"But you love Stinky, don't you?" Richard asked his daughter.
"He smells bad. Can we go home now, Papa?"
"Soon, sweeting. In another week."
"I'm going to go play now," Sara said, and slid off her chair.
"Excuse yourself," Richard reminded the girl.
"Your pardon," Sara said to Vivian, then the child gave her a quick curtsy and ran off.
"Horse poo?" Vivian said faintly. She had thought she and Sara were getting along so well, and here the girl had been wondering if she would eat horse manure off the ground, given the chance.
"She's really very fond of Stinky," Richard said. He sat down beside her, and reached for the one remaining tart on her plate. "May I?"
"Please." She doubted she would ever be able to eat in public again. And maybe that was for the best.
She felt the questions she needed to ask in the back of her throat, waiting to come out, but couldn't bring herself to do so just yet. Instead she watched the children as Richard ate the tart. "Sara seems a very bright child," she said into the brief silence.
"She is, and cheerful. She has enough willful mischief in her that I will have a head of white hair before she is grown and wed."
"And William?"
"He is quieter, more subdued. He'll spend his time reading dreary philosophy, I imagine, and have to be pushed to court a girl."
"He's a handsome little boy. I think he will set hearts aflutter, if he is brooding and introspective as a man. The young ladies will be unable to resist."
"Poor little fellow."
"You don't think he would enjoy the attention?" she asked.
"Perhaps. He might surprise me." Richard was quiet for a long moment, his gaze on the playing children. "There are times my heart almost breaks, thinking of them growing up, and suffering the pains the world has to offer. Their hurts now are so small, and so easily soothed compared to what they will endure when they are older."
"They will have you to help them," she said, lightly touching his arm and drawing his attention. "And while their hurts may grow greater, so will their strength."
He laid his hand over hers, on his forearm. "You had to quickly grow strong, didn't you? When your parents were killed."
She dropped her eyes, not eager to share that pain that she thought deeply buried, but which at times like this could emerge as easily as if it were just beneath the surface. "That was more than any child should be asked to bear." She made herself smile, and met his eyes again. "But I survived."
He lifted her hand off his arm, raised it to his lips, and, heedless of the roomful of people, let his lips graze her knuckles before releasing her. "And you are beautiful in your strength," he said. The look he gave her seemed to say a million things, all of them new to her and oh so wonderful.
She clasped her hands together in her lap to keep them from trembling, and felt her cheeks and neck heat with embarrassment.
She was falling in love with this man. The realization hit her fully, and it scared her.
She had no experience with romantic love, but she felt herself teetering on its brink, and with her fall would go any last vestige of sense or practical hesitation. She did not want to ask about the woman he had jilted-she wanted to assume the best of him-but if she was wrong it might be her own heart that would be crushed in reward for her ignorance.
For as she felt her heart opening to love, she felt how very fragile and defenseless it was. She had only herself to guard and protect it.
"I need to ask you a personal question, Richard," she said. Children still shrieked and played a few feet from them, and she welcomed their presence as a damper against whatever reaction he might have.
"Anything."
Mrs. Twitchen appeared, forestalling the question. "Vivian, dear, here you are," she said.
Richard stood, bowing in greeting. "Mrs. Twitchen, a pleasure to see you."
"Good day, Mr. Brent. You will excuse me if I take my cousin away from you? I fear we must be going."
"Might I have a few moments?" Vivian asked.
"I'm afraid not, my dear," Mrs. Twitchen said, and her expression said she would not be dissuaded. "We really must go."
Vivian had been wrong in thinking she had only herself to guard her heart. Mrs. Twitchen stood before them as resolute as an armored knight, waiting to carry her to safety.
And so, unsatisfied by her lack of answers, yet touched by Mrs. Twitchen's concern, Vivian made her good-byes.
Chapter Seven
December 31
New Year's Eve
It had been three days since she had seen Richard, and her body yearned for him as if he were her other half. She had never before understood what people meant when they said such things, but now she did. It was shocking, but she felt ripped in two, and as if she could not rest until he was with her again. His clever words, his gentleness with his children, his honesty-all these things played in her mind and far outstripped all the bad things that had been said about him. She loved him.
Worse, she did not know if he felt the same way. For an hour after leaving Haverton Hall on Innocents' Day she would have said yes, he did. Yes, he was beginning to care for her as she did for him. But then the doubts had crept in, carried by the unasked, and therefore unanswered, question about the jilted fiancee. Perhaps that girl, too, had thought that he was falling in love with her, and had been surprised to find herself discarded.
Oh, dreaded time apart, that let her mind form horrid futures as often as happy ones! She had doubts and fears and hopes, and no one with whom to discuss them except Penelope, who listened avidly but was too inexperienced herself to have worthwhile advice to offer. The girl's unexpected sympathy was welcome, but did little to soothe.
What could she do? Would she dare to try to catch Mr. Brent in a compromising position to force him to marry her? She supposed that it wouldn't force anything. He had reneged on a promise of marriage before… Still, if they just had time together, Vivian was certain the union would work. She was sure that she could love Mr. Brent's children. That would be easy, as easy as loving Richard himself.
The mirror was revealing the effects of her anxiety: one week in the Twitchen household, and already the hollows and bony protuberances of her face and figure were beginning to soften. She was eating herself to calmness.
"What are you doing, hiding away over here?" Penelope asked, pulling back the curtain that half hid her where she sat in the window seat, looking out at the night and eating a dish of cheese and spiced nuts she had put together as a post-dessert dessert.
"Just thinking."
"Come out of there. People are arriving, and Mama will be playing the piano for dancing."
"Has Mr. Brent…?" she asked, perking up.
"Not yet. I assume he will be here soon, though, and you don't want him to find you with your teeth full of cheese."
Vivian self-consciously put a fingernail to the groove between her front teeth.
"Emily is here, too. You remember, the vicar's daughter. She wants to do fortune-telling for our future husbands."
"I thought you did that with her on Christmas Eve."
"It didn't work. Come with us; maybe it will work with you there."
"All right." Vivian gave in, emerging from her hideaway. Penelope and her silly friend were not the company she desired, but they were better than sitting and stewing in her own thoughts. After all, she wouldn't want Richard to arrive and think she had been waiting for him like a girl with nothing else to occupy her mind. It was New Year's Eve!
The church bells rang out midnight, and the countryside echoed with clanging pans, bells, shouts, and the blasts of guns. It was the first day of the new year, the Eighth Day of Christmas, and the Feast of the Circumcision, and the celebration was all around. Richard waited in the darkness down the drive from Copley Grange, watching as the guests went back inside as the sounds faded away.