Instead of going directly back into the house, Timothia remained just where she was for a few moments. She was glad Leo had chosen to walk off in a huff. He might count himself fortunate that she had such a command over herself as to enable her to conceal the real perturbation of her spirits.
She could laugh at the manner of his making this offer, if only she might set aside her own feelings upon receipt of it. Who would have thought that Leo could be such a fool? Had anyone else seen fit to enumerate all the evils of her situation only in order to set the position he might offer at an advantage, she would only laugh at it. But that Leo should do so—! That Leo should offer at all—!
And were his arguments supposed to weigh with her? They might, had they come from anyone else. Oh, she could bargain with fate easily enough for another man. Easier, surely, to make an exchange of the kind with a gentleman for whom one felt no particular affection. Marriages based on a business arrangement were not so uncommon—even among cousins. But with a dear friend? Leo had appeared to think it acceptable. For herself, it felt a very mockery of their relationship.
Worse yet, she suspected that he had gone over his arguments with Valentine in rather more alarming detail than he claimed. Naturally reserved as she was, this went very much against the grain with Timothia. And the thought that Leo had to determine whether or not to offer for her was galling in the extreme. Why it should be so she could not fathom. Unless, in his in-most heart, he recognised the dreadful incongruity of which she was conscious—and had fought against it? Well, if he had, then the fight had been lost. And Leo Wetheral was not the man she had thought him!
Upon this lowering thought, Timothia left the stables, and made her way through the back entrance and up a narrow stairway to her bedchamber.
After Leo’s disparaging remarks about Fenny House, she seemed to see the place anew—and with not a little resentment towards her cousin. A wreck indeed! What if the panelled walls were crumbling with woodworm here and there? In the dim light of the constricted, airless little passages, one could barely notice it. True, the rooms were smaller than she had been used to, her bedchamber dwarfed by the big four-poster brought from Dulverton Park. What with the chest that contained her gowns, the dresser, and the rather unnecessary window seat built into the wooden surround at the bay, there was only just room to move. In this heat, moreover, she could have wished that the windows were not casements, which let in so little air, unlike the huge sash windows at the Park which kept the air circulating and fresh. But this was a small matter, Timothia decided defiantly, when one considered the beauty of the ancient leaded glass at Fenny House.
In a mood of turbulent unease, Timothia ripped off her habit and threw it on the bed for Polly to brush and put away, forgetting in her agitation that the lanky country maid had more than enough to do without that added burden. She had arrayed herself in a simple blue-dyed muslin gown with half-sleeves, and was placing the customary black shawl across her shoulders, before she recalled that her mourning was over.
Cursing Leo for causing her to become absentminded, Timothia removed the shawl and instead looked among her jewels for a pearl brooch that had come to her from her mother, long deceased. The flaxen locks brushed and re-plaited, she looked at the effect in the long glass that had been put behind the door for want of anywhere else in the room where it might fit.
Did that look more like Mrs Leo Wetheral? A frisson shot through her at the thought of the name, and she drew an unsteady breath. Madness! She was not going to marry Leo. To her annoyance, she caught herself wondering if he might approve of the alteration from the ‘indecent’ earlier spectacle, and thrust hastily away from her own image. Let him keep his opinions to himself! If she were to accept his ‘bargain’, she would certainly demand on her side that he refrain from criticising her conduct. Except that Leo would never agree to that restriction—any more than she was likely to agree to the terms of his hateful offer.
Mrs Hawnby was awake by the time Timothia went down to the front parlour. A venerable dame, with something more than seventy years in her dish, Edith Hawnby was apt to doze intermittently throughout the day. It was a practice which suited Timothia, who had all the propriety of a companion with none of the nuisance of being obliged to keep her company. But she did not credit her old governess with less sharpness of mind than had been her portion in the days when she had presided over the schoolroom at Dulverton Park.
‘What did he want?’ she asked forthrightly, the moment Timothia had seated herself on a sofa a trifle too large for the room.
‘To tell me that these parlours are poky,’ replied Timothia, without going through the unnecessary preliminary of enquiring whom her companion meant by ‘he’. Edith was well acquainted with Leo from the old days.
‘You knew that,’ said the elderly dame.
‘Yes,’ agreed Timothia, looking about. But although this particular parlour was set directly below her own bedchamber, and was of exactly the same dimensions, she observed with satisfaction that it seemed the bigger for its sparse furnishing. There was merely the sofa which she was herself occupying, Edith’s easy chair and one other, besides the nest of small tables which was generally, as now, shut up.
