, languid, lazy, unenthusiastic – proverbially so. He knew that it was rumoured in Corinthian circles that he had just once in his life become visibly agitated, but it was also admitted that this had occurred late in the previous century, and he had been a schoolboy at the time. Certainly nobody had ever seen him in such a state in recent years, nor could they imagine it. Nor could he, for that matter. Especially not this evening. So, matters matrimonial were proceeding exactly as they should, without the intrusion of anything so inconvenient or even downright vulgar as feelings.

It must be noted, though, that the plan that was unrolling so smoothly was not of his making. It had been revealed to Dominic quite recently – by his fond mama, in fact – that his father had long ago entered into discussion with Lord Nightingale about the desirability of a match between the Baron’s elder daughter and Sir Thomas’s only son and heir. Since his father had been dead these nine years, Dominic was scarcely in a position to ask him if any of this was true, and to doubt his surviving parent’s word would be quite shockingly unfilial. But he’d been unable to prevent himself from asking why such an interesting and important fact was only now being conveyed to him for the first time.

The fateful interview had taken place in his mother’s sitting room, which was decorated in mourning shades of lavender that no doubt contributed to its oppressive atmosphere of perpetual gloom. Lady De Lacy, drawing on the support of her smelling salts and clasping the thin hand of the unfortunate female relative who lived with her and catered to her every whim, had informed him repressively that the young lady in question had only recently reached marriageable age. Plainly it would have been premature, even improper, to enter into discussion of such matters before that happy date. ‘Your poor father,’ she said, shedding tears, ‘had no opportunity to talk all this over with you, young and heedless as you were when he was torn from us. Imagine your reaction, if he had told you when you were nineteen or twenty that he had a suitable girl in mind for you, a girl who was at that time a mere schoolroom miss. You would have laughed in his face! And alas, he did not live to see you reach maturity so that you could ever discuss your future in a sensible fashion.’

All this was true, and silenced Dominic quite effectively. He greatly regretted the fact that his father had died before they had developed a relationship of mutual confidence; he must blame himself, and the reflection that he had been no more or less of an idiot than any other youth of twenty summers was no consolation at all.

‘And of course, dear boy,’ she went on inexorably, ‘if you had chosen another girl as your bride in the intervening years, as you so easily might have done, nothing need ever have been said on this most delicate subject. The agreement between our two families is very far from being a matter of common knowledge, and could never have been described as binding, merely your sainted father’s dearest and final wish.’ At this melancholy reflection, she shed more tears into her delicate lace handkerchief, and her little wisp of a cousin sighed in sympathy.

‘I am happy to hear it is not to be considered binding, Mama,’ he had replied drily, his sardonic manner effectively masking his emotions, as it so often did, ‘since I am nine and twenty years old, and yet before today I knew nothing at all about all these plans that have been made for my future. I cannot recollect ever having laid eyes upon the young lady, or even having heard of her existence, and I might have expected you at least to have presented me to her at some convenient moment. But I dare say you may think that I am being unreasonable. I so often am.’

This was, in boxing cant, a low blow, since Dominic was perfectly well aware that his mother regarded even the slightest opposition to her wishes on his part, or anyone else’s, as the height of unreasonableness. It was with a little wry amusement, then, that he watched her change tactics with admirable speed and say gushingly, ‘My dear son! What is this foolishness? You know that it is my fondest hope to see you married at last, and happy! If you had chosen a bride yourself, ten years ago, you would not have heard the least objection from me, and you might now be the father of a hopeful family, with all the joy that brings. Then there would not have been the least reason to advert to Miss Nightingale, and your poor father’s cherished plan.’

‘Ten years ago? If I had been so imprudent as to wish to marry at nineteen, Mama, I am sure I would have heard the most vehement objections from you, and from my father too. In fact, I do seem to recall that when I was at Oxford and you discovered that I had become romantically involved with a young woman you did not hesitate to describe as entirely unsuitable?—’

No one could ever call Lady De Lacy slow-witted. ‘I am not speaking of that sort of disreputable entanglement, with a woman of low character,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I wonder you should mention, even indirectly, such an improper liaison! A mere folly of immaturity, such as young men are sadly prone to, as I am sure even you would now admit yourself.’ He waved a graceful hand in agreement, and she continued, ‘I refer, naturally, to a sincere and lasting attachment to a young lady of birth and breeding. I am only too well aware that you have formed no such desirable connection, despite a decade spent in the best society, which – one might imagine – has offered you many excellent opportunities to do so.’

‘Alas, Mama, that is all too true.’

It was an undeniable fact. Dominic would have said, before this surprising conversation, that he had met every debutante of even moderate eligibility who had made her come-out in the past decade. If his mother had not brought them to his attention, their own mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers or godmothers had inevitably done so. He had danced with them, so many of them, at private balls and public assemblies. In his heedless youth, he’d gone occasionally to Almack’s Assembly Rooms, and been positively besieged by them there – but he was wiser now, and avoided the dreary place like the plague. He had met the young ladies of the ton, and continued to meet them, while riding in the park, at Venetian breakfasts, ridottos, rout parties, at the theatre and the opera. At the races. In Brighton. On the hunting field. The only places he didn’t meet them were Jackson’s Saloon, Cribb’s Parlour, the fives court, and other exclusively masculine places of entertainment – or, of course, other places, best not mentioned, where women might indeed be found, but ladies decidedly would not.

