‘I thank you for your honesty,’ he said cordially, and she laughed. ‘May I reassure you that I am desperate to meet your other sisters, the roof sounds charmingly rustic, and the debt does not faze me.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I understand that you will need to see my accounts before committing yourself,’ he went on, and she laughed again, loud and bright.
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘As long as you can promise you’re absurdly rich and you’ll pay off all my family’s debts.’
‘I am absurdly rich,’ he repeated. ‘And I will pay off all your family’s debts.’
‘Why then by all means,’ she said, grinning up at him, ‘I would indeed like to marry you.’
His hand caught her jaw now. There was nothing hesitant about the kiss, nothing uncertain. It was as if they’d both read the script beforehand and had – all along – simply been waiting for the cue. Cue given, they both committed themselves wholeheartedly to the scene, and it was some time before conversation was resumed.
‘James! James!’ They looked up, hurriedly parting, as Archie burst onto the courtyard. ‘There you are! Mama is looking for you – she has quite lost Amelia … I say, is everything all right?’ He eyed them suspiciously.
‘Yes, Archie. More than all right, in fact – Miss Talbot has just agreed to marry me,’ Radcliffe said, taking Kitty’s hand.
‘By Jove!’ Archie looked quite thunderstruck. ‘By Jove, indeed.’
Kitty remembered with a start that this news might not be entirely welcome to him – after all, it was not so long ago that he had thought himself in love with her. By the hesitant look upon James’s face, he was worrying about the same.
‘Archie?’ Kitty said, questioningly. Archie startled out of his reverie and leapt forward to wring his brother’s hand.
‘Splendid news, congratulations,’ he enthused. ‘Was just a trifle bamboozled, but quite all right now. Terribly silly of me – bacon-brained, really – but I had quite thought that you meant to marry me, Kitty. But must say a relief to know that’s absolute stuff – not sure we’re all that suited, really, so it is perhaps for the best. You understand, don’t you?’
This last was said in kindly tones, an expression upon Archie’s face as if he were delivering unwelcome news that she was to take with a stiff upper lip.
Kitty bristled. ‘Archie