Chapter Three #2
The door closed behind them. Amelia took up her pen without dipping it into the ink, leaving Victoria as nearly alone with the man who had offered to marry her before her enemies as propriety allowed.
“Sit, if you like,” she said. “Or stand. Everyone else seems to have arranged the morning to suit themselves.”
“I shall stand. I do my worst thinking seated.”
Elias remained beside the window, at a distance she noticed and understood, giving her the width of the room.
“You are right to be angry. I made a decision concerning your life and announced it to a crowd. It was badly done. I would apologise, except that I would do it again, and an apology for an act a man means to repeat is only a lie with good manners.”
“Then do not apologise. Explain.” Victoria held his gaze. “Why would a man I have known for the length of two conversations offer to marry me before the people trying to force my hand?”
“Because I stood in your cousin’s hall for four minutes before I entered, and I recognised the tune your kinsman was playing.
He does not want you married to Crayle for the sake of your good name.
He wants you married to a fool he can manage, or discredited past resistance.
Either road ends in the same place: the child.
He has a claim on paper and needs only your disgrace to carry it into a courtroom. ”
Victoria went very still. “You heard all that from a hall?”
“I heard the shape of it. Men like Sir Roland know one song, and they sing it in every house in England. He likely means to have the girl, her portion, or both, and he means to use your disgrace as the means of reaching them.”
Elias paused.
“I am offering to stand where that door stands. A wall is not a husband, Lady Hemsworth. It merely remains where it is put and does not open when a Hemsworth knocks.”
“And what do you want in return for standing there?”
“A wife,” Elias said. “More precisely, an heir. The earldom requires one, and legitimacy, inconveniently, requires a marriage.”
Victoria looked at him.
“I have neither the patience nor the inclination to spend a season inspecting debutantes beneath their mothers’ eyes,” he continued.
“You require protection without interference. I require a wife who understands that marriage may be an arrangement without pretending it is a courtship. Our necessities appear to suit one another.”
“And what would this arrangement require of me?”
“You would keep your own rooms and your own hours. Sophy would remain with you, and I would not interfere in her upbringing. Your household would be yours to order. I would ask only that, in time, we provide the earldom with an heir.”
“You said my own rooms.” Victoria held his gaze. “Say the rest plainly. I have guessed at a husband’s meaning before, and paid for guessing wrongly.”
“Plainly, then. I would not enter your rooms uninvited or touch you without your consent. An heir may be necessary; coercion is not. Whatever is agreed between us would be agreed before it was attempted.”
She searched his face for the gallantry that usually concealed a demand and found only calculation, stated without disguise.
“And Sophy?”
“I would settle her future beyond Sir Roland’s reach. Her portion would be secured so that no guardian could profit by controlling either it or her. I have the money, the lawyers, and sufficient dislike of being opposed to ensure it is done properly.”
“And when you tire of the arrangement?” Victoria asked. “Men tire. What becomes of Sophy and me on the morning you do?”
“The settlement would be beyond my power to undo. I might regret the marriage, dislike you, or wish myself a fool, and Sophy would remain protected. A safeguard is of little use if the man who builds it may tear it down in a temper.”
“You have considered a great deal for a man who decided this in a hall.”
“I had considered the need for a wife long before this morning. You are the unexpected part.”
“There is my own portion besides,” Victoria said drily. “My jointure, if anything remains of it.”
“Your man of business and mine will examine the accounts and see that every payment due to you is made promptly and without interference,” Elias said.
“The money will remain entirely under your control. A wife with means of her own is harder to frighten, and I should like you very difficult to frighten. It will make my life considerably quieter.”
“You would defend my right to my own money and call it a convenience to yourself.”
“I would defend it because it is yours, and permit you to think me selfish for doing so, since you trust a selfish man further than a generous one. I have been listening, Lady Hemsworth. I did tell you that I do.”
The care in it unsettled her more than any promise might have done. She had entered the conversation braced for a cage and kept finding, where the bars ought to have been, open doors she had no notion how to pass through.
“You make it sound very reasonable,” Victoria said. “Reasonable men have cost me the most. My husband was reasonable in every drawing room in London.”
“Then do not trust my reason.”
Elias took one step towards her and stopped, careful not to narrow the distance too far. At the writing desk, Amelia kept her eyes conscientiously upon the blank page before her.
“I am not asking you to trust me. I should think less of you if you did, upon so brief an acquaintance.”
“Then what am I to marry, my lord, if not your goodness?”
“My self-interest. It is steadier than virtue and far less inclined to take a holiday.” He held her gaze.
“I require a wife and a legitimate heir. You require a name strong enough to keep Sir Roland from your daughter. Once we marry, any attack upon you becomes an attack upon my household, and any claim upon Sophy becomes an intrusion into it. I am proud enough not to tolerate either.”
It was a strange comfort, but a credible one.
What stood between Sophy and the Hemsworths was not love, which Victoria distrusted, nor duty, which she had worn like a collar for nine years.
It was his interest, reinforced by pride.
Virtue might be reasoned around; vanity was generally less accommodating.
“I do not love you,” she said, testing how the words might sound within a marriage.
“I should hope not. We met on Tuesday.” A flicker touched the corner of his mouth.
“I am not offering love, Lady Hemsworth. I am offering a secure household, a name no court will question, and terms plainly understood between us. You may keep your love. You have had poor use of it thus far, and I have no wish to demand what I have not earned.”
The plainness ought to have offended her. Instead, it steadied her.
She glanced towards Amelia, who sat very still at the writing desk, then towards the closed door, beyond which the Hemsworths waited to learn whether they had frightened her into obedience. Sophy’s future had been weighed and bargained over all morning, and Victoria had heard enough.
“I will marry you,” she said. “Not because I want another husband. I have had one, and I would sooner have a fever. I will marry you because I will not lose my daughter, and because this arrangement serves us both.”
“That,” Elias said, “is an answer I can believe.”
Amelia’s pen, still dry, moved at last between her fingers.
“Shall we tell them?” Victoria asked.
“I suppose we must.” His expression remained composed, though satisfaction touched it. “But I see no reason to relieve them of their uncertainty before propriety requires it.”
“You are enjoying this.”
“Only the part in which your relations discover that their plan has failed. The rest I take seriously.”
For the first time since Ruth had gone through the carriage window, Victoria very nearly smiled.