First Comes Marriage

But Stephen's was a good fortune, after all, that had been achieved as a result of the misfortune of another. And during di

Meg had been saying something to Viscount Lyngate and Stephen, but they must all have heard her question and paused to listen to the answer.

Vanessa thought he was not going to reply. He gazed into the fire, a slight smile on his lips. But then he did speak. "It is usually impossible to describe someone with one word," he said. "But with Jon only one word seems really appropriate. He was love. There was no one and nothing he did /not /love." Vanessa smiled her sympathy and encouragement. "He was a child in a young man's body," Mr. Huxtable continued. "He loved to play. And sometimes he loved to tease. He liked to hide even if it was perfectly obvious to the searcher where he was hidden. Is that not so, Elliott?" He looked at Viscount Lyngate, and for a moment the mockery Vanessa had seen in his face earlier was back. It was a pity. It was an expression that did not suit him.

The viscount - of course - frowned. "You must miss him dreadfully," Vanessa said.

Mr. Huxtable shrugged. "He died on the night of his sixteenth birthday," he said. "He died in his sleep after a busy, happy day of play. We should all be so fortunate. I did not wish him dead, but now at least I am free to seek my fortune elsewhere. Sometimes love can be almost a burden." It was shocking to hear the words spoken aloud. Vanessa could never have been so honest. But she felt a shiver of recognition in them. Was it not callous, though, to think thus? Though he had said /almost/. She knew all about the pain of loving. "I say," Stephen said, breaking a short silence that everyone else might have been finding embarrassing, "I hope you are not pla

Was he a pleasant man hiding behind a mask of seeming carelessness, Vanessa wondered, or an unpleasant man hiding behind a mask of charm and smiles? Or, like most humans, was he a dizzying mix of contradictory characteristics?

And what of Viscount Lyngate? She turned her gaze on him and found him looking back at her. The blueness of his eyes was always a slight shock. "It is not just kindness, Mr. Huxtable," she said, still looking at the viscount. "We are really very happy to find a cousin we did not even know we had. No one told us about you." The viscount's lip curled ever so slightly at one corner, but the expression could not by any stretch of the imagination be called a smile. "And since we /are /cousins," Mr. Huxtable said, "I beg you will all call me by my first name." "Constantine," she said, turning her attention back to him. "And I am Vanessa, if you please. I am sorry about Jonathan. It is hard to watch a young person die, especially when one loves him." He smiled back at her without making any verbal comment, and she decided that he was at least partly a pleasant man. No one could fake that expression. It told her that he had loved his brother - though Jonathan had taken the title that might have been his. "You told me at di

Vanessa wondered if Viscount Lyngate realized that the fingers of his right hand were beating a rhythmic tattoo against his thigh.

Why were he and Constantine enemies? she wondered. Had they always been?

Elliott had intended taking Merton in hand the very morning after his arrival at Warren Hall. He had business of his own to attend to at Finchley Park, his own home five miles away. And even apart from that, he was eager to be home again, though he would, of course, have to ride over to Warren Hall quite frequently for the next month or two. There was much to be done.

He had intended to introduce Merton to his steward, Samson, a competent man Elliott's father had hired two years or so ago. He had intended spending the morning indoors, going over a number of things with the boy in Samson's office. And then during the afternoon the three of them would go out riding to see the home farm and other places of importance to the new earl.

He had intended being busy all day long with the boy. There really was no time to lose.

But after breakfast Merton informed him that Con had agreed to take him and his sisters on a tour of the house and i

It was a tour that lasted the whole morning.

And after luncheon Merton informed Elliott that Con had promised to take him riding about the outer park and home farm and to introduce him to the laborers and some of the tenants. "It is very decent of him," Merton said, "to be willing to give up his whole day for my benefit. Will you come with us?" "I'll stay here," Elliott told him dryly. "But tomorrow you will need to spend some time with Samson, your steward, Merton. I'll be with you too." "But of course," Merton said. "There is much I need to know." The next morning, though, Elliott had to go in search of him and found him in the stables with Con and the head groom, getting acquainted with all the horses and looking as if he was enjoying himself immensely. And then, of course, he had to go and change before coming to the office. "Meg never likes the smell of horse in the house," he explained. "She fusses if she smells even a speck of manure on me." He did apply himself to a whole pile of information in the office for a few hours before luncheon, and he showed an admirable eagerness to learn and asked a number of intelligent questions. After luncheon, though, he a

Each evening after di

Con, of course, did not care the snap of his fingers for his newfound cousins. Or if he did, it was certainly not affection he felt. Good Lord, they had come, perfect strangers, to oust him from his own home or at the very least to make him feel like a guest in it. He probably hated them with a passion.

He had stayed only to irk Elliott.

The trouble was that they knew each other too well. Con knew just what would a

Elliott, standing at the window of his guest bed-chamber early on the morning of the proposed boat rides, watched Con step out of the main doors below and stride purposefully across the terrace and down the steps to the flower garden.