Torn between amusement and unusual perturbation, she said: ‘You speak as though you thought I would marry for their sakes! I never should!’
‘Oh, I know that! But I also know that you would never marry anyone whom they disliked, or who wasn’t willing to include them in his household. I was only trying to make myself more acceptable to you! I am willing, you see: I like them, and they interest me. Furthermore, I have become so much accustomed to figuring as their guardian that I should strongly resist any attempt to remove them from the sphere of my influence.’
She said unsteadily: ‘You are all goodness – all kindness! I don’t know – I am not sure – why you have made me this offer: whether because you do think that you compromised me, or, perhaps – out of compassion, which is quite misplaced, but which I fancy you have sometimes felt, but –’
‘Really, Frederica, you should know better than to talk such twaddle!’ he expostulated. ‘Of all the moonshine – ! I am neither good nor kind; I did not compromise you; and if I thought you an object for compassion I should also think you a dead bore, my girl! But you have never bored me.’ He possessed himself of her hands, and held them firmly. ‘The only woman I have ever known who has never done so, and could never do so! I had not thought that such a woman existed, Frederica.’
She was trembling, her brain in a whirl. ‘Oh, impossible! You are not – in love with me! How could you be? Are you trying to – to hoax me into believing that? No, no, don’t!’
‘Oh, not in the least!’ he assured her cheerfully. ‘It is merely that I find I cannot live without you, my adorable Frederica!’
Unconsciously, she returned the clasp of his hands. Looking up into his laughing eyes, wonder and doubt in her own, she said shyly: ‘Is it like that? Being in love? You see, I never was in love, so I don’t know. And I made my mind up years and years ago that I wouldn’t marry anyone unless I was truly in love with him. Alverstoke, I don’t think I can be, because I don’t feel at all like Charis, and she does know! It has always seemed to me that if one falls in love with any gentleman one becomes instantly blind to his faults. But I am not blind to your faults, and I do not think that everything you do or say is right! Only – Is it being – not very comfortable – and cross – and not quite happy, when you aren’t there?’
‘That, my darling,’ said his lordship, taking her ruthlessly into his arms, ‘is exactly what it is!’
‘Oh – !’ Frederica gasped, as she emerged from an embrace which threatened to suffocate her. ‘Now I know! I am in love!’
The youngest Merriville, bursting into the room some time later, found them seated side by side on the sofa. ‘Buddle said I wasn’t to disturb you, but I knew that was fudge!’ he said scornfully. ‘Cousin Alverstoke, there is something I particularly wish to ask you!’ He broke off, perceiving suddenly, and with disfavour, that his Cousin Alverstoke had an arm round Frederica. Revolted by such a betrayal of unmanliness, he bent a disapproving look upon his idol, and demanded: ‘Why are you cuddling Frederica, sir?’
‘Because we are going to be married,’ replied his lordship calmly. ‘It’s obligatory, you know. One is expected to – er – cuddle the lady one is going to marry.’
‘Oh!’ said Felix. ‘Well, I won’t ask anyone to marry me, if that’s what you have to do! I must say, I never thought that you, sir, would have –’ Again he broke off, as a thought struck him. ‘Will that make her a – a She-Marquis? Oh, Jessamy, did you hear that? Frederica is going to be a She-Marquis!’
‘What you mean is a Marchioness, you ignorant little ape!’ replied his austere brother, closing the door behind him. ‘And there’s nothing funny about it!’ He looked at Frederica, and said simply: ‘I’m glad.’ He added, with a touch of awkwardness: ‘We shall miss you – but I am glad!’
She stretched out her hand to him. ‘Dear Jessamy! But you won’t miss me – we shall still be together! The only difference is that we shall all of us – you, and Felix, and I – live with Cousin Alverstoke, instead of at Graynard, and you won’t object to that, I know!’
He did not answer her, but turned his eyes upon the Marquis, saying: ‘Thank you! But – you can’t wish to have us foisted on to you, sir!’
‘No, a hideous prospect!’ agreed his lordship. ‘The thing is that I couldn’t get your sister on easier terms.’
One of his rare smiles swept across Jessamy’s face. ‘You – you are the most complete hand, sir!’
‘No, he isn’t!’ said Felix. ‘Why shouldn’t he wish to have us? It isn’t as though we should be a trouble to him! Cousin Alverstoke, what I particularly wanted to ask you is, may I have a workshop at Alver? For experiments? If I promise faithfully not to blow the house up? If you please, Cousin Alverstoke … ?’