It was also true that, after ten years, all the blushing flowers of the polite world had, in Dominic’s eyes, begun to blend together into one indistinguishable mass of curls, giggles and muslin. He wasn’t such an arrogant cockscomb as to think that they were all the same in reality – they remained individuals, with their own characters and their own private hopes and dreams, presumably, and it couldn’t possibly be true that they all wanted desperately to marry him, although it quite often seemed as though they did. But not one of them, in the highly artificial circumstances in which he and they inevitably encountered each other, had ever touched his heart, or even slightly piqued his interest. And here he was, almost thirty, with a duty to his ancient family name. That being so, perhaps it was high time he put aside childish dreams of love that seemed unlikely ever to be realised. Maybe his father had known from his own bitter experience that one might be lucky enough to find love, and one might undertake a suitable marriage, but rarely – never? – with the same person.

‘What – apart from my father’s hitherto secret wish, of course – makes this young lady above all others so outstandingly suitable?’ he said.

It was a sign of wavering resolution on his part, and trust his mother to pounce on it. He endured a lengthy encomium to Miss Nightingale’s beauty and virtue, her noble birth, the very respectable size of her portion, her mastery of every accomplishment, her prowess in the saddle, even – as a distinct afterthought – her intelligence. She sounded far too good to be true, and probably was. He knew nothing to her discredit, knew nothing about her at all save what he was being told, but her father was another matter. ‘Lord Nightingale has the reputation of being rather eccentric,’ he ventured after a while, when the flow had lessened a little. ‘Has he not lived apart from his wife for several years?’

‘What of it?’ said his parent robustly. ‘There has been no open breach, no mention of anything so shocking as divorce, not the least breath of scandal, and I am surprised, Dominic, that you should even hint at such a thing! Lady Nightingale merely prefers the countryside, and her husband Town. They are both notable scholars, you know, with a wide correspondence and a great deal to keep them busy, though I do not mean to say, of course, that Miss Nightingale herself is a bluestocking, or… or a writer, or anything of that disagreeable nature.’

He wondered why his mother should consider intellectual achievements in a woman so very undesirable, but did not feel equal to arguing the point just now. ‘Naturally not. I feel sure you would not suggest her otherwise, ma’am. She sounds a very paragon of perfection.’

‘She is! Dominic, I know you are being tiresomely satirical, as ever, but truly, it is past time that you should be thinking of marriage. The future of the family demands it, and if, as you pretend in your odiously affected way, you cannot distinguish one lovely and eligible young lady from another, the plain truth is that you may as well marry this one and be done, since it cannot possibly make the least difference to you!’

Cousin Sarah, whose unobtrusive presence it was possible to forget for long periods of time, clucked ineffectually at this stinging and most unmaternal remark, and Dominic smiled at her. ‘There is no need to distress yourself, Cousin,’ he said gently. ‘I assure you that I am not in the least offended. Perhaps my mama is right, and perhaps my father was, though alas he cannot be here to tell us why he thought so. Perhaps it is indeed time.’

It was a great concession, and Lady De Lacy was duly sensible of it. She might have preferred that her son should hasten immediately to the Nightingale mansion in Grosvenor Square, to offer for the young lady before he should have a chance to change his mind. But when Dominic insisted with great firmness that he should as a bare minimum be able to identify his prospective bride by sight before he asked for her hand, his mama conceded with surprising grace.

The Season was in full swing, and perhaps it was no surprise that an opportunity to encounter Miss Nightingale and her chaperon and aunt should have presented itself most conveniently that very evening, at Lady Sefton’s ball. Naturally, Dominic had been invited; naturally, his mother was confident that Miss Nightingale would also be there. A less cynical man might have described it as providential.

Dominic, if he attended such dull affairs at all, generally arrived shockingly late, but on this occasion he entered the glittering ballroom precisely at the time specified by Lady De Lacy. To do otherwise would be rude, he knew, and the whole situation was awkward enough without offering an egregious insult to the woman he must accustom himself – unless anything unforeseen should happen to prevent it, perhaps a meteor strike, a royal death or an invasion by the French – to think of as his prospective bride.

He bowed punctiliously over Miss Maria’s hand, and that of her duenna Mrs Greystone, a harassed-looking woman in puce satin trimmed with Mechlin lace. He didn’t care much for the puce, but he could find no fault with Miss Nightingale’s dress and demeanour. He didn’t recall ever having set eyes on her before, now that he saw her, or even having heard her name mentioned in conversation, though he was slightly acquainted with her half-brother Francis, who was a man of about his own age who he’d seen occasionally around the town, but at Cribb’s Parlour and the like, he thought, not at balls and fashionable soirées. He banished a fugitive longing for the uncomplicated, undemanding masculine comfort of Cribb’s Parlour from his mind now.

