Perhaps, James thought as he followed Grace through the rain, he could have approached the matter with greater delicacy. He had made Grace angry. Every time he came close to her, she swatted at him with the umbrella. It was still raining quite heavily too. His hair was plastered flat over his head and his coat was soaking through at the seams.
On the other hand, the anger might be good for her. It had certainly brought some colour to her cheeks and fire to her eyes.
When they reached the crossroads, Grace took a different path, not the one back to her home. James trotted closer, dodging the swipe she aimed at him.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Don't talk to me," she snapped. "Don't say another word."
James retreated beyond reach of the umbrella. "My boots are wet through," he said. "They'll probably shrink."
"You deserve it." Grace marched on through the rain, her sodden skirts clapping stiffly around her ankles. Traces of dye were leaking from her dress onto her stockings and gloves.
"Your dress is running," he said. "You'd really best go home and get into something dry. We'll probably both catch a cold."
"Just be quiet!"
Grace splashed on through a puddle. James picked his way after her. The rain was starting to slow, and sunlight was burning through the clouds on the horizon. People would be emerging from their homes soon, going for walks or running errands. He did not so much mind looking like a fool himself, but he didn't wish for anyone to see Grace as she was now. Her cloak covered up any indecency the rain might have made of her dress, but her hair was in a bedraggled knot halfway down her neck and her skirts were losing more dye by the minute. Appearing like this in public, particularly when she was supposed to be in mourning, would make her the subject of ridicule and scorn.
"Please let's not go to the village," he said. "If it's your mother you want to speak to, we'll go home and I'll send for her."
"We're not going to the village." Grace turned down a side street as she spoke. "We're going to your father."
That silenced James. He had not considered what his father might have to say about this.
They reached his house just as the rain slowed to a drizzle. Grace pushed through the front door and strode straight up the stairs to the drawing room, dripping purple dye in her wake. Mr and Mrs Redwood were having tea and biscuits together by the fire, cocooned against the draught by tall screens.
"You're dripping!" Mrs Redwood said. "James, step away from that couch! It's silk."
Now that they were here, Grace seemed not to know what to say. She stood in the middle of a growing puddle on the carpet, breathing heavily and glaring from James to Mr Redwood and back again.
"I think you had best call for more tea and biscuits, Margaret," Mr Redwood said. "And some towels. Why don't you sit down, Grace?"
Mrs Redwood set her teacup down and left the room. James pushed forward a chair before Grace could sit on the silk couch. She sank down into it, her hands shaking. He thought perhaps she was going to cry, but she clenched her hands and appeared to pull herself together.
"He won't accept that I won't marry him," Grace said. "The man can't refuse to accept that. It's not... it's not done."
Mr Redwood looked surprised. James had to give Grace credit for that. In all of twenty-seven years, he had not managed to surprise his father once.
"And why, my dear, do you wish to break— but no. To wish it is enough. I must not overstep." Mr Redwood raised an eyebrow in James's direction. "You know very well that a man accepts a woman's word in this circumstance."
There was, in the steel of his tone, perfectly controlled fury. James knew it must incense him to have to say that when he was, of everyone involved, the one who most wished for the marriage to take place. But Mr Redwood would never do what was not correct. As for James, he neither wished to offend Grace nor to aggravate his father further. He picked his words carefully.
"Grace is very naturally over-wrought right now, Father. I believe that now, in such a state of emotion, she should not be making such decisions."
"Don't treat me like a child. Don't treat me like an incompetent. I know what I am asking for, James."
Mr Redwood looked from Grace to James and back again, his lips pursed to one side. While he was still thinking, Mrs Redwood returned carrying two towels, a maid following behind her with a tray of cups and biscuits.
"Dry yourself off," she chided, giving one towel to James and another to Grace. "I can't think why you came in like this — or went out in such a downpour."
"Thought it was a nice day for a walk," James said, setting to work with the towel. "You had better take your cloak off, Grace. It'll dry better by the fire."
She shot him a resentful glare but pulled her cloak from around her shoulders. Mrs Redwood gathered it up and hung it over one of the screens by the fire. With his hair half-dry, James became aware of an unpleasant squelchiness in his shoes. He kicked off his boots, peeled off his stockings, and sat down in a chair to dry his muddy feet. Grace stared then looked hastily away, the tip of her nose pink. There was something endearingly innocent about it. James bit back the half-dozen teasing remarks that came to mind. They would only offend her.
"Now what is this all about?" Mrs Redwood demanded.
Mr Redwood winced. "To my great sorrow, it seems that Grace will not be our daughter-in-law after all."
Mrs Redwood's eyes turned to black, glittering slits. "James!"
James sighed.
"It's not his fault," Grace said in a thin voice. "I don't want to marry him. That's all."
"And why on earth not!?"
"Don't badger her, Mother."
"But all I want to know is why she has changed her mind. It's not too much to ask. I'm interested in this engagement too. She is going to be— she was going to be the mother of my grandchildren."
James's cheeks burned, and Grace's were scarlet too. Thankfully, Mr Redwood stepped in.
