A Matter of Class (12 page)

Reginald Mason first stood addressing her papa and then sat in the seat next to his. He was talking and smiling.
Her father appeared to be listening, a curl of distaste to his lips.

Oh, dear, was this wise?

“Lady Annabelle,” one fresh-faced, gap-toothed, pretty young girl asked—Annabelle tried in vain to remember her name, “what is your
wedding
dress like? Are you allowed to
say
?”

“I am not,” Annabelle said. “But I
can
tell you how I stood on a pedestal for what felt like ten hours while

I was being fitted for it, being turned and prodded and poked as though I were a turkey roasting on the fire.”

There was a burst of hearty laughter, and she proceeded to embellish the story.

“It doesn't matter what the dress looks like, lass,” one of Reginald's maternal cousins said—he was Ha rold? Horace? Hector? “You would look just grand in a sack.”

Another burst of laughter.

Papa and Reginald Mason were gone from their chairs. And from the room.

Both of them.

P
eople had been hurt, Reggie had realized earlier while awaiting the arrival at the house of his betrothed with Havercroft and the countess. Four people in particular. He had known it from the start, of course, but actually seeing it was different from imagining it.

His father was ecstatic over the turn of events. But he was not a heartless man. Far from it. Despite his wrath over Reggie's extravagance and his declaration that if his son was unhappy with his imminent marriage then he deserved to be, actually his son and his wife meant more to him than all his wealth or ambitions combined. Reggie was quite secure in that knowledge. His father would be miserable with regret if it turned out that the marriage he had insisted upon really was an unhappy one.

So would both mothers. They were very different in personality: his mother openly warm and loving, Lady Havercroft more cool and reserved. But he did not doubt that they both deeply loved their children and would suffer greatly if they believed those children to be doomed to unhappiness.

Reggie felt the burden of guilt over having exposed these three people to anxiety. It was time to set their
minds at least partially at ease. It was time openly to reconcile himself to the fact that he was going to spend the rest of his natural life with Lady Annabelle Ashton and to make a public effort to show some regard for her. It must not be too lavish, or no one would believe him. But there must be an end to the open hostilities.

It was Havercroft who worried him most, however. The man had been humiliated, first by his unexpected financial losses and the need to recoup them by arranging a judicious marriage for his daughter, and then by the need to marry her to
him,
the son of a man he hated probably above all others.

Reggie did not find him a pleasant man, and if he wanted, he could choose to look on the downfall of such an arrogant, cold man with some glee. But Havercroft, his future wife's
father
, was to be his father-in-law. Reggie guessed that somewhere deep inside the icy exterior there was love for his wife and daughter—a love they returned.

It was going to be more difficult to reconcile Havercroft to the marriage than it would be to reassure the other three. Reggie somehow considered it important to try, though.

His opportunity came during tea, when the countess and her daughter mingled with his family members and his parents' friends rather than sit apart with Havercroft as the untouchable aristocrats. The earl sat in a lone state and in stony dignity. No one else dared approach him, even if anyone had felt so inclined.

Reggie dared.

“Being a member of a large family,” he said cheerfully as he stood beside the earl's chair, a cup of tea in one hand, “can be a marvelous thing on special occasions. It is, alas, a little intimidating for outsiders.”

Havercroft looked up from his plate. His eyes were steely.

“I do not intimidate easily, Mason,” he said.

Reggie continued, undeterred. “But the thing is with my family,” he said, “that they will open their arms to include outsiders who are precious to one of their number, and make insiders out of them in no time at all.”

“One would hope,” the earl said, “you are not suggesting that I walk gladly into Mason arms.”

Reggie smiled at the ludicrous image the words created in his mind. He sat down on the chair beside the earl's.

“Lady Annabelle will be included,” he said, “as soon as she is married to me. Oh, even before then. She is being included now. She will be accepted and loved wholeheartedly by a large group of generous people. She will have a warm and affectionate new family to add to her own.”

“That,” Havercroft said with heavy scorn, “will be of huge benefit to her.”

“Unconditional acceptance and affection are always a benefit,” Reggie said. “You must not worry that she will be unhappy. I do not believe she will be.”

“I wish her joy in her new status in life,” Havercroft said.

It was
very
difficult to like the man, Reggie thought, but he was Lady Annabelle Ashton's father.

“Will you come down to the library for a few minutes?” he asked, getting to his feet again. “It is quieter down there.”

The noise in the drawing room was deafening as everyone tried to talk above everyone else, and almost everything that was said was deemed funny enough to draw great bellows and trills of laughter.

It was a typical family reunion.

Lady Annabelle was talking with Uncle Wilfred, who was as deaf as a post but in fine form. He must have just been dipping into his old stock of stories. She was laughing and dabbing a handkerchief to the corners of her eyes.

Havercroft got to his feet without a word and followed Reggie from the room. The poor man must wish it were possible to make his escape entirely and slip from the house when no one was looking.

Neither of them sat down in the library. Havercroft went to stand before the empty fireplace, a favorite spot with him in any room, it seemed, while Reggie crossed the room to look out the window onto the square beyond.

“It is altogether possible,” he said, “that Lady Annabelle
will
be happy as a member of my broader family. They are not gentlefolk, but then neither was the coach man with whom she ran off a little while ago. Yet she preferred him to the Marquess of Illingsworth.”

