Mutual Consent (13 page)

She had been surprised when the earl had announced his intention to be present when his mother arrived, but she had supposed that he wished to soften the blow to the dowager countess of meeting her. The thought had not bolstered Babs’ sagging self-confidence, and his lordship’s subsequent paltry interest in her gambits of conversation, which had long since dwindled to nothingness, confirmed her in the opinion that he regretted his connection to her.

When the long-awaited sounds of arrival came, Babs was in a thorough state of anxiety. She carefully stowed her embroidery hoop and the threads away before she rose slowly from her chair.

“Coming, my lady?”

She looked up to find that the earl had also risen and awaited her impatiently. The ready color rose soft in her face. It had not occurred to her that he meant to escort her to this meeting, and she wondered at the show of courtesy. “Of course, my lord.” She hurried to join him at the door.

The earl swept open the sitting-room door and together he and Babs walked into the entry hall.

The porter held open the outer door for the entrance of the arriving party. Candlelight spilled out onto the outside steps. Into the pool of light stepped the butler and a footman, tenderly supporting between them the halting steps of a small frail woman.

The trio came into the entry hall and Babs saw that the lady’s face was ashen and that her dark eyes were sunken in twin pools of patient suffering. Barbara’s natural compassion was instantly aroused and she instinctively started toward their guest. But she checked herself as the earl bit off an exclamation and strode past her.

Lord Chatworth swept aside the footman and lifted the woman into his arms. “You should not have come, my lady,” he said gently but with an undercurrent of anger.

“On the contrary, I should have come much sooner.” The dowager countess’s voice was firm, belying her obvious frailty. She turned her head and her eyes met Babs’ astonished gaze. “My dear, I am so happy to meet you at last. Should you mind it awfully if we put off a more extensive visit until the morrow? I find myself quite unequal to it this evening, more’s the pity.”

“Of course not, my lady!’’ Glad of something to do, Babs directed the footmen to take the dowager countess’s baggage up to the suite of rooms that she had had prepared for their guest. The earl climbed the stairs with his mother held tenderly in his arms, closely followed by the dowager countess’s anxious maid.

Babs thoughtfully returned to the drawing room. She was completely bowled over. All of her preconceived notions of a regal, forbidding dame had been shown to be untrue. She could hardly adjust to the dowager countess’s actual appearance. The poor lady obviously suffered greatly from an affliction of the joints. Babs understood now why the earl had said that his mother preferred quiet pursuits to the rigors of society.

The dowager Countess of Chatworth had spoken quite civilly to her, besides, which had relieved Babs of her wary anxiety. She had to smile at the absurdity of her former fears. Perhaps she and her mother-in-law might have a chance of becoming easy acquaintances. Babs did not aspire to hope for more than that.

The butler came into the drawing room to inquire whether she would like a glass of sherry, and Babs said she would. “Perhaps you might bring a glass for his lordship as well,” she said on an afterthought. The butler bowed and left on his errand.

Babs took out her embroidery and began plying the needle with the calm that had escaped her earlier that evening. When Smithers returned with the wine and two glasses, Babs thanked him quietly and asked that the tray be set down on the occasional table.

The earl returned to the drawing room some twenty minutes later. Babs saw that he had put on a greatcoat, so that she knew that he meant to go out. Her heart unaccountably dropped, but she smiled up at him. “I trust that her ladyship is made comfortable?” she asked.

“Yes.” He saw the bottle of sherry and glanced at her. Without a word he filled the wineglasses and handed one to her, before he went to stand at the mantel, his own glass in hand. “By the by, who is the housekeeper these days? I had not realized that Mrs. Sparrow had left my employ.”

Babs felt a tide of color rise in her cheeks, but she met his inquiring glance steadily enough. “I accepted the services of Mrs. Fennell ten days ago, after I let go your former housekeeper.”

Lord Chatworth raised his brows. “I had believed that Mrs. Sparrow was perfectly capable, but perhaps I was mistaken.”

“Mrs. Sparrow did not care to be directed by a tradesman’s daughter,” Babs said shortly.