‘I would not myself call them poky,’ she said with an air of detached calm which in no way expressed the true state of her emotions. ‘Restricted perhaps.’
Her old governess eyed her from the depths of the large chair that comfortably accommodated her well-rounded form. She was of the type of figure that had been buxom in youth, but was now merely overlarge for her height with a tendency to waddle when she walked. Which was why, as she was apt to say when urged to exercise, she preferred to remain idle.
‘I suppose you told him so,’ she suggested, after a pause.
‘I can’t recall what I told him,’ Timothia said flatly. ‘He informed me, if I remember rightly, that all three of my parlours would fit into one of his.’
Mrs Hawnby grunted. ‘I presume he didn’t drive himself over here merely to tell you that.’
‘No. He came to make me an offer of marriage. I think the comment about the parlours was designed to persuade me of the desirability of exchanging my residence with Wiggin Hall.’
Mrs Hawnby looked her over in silence. Timothia did not flinch from her gaze, although she knew well how easily Edith read her. She was conscious of the heat rising in her face and was relieved when the elder lady folded her arms and turned her eyes upon the ceiling.
‘You could do worse.’
She did not doubt that! ‘Very much so.’
‘Good property,’ continued the other, apparently still intent upon the ceiling. ‘The boy looks well. He is young enough—seven-and-twenty, if I add it up correctly. Reasonable income. You couldn’t know him better, which is an advantage. Yes, very eligible.’
Timothia had nothing to say. It was a legitimate summation. Leo could not have put it better himself, had he wished to tot up his own attractions. Perhaps it would have been more to the purpose if he had used them as his arguments. She might have taken him for a coxcomb, but that was better than taking him for the insensitive brute he undoubtedly was!
After a moment or two Timothia became aware that Mrs Hawnby had withdrawn her gaze from the ceiling, and was once more training those intelligent eyes upon herself. She met the look with challenge in her own. It was rewarded.
‘You don’t want it.’
Timothia’s feelings gave way. ‘I certainly don’t want the bargain he offered me!’
‘Bargain?’ frowned the other. ‘What do you mean, child?’
‘Leo wishes for a wife to run his estate, which is apparently the root of his reason for choosing me. I am to gain the run of his enormous parlours, I suppose, and the enjoyment—so Leo says—of working at what I enjoy.’
‘That sounds to me remarkably like pique, child,’ observed Edith sapiently.
‘I should think I am entitled to a trifle of pique,’ said Timothia roundly. ‘It was scarcely the most flattering of offers, Edith, I assure you. And from Leo!’
‘Why should he flatter you?’ demanded her erstwhile governess. ‘Knows you like him. You even respect the fellow.’
‘I both like and respect him, but that does not mean that I want to marry him.’
‘Knows you get on exceedingly well together. Have you not been close friends ever since I came to you?’
‘Oh, before that. I do not remember a time when Leo was not my friend.’
‘Apart from the odd squabble,’ put in Mrs Hawnby.
‘There is nothing in that. Sparring with Leo is by way of intellectual exercise for us both. But it is hardly the stuff of marriage.’
‘On the contrary. A marriage without a fight or two is a bloodless marriage.’
‘Oh, but Leo does not want a bloodsome marriage, my dear Edith,’ Timothia said acidly. ‘All his thought is for the convenience of it. My convenience as well as his own, you know, for among other things he is very kindly rescuing me from the shelf.’
Mrs Hawnby eyed her with comprehension. ‘He has put you in a pet.’
‘I am not in a pet,’ stated Timothia with dignity. ‘Leo spoke no less than the truth. It is a fair assessment of my circumstances to say that I am on the shelf. As you say, why should he flatter me? He knows me so well that he has no need of subterfuge or deceit.’
‘Which is more than can be said for most such marriages.’
‘Such what marriages?’ demanded Timothia with heat.
‘Of convenience,’ said the old lady, quite unperturbed. ‘You admit him to be eligible, you like and respect him, and he offers a solution to your very uncertain future which you would do well to consider deeply.’
‘I am considering it,’ Timothia pointed out, rising again in a surge of annoyance. ‘But the truth is that I am not at all sure that I want such a marriage.’
‘Then you are a great fool, my girl,’ declared her old mentor roundly. ‘You can’t stay moping here for ever, driving yourself into a frenzy of boredom.’
