The Obedient Bride Read online

  "I offered because the daughters of the former viscount seemed eminently eligible," he said carefully. "And indeed, I would consider it a deep honor if you will accept me. I did not specify, you know, which of you I would offer for, for I had not met any of you until yesterday and I thought your mother would be able to make the most sensible choice. I am quite satisfied with the decision she has made. I will be happy if you will accept me, Miss Arabella."

  "Oh, I will accept you, of course," she said. "No, George, I will not throw sticks for you today. Run along, and pray do not be trying to trip me with every step I take. I am sure Mama assured you of that, my lord. And it really is most civil of you to say that I am to your liking when I am sure you cannot be vastly pleased. I shall try to make you comfortable, my lord."

  "I am quite certain you will succeed," he said. "And I shall try to make sure that you do not regret your choice, ma'am. I shall suggest to your mother that we be wed here as soon as the banns can be read. Will that suit you?"

  "Oh, so soon?" she asked, looking up at him with a blush.

  They had reached a stile leading into the pasture. Lord Astor had intended to turn back or to lean on the fence for a few minutes. But Arabella climbed over the stile without hesitation and without giving him a chance to assist her. And she showed a quite indecorous expanse of ankle and petticoat in the process. The viscount hid a smile and climbed over after her.

  "Is it too soon?" he asked, hope grabbing at him for a brief moment. "Would you like some time to accustom yourself to our betrothal, perhaps?"

  "Oh, no," she said, smiling briefly in his direction. "I suppose we might as well get this over with. Mama will be pleased that you wish the wedding to be here. She was afraid that you would wish it to take place in London."

  "Do you have a dread of London?" he asked. "Would you prefer to live here after our marriage? You are very young to be taken from your mother and all that is familiar to you."

  "That is for you to decide, my lord," she said. "If you say that we are to live here, then of course I shall not complain. But if you wish to return to London, I shall not try to dissuade you. I shall go wherever you wish. I shall know my duty, as you will see."

  "Then London it will be," he said with a smile. "You will have a chance to be a part of the Season. You will enjoy it, I believe. Your dog should be taught some manners, ma'am. I marvel he does not bowl you right off your feet when he jumps up at you like that."

  She looked up at him with a smile. "Oh, but he does sometimes when he takes me by surprise," she said. "I do not mind. I love him, you see."

  She stooped down so that the dog's paws rested on her shoulders, and wrapped her arms around him. He licked at her face until she laughed and pushed his head away.

  Her upper lip curved upward slightly, away from her teeth and her lower lip. He did not know what caused it to do so, as her upper teeth did not noticeably protrude. But it was a somewhat attractive feature.

  It was still hard to believe that she was eighteen years old, he thought, standing silently as she hugged her dog and resisted its desire to pant into her face. She was far more like a small and unruly and slightly disheveled child. And she had a childishly candid tongue.

  She was to be his wife, his life's companion. His bedfellow. He again made the swift mental comparison with Ginny and the other females who frequented his bed. It was quite ludicrous—almost embarrassing, in fact—to contemplate doing any of the things with this child that he was in the habit of doing with his nighttime companions. But then, he supposed that the whole point of keeping a mistress when one had a wife was that one's senses might be satisfied. He could not honestly imagine any of the married gentlemen of his acquaintance enjoying their wives as they did their mistresses.

  Miss Arabella Wilson was not ugly. She was not uncouth, though her manners were not quite what one would expect of a young lady of the ton. He could have done a great deal worse. If he blanked from his mind the image of the lovely Miss Frances Wilson as she had appeared the day before, he could still feel relieved that his bride was not a great deal more of an antidote than she was. He could contemplate the thought of marriage with her without any real cringing or repugnance.

  She would try to make him comfortable, she had said a few minutes before. Well, and perhaps she would succeed, too. There would be some satisfaction, while he continued his life where he had left it off a few days before, in knowing that a wife who knew her duty and who wished to make him comfortable was ensuring the respectability of his name and his home.

  Lord Astor was not entirely displeased with his morning's work.

  Arabella was not feeling nearly so complacent. She buried her face against George's neck, talked to him, and played with him in order to hide her dreadful discomfort.

  There she was, in the middle of the pasture at Parkland, in company with a very handsome young gentleman who looked for all the world as if he must have stepped off a street in London. And she had just accepted his marriage proposal. She had had no idea how to go about doing so, and no idea how to proceed with the conversation now that it was all settled.

  It was only now perhaps that she realized fully how very secluded a life they had all led during her youth. They had never been anywhere farther than five miles from home or met anyone except the inhabitants of that area and the occasional visitor. She really had no idea how to converse with as grand a gentleman as Lord Astor, or what to converse about. And she had no idea how she would go on when they went to London. What would she do there, and how should she behave? The prospect was suddenly quite terrifying.

  She had assured Lord Astor that she would know her duty. Would she? Beyond obeying him, what would her duty be? And she had told him that she would try to make him comfortable. How did one go about making such a grand gentleman comfortable?

  If only he were at least fifty years old and white-haired or bald!

  If only he were not quite so handsome.

