Free The Arrangement by Mary Balogh Page B

have to take
some
reality into consideration. I would live as independently as a blind man can, able to find my way about alone, able to oversee the running of my estate and farms, able to consort with some ease with my neighbors. I dream of a richly lived, independent life.
My
life and no one else’s. But perhaps it is not a dream I talk of, Miss Fry, is it, but a goal. Dreams are wishes that will in all probability never come true. I could make my dreams come true. Indeed, I mean to.”
    He stopped talking, astonished at all that had come pouring out of his mouth. He was probably going to be horribly embarrassed when he woke up tomorrow morning and remembered this conversation—or this particular monologue, anyway.
    “And marriage and children?” she asked him.
    He sighed. That was a thorny question. Marriage was something that might appeal to him in the future. But not yet. He was not ready. He had nothing of any value to offer—beyond the obvious. He would always have only blindness to offer a potential wife, of course, but he did not want to impose afflictedness as well upon any woman. It would be unfair to her, and he might come to resent her if he must lean upon her—literally as well as in numerous other ways. At present he was still afflicted. He needed to overcome that.
    And children? One of his duties was to beget an heir, and he was determined to do his duty. But not yet. There was no urgency, surely. He was only twenty-three. And he would never be able to play cricket with his son…
    Self-pity was something he had taken ruthlessly in hand a number of years ago, but occasionally it could still seep through his defenses.
    “I am sorry,” Miss Fry said. “It was an impertinent question.”
    “Even though I asked it of you?” he said. “I was thinking, considering my answer. We are speaking of dreams, not reality. We are speaking of what we would like our lives to be if we had the freedom to live them as we chose. No, then. No wife. No women at all. Not that I despise your sex, Miss Fry. Quite the contrary. But women are tenderhearted—at least, almost all the women in my life are. They feel sorry for me. They want to help me. They want to smother me. No, in my dream I am free and on my own—apart, I suppose, from an army of servants. In my dream, I have proved to myself and the world that I can do this living business on my own, that I neither need nor permit any pity.”
    “Particularly from women,” she said.
    “Particularly from women.” He grinned at her and moved back a little farther. “You will think me an ungrateful wretch, Miss Fry. I
do
love my mother and my grandmother and my sisters. Very dearly.”
    “We are talking of dreams,” she said. “We may be as ungrateful as we wish in our dreams.”
    He laughed softly and then felt a hand on his shoulder.
    “You must be hungry, my lord,” the hearty voice of the vicar said.
    He was about to deny it. But he had taken enough of Miss Fry’s time. Already she had missed dancing this set and probably the one before it when she came to rescue him—or her cousin. Besides, he did not wish to cause her any embarrassment by monopolizing too much of her time. He did not doubt there was not a person in the assembly room who was unaware of the two of them sitting here tête-à-tête.
    “Yes, indeed.” He got to his feet, smiling. “Good night, Miss Fry. It has been a pleasure talking with you.”
    “Good night, my lord.”
    And he was borne away to the refreshment table.

5

    V incent started his morning with an hour of vigorous exercise in the drawing room. He was feeling the enervating effects of a few days of merely sitting or standing—and eating far too much of Mrs. Fisk’s fine baking.
    After breakfast he went outside into the back garden, using only his cane for guidance. He knew the garden and was unlikely either to get lost or to come to great grief. He smelled the absence of the vegetable garden immediately. Not that he had been