‘And if I were to marry Leo, and move to Wiggin Hall, I may just as readily be driven to moping and boredom. Since Leo means to indulge his addiction to sport to the utmost, I should very likely not see him from one month’s end to another! And since I am only to be in his precious house on sufferance, merely to chaperon his sister and slave to death over his estate, I fail to see how I am to derive any satisfaction from it. I loved working for Dulverton because it was my home. Leo does not intend that Wiggin shall become my home—only that I should come and live in his home. There is a vast difference, Edith, I assure you.’
She stopped, aware of having thoroughly betrayed herself. Edith had received her tirade with every evidence of indifference, but Timothia was not deceived by that expressionless face. She swung away to the windows.
‘You did not, I take it, express yourself with this degree of warmth to Mr Wetheral,’ came from behind her.
Timothia let out a muted yowl and turned. ‘I did, Edith, and you were perfectly right—he put me in a pet! Only I would not myself describe my state of mind by so little a term. Leo has put me, if you must know, into a fury.’
There. She had admitted it. She had been trying vainly to suppress a very torrent of rage!
With the admission, strangely, came relief. She found that her erstwhile mentor was looking at her with a degree of comprehension in her eyes, but no shred of compassion.
‘That’s better,’ said Edith, in a voice both flat and unemotional. ‘Get it all out, and then you may think more clearly.’
Timothia’s discomfort began to subside. It had ever been thus. Edith had never suffocated her with unwanted displays of affection or compassion, but her shrewd mind had nevertheless commanded respect, even admiration, from her young charge. She had been able to check her with a look, or a few pertinent words. At seventeen, Timothia had dispensed with her services, feeling herself to be no longer in need either of guidance or chaperonage. But an absence of six years had not lessened the power of Edith Hawnby’s good sense.
Timothia began to laugh. ‘I think I have already got it out.’
‘Good. If I were you, I would take a turn in the shrubbery, and try to look at the matter in a fresh light. Remember that men are not adept at expressing themselves in a way that finds favour with women—more particularly when they are making a proposal of marriage. No doubt there is occasion for some dissatisfaction, but you would be wise to consider well before you throw away such a promising opportunity for the sake of a scruple or two.’
She then closed her eyes and fell, to all appearances, into a doze. There clearly being nothing further to be got out of her for the present, Timothia left the room and went outside. Not that she expected to derive much help for her very considerable scruples from a walk in the shrubbery!
This large term served to describe a somewhat forlorn area of formal garden to one side of Fenny House which had been coaxed, at Timothia’s instigation, into providing a single walkway leading from a lawn of untidy shape at one end, to a large chestnut tree at the other.
Timothia managed to make a couple of relatively carefree turns up and down the walkway, her attention determinedly on the selection of flowering shrubs, as she deadheaded here and there where shrivelled petals ruined the beauty of the blooms. One of the only signs of femininity she displayed, Leo had often said, was a love of flowers.
Leo again! Was that the trouble? Leo was so inextricably bound up in her life that she could not think of him with fresh eyes—in the light of a husband. Evidently he’d had a similar difficulty in persuading himself to think of her as a wife. She was too unfeminine, it seemed. Too ‘indecent’! What was it he was used to say?
‘What I like about you, Timma, is that there is rarely any need to accommodate my pace and strength to yours, whatever the pursuit. You are built on the lines of an Amazon!’
A little hollow seemed to open up in her chest, and Timothia paused in her perambulations. Leo had never given the slightest indication that he found anything to admire in the figure or stature of an Amazon. Nor, to be fair, had she any evidence to support a conviction to the contrary. He had never openly admired anyone, to Timothia’s knowledge—not in their neighbourhood at least. But there was no saying but that he had been madly in love during his seasons in London, for all she knew, and with a female built on quite other lines than herself. Except that he was still unwed. But might that not betoken a disappointment in the pursuit of some female’s hand?
She was conscious of annoyance—that he had not told her. Ludicrous, because of course he would have told her, such close friends as they were. He did not come to her with a bruised heart; of that she might be sure. On the other hand, he did not come with a full heart either.
Should not there be some sign of a warmer feeling between prospective marriage partners? Warmer than mere friendship dictated. What had he said? Their friendship was a basis for a closer relationship. Closer, yes. But warmer? Leo evidently did not think so, for such a sentiment had not formed part of his well-reasoned proposal. Oh, so very well-reasoned it had been! But not one word had been put forward about her personal attributes. Perhaps Leo thought them unimportant.
Well, they were not so to Timothia. She might be lacking in the feminine graces, but she was woman enough to wish to be desired by the man who might take her to wife. And how was she to know whether Leo was to her taste?
