The Secret Mistress

thought of marrying and would put off doing so as long as she possibly could, though she must marry eventually as her father could not live forever and she would hate to be a burden to her brother. She had liked his suggestion and had agreed to it. They had even shaken hands on it.

Clearly their relationship was not characterized by high romance. Or any romance at all, for that matter. And yet, Edward thought after his arrival in London, he loved Eunice. He loved her more than any other woman he had known, though probably no more than he loved his female relatives, he admitted with incurable honesty.

Dash it, but he was just not a romantic man.

He did not need to be. Eunice was one of his dearest friends, and what better marriage could one make than with one’s dear friend?

He did not really want to marry at all, of course. Not yet anyway. But he had to marry someone. Duty demanded it. And if he must marry, then he would rather it be Eunice than anyone else. Far rather.

He bided his time before mentioning her to his relatives, however. Not that they were unaware of her existence. They knew that both she and her father had been his friends in Cambridge. They knew too that she was in town and that he called upon her within two days of his arrival there.

She greeted him with warm pleasure in her aunt’s parlor, and Lady Sanford, who was instantly alert to the possibility of promoting a match for her niece even more brilliant than her own had been, discovered an almost immediate reason to leave the room, with apologies for doing so and instructions to her niece to entertain Lord Heyward while she was gone.

Edward took both Eunice’s hands in his own as soon as they were alone and carried them one at a time to his lips—an extravagant gesture for him, but then it had been longer than a year since he last saw her.

“Miss Goddard,” he said, “you are in good looks.”

“As are you, Lord Heyward,” she said with grave emphasis upon his name. “Must we be formal, then, now that you are the earl? And must I be reassured with flatteries? Must you?”

He smiled at her and squeezed her hands before releasing them.

“I am happy to see you again, Eunice,” he said. “One frustration of spending the past year at Wimsbury has been my inability to see you and enjoy your conversation.”

“I hope,” she said, “your duties as earl are not proving too burdensome. But I know you will perform them conscientiously.”

“I must take my seat in the House of Lords,” he told her. “I will enjoy listening to the debates, even participating in them. The one thing I do not look forward to, though, is delivering my maiden speech.”

“But you will do brilliantly at it,” she assured him, resuming her seat so that he could take his. “You have a superior mind and have cultivated it with discerning reading. Have you chosen a topic?”

“Not yet,” he said with a sigh. “But I will soon. I so wish to say something of lasting significance.”

“You will,” she said. “I trust your mother is well? Losing a son must be the very worst bereavement any woman can be called upon to suffer. Or any man for that matter.”

“She was close to collapse for several months,” he said, “and still suffers. She has found a new purpose in life, though. She has set herself the task of finding me a suitable bride.”

He smiled ruefully at her.

She did not smile back.

“It is commendable in her,” she said. “You must marry soon, of course. It is your duty.”

Both her facial expression and her posture were unreadable. She appeared relaxed. Her hands, clasped in her lap, were neither white-knuckled nor fidgeting.

“But I have already made my choice,” he told her.

She looked steadily at him for a few moments.

“If you are referring to me,” she said, “and a very informal agreement we made all of four years ago when both of us were minors, then you must not regard it as any sort of obligation whatsoever, Edward. I would not be an eligible bride for an earl.”

“Why not?” he asked her.

“Perhaps eligible is not the right word,” she said after giving the matter some thought. “I am a lady. I am fit to be the bride of any gentleman, no matter what his rank and fortune. Desirable would be a better word. Or brilliant. I would not be a brilliant match for you, Edward.”

“I do not ask for brilliance,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “You are not so swayed by outer trappings. But you have responsibilities to more than just yourself now. You must marry, and you must marry well. You need more than just any bride. You need a countess. Your mother and your sisters will know who is most eligible.”

“And my grandmother and sister-in-law?” he said.

“Oh, dear,” she said with warm sympathy. “Them too? Poor Edward, they must seem like an army. But yes, together they will find just the right bride for you.”

“For me?” he asked her. “Or for the Earl of Heyward?”

She regarded him gravely.

“When your brother died,” she said, “and you became the Earl of Heyward, you lost the right to think only of yourself and your own comfort, Edward. You are the earl. But of course I tell you only what you already know and accept. You are not a man to shirk your responsibilities. It is one thing I have always admired in you. You must not now feel obligated by a sort of agreement you made with me long ago when the circumstances of your life were very different from what they are now.”

“And you?” he said. “What are your feelings in all this, Eunice?”

“If you remember,” she said, “I told you four years ago that I had no intention of marrying until age makes my spinsterhood somewhat of a burden to both me and my brother. That time has not come yet. I am only twenty-three. Let us officially release each other from any obligation that agreement laid upon us, then, even if it is only guilt and fear of hurting each other.”

“Is that what you really want for yourself?” he asked. “Complete freedom? Even from me?”

“Life,” she said, “is not always or even often about getting what we want, Edward. Far more often it is about doing our duty, doing what is right, taking other people into consideration.”

He sighed aloud. She had neatly avoided answering his question, he noticed. Or had she? Perhaps she was embarrassed by that long-ago agreement. Perhaps she was glad of the excuse to bring it to an end. And perhaps not. Perhaps she was being noble. Or merely sensible.

And what about him? How did her willingness to release him make him feel? Disappointed? Relieved? He really was not sure. There was perhaps a bit of both.

“You are released, then,” he said. “And so am I, if you insist upon it. But I will not give up our friendship, Eunice. And I will not give up the possibility that at some future time … Well, I will not burden you with that.”

“Your thoughts, your opinions will never be a burden to me, Edward,” she said. “I will always consider you a very dear friend.”

He had to leave it at that. But he felt somewhat depressed as he took his leave— depression more than relief. For he had already accepted the necessity of marrying soon, and if he must now give up the comfortable thought that it would be Eunice he would marry, there was a distinctly