Part 16 (1/2)
”Yes'm.” His lords.h.i.+p grinned and obeyed.
The vicar was taller but narrower in the shoulders. Fortunately, he by no means favoured the extremes of fas.h.i.+on, preferring to be able to breathe in his coats, so Adam eased into one without splitting the seams. He had a nervous moment with the pantaloons, but the knit fabric allowed some leeway. He rolled up the bottoms of the legs and the cuffs of the sleeves, slipped his feet into a pair of carpet slippers and went down with his own sodden clothes to the kitchen.
”Soon dry 'em out, my lord,” promised Mrs. Hicks. ”Miss Sarah's in the parlour.”
Sarah giggled when she saw him. ”Tea or Madeira?” she offered. ”It must be all of ten years since you borrowed Jonathan's clothes. I see you are quite different shapes now. I'm surprised you can move.”
”I'm not sure I dare sit down.” He lowered himself carefully onto a straight chair. ”Madeira, please. You're a fine one to laugh, my girl, with flour all over your forehead. Kerry was here making gingerbread, was he?”
”And Swan, too.” She took out a handkerchief and brushed at her forehead without much success.
Adam desperately wanted to help her, to take her chin in his hand and ... Cleaning the flour off her face was the last thing on his mind. He sat still.
She gave up the attempt and pa.s.sed him his gla.s.s of wine. ”I must look a shocking mess,” she said.
”That makes it even funnier.”
”Do you mean to share the joke, or shall you sit there tantalizing me with your chuckles until I beg for mercy?”
”I ought not to tell you, but I know I can trust you to keep it to yourself. I received two proposals of marriage over the kitchen table.”
Expecting to laugh, Adam was overtaken by unreasoning fury. ”Which did you settle for?” he asked
stiffly. ”Good looks and a t.i.tle and no brains, or wits and money and no looks?”
”Who am I to demand perfection? That was unkind, Adam. They are your friends, or I should never have mentioned it. I am very fond of both of them, whatever their shortcomings.”
”Fond!”
”In fact, I was tempted to accept them both, just to discover what is the attraction in being betrothed to
several people at once, but it was a trifle awkward with both of them there.”
Adam felt his cheeks grow warm but for the moment he ignored her deliberate provocation. ”You mean they both proposed at once?”
”Heavens, no. They had tossed a coin, I collect, for the right to go first, and Kerry won. You can
imagine that in such a predicament the poor fellow found himself tongue-tied even with me. He begged Swan to speak for him.”
”And Swan obliged?” He was beginning to see the amusing side of the situation.
”He declined, on the grounds that they were rivals. Kerry stammered through a proposal, Swan
followed with a polished bit of oratory, and Kerry congratulated him on his way with words. Whereupon I refused their kind offers and we finished making the gingerbread.”
”A remarkable scene,” he said, grinning. ”I wonder you managed to keep your countenance.”
”It was funny, but it would have been too shabby in me to have laughed. It was touching, too.”
”Not to mention flattering! Of all my acquaintance I'd have wagered those two were the least likely to risk their heads in parson's mousetrap. And the more flattering when you had flour all over your face at the time.”
Sarah's smile was wry. ”I believe they, like you, felt that there was safety in numbers. I do not doubt their sincerity, but how could I accept one and refuse the other?”
”Did you want to accept one of them?” Adam hoped his dismay was not obvious.
”Oh no, both or neither. With your example before me, how could I be satisfied with less?”
”I a.s.sure you, the joys of being popular with the opposite s.e.x are grossly exaggerated. In future I shall be faithful to one.”
”I am glad, for Lydia deserves it.”
Adam was in no position to explain that Miss Davis was not the female he meant to be faithful to, for he had no idea how to escape that entanglement. Then he recalled Jonathan's spirited defence of the girl, and her ease in the vicar's company. His usual optimism rea.s.serted itself.
”Sarah, will you do me a favour? Lydia and I ought to be better acquainted before our engagement is announced, but if she stays on at Cheve, we might as well put a notice in the Gazette. Besides, Mama has a notion to go home with Louise to see her grandchildren. It is odd, incidentally, that she is so little downcast by the apparent failure of her plan to find me a bride! She keeps muttering that she knew my sisters would never find anyone suitable and she hopes my eyes have been opened. What do you suppose she means by that?”
”I've no idea. What is this favour you wish to ask of me?”
”You like Lydia, do you not? I am sure she considers you her friend. Will you invite her to stay here at the vicarage for a week or two?”
The bleak look that crossed her face almost made him retract his request. He chose instead to regard it as encouragement, for why should she look like that if she did not love him, despite his peccadilloes? What a fool he had been all these years!
”Very well,” she said at last in a flat voice. ”I shall write her a note at once and you can carry it with you when you leave. Help yourself to wine while I am gone.”
Already hurrying towards the door, she did not see Adam's tender smile. He had a lowering feeling that there were tears in her eyes and he cursed himself for a brute, but he was determined to encourage an attachment between Jonathan and Lydia. It was the only glimmer of hope he had seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY.
Lydia Davis moved from Cheve House to the vicarage on Monday morning, when the rest of the guests departed. A groom sent to her parents had returned with their permission for her to prolong her absence.
”They are happy that I have made such amiable and respectable friends,” she told Sarah.
”I confess I am slightly surprised that they do not object to your removing from a n.o.bleman's mansion to a humble country vicarage. No doubt they are aware that you will continue to see Adam here. You did not tell them of your betrothal?”
”No, Lord Cheverell asked me to keep it secret a little longer. Do you not think a secret betrothal romantic? I daresay Mama and Papa guess that I will see him, but you must not think that they are excessively proud. Though they will be pleased if I marry a viscount, they both said before I left home that it is more important that I should be happy, as they are. What a charming room.”