In a flash, she recalled those odd symptoms that had attacked her when Leo had seized her hands. Did that mean that she found his masculinity attractive? No! No, it was not possible. Was it? Surely not. That had been merely the shattering effect of her realisation that his offer was in earnest.
Even as this thought came to her, an echo of those earlier disagreeable sensations rose up inside her. With a kind of detached interest, she felt her pulse increase its rhythm a trifle, and a hot tingle at her skin. And it was Leo who had caused this? Leo.
Before the inevitable reflections could quite overwhelm her, she was hailed by the light, breathy tones of her friend Susan Hurst.
‘There you are, Timma! Did you not hear my carriage drive up? Oh, now, Timma—you are walking without a hat in this heat. If that is not typical of you, dearest. I do wish you will come inside.’
Why in the world Susan persisted in treating her in this elder sister fashion, Timothia was never able to understand. Not only was her friend all of two years younger than herself, but she was also more than half a head shorter and the epitome of youthful femininity. She was reed-slim, her slight figure arrayed in pink muslin, with little puff sleeves and a décolletage over a petite bosom adorned with frills and a satin bow, which was echoed in the rows of ribbon decorating the straw hat. Large pansy eyes peeped up at Timothia from beneath this confection, out of a countenance otherwise unremarkable. But her mouse-coloured hair curled riotously, and a flair for fashion made up for a limited intellect. She was a devoted friend, and Timothia valued both her good heart and her loyalty. Susan’s ill fortune in the matter of romance made her fiercely defensive, but that did not prevent her from responding with irritation to her gentle reproof.
‘Don’t you start on me, Susan. I have had enough to bear from Leo already today.’
‘Oh, has he been here?’
‘To some purpose,’ said Timothia, glad of the opportunity to unburden herself. ‘Would you believe it, Susan? He has offered for me!’
The pansy eyes widened. ‘Already? I had not thought it would have been so quick.’
Timothia eyed her with suspicion. ‘You knew?’
Susan clapped a hand to her mouth, consternation dancing in the large eyes. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, Timma, I am sorry!’
‘You did know. Famous! Only wait until I see Leo!’
Two small hands reached out to grasp her arms. ‘Oh, pray don’t say anything to him. Oh, dear, how stupid I am! I ought not to have said anything. Valentine warned me to dissemble.’
Timothia took the hands and removed them from her arms, pushing them away. ‘It is of no use to say that now, Susan. In any event, I had already discovered that Leo talked the matter over with Valentine. Only I had not thought that you were in the plot, too!’
‘It is not a plot, dearest Timma,’ said her friend, distressed. ‘How could you think I would ever plot against you?’
‘Only tell me this,’ demanded Timothia sternly. ‘Did Leo come to you with his uncertainties?’
‘Oh, no, no, no! It was Valentine who told me of it.’
‘I might have guessed it! I warned Leo that he would spread it all over the neighbourhood.’
‘I am sure he has not done so, dearest,’ Susan uttered breathily. ‘He told me that Leo had sworn him to secrecy.’
‘Yet he broke his word immediately and disclosed the business to you.’ She began to move with hasty, if undetermined, steps, pacing towards the chestnut tree.
‘Only because he knew that you were bound to tell me,’ pleaded Susan, hurrying after her. ‘Poor Valentine could not decide whether it would be a good thing for you to marry Leo. He wished for my opinion.’
Timothia halted. ‘And just what is your opinion? Or dare I hazard a guess?’
‘Timma, pray don’t be so out of reason cross! Of course I told Valentine that I thought it a splendid notion, but—’
‘Of course you did. What else were you to think? Here am I, stuck in this wretched little house, positively yearning to be rescued. And there is Leo, desperate for someone to run his estate for him and look after Barbara. What better solution?’
Susan blinked at her. ‘Is that indeed the case?’
‘It is how Leo put it,’ Timothia said savagely.
There was no mistaking the disappointment that clouded Susan’s brown orbs. ‘Oh, no! Oh, Timma. And I had been thinking how romantic it was that Leo should fall in love with you after all these years.’
A sharp pang smote Timothia’s bosom, taking her unawares. She stared at Susan for a moment, without seeing her. Then a choked laugh escaped her.
‘Love? Nothing of the sort. That is the last thing—’ She stopped, her breath catching. Why in the world should she be wanting to weep? It was hardly a matter for tears. And she was not going to behave like a watering pot, all for Leo’s sake! She drew a steadying breath, and stated coolly, ‘You are mistaken, Susan. Leo is not in love with me.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked her friend anxiously. ‘Perhaps he might have been embarrassed to express himself in those terms—to you, Timma.’