  And if only he did not stand there in the pasture so poised and elegant and so disapproving of poor George's affectionate nature.

  Oh, she should not have made the sacrifice, Arabella thought, stooping finally and picking up a stick for George to run and fetch. She was being punished for the sin of pride. For she had felt proud of the fact that she was willing to sacrifice her own future for Frances' sake. One should be thoroughly humble and selfless when making a sacrifice, else it was none. She was being punished, all right.

  "Shall we return to the house for luncheon, my lord?" she asked abruptly, thankful for her conversational inspiration.

  He bowed and offered her his arm. Arabella stared at it, blushed, linked her own through it, and blushed even more deeply.

  Oh, dear God, she wished he were not so handsome!

  3

  LORD Astor made arrangements for the banns to be read at the village church the next Sunday and the two following weeks. The wedding was set for one month from his arrival at Parkland Manor. Country living had never been greatly to his liking, but he succeeded in keeping himself quite well-occupied in the interim. He spent time with his bailiff both in his office and out on the estate. He had no intention of living at Parkland a great deal and no intention of displacing his future mother-in-law and her daughters from their home. But it was as well to be familiar with his new property, he decided.

  In addition, he found himself much in demand in local society. Almost every member of the gentry for miles around called at Parkland within two weeks of his arrival, and as often as not issued an invitation to tea or dinner or to an evening of cards. When there were no visitors and no invitations to be honored and no estate business to be attended to, then he walked or rode out with two or more of the ladies of the house. There was rauch beauty to be seen in the surrounding countryside, decked as it was in all its fresh spring splendor.

  But almost never was he alone with his future bride. He was not sure if it just happened that way or if she actively organized it so. He realized that Arabella was a ve
ry innocent and inexperienced young lady and lived in a secluded country area where everyone's business was frequently everyone else's. It would not do to be alone with her often or for any length of time. Besides, he had no great wish to be alone with her. He did not imagine he would find that they had much in common with each other, and he would doubtless find her interests tedious. There would be time enough to condition himself to her conversation after they were married.

  On the other hand, he had expected that there would be moments when they would be thrown together even when in company. When they were out walking, he had expected to have her on his arm. When sitting in the drawing room at Parkland or in someone else's, it was to be expected that much of the time he would sit next to his betrothed. As it happened, he far more frequently had Frances on his arm during walks, or even her mother. Arabella usually ran on ahead with her dog and the excuse that she had spotted some primroses that must be picked. And she habitually seated herself as far away from him as possible in the drawing room and struck up an animated conversation with whoever was closest to her. Never with him.

  Lord Astor could not help suspecting that his betrothed deliberately avoided his company. Why it should be so, he was unsure. He had not found females to be in the habit of avoiding him, even before he came into his present title and fortune. Quite the contrary, in fact. It must be that Arabella had either an aversion to him or a great shyness of his person. She was certainly not generally shy—she was something of a prattler with almost everyone else of both genders. Then, of course, she was familiar with everyone but him.

  Was she afraid of him? Lord Astor found the idea somewhat novel. But he supposed it possible. Her experience of life was very limited, the extent of her acquaintances necessarily small. The presence of a fashionable stranger in her home—a stranger who was her betrothed, moreover—was quite possibly bewildering.

  He did wonder how she would cope with the removal to London, especially as she would be arriving there at the start of the Season. How would she be able to meet all the members of the beau monde who would be there in force, and how converse with them and behave as a married lady of her station would be expected to behave? He would consider it a great annoyance to have to cope with an abnormally shy wife. He would be compelled either to escort her everywhere and stay close to her side or to neglect her and leave her to amuse herself at home.

  It was in an attempt to deal with the problem that Lord Astor approached Arabella's mother to suggest that her eldest daughter accompany her sister to London after the wedding. He had at first been reluctant to make the suggestion. He had no strong desire to have the beautiful older sister in his home as a constant reminder of his disappointment in finding that she was not his chosen bride. He did not wish to have always before his vision the contrast between his plain wife and her lovelier sister.

  But he had changed his mind. He did not expect to spend much of his time at home anyway, once he had conveyed his wife back to town. And together the sisters would be able to entertain each other. He would have less need to spend his time with his wife. Besides, after a week or more spent at Parkland Manor, Lord Astor was finding Frances a trifle less attractive than he had at first thought her. She was beautiful, yes. But he was frequently called upon to talk with her during a walk or at table or in the drawing room. And he found her conversation trivial and sentimental. Her tendency to dissolve into tears at the slightest hint of a tender topic began to irritate him.

  Lord Astor had not had a great deal to do with ladies. He had conversed with them at assemblies and at balls, of course, but never for long enough to become bored by any shallowness their beauty might hide. With his mistresses he was not much concerned with conversation at all. It mattered little to him if they were silly or shallow or suffered from excessive sensibility, provided they satisfied him in more essential ways.

  Indeed, he would have been congratulating himself on not having to marry Frances after all if he did not suspect that Arabella would prove to be an even less interesting bride. And at least the elder sister would have been lovelier to look upon.