"Let it be, Margaret," he said. "We must respect Grace's choice." He looked at James. "And you."
"I do respect Grace." James paused uneasily, remembering some of his past behaviour. "I don't do this to offend her." He turned to her. "I'm sorry to hurt you. But I think I would be hurting you more if I accepted your decision. A week ago, you were content to marry me. Nothing has changed between us since then. Your father dying did not change the way you feel about me."
"It made my feelings clear."
Had it? Was he wrong about this? Was she really speaking with a clear mind and an unclouded heart? But the look in her eyes was exactly like that of a wounded animal snapping at anyone who came close.
Mr Redwood cleared his throat. "I mean no attempt to dissuade you by this, Grace, but I have found grief to be a black fog, not a guiding light."
"You simply don't know what you speak of, dear." Mrs Redwood laid a bony hand on Grace's shoulder. "In time—"
"Please don't touch me." Grace flinched away. "I know what I want. I'm sure."
"Now, all you need is—"
"Mother, let her be." James caught Mrs Redwood's hand and tugged her away from Grace. He ached to hold Grace himself, but he knew very well she would hate it. You could not rush a wounded animal. You had to let them come to you.
Mr Redwood leaned back in his chair and regarded Grace thoughtfully. "Why don't you have some tea, Grace? You're wet through."
That distracted Mrs Redwood. She poured tea for Grace and James, putting in liberal quantities of milk and sugar and slipping a biscuit on each saucer. When Grace got the biscuit, she crammed it in her mouth and swallowed in two bites.
"Might I point out," Mr Redwood said, very gently, "that the wedding is, in any case, postponed for six months, so bringing an end to the engagement need be a matter of no urgency?"
Grace took a deep gulp of her tea. "It is ended. It is over. I will not marry him. I came here only so that you would make him... make him..."
"You came here to get me in trouble," James said. "Let me assure you, you have succeeded. But my father is going to be polite and wait until you've left the room before he skins me."
"We will have words," Mr Redwood said.
"And the words will have sharp teeth." James set his tea down on the tray; it was far too sweet for his taste. "Look, Grace, I can't make you marry me, but as far as I am concerned, we are still engaged. Nothing my father says will change my mind. You are the one who has to convince me."
"Is nothing I have said today enough?"
"Nothing."
"You make it impossible!"
"I don't. I told you: you can convince me. But today you did not. Shall we try again tomorrow? I can call at the same time."
Her eyes glittered with anger. She whipped around to look at Mr Redwood. "What do you have to say about this?"
"My dear, I don't know what to say. If you are asking me to force James to relent, I cannot. It is beyond my power. If you wish for my opinion, I regret to confess it is that James, however inelegantly he expressed himself, may have caught the tail end of the truth in this matter."
Grace's lips pushed in and out without letting slip a sound. She bent her head and stared at her lap. James watched her carefully.
"I'd like to go home now," she said at last, in a quiet, shuttered voice.
"James can drive you," said Mrs Redwood. "It is still raining."
"No. I don't want him to."
James sighed. "You had better send for the coach, Mother."
"Very well. It will take a few minutes to ready it. Come, Grace. You must arrange yourself before you leave. Your hair has come undone."
They left the room without Grace looking at James once. James eyed his father warily. There was a coldness about his eyes. Tail-end of the truth or not, he was not happy with James.
Mr Redwood leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands on his knees. "If you had treated that woman with due kindness, she would be falling to you right now, not running away."
"I'm trying to make up for past mistakes."
"With great tact, I can see."
"I tried being gentle. She liked it less."
Mr Redwood's cheek twitched. "I understand, James, that there is a certain... satyric streak in you, but I always believed it to come from a partiality to womankind, not an animus against it. The former is merely a peccadillo. The latter is contemptible folly."
"You can call me names all you like. Grace did not want my kindness today."
"Because she has not received enough of it in the past to believe it when she sees it."
"What did you expect, Father? I never wanted to marry anyone, let alone her. You forced me into it. What kind of man would be kind to the woman under the circumstances?"
"A decent one." Mr Redwood's voice was like ice. "Which is what I thought you were, despite your manifest vices."
James clenched his shaking hands into fists. "I am trying to do the decent thing by her now. I don't believe she really wants to cry off. I think it's a spasm of grief. Nor is it what she needs. You told me about her dowry. What can we do if she breaks the engagement? Give the money to her? It would humiliate her. She would never accept it."
Mr Redwood watched James narrowly for several long moments before looking away. "It is an unwinnable situation, James, to attempt to do what is in a woman's best interests by refusing her sincere wishes. She is not a child."
"Then I cannot win." James shook his head. "I ought to have known that from the moment I became engaged to her."
James thought that Grace would soften within a day or two. He visited her the next morning, intent on winning her over. To his annoyance, the footman said that Miss Follet was not at home. Well, thought James, I'll give her some time to cool down.
He gave her another day. She was still not at home. Nor was she there the third day, nor the fourth, nor the fifth.
