And then Darden announcing that he must have come to Town to seek out a wife when he’d said no such thing. He would marry, of course. In due time. At the right time. In the fullness of time. Or sometime, anyway.
He supposed they would all think him very foolish to have come only to attempt to guide Beatrice.
The carriage clattered on its way and the Westmont ladies were off to terrorize London. Matthew rang his bell and ordered willow bark tea, as he did not know what else to do about his current condition.
Marcus brought his tea to him. “I’ve added a drop of laudanum. You’ll never get anywhere with this,” he said, pointing at Matthew’s legs, “unless you walk it off. My father always said the more sore something is, the more you got to keep moving it. Excepting broken bones or a headache, of course.”
Matthew nodded and took the cup, drinking it down.
“You’ll need to be up on your feet and in fine fettle by the morrow,” Marcus said. “Viscount Darden sent this over not a half hour ago.”
Matthew was handed a small rectangle of cardboard and a bill for ten guineas, a ticket, and another bill for six shillings.
“Almack’s,” he said. “Darden claimed he would get me admitted, though I expressed no interest in it. Now I must pay or be forever blackballed by the Patronesses.”
“It does seem like an ideal place to look for a wife, though,” Marcus pointed out.
Matthew laid down the voucher and the ticket. “Why has everyone convinced themselves that I am here to look for a wife?”
Marcus appeared exceedingly puzzled. “Then, you come to Town for…for the entertainments?”
“Am I not to enjoy the entertainments of the season just as well as anybody else?”
Marcus only shrugged.
Good Lord. Perhaps hewasbecoming a stick—not even his valet could imagine him enjoying anything. He’d known Marcus as his valet since he’d been sixteen and Marcus not two years older. He’d known him from the neighborhood nearly all his life. He did not suppose there was anybody left alive who knew him better, but for the earl.
Did Marcus not think he enjoyed things? He could enjoy things if he wished to.
“Help me up,” Matthew said, “we will take your father’s cure and walk round the house. I must be able to dance by the morrow. Which I will enjoy. Because it is one of the entertainments of the season. That I have come to enjoy.”
*
Beatrice marveled atthe crowded London streets as they made their way to Pall Mall and the mythical Harding, Howell & Co, a destination that was said to sell everything worth having.
While it was indeed marvelous to see so many people and carriages going hither and thither, it did slow things up. At home, they would be trotting down country lanes at a brisk pace. There was no possibility of going at a trot here, however.
Beatrice had found some trouble in falling asleep the evening before and stifled a yawn. She did not know why it should have been so or why she’d kept thinking about Darden’s claim that Van Doren came to Town for a wife.
It was just so odd, she supposed. Van Doren had been a fixture, always steady and always the same. It seemed impossible that he would do something to change what had always been. He scolded, she ignored. It had seemed the way of the world.
Well, it had not always been so, she admitted. There had been a time, when she’d been much younger and impressionable, that she’d looked up to Van Doren as the person who knew everything.
Of course, he’d been irritating by insisting on hiding her dolls and holding them for ransom or pulling her hair, but then it had always seemed somehow complimentary that he did so. He’d favoredherdolls andherhair.
Beatrice smiled to herself as she recalled the day he announced he would only answer to Van Doren. They might call out for Matthew all they liked, he would not hear them. She’d been ten, and he twelve—she had been very struck by how manly it had sounded. She had even fancied herself in love with him.
As she grew older, though, his bossiness had grown tiresome and she had chafed under it. She had her own ideas and began to resist his attempts at correcting them. If anything, his opinions rather cemented her own. Since then, they’d been locked in their own strange battle.
She had imagined that in coming to Town, she would leave Van Doren just where he was, the fuming viscount sitting alone in the country. He would watch her go off to her new life, buthewould not go anywhere. He would not change.
Beatrice could not imagine why she had thought so. Of course he would marry. Of course things would change.
A sudden galling idea came upon her. What if he married before she did? What if he were a success in Town and she a failure?
It would be too humiliating. She could not allow it.
“What do you think, Bea?” Juliet said, bringing her thoughts back to the present.