  By the time the month drew to its end, Lord Astor was feeling resigned to his lot, as he had expected to do. He had not found the time quite as tedious as he had expected, but he would be glad to be back in town, back in his familiar haunts with his familiar companions. He would, of course, be forced to make some effort to introduce his wife to the ton, but on the whole that would not be too onerous a task. He usually frequented quite a number of ton events anyway. And she would have her sister to keep her company during the daytime and after the first half-hour of evening entertainments. On the whole, he felt, his normal way of life would not be seriously disrupted by his marriage. And Lord Astor was quite well-pleased with his normal way of life.

  Arabella was feeling less resigned than her betrothed as the day of her marriage drew closer. She had had little enough courage when Lord Astor first arrived and made her his offer. That little drained away drop by drop as the days passed. News of her betrothal traveled fast, as did all news of even lesser import in the region of Parkland. And the news brought with it every last one of their acquaintances, eager to wish her well, even more eager to be presented to the new Viscount Astor.

  And Arabella became more and more aware as the days passed of how superior her betrothed was in both appearance and manners to even the most splendid of her neighbors. There had been the time not so long before when she had blushed every time she was forced to be in company with Mr. Thomas Carr. Yet Mr. Carr looked quite ordinary when he stood talking with the viscount outside church on the first Sunday. And Theodore had always appeared to be a fine figure of a man. Now he appeared just a little too solid in build and just a little too ruddy of complexion.

  The viscount conversed with ease with everyone. He did not appear uncomfortable with the rector's talk of books as Mr. Carr always did, or avoid talking with the gentlemen farmers about crops as the rector did, or feel it beneath his dignity to converse with the ladies as several of the other gentlemen did.

  And he clearly favored Frances. Arabella had known he would. She had fully expected it. And she deliberately arranged it so that he would have Frances or Mama to talk with instead of her whenever they were out walking or when they did not have visitors. She would not draw attention to her plain and childish person, and she would not force him to listen to her unpolished conversation. She was not in any way his match. He must find her dull. He must regret terribly having to marry her when Frances might have been his bride.

  Arabella was not at all cheered by the favorable impression made on the neighborhood by her betrothed. She did not bask in the glory of her position as his intended bride. She merely felt a dreadful embarrassment. The contrast in their appearance and manners was glaringly noticeable, she believed. Everyone must think that it was a poor match—for him.

  How he must wish that it were Frances he was to marry! The two of them looked so very handsome together, so very well-matched. Arabella was not at all sure that she had been right after all to insist upon releasing Frances from the obligation of making the marriage. She had done so convinced that Frances loved Theodore and wished to marry him. She had not wanted to see true love thwarted.

  But as Mama had hoped, Lord Astor had asked her to allow Frances to come to London with them after their marriage. Not only had Mama agreed, but Frances had wept for a whole hour after being told of the invitation. And her tears had not been ones of grief, Arabella had discovered, but tears of joy. Frances wanted above all else to have a Season in London. That was understand-able, Arabella conceded, but what about Theodore? Would Frances be content to return in the summer and marry him in due course?

  But her uneasiness aside, Arabella admitted, she was more delighted and relieved than she could say to know that she would have her sister with her when she left for London with her new husband the day after their wedding. The thought of being alone with him, or having the burden of making agreeable conversation with hi
m resting entirely on her own shoulders, terrified her. When he had only her to look at and only her to talk with, he would realize with full force just how very inadequate she was. Frances would help. He liked Frances, and Frances was beautiful to look at.

  Arabella wished desperately that they were to leave for London on the wedding day. But it was not so. After a wedding breakfast at Parkland, Mama, Frances, and Jemima were to leave to spend a night with Mrs. Harvey, Mama's bosom friend. Lord Astor was to be left to occupy his home alone with his bride.

  Arabella felt sick whenever she recalled this detail. Consequently she did not think of it a great deal. And inevitably the prospect rarely left her consciousness.

  Arabella rode to church in the carriage with her mother, Frances, and Jemima. She could not grasp the reality of the fact that it was her wedding day even though all four of them wore new dresses and bonnets, and Frances was trying in vain to hold back her tears. Her own gown was the grandest she had ever owned. It was white with a wide pink velvet sash at the high waist and pink rosebuds embroidered around each of the three deep frills at the hem and around the single frills on the short puffed sleeves.

  Arabella did not know quite why she did not look pretty in the dress. Though she had guessed at the reason earlier when she had looked at herself in the full-length looking glass in Mama's dressing room. She was too small to do justice to any gown. And this one definitely made her look less than slender. It did seem a little unfair. A bride had a right to look lovely on her wedding day.

  The old stone church in the village was almost full. And it was not even Sunday. All those people looking back over their shoulders when she stepped into the porchway with Mama and the girls were there to see her. And the new master of Parkland, of course.

  That was when Arabella started to feel sick. And cold. And wobbly at the knees. She had never been more thankful for Mama's steady arm and loving smile. She was aware of a figure standing close to the altar, a splendid and handsome figure who was about to unite himself with her, and she blanched. And smiled. And succeeded somehow in setting one foot ahead of the other, without either wobbling out of control or breaking into a panicked gallop, until he took her hand.