Timothia frowned, recalling her cousin’s odd behaviour before he had broached his unflattering proposal. ‘If he was, the cause had nothing to do with his feelings towards me. On the contrary, he was extremely outspoken on that head.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Susan anxiously.
Timothia gave her a fluent account, underlined by a commentary of her own—an exercise which allowed her to discharge a good deal of her spleen.
Under the chestnut tree, Timothia had caused to be placed a wooden bench which provided an arbour of sorts, admirably suited to intimate discussions of this kind. To gravitate to this seat seemed natural under the circumstances, and the two females were soon ensconced, and deep in discussion of the day’s event.
‘After all,’ offered Susan, once in possession of the story, ‘you are admirably suited to one another. And perhaps a more intimate relationship would make him fall in love with you.’
‘I wish you will not keep harping on this laughable romantic fancy, Susan,’ said Timothia crossly. ‘If Leo has not found it in him to cherish that sort of feeling for me in all these years of friendship, it is scarce likely that he will do so now—or in the future.’
Susan’s big eyes were trained upon her in a look she knew well. Her lips, Timothia guessed, were trembling on words that she hardly dared to utter, although she was plainly bursting to say them. It always reminded Timothia irresistibly of a spaniel doubtful of its welcome.
‘Oh, do say it, Susan!’ she urged, between laughter and exasperation. ‘I promise I will not bite you.’ She put out a hand to Susan’s, squeezing it briefly. ‘I am sorry I accused you of plotting against me. It is not your fault that Valentine talked to you. Only Leo put me in such a fume that—’
‘Timma, what about you?’ interrupted her friend without ceremony.
‘I? Why, what do you mean?’
‘It is all very well to talk in this airy way, Timma, with Leo said this, or Leo said that. But what of your feelings? You care for him, don’t you?’
Timothia stared at her, struck. It had not occurred to her to question her own heart. ‘I had not thought.’
‘Think of it now,’ urged Susan, both hope and anxiety in her voice.
The image of Leo crept into Timothia’s mind. It was odd, but with all the memories she could only recall him as he’d looked that morning. Ill at ease, ill-tempered, a trifle hostile even. Only once or twice had the warmth of their close friendship been apparent. He had been almost a stranger, not truly the Leo she knew, with whom she shared a strong bond. Or she had thought she shared it.
A wave of violent sensation swept over her, and tears stung her eyelids. Would she have approached him thus? Would she have gone to Leo with a proposal based on convenience? No, indeed she would not! She would have had more regard for his feelings. Had it been the other way about—had she thought of marrying him—she would have spoken of the strength of their mutual affection. She would have lauded the long years of empathy, the give and take of every new thought upon the happenings of time, the growing bond that could only grow dearer in the closer unity of wedlock.
Now it was borne in upon her that these things encompassed her own experience. She could no longer be sure—as comfortably as she had been, without question—that Leo felt the same way. For all that she knew him, as she had thought, she felt him now a stranger. The promptings that had led him to make this offer were not—could never be!—the stimulus that could prompt her to accept.
She became aware of Susan’s breathy tones. ‘Timma, what is it? What ails you, dearest?’
Timothia’s gaze focused, and she discovered that she was still staring into Susan’s face, quite unaware. She found Susan’s fingers in hers and gently released them. A sort of calm had descended upon her, and she spoke steadily.
‘There is nothing the matter, Susan. I have only realised just what my feelings are towards Leo.’
‘Oh, then you do love him!’
‘I did not say that.’ Timothia thought about this, and felt only numbness. ‘If I love him, it is in the way I would love my brother. He has been a brother to me. I suppose that is why it is so very difficult to think of him in any other way. I dare say he feels the same.’
Susan sighed. ‘Yes, that is what Valentine said. He thought it must be like offering for your sister.’
‘Is that what he said to Leo?’
‘I do not know. He said it to me. It was what gave him qualms, he said.’
Valentine had qualms, had he? If he had, they were as nothing to her own! ‘And what did you say?’
Susan blushed. ‘Just what I said to you. I had often thought of Leo’s marrying you, though I have never said so.’
Timothia eyed her, conscious of a sliver of sensation. Why this unusual reticence? ‘Why not?’
‘I did not think you would like to hear it,’ Susan confessed, hanging her head. ‘I knew you had never thought of Leo in that way. But sometimes I did wonder whether perhaps you felt about him the same way that I did about—’ She stopped, biting her lip.