The young lady was tall and elegant in white silk. He’d have remembered her, he was almost sure, if he’d met her before. She was not willowy and fragile, but robustly built, along fashionably ample lines; she looked like the strong horsewoman his mother had claimed she was. Perhaps that much, at least, was true. And it would be perverse to deny that she was attractive. Her features were classical in their regularity, and in their marble immobility – objectively, she was beautiful, only that she lacked all animation. Her eyes were large and blue, her golden hair curlier than the current mode but arranged with propriety and taste, her smile quite mechanical. She reminded him rather of an automaton he had once seen displayed. See the simulacrum of a lady! Watch her speak, and marvel at how lifelike she is. But it was entirely wrong to blame her. He was sure he was not a whit better in her eyes. How could he be? In that sense, if in no other, they should make a fine pair, and could be set in a shop window as an advertisement.

Her voice, when they conversed, was low and pleasant. She said nothing of any note, but then nor did he. If he saw no particular sign of her much-vaunted intelligence on this occasion, he couldn’t flatter himself that he made a more creditable showing. It was a horribly awkward situation for them both, and worse for her. She must be conscious that he was here to look her over; she might as well have been a horse at Tattersalls, or some other piece of expensive bloodstock, and what could she do but endure it, no matter her private feelings? She was, he thought, close to paralysed with acute discomfort, which was understandable, and concealing it with an effort that he found admirable. A less perceptive man would surely have noticed nothing amiss. He consoled himself with the thought that a woman who had enough sensibility and good taste greatly to dislike the circumstances in which she found herself might, just might, be someone he could one day communicate with in an honest fashion.

If he couldn’t have love in marriage, or anywhere else – and, after ten years spent in the best society without a single hint of it, and without being too horribly self-pitying over the matter, it seemed he couldn’t – he could at least have honesty and mutual respect. It didn’t seem too much to ask for. If Miss Nightingale had been giggling, arch, triumphant, shooting him vulgar and flirtatious glances under her lashes, looking around to see who was watching them, the situation would have been unendurable. Be damned to his mother’s plans and even his father’s dying wishes, if she’d been that sort of creature. Perhaps he’d been hoping she would be… But she wasn’t. She was a lovely young woman who was just as trapped as he was, and for the moment that would have to be enough. If he couldn’t imagine kissing her, making love to her – and he couldn’t, any more than to one of the marble statues in his hall – he must hope that that desire would come eventually, for both of them.

Dominic asked for the honour of a waltz with her, and they danced; she was coolly graceful and correct, and once more recalled the automaton he’d seen, which had moved in a similar fashion. They exchanged a few more commonplaces – the weather, the great crowd at the ball, the sad news of the King’s continuing ill-health – and then a short while later they stepped out together a second time. On this occasion, they spoke, though he had no idea how the topic arose – perhaps she raised it – of their shared admiration for the distinguished author of Evelina , who, he was able to tell her, had been a regular correspondent of his late father. His mother would no doubt have been on the lookout for signs of excessive erudition, but he was merely glad to have something slightly more substantial to discuss. This innocuous subject allowing them to converse with rather less awkwardness, the dance passed more swiftly.

He was aware of a little hum of interest from their fellow guests, of sharp eyes upon them, of whispers of gossip. It was quite unexceptionable, for a lady and a gentleman to be partners twice in an evening, but it wasn’t the sort of thing Beau De Lacy normally did. He wasn’t the type of man to flirt with debutantes or raise expectations he had no intention of fulfilling. And so conclusions would inevitably be drawn. Correct conclusions, as it happened.

Later, Dominic would wish he’d taken a little more time and a little more care – had asked Miss Maria to go driving in the park with him, perhaps, setting down his groom so they could converse in something like privacy. But, aware of how much she seemed to dislike the public gaze, he’d decided not to wait, not to prolong pointlessly this unpleasantness and uncertainty. Miss Nightingale clearly knew of his intentions, and he thought – entirely and disastrously wrongly, as it turned out – that she would be more comfortable when matters were decided, and public interest had peaked and inevitably waned. People, even in the haut ton, got married every day, after all. The novelty could hardly persist, and other subjects for gossip would inevitably arise.

After a little while – too soon – he’d gone to see her father, had received his gracious permission to address her, and then had formally proffered his suit to her and been accepted. The announcement had been inserted in the fashionable newspapers, and he received the congratulations of almost every one of his acquaintance; many of these people might even be sincere in their good wishes for his future happiness. It was a highly suitable match, after all, in terms of age, birth, reputation and fortune. Marriage settlements were being drawn up: generous ones, on his part, to give his future wife as much financial independence as was possible. The date was set, just a few weeks away. Why wait? Though it was no concern of his, he presumed that bride clothes were being purchased, and a wedding gown, and all manner of feminine fripperies.

Now it was the evening of their engagement party – another step in the swift, inexorable progress towards their union. And still they’d had no private conversation.