“I see.” Lord Chatworth contemplated the sherry in his glass, giving it a swirl. He spoke without glancing at her. “I trust that there will be no further such troubles.”

“No, my lord. There will not be.”

He looked up at that and there was the faintest of grins on his lips. “I can well imagine that there will not. You do not strike me as a lady easily able to swallow insult of that sort.”

“No, I suppose that I do not,” Babs said, uncertain of where he was leading.

Lord Chatworth set aside his wineglass, the sherry untasted. He went to her and took her hand. She looked up at him in surprised inquiry. “I recommend that you recall that sentiment when you begin to go about society. As my wife, you are entitled to respect, but you must also act the part. I do not wish to observe you shrinking away into the nearest corner in trepidation, as you seemed to do while awaiting my mother’s arrival.”

Babs gasped, at once angered and appalled by his keen perception. Her green eyes gleamed with temper. “Pray rest assured, Marcus! I shall not shrink into any more corners.’’

He laughed then and brushed his lips across her fingers. “Do not wait up for me, my love,” he said mockingly. Then he was gone in a swirl of greatcoat, the sitting-room door shutting with finality behind him.

Babs threw her embroidery hoop at the uncaring door.

The following morning was nearly spent before Babs received the summons she was expecting from the dowager countess. At once Babs went along to her mother-in-law’s room and was admitted by the maid.

The dowager countess gestured for Babs to be seated opposite her, but she waited until her faithful henchwoman exited before she spoke more than a few commonplaces to her daughter-in-law. After seeing that her mistress was made perfectly comfortable where she reclined on a settee, a shawl wrapped warmly about her shoulders against the morning chill, the maid left the sitting room.

The door closed quietly, leaving the ladies to enjoy their privacy. Lady Chatworth smiled at Babs, her gray eyes, so reminiscent of her son’s, twinkling. “I am surrounded by solicitous goodwill. I do not begrudge it, for I am fully grateful for the comforts I am thus afforded, but at times it is extremely awkward to appear anything other than a senseless invalid,” she said with a touch of self-deprecating humor.

“Oh, no, ma’am, I do not think that anyone could mistake you for less than you are,” said Babs. Suddenly aware of how she must have sounded, she flushed. “I apologize if I am impertinent, my lady.”

“Not at all, dear child. I am flattered, actually. Not even Marcus grants me such autonomy of being,” Lady Chatworth said, laughing. “Now I have embarrassed you. Come, we shall have tea and come to know each other better. Please be so good as to pour. My hands are not as graceful or as capable as they once were.”

Babs inclined her head and quietly lifted the pot to do the office. The dowager countess accepted the cup that she handed to her with a word of thanks, before adding, quite coolly, “I was much surprised, as you may have guessed, by my son’s hasty missive that he was wedded. I had no notion that he had discovered such a desire in himself. Indeed, I was not aware that he had ever given a thought to it in his life.”

Babs was so startled that she slopped a bit of tea out of her own cup as she poured. That annoyed her no end, for she knew very well that how one poured tea counted much in indicating one’s degree of breeding. She looked up to meet her mother-in-law’s eyes, which were not as warm as she had first believed. In the face of the cool intelligence in those gray eyes, Babs thought it would be the more prudent course to lay everything aboveboard at once.

“I shall be straightforward with you, my lady. I do not believe that his lordship gave any thought to marriage at all before entering into an engagement with me,” she said frankly.

“I see. And why should my son change his mind so suddenly upon acquaintance with you, my dear?”

Babs felt twin flags of color unveil in her cheeks. “I think it best that you apply to his lordship for your answer, my lady. For me to comment upon his lordship’s motives would be the height of indiscretion.”

“What were your motives, Barbara? Pray, do you mind that I call you Barbara? It is not as though we shall always be strangers,” said Lady Chatworth.

“I prefer Babs, my lady,” said Barbara with determined civility.

“You have not answered my question, Babs,” said the older Lady Chatworth.

There was an undercurrent of steel in that gentle voice that Babs readily identified and appreciated. Just so would Lady Azaela have inexorably pursued a tangent of elusive information. She smiled faintly, and her expression, if she had but known it, greatly startled the dowager countess.