On the sixth day, he went to London in a fit of pique, enveigling the use of the coach and horses from his father by telling him he needed to check on the townhouse. He did, in fact, drop by his townhouse, where he picked up some letters, but his first step after that was to his club where played several games of billiards and lost fifteen shillings out of them. That was when he decided to cut his losses and retreat to the parlour to drink ale and read his letters. There was a long one from Locke, the first that James had had from him in some weeks. It was a surprise for James to find himself criticized in the letter — Locke thought the scheme to rid himself of Grace cruel and dangerous and told James to be honest with her and his father. Well, that was salt in the wound. Of some balm was the postscript, a rather sheepish confession from Mrs Locke that they anticipated a small addition to the family circle, followed by a clarification from Locke's Aunt Georgiana that Mrs Locke was not talking about puppies, and finished by Locke grumbling that the women had explained the matter between them and so left him with nothing to say about it.
Sensing shades of disappointment in Locke's postscript, James carefully filled a page with nonsense about kittens, saying all that could possibly be said about kittens and their effects upon the family circle, and pointing out that now that he had exhausted the subject, Locke might wish to write about something other than kittens in his next letter, though what James could not suggest.
He started a new page and turned to the matter of his own predicament. He admitted, without pride, that he had been wrong in trying to rid himself of Grace. He outlined his efforts and Grace's resistance to them. Then he spoke of Mr Follet's death and the effect it had had upon the problem — he had to marry Grace, or he was damning her to poverty. Here, self-pity overcame him:
So, here I am, forced to persuade this sorry creature to marry me against her own stubborn will and against my every sincere wish — when until now I have been trying and failing to do quite the opposite. But I will succeed this time — it is merely an hysteria of hers — and suffer every day the rest of my life for it, no doubt. She is miserable, irrational, spiteful, and not nearly pretty enough to begin to make up for it. It is self-sacrifice in the extreme, to marry such a vixen, but I have...
As he wrote, a shadow fell over the page and he looked up. Mr Oliver was standing behind him, leaning over his shoulder and reading the letters.
"Not very polite," said James.
"Not at all," Oliver said. "But you were deep in thought. I did not wish to interrupt. So Locke got the new woman with child. How very amusing. It did not take him long."
"I have been led to believe that it takes, on occasion, as little as ten minutes," James said acerbically.
"Well." Oliver fiddled with the penknife. "Once is enough, so I have heard."
James wished he would go away. Instead, he picked up the penknife and began to trim the fraying cuffs of his suit, sniplets of threads falling over James's letters.
"Mr Follet is dead," Oliver said.
"He is."
"And so you will marry his daughter out of pity — such a stupid emotion. If I were you, I'd take her at her word and run."
"But you're not me." James drummed his fingers on the table. It was coming to him, suddenly, that a plan of which Oliver had approved could not be a good one. Moreover, he was ashamed of his letter, which was very cruel to Grace and certainly not entirely true of his feelings about her. With a scowl, he rolled the second page into a ball and threw it at the fireplace. It missed, bouncing off the grate and onto the hearth. Before he could get up, Oliver went over, picked it up, and dropped it into the flames.
"It struck me," Oliver said, moseying back towards James, "that you've put yourself in rather a bind. I might be able to help you out of it."
"I doubt that."
"But really. I saw the spoke in the wheel, Redwood, when you came up with the idea. If you didn't succeed in making her cry off, you'd have to marry a woman who hated you.
"And you said nothing of it."
Oliver shrugged. "I thought you would succeed. As a matter of fact, you have. You could take her at her word and walk away."
"I cannot. She does not mean it and she would lose a great deal of money."
"Ah, but there are men who would marry her without money."
"Not you, if you're offering."
"Not I, certainly. But it strikes me that old flames may yet burn bright."
James stared at Oliver. "You mean Benson?"
"I do. He is in London, you know. And his wife is dead. I think he wants a replacement."
"I know. I've met the cur."
Oliver laughed. "Cur? I always had him pegged for more of a cat — a sleek, overfed house cat, fond of his comforts."
"A man fond of his comforts would not marry a woman with no money."
"But cats are prideful creatures. They do not like being denied what they covet. And she denied him all those years ago. I could help you bring them together again. With a little setting of the stage, a little prompting, we could make him take her off your hands."
James shuddered. "Absolutely not." He stood, gathering his letters from the table. "I wouldn't do that to her, even if I thought I could."
"Then buy me a drink and I'll come up with a better idea. How about a cousin? Does she have a cousin?"
"Buy your own damn drink for once," James snapped. "Don't you get tired of sponging upon others?"
"Quite — but it does require a great deal more exertion when one cannot sponge upon one's own father."
James was all the more annoyed for knowing it was true. "Your father left you a small fortune," he said. "It is not my fault you squandered it on cupidity and vice."
Oliver's dark eyes glittered with sudden anger, then he laughed and it faded — James had never seen him lose his temper, no matter the provocation. He gave an elegant, one-shouldered shrug. "Very well, I will find another friend."
At least he was not a sore loser, James thought as he walked away.
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10/10/2021 A/N: I slightly edited the last few paragraphs of the last chapter to change the ending just a bit, so if you haven't seen that, you may want reread just the last little bit because this follows directly on from that.