The brownies looked unhappy. Gertrude said, “If she can. There was an apothecary a few years ago who might have done, but her lords and ladies didn’t much like the idea.”
Rosamund snorted. “And then he ran mad and flung himself off Westminster Bridge, so maybe it’s just as well. Not a stable mind, I fear.”
“Galen isn’t bad,” Gertrude hastened to say. “A trifle green, to be sure, but that’s nothing time won’t cure. Especially if those around him help out—give him advice when he needs it, that sort of thing. He’s too embarrassed to ask for it, poor dear.”
No wonder Gertrude had said he must never know. Hearing this laid out so baldly would only cripple him with doubt. And Galen had enough trouble with that already.
“You will help him, won’t you, my dear?” Gertrude gave Irrith an entreating look that would have melted the heart of a stone.
Irrith nodded. “Yes. I will.”
If I can.
Nothing brought home to Galen the importance of this evening like his first sight of Sothings Park.
His mother, seated by his side in the carriage, breathed out her nose in something that was almost a snort of disdain, but the look in her eyes was a mixture of envy, hope, and regret. It wasn’t that Sothings Park was especially impressive; Aldgrange, the St. Clair estate in Essex, was much larger and grander, if sadly run down for want of money to maintain it. But the fact that the Northwoods could afford to rent not only a townhouse in Grosvenor Square far superior to anything in Leicester Fields, but also this little manor, just far enough outside London to be pleasantly situated, made it clear without words what Miss Delphia Northwood could offer in exchange for the St. Clair name.
The prospect cheered Charles St. Clair sufficiently that he had hired out two carriages for the evening, and neither of them common hackneys. Galen’s sisters followed in the second one, for the Northwoods had invited them all to dinner today at Sothings Park.
It was not the first meal shared between the two families. Since that encounter at Mrs. Vesey’s in May, Galen had dined in Grosvenor Square four times, twice with his mother and father along, and the Northwoods had come to Leicester Fields twice. He had met Miss Northwood’s younger sister Temperance, and missed her brother Robert only because he was somewhere in Italy at the moment. In short, Galen was perfectly well acquainted with the Northwood family.
He would have been less nervous had he gone to dine with the lions in the Tower of London.
The carriages pulled to a halt in front of the austere entrance, built in the revived Palladian style. Galen handed his mother down, wondering if she felt his own arm trembling. He’d mastered it by the time they were shown in to the parlour where the Northwoods awaited them, but it still lurked inside, where no one could see.
They soon went into dinner, and the dining room on the piano nobile was fully as grand as could be hoped. The amiable chatter between Mrs. St. Clair and their hostess revealed that the furnishings there, from the mahogany table to the spoons upon it, were the property of the Northwoods, and not rented with the house. Irene was young enough to gape at that, before Cynthia nudged her into better behavior.
For his own part, Galen was caught between contradictory impulses to look at Miss Northwood, and to look everywhere but at her. She was once more clothed in a sacque gown too elegant for her plainness, with ruffles and bows and sewn-in pearls, but she might as well have been a magnet, so difficult was it not to stare. Cynthia made easy conversation with her, and drew Galen into it at convenient times; he formed a resolution to fall on his knees and thank her as soon as they returned home.
By such means did he survive the interminable courses of dinner, though he ate at little as he could without giving offence.
The Northwoods had chosen to dine at the fashionably late hour of five o’clock, and the drawing room in which the men rejoined the ladies after their drinks had a splendid view of the sunset and Sothings Park’s gardens. Galen managed to conduct a credible conversation with Mrs. Northwood on the subject of the roses there, despite a tongue that felt like it belonged to a stranger, and when she said “You should go down, before the light is gone, and see them for yourself,” he made his reply without a single stumble.
“That would be delightful. Might I impose on Miss Northwood to guide me?”
Mrs. Northwood’s broad smile answered him well enough on its own. “I’m sure she would be more than glad to.”
Whether she was glad, nervous, or any other thing about it, Galen did not see; he was too nervous to look at her face. They descended the staircase in awkward silence, went out through the doors the same, and only when they reached the first rosebush did Miss Northwood say anything, which was, “I’ve always quite liked this one.”
They ambled along the paths, here touching a bloom, there bending to sniff one, and if there was any mercy in the world, Galen thought, then eight people were not watching their progress from the drawing room windows above.
Perhaps Miss Northwood was thinking the same, for she said, “This arbour is a pleasant place to sit, if you would like to rest.”
It also happened to feature a green, leafy roof that would shield them from prying eyes. The sun was low enough now that its light blazed across the bench upon which Miss Northwood had seated herself, making the space quite warm, but if she did not mind then Galen did not either.
He couldn’t sit. Galen took a deep breath, considered her upturned face, and let the air out in one swift gust. “You know why we’re out here.”
That wasn’t what he’d intended to say, but the intelligent regard in her eyes, free of all the coquetry and feigned innocence that might have attended this moment, prodded him to discard his more carefully crafted opening. Miss Northwood said, “Quite by ourselves. It isn’t hard to guess.”
“I will be honest with you,” Galen told her, interlacing his fingers behind his back. “Which may not be advisable, not if I wish to meet with success on the other side of it—but my conscience will not permit me to do otherwise. You are aware, Miss Northwood, of my family’s situation.”
She nodded, and when he still hesitated, laid it out plainly. “A good name, but not the income to support it. Due, if you will forgive me saying it, to your father’s financial imprudence.”
He could hardly wince at her blunt honesty, given what he had said, and what he intended to say. And her assessment was perhaps to be expected from a young woman with both a banker father and a brain. “Indeed. I also have three sisters in need of a future. Because of these things, my father has pressed me not only to marry, but to marry well. Which is to say, richly.”
Miss Northwood cast her gaze down with a resigned half smile. “I’ve always been aware that my marriage portion is the better part of my appeal to suitors.”
Galen had to swallow before he could go on. This might have been easier indoors, where he could have a glass of wine to wet his throat. But then he might drink too much, and people would be listening at keyholes besides. “I am a romantic, Miss Northwood. I wish with all my heart that I were on my knee before you now, pouring out a declaration of love that would do a poet proud. Unfortunately, it would be false. I… I do not love you.”
Her eyes were still downcast, making her thoughts hard to read. Galen hurried on. “I mean no insult to you. The truth is that, did care for my sisters not compel me, I wouldn’t be looking to marry at all. But I must consider them, and their happiness, and so I vowed that although money might be my father’s foremost concern, it would not be mine. Love might be too much to hope for, but I would not propose marriage to any woman I did not respect.”