“No, ma’am. I know full well that I have not satisfied you. Again, much of what I could say is wrapped up quite firmly with his lordship’s business.” Babs paused a moment and her finger lightly traced the rim of her teacup. “I shall say, though, that our arrangement arose out of a business necessity. Neither the earl nor myself is personally attached to the other. For more than that, I think it best that you apply to his lordship. I do not wish to say more than he would wish me to.”

The dowager regarded her in silent astonishment. She said finally, “My dear child, you are amazingly discreet—indeed, forbiddingly reticent. I assure you, I do not pry where my son does not wish me. I do not interfere with his life, any more than he interferes unduly with mine. But am I to understand that this is naught but a marriage of convenience, arising out of some sort of business arrangement between the two of you?”

Babs could not help smiling at the older woman’s palpable surprise. “Exactly so, my lady. Is that so unheard of? I had thought there were many such marriages.”

“Marriages of conveniences, assuredly so, but arranged by the elders of the receptive families and not by the principals themselves,” said the dowager countess, her emphatic voice stressing her continued astonishment.

Babs only shook her head, laughing a little. Then she sobered and her frank eyes met the dowager’s gaze. “I hope that I am not found too entirely below the cut, my lady. I assure you, though my paternal birth is not what it should be for one of this exalted position, my mother’s family was quite unexceptionable. My aunt, Lady Azaela Terowne, had the actual raising of me after my mother’s death, and she attempted most strictly to endow me with the education and training that a young lady of quality is to possess.”

“Lady Azaela Terowne? I fancy that I know her, or at least other,” said the dowager consideringly. “She was a Harrowby, was she not? The eldest Miss Harrowby was once a bosom bow of mine. It is unfortunate that I quite lost track of her sometime after her marriage. She was married out of hand to a quite unacceptable party for familial considerations and thereafter steadfastly refused all my invitations.”

The dowager saw that her daughter-in-law had gone quite white and in gathering astonishment, she said, “My dear, never tell me that your mother was Amanda Harrowby?”

Babs blindly put down her teacup, clattering it in the saucer. “My mother—yes, she was the eldest Miss Harrowby. But I had no notion, no inkling, that she was acquainted with, or even knew, anyone ...” She stopped, quite suddenly aware that she might burst into tears or betray her certainty that her mother had deliberately cut herself off from her high-flying connections as a consequence of her quite ineligible marriage.

Meeting her mother-in-law’s quizzical gaze, Babs made an effort to regain her equilibrium. “Forgive me, my lady. I was just so surprised by the unexpectedness of the coincidence. I never dreamed that my mother knew anyone in the world, or even that she would be remembered. She was quite secluded from society after her marriage, I understand.”

“You mean that she was ostracized by her foolishly proud family, who had made of her a sacrifice to their own gain and then turned their collective backs upon her as though she had become unclean,” said the dowager countess brutally.

The older Lady Chatworth saw that she had upset her daughter-in-law, and she stretched out a hand to the younger woman, gently touching her shoulder. “My dear, it is all in the past. I wish now that I had pressed your mother harder to accept my invitations. I might have known you as a child then. But instead, I bowed to her obvious wish to be left to herself; I had come to realize, you see, that she did not desire that I be placed on familiar terms with your father. It was a pity, of course. I missed her very much. But your mother— my dear friend—undoubtedly rests quite easy these days. It is you that we must now consider.”

Babs looked up, surprised. She found that the dowager was smiling at her in the most friendly manner imaginable. “What do you mean, my lady?”

“You must tell me all that you have gotten up to since your marriage to my scapegrace of a son,” said the dowager countess, raising her teacup to her lips.

Babs could scarcely believe that her mother-in-law was looking at her in such a friendly fashion or that she could truly be interested in such mundane conversation, but obediently she launched into a description of all that she had seen, her visits and shopping trips with Lady Azaela, and even her shaking up of the household.

The dowager countess never appeared to be bored and indeed encouraged her with small comments and questions, so that Babs relaxed and even enjoyed herself. She was surprised when the maid reentered the room to take away the tea tray and to announce that it was time for the dowager countess’s nap.