‘About Valentine,’ Timothia finished for her. ‘Susan, whence this shyness? You have been besotted with Valentine, heaven knows why, ever since you came to share my schoolroom with Mrs Hawnby. Surely you can never have seen me mooning over Leo in the same way?’
‘I did not moon!’ protested Susan hotly.
‘Pardon me. You did nothing but gaze at him with the most blatant adoration every time he set foot in Dulverton Park. Everyone noticed it—except Valentine himself. Which only goes to prove how insensitive men are. Why I should have expected anything different from Leo, I do not know.’
Susan’s face fell. ‘You mean to refuse him.’
‘In no uncertain terms!’ Timothia said. Then she thought of the alternative, and sighed. ‘At least, I think I mean to refuse him. Only Edith said I should be a fool to do so without serious consideration—and the melancholy truth is that she is right.’
Valentine appeared delighted to see her. Trading on their long friendship, Timothia had waived formality to one side, much to the disapproval of Lord Pentre’s butler, and accosted him in the gun-room at Bluntisham where he was engaged in fencing practice with his secretary. Valentine was as eager a sportsman as Leo, and Timothia had no mind to wait while he finished his bout and spent an eon of time at his toilet.
‘You need not escort me for I know my way,’ she had announced. But the butler had insisted on guiding her through the numerous corridors to the old wing—the only part of the original castle still standing—where his master was to be found, in stockinged feet and shirt-sleeves, bounding to and fro across the bare wooden boards.
Interrupted just as he executed a neat thrust in quarte, his lordship appeared not in the least put out. Leaping back out of range of his secretary’s foil, he looked quickly round at the butler’s discreet cough.
‘Good Lord, Timma, is that you?’ Removing his mask, and handing his own weapon to his adversary, he advanced with outstretched hand. ‘Couldn’t be more pleased to see anyone! Was just thinking about you.’
‘I can’t imagine why you should be thinking about me while you were engaged in swordplay,’ Timothia returned, in a tone deceptively friendly.
‘Well, not just at that precise moment, of course. But earlier, you know.’
Timothia greeted his secretary, with whom she was acquainted, and asked briefly after some matter concerning the estates. But Valentine did not permit of his responding in any detail, and dismissed him along with the butler, with a careless disregard for the proprieties. He began to draw on his boots, inviting Timothia to be seated at the wooden surround of one of the window embrasures.
Timothia declined, choosing rather to wander down the room, pretending to become engrossed in the portraits of dogs that hung above the gun-racks placed along the wall at intervals. She spoke blandly.
‘What made you think of me, Valentine?’
‘Was wishing for an opportunity to offer my felicitations,’ he said, hopping on one leg as he reached for the second boot which had fallen away from him.
Timothia stopped and turned to watch him. ‘Indeed? Are you meaning to felicitate me on my emergence from mourning, or on my betrothal to Leo?’
He looked up from dragging on the boot, his face lit. It was a good-humoured countenance, of the type the world was apt to regard as pleasantly pretty, with a well-sculpted lip and good cheekbones. He was fair, of average height, with a good figure, honed by an active sporting life, which showed to advantage in breeches and shirt-sleeves. Timothia was glad that Susan had not opted to accompany her on this quest, for she would undoubtedly have swooned at sight of him!
In fact, so far from evincing any desire to come to Valentine’s home, her friend had flown into a taking.
‘Oh, you must not!’
‘Oh, but I must,’ had argued Timothia. ‘I wish to know exactly what Leo discussed with him.’
‘But Valentine will be furious with me for saying anything to you. You must not say that I told you.’
‘I have no need to say so, since Leo told me himself that he had spoken to Valentine when he made his offer.’
Susan had been relieved. ‘Oh, yes, thank goodness! Would you wish me to tell Valentine that you want him to visit you?’
‘That would rather defeat the object of my not telling him you had spoken to me on this head, would it not?’ Timothia had pointed out drily. ‘Besides, I am in no mood to wait for Valentine to visit me. If I know him, he would be off to some race meeting or other and forget all about it.’
Susan had been obliged to admit the truth of this, and had reluctantly abandoned the idea. But Timothia, fired by her urgent need to thrash out the minutiae of Leo’s proposal, had barely had patience to wait for luncheon to be over before ordering Bickley to fig out the gig.
Valentine’s reception of the subject was not encouraging.
‘Then it is all settled? Excellent!’
Timothia eyed him frostily. ‘It is not excellent at all, Valentine. Nor is it settled.’
His grey eyes questioned. ‘But has not Leo popped the question? I quite thought he must have done when you asked—’
‘He has suggested that we get married, yes. I have not, however, given him my answer.’