“I suppose,” Havercroft said, “you will be throwing
that
indiscretion in her teeth for the rest of her life, Mason. Only be thankful that you got what you wanted by hovering like a vulture at my door—a titled wife of the aristocracy.”

Reggie turned to face him.

“It is, admittedly,” he said, “what my
father
has always wanted. He always wanted to make a gentleman of me. He wanted me to consolidate what I acquired through education by marrying into the gentry class or higher. As far as I was concerned, I always hoped that when the time came eventually to think of marriage, I would be free to choose someone for whom I could care for a lifetime, someone who would care equally for me. Regardless of social class.”

The earl's lip curled.

“And yet,” he said, “you were very ready to snap up Annabelle when she became available rather than lose everything your father has always lavished upon you.”

“I grew up in a close, loving family,” Reggie said. “Both the inner circle of my parents and the larger circle of their families. I could not accept anything less for myself. This marriage between Lady Annabelle and myself has been arranged by our fathers for reasons of their own, and circumstances have forced us to accept it. But that does not mean we have to live in bitter hostility for the rest of our days. I am determined to work at cultivating an affection for your daughter, and I am not without hope that she will do the like for me. I am pleased by
the fact that she has chosen to mingle with my family in the drawing room instead of sitting apart as my mother thought the three of you might wish to do.”

Havercroft regarded him with pursed lips and cold eyes. He seemed to have nothing to say, however.

“I am taking the liberty of guessing,” Reggie said, “that your daughter is dear to you. She must have hurt you immeasurably when she ran off with your coachman rather than be forced into marriage with Illings - worth. And I believe it must have hurt you to feel obliged to marry her to me. I am here to tell you, sir, that you need feel no more guilt over that. It is done, and we will make the best of it, Lady Annabelle and I. All things that happen in life, my grandmother once told me—
all
things—happen for a purpose. We
will
make the best of this marriage.”

Havercroft stared at him.

“The only grandchildren I can ever expect,” he said, “will bear the name of
Mason
. They will be
his
grandchildren too.”

“Yes,” Reggie said.

“And you have the gall to tell me that
all things happen for a purpose
?”

“Yes,” Reggie said again.

“I left a perfectly good cup of tea on the table beside my chair upstairs,” Havercroft said and strode off in the direction of the library door.

Reggie followed him back upstairs. He had tried. It was all he
could
do at this juncture.

His betrothed was talking with his mother and two of his aunts. She had color in her cheeks this afternoon. There was animation in her face. And his mother had been right about her pink muslin dress. She looked vividly lovely. He crossed the room toward her, winding his way in and out of groups of relatives and friends.

“ . . . make a list as soon as I go home,” she was saying, “and memorize it so that by my wedding day I will remember all your names.”

“But not necessarily the faces that go with them,” Aunt Ada said with a deadpan expression.

Lady Annabelle groaned and the others laughed.

Reggie cupped her elbow in one hand, and she looked at him, startled. She had not seen him approach.

“Have you had enough to eat?” he asked.

“She has not had
anything
, Reginald,” Aunt Edith told him. “We have been keeping her too busy talking. And I must say, while I can get a word in edgewise, that you are a
very
fortunate young man indeed.”

“I know it, Aunt Edith,” he said, setting his free hand over his heart. “But right now I am going to escort my good fortune over to the tea tray so that she can eat and not fade quite away before I can even claim her as my wife.”

“Go with him, my dear,” his mother said, patting her arm. “You can do with more fat on your bones.”

Reggie bent his head to hers when they reached the tea tray, which no one was attending, presumably because all the guests had eaten and drunk their fill long ago.

“I have been assuring your father,” he said, “that I intend to fall violently in love with you and live happily ever after with you.”

“Have you indeed?” She looked haughtily at him.

“And I suppose he fell on your neck and shed copious tears?”

“Not quite,” he admitted. “And you have been making yourself agreeable to Masons and Cleggs and other assorted family members and friends?”

“It is marginally more entertaining than sitting alone in a corner,” she said.

“Is peace to be officially declared, then?” he asked. “It is probably time, is it not? Would you like one of
these fairy cakes, or do they have too much cream to be eaten delicately? How about one of these currant cakes instead?”

“Both, please,” she said and watched him while he placed them on a plate for her. “Peace does not necessarily mean total amity, only an end to the worst of hostilities. Yes, it may be declared. Cautiously. Everyone would be understandably skeptical if we were suddenly to fall passionately in love.”

“Our mothers are happier than they were,” he said.

“And your father,” she said. “But was he ever
not
happy?”

“Before he heard of your plight and realized how he might use it to his advantage he was a mite annoyed with me,” he said. “I had a dashed lot of ill fortune at the tables and at the races, you know.”

“Yes,” she said. “And you had to fill that room with boots and coats and other faradiddle.”

“My valet would not enjoy hearing my lovingly starched neckcloths lumped in with a whole host of other belongings as
faradiddle
,” he said.

And then his eyes met hers, and he saw laughter in their depths. At the same moment she bit into the fairy cake and cream shot out of the sides, as he had known
it would. He watched, fascinated, as she licked it off the corners of her mouth, leaning forward over her plate as she did so.