Chapter Five
“We are to go to Vauxhall Gardens tomorrow night,” Oliver said as they broke their fast together one morning at the end of the Season.
Anastasia smiled. Of all the outings the Season offered, Vauxhall Gardens was one she actually enjoyed.
Oh, there was still the same pressure to look for a husband—to try to be seen without being too obvious, to attract the attention of the right people.
But there was also so much else to enjoy: the fireworks, the lamps, the Cascade.
Performers and musicians, all with the sole purpose of entertaining and making the evening livelier.
They had not been in a long time, and Anastasia rather hoped it was a sign that her brother’s mood was improving—that perhaps he would stop being so beastly to her and they could begin again as friends.
For since Father had died, he had seemed to view her only as a burden, never taking into account her feelings or thoughts. She was simply a problem that needed to be married off—and every day she wasn’t wed only irritated him more.
But he knew she enjoyed the gardens, though she did not think he felt the same. After all, there was no card room at Vauxhall Gardens, although she was sure gentlemen managed to set up a game here and there. If a man wanted to gamble, he always found a way.
“Thank you, brother,” she said as soon as she had finished a slice of toast. “I shall look forward to that.”
He nodded. “Make sure you wear something nice—something that has not been seen before.”
In truth, Anastasia did not believe there was a single item in her wardrobe that had not yet been seen out in society.
She had not asked Oliver for more money for dresses since her period of mourning, when she had needed new clothes, and he had rather angrily told her that the funds were not there for her to fritter away.
But she did not wish to quarrel with him now—not when he seemed to be offering some sort of olive branch—and so she nodded and kept quiet.
She would speak with her maid, and together she was sure they could rework one of her dresses so that it was not obviously one she had worn before.
She doubted her brother paid that much attention to her fashion choices, in any case.
*
Laurence felt rather flat being back in London. In the six months since his father had passed, he had seen very little of society, keeping to himself at his Kent estate and not responding to invitations to events in London or to house parties planned for after the Season had finished.
He had come to a point where solitude no longer seemed to help.
He knew he could not spend the rest of his life in such a state—not only because it was not much of a life at all, rotting away in the countryside in his melancholy, but also because he needed to fulfill his promise to his father.
He needed to find a wife and sire an heir.
On the carriage ride back to London, he had wondered how he might go about choosing a wife. He knew he had a rakish reputation among the ladies of the ton, and that the matchmaking mamas never wished for him to be around their precious daughters.
Surely that would change, though, if they knew he was actively seeking a wife?
A title and a large fortune could forgive many sins, and he was sure that the matchmaking mamas of the ton simply wished for a good, respectable match for their daughters.
Once he offered that layer of respectability, he thought his task might not be so difficult.
No, what would be harder would be finding a woman with whom he would wish to spend his life.
He wasn’t expecting some great love, necessarily.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in it… He had seen his mother and father and knew that love for her was what had stopped his father from ever remarrying, ever having a second son in case anything happened to the first.
But he did not believe love was particularly common.
He did not need to hold out for some great romance.
And he supposed he did not even need to have anything in common with the woman he married.
Once they had done their duty to the title, there was no reason they needed to even reside together, if they did not wish it.
As Viscount Walsham, he owned multiple homes.
There was nothing stopping him from setting her up in one and continuing his life as it had been before. Many men had mistresses.
And yet the thought of it made him feel uncomfortable. He had enjoyed his life before his father had died and had felt absolutely no guilt in the way he had spent his time. After all, no one had been hurt by his actions. The women had never expected anything more.
But a wife… A wife might well expect more. And he did not want to live with guilt or feel that he was letting her down.
And so, he rather thought, this stage of his life might be very, very different from what had come before it.
*
The lamps were lit not long after Oliver and Anastasia arrived at Vauxhall Gardens. Anastasia could not help but smile at the sight of them. They brought a certain magic to the air, as if anything were possible.
“It is busy tonight,” she commented as they made their way through the crowd to get some refreshment.
“People are getting ready to leave London for the end of the Season,” Oliver said, taking two glasses of champagne and handing one to her. “They want one last night before they disappear back into the obscurity of the country.”
“Will we quit London this year?” Anastasia asked, feeling for the first time in a long while that she could ask her brother a question without having her head snapped off.
The previous year, after Papa had passed away, they had gone to the country. Anastasia had thought it a sensible decision, for she had wished to mourn in peace and in private, and therefore staying in London had been rather pointless.
Before that year, her brother had tended to stay in London when most of the ton left for the countryside. He always seemed to have some group of friends who had no real wish to rusticate in the country, and, by his own admission, he was very bored when out of Town.
But he was the head of the family now, and he would make such decisions. She had no idea whether he would wish to follow precedent, leaving at the end of the month like the rest of society, or whether he would continue on his own path and keep them both in London even after everyone else had left.
He could still gamble and drink and see his friends, she supposed…
But she rather thought the opportunities for her in London out of the Season would be limited.
There would be no balls, no invitations to tea.
Vauxhall Gardens would be closed, and there was only so much she wished to shop—especially considering they did not seem to have any money for such frivolity.
Oliver swapped his glass of champagne from one hand to the other, then back again, before answering her question. “I am…thinking I will return to the country,” he said slowly, not meeting her eye.
She smiled anyway. “That seems like an excellent plan. I will look forward to seeing the estate again. I enjoy London, but it always feels so wonderful to return home.”
Oliver seemed to drink nearly half his glass of champagne in one gulp before gesturing to the opposite side of the gardens. “Ah, look, there’s Baron Brett.”
Anastasia groaned inwardly. That man always seemed to turn up wherever she was. And no matter how politely she tried to make it clear that she had no interest in any further dances with him, he was insistent.
“We should go over and greet him,” Oliver said, finishing the rest of his champagne while Anastasia had only taken a sip of hers. The bubbles seemed to go right to her head as she said, “Must we? He’ll only ask me to dance…”
“Yes, we must,” Oliver said sharply, taking her elbow and roughly steering her in the baron’s direction, her champagne sloshing in its glass as he did so.
“And you will be polite, and dance with him, and smile at his jokes, and generally charm him,” Oliver ordered through gritted teeth.
“If that is what you wish, brother,” Anastasia said with a sigh.
“It is,” Oliver said, stopping abruptly not far from the baron. “And one other thing—he will wish to discuss your wedding this evening.”
Anastasia frowned. “My wedding? Why on earth would Baron Brett wish to discuss an event that is not even planned to take place?”
Oliver’s eyes darted away as he answered her. “Because it is planned to take place. You and Baron Brett will marry as soon as the banns can be read.”