‘Ah.’ Valentine stood up, stamping his foot to get his boot in place. Then he picked his waistcoat off a hook and shrugged it on. ‘Lord knows why you females like to keep a fellow on a string! Mean to say, either you wish to marry him or you don’t.’
‘It is not that simple.’
Turning away from him, Timothia crossed the room to the window and stood gazing out upon the overgrown grass that led towards the stable block. She heard Valentine following her, and, glancing round, watched him button his waistcoat. Then he looked up again and she caught his eye. Alarm came into it.
‘Uh-oh! I know that look. Now, Timma, I can’t—’
‘Exactly what did Leo say to you, Valentine?’ she interrupted without ceremony.
‘I knew it!’ he uttered in a fateful way. ‘Can’t be done, Timma. You can’t expect me to betray Leo.’
Timothia was within an ace of retorting that he had already done so—to Susan. Recalling her promise to her friend, she held her tongue.
‘You will be telling me nothing that he has not already said to me himself,’ she pointed out instead.
‘Then why do you want to hear it?’ he demanded reasonably.
She sat on the window seat, and patted the place beside her, giving him her inviting smile. His suspicious manner of sitting amused her, but she pressed her advantage.
‘Valentine, we are friends, are we not?’
‘Always been friends,’ he agreed with wary enthusiasm. ‘Not quite like Leo, of course, but still.’
‘Just so. Leo is your best friend, and my friend too—as well as my cousin. Only consider, Valentine. If we should make a mistake by marrying, it will ruin all our friendships.’
Valentine frowned in obvious puzzlement. ‘But why should you make a mistake? Don’t mean to interfere, but seems to me a very good match.’
‘I don’t deny it,’ Timothia said quickly. ‘But a good match is not necessarily a successful marriage.’
He nodded sagely. ‘True enough.’
‘There you are, then.’
Valentine appeared to be thinking the matter over, and Timothia was obliged to curb her impatience. It never answered to bustle Valentine. It only turned him mulish and she would get nothing out of him at all. Her patience was rewarded.
‘All very well, Timma, but I still don’t see that I can tell you any more than Leo has. Did he mention Babs?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And that you should manage his estate?’
‘That too.’
‘Well, that’s it. Leo seemed to feel you’d like it.’ He added, with an air of confidentiality, ‘Mark you, I did tell him he could as well employ a secretary. It’s what I do. Leo said it’s not the same, and I don’t say he’s wrong. Know you did far more than a secretary at Dulverton. I told him I thought you’d be glad to get out of that silly little house. Much better move to Wiggin Hall.’
Timothia could have screamed. ‘Better than what? Marrying someone else? If I merely wanted to live at Wiggin Hall and run Leo’s estate, I dare say I could do so without marrying him.’
Valentine shook his head with decision. ‘Not without a chaperon, you couldn’t. You may be cousins, but it still ain’t respectable. And who’s to bring out Barbara?’
‘The chaperon,’ said Timothia cattily.
‘But then he’d have to run to the expense of hiring some decent woman instead of a secretary,’ protested Valentine. ‘Much better marry you and be done with both problems. Besides, Leo must have an heir.’
Rising in some haste, Timothia swung away. ‘Pray do not speak to me about Leo’s heir. If that is all he wants, let him go to London and pick up some willing little débutante.’
‘No use,’ said Valentine, rising also and following. ‘Been on the town for years, and never once succumbed. It ain’t likely he will, especially since he’s got this idea into his head about marrying you.’
Timothia turned on him, conscious of a swelling sensation in her chest. She looked Valentine over, wondering whether to ask the question hovering on her tongue. Once again, she saw his expressive eyes register a trifle of panic.
‘He has never succumbed?’ queried Timothia quickly, before he could think of hedging. ‘Do you mean that Leo has never been—in love?’
Valentine coughed. ‘I don’t say that exactly. Never fallen for any of the girls on the market, that’s all.’
Eyeing him with a degree of suspicion, Timothia caught her breath. ‘But you think he has been in love?’
Valentine looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, not in the way of marriage. Dash it, Timma, a man don’t think of that sort of female for a wife.’
‘What sort of female?’
A deep flush stained his pretty features. ‘Lord, Timma, the things you ask!’
‘I suppose you mean a female he would take for his mistress. A doxy, would it be?’
‘Timma!’
‘Oh, come, Valentine, there is no need to look so shocked,’ she said impatiently.
‘I am shocked,’ he said sternly, shifting a little away.
‘Why, when you know I never mince words?’
