Willoughby's Return_ A Tale of Almost Irresistible Temptation - Jane Odiwe [29]
“I was determined I should show those French boys how to ride the fiercest stallion with panache,” he cried. “And I did, too, thanks to you.”
“Is Mr Willoughby with you?” asked Lady Lawrence, cutting in with no regard for anyone else.
“Oh, he begged to leave his apologies, Mama, but he had business to attend to in Exeter this afternoon,” Henry replied. “He said he had put us out quite enough already and did not want to disturb us further. I told him my Uncle William was here for a visit, so he did not expect to be included.”
“I was hoping we might persuade him to stay,” Sir Edgar added.
“Oh no, his wife is in Exeter waiting for him. They have taken a house in Southernhay, I believe.”
“I did not realise that Mr Willoughby is a married gentleman,” Sir Edgar went on. “Well, Mrs Brandon here has invited your friend to the ball at Delaford, and I daresay his wife will be most welcome too. Isn’t that capital?”
“Have you really, Mrs Brandon?” Henry cried, turning and bowing with a full flourish. “You really are the kindest aunt any nephew ever had!”
Marianne could not decide whether he was teasing her until she caught him winking at her surreptitiously a moment later. She tried to be cross with him but his ways were so endearing it was not possible. She wondered how Henry had been introduced to his friend and could not resist making enquiries. “Have you known Mr Willoughby long?” she asked, knowing her husband was observing her and listening to every word, despite the fact that his sister kept talking over the top of anyone who chose to start a conversation.
“No, not for long,” said he. “Mr Willoughby is a cousin of a chap I was at school with; we met at a house party that Charles's parents were giving last summer, when I was down from Oxford. He is a great rattle, you know, and he loves to hunt as much as I do, so we got on well from the very first. Never met his wife though. I understand they spend quite a time apart. Still, I expect if he accepts your kind invitation, I shall meet her at the ball.”
Marianne very fortunately did not have to reply as they were all interrupted by the timely arrival of James, who came skipping through the door, followed rapidly by Kitty at his heels. The small boy timidly presented his aunt with a sweet bunch of wildflowers he had picked from the park. Such a pretty gesture delivered with a bow should have melted the hardest heart.
“If you had wanted to pick a posy, James,” Lady Lawrence admonished, “Dawkins would have directed your nurse to the hothouses. These are wild and will fade before the day is out, but I suppose you may take them home if you wish.”
Marianne was distraught to see the crestfallen countenance of her little boy, especially when he was heard to whisper to his miserable aunt, “For you.”
It was time to go home.
ON THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY afternoon, Elinor and Marianne were sitting in the latter's favourite room at Delaford, a small parlour with windows that looked toward the orchard and the mellow brick garden walls that enclosed it. The apple trees, heavy with fruit, gleamed crimson in the October sunshine, and the twisted mulberry tree, in one corner, associated forever in Marianne's mind with those star-crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, was abundant with swelling purple berries.
The ladies were sat over tea and the conversation had taken a turn to the subject of Mr Willoughby, and all that had recently passed at Barton and Whitwell. Elinor was shocked to hear that he and his wife were in Exeter, but when Mrs Brandon confided that he was on terms of intimacy with Henry Lawrence also and that she had unwittingly invited him to the Delaford Ball, her sister was, for a moment, quite incapable of speech.
“I was coerced into inviting the Willoughbys to help Henry. I believe Mr Willoughby means to sell Allenham Court from what Sir Edgar hinted,” Marianne explained, “though Mrs Jennings's