‘Well, you ought to—mince them, I mean.’
He was backing away, but Timothia moved to him and seized hold of his arm. Her voice was urgent. ‘Valentine, are you saying that Leo has been in love with one of those women?’
‘Happens to everyone,’ pleaded Valentine excusingly, squirming with embarrassment. ‘Nothing to it. Mean to say, a wife isn’t supposed to know anything about a man’s ladybirds. Even if she does, she pretends she don’t.’
Timothia released him. ‘Indeed?’
Valentine became agitated. ‘Lord, if Leo ever finds out I told you! Timma, you won’t say anything to him?’
She drew a breath, for she must reassure him, much as she might feel inclined to open her mind to Leo. No, unthinkable.
‘I shall say nothing. Provided,’ she added as he let out a sigh of relief, ‘that you tell me what I want to know.’
He sighed in a defeated way. ‘That’s blackmail, Timma. What do you want to know?’
‘When was this? That Leo was enamoured of this ladybird?’
‘Lord, I don’t know,’ he said impatiently. ‘I don’t remember precisely. A year or so ago, perhaps.’
‘And is it over?’
‘How should I—? I mean, he wouldn’t be asking you to marry him if it wasn’t.’
‘I thought you said gentlemen didn’t think of marriage to these women.’
‘They don’t,’ he said in a harassed tone. ‘Only they don’t think of marriage to anyone else either—not if they’re in the throes.’
This seemed logical. Timothia did not know why the matter was of such importance to her. Except that it was rather galling to find that a woman of that sort was privileged to have Leo’s affections, when she was not. What attractions had she, to bring him to his knees? An image of dazzling beauty invaded her mind—dark and sultry, with luxurious eyes and rouged lips that beckoned for a kiss. She had seen such women at public assemblies—from a distance, naturally. One did not approach them. On the other hand, it was no matter for wonder that the gentlemen did!
She took an agitated turn about the room, fetching up at the window again. Aware of Valentine at her back, she yet could not face him.
‘What did she look like?’
‘Who?’ he asked stupidly.
‘You know very well whom I mean,’ she snapped, unable to help herself.
Valentine did not answer, and she forced herself to look at him. A frown of unusual severity marked his features.
‘Well?’
‘Can’t expect me to answer a question like that, Timma,’ he said heavily.
‘I don’t see why not. What difference does it make?’
‘If it don’t make any difference, why do you want to know?’ he demanded reasonably.
Timothia felt herself unable to answer truthfully. She tried for an airy note. ‘I am interested, that is all. I simply can’t envisage what sort of female would be to Leo’s taste. He is himself so dark, and I know that my father—who you may recall was fairer than you are, Valentine—’
‘Often thought how much you resemble him,’ observed her friend, nodding.
‘Just so. But Papa, you know, told me that he had been attracted because my mama was so very much a Wetheral—dark and blue-eyed. He loved the combination, he said.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Valentine, evidently thrown off guard. ‘Leo has it too, don’t he?’
‘But does he prefer the opposite, or does he go for dark women too?’ asked Timothia in as innocent a tone as she could manage.
‘Can’t say as I’ve noticed a particular preference,’ mused Valentine. ‘Though the chit who caught him in her toils was neither. Redhead, she was. Improbably so, I always thought. Tidy little piece, though. Very neat figure.’
Timothia felt sick. She had got what she wanted. Valentine had spilled it all, just as she had known he would, if only she could get him chattering. Now she wished very much that she had let it alone.
A redhead. Leo had fallen in love with a red-headed ladybird. Little—and neat. So much for Amazons! She was obliged to clamp her teeth upon a burgeoning complaint against the stupidity of men and their lovesick fancies. But there was still something more to be probed. And Valentine was best placed to give her an answer.
She looked at him and saw that he had realised how he had been tricked. ‘You need not look like that, Valentine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘It does not affect me, you know.’
‘Don’t it?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘Not a whit.’ But she held his eye. ‘Yet answer me this, if you please. Suppose then that it is over between Leo and this female.’
‘Long ago,’ put in Valentine hastily.
Timothia ignored this. ‘If he should marry me,’ she pursued, ‘only for the convenience of it, mind—what is to stop him falling in love with some other ladybird at a later date?’
‘Why, nothing,’ he replied in a voice of surprise, adding thoughtfully, ‘Though I shouldn’t think myself that Leo could afford to waste the ready. Mean to say, you can’t go keeping a mistress if you’ve a wife and family to support. Though you can’t blame a man for wishing to mount one if his marriage bed don’t offer him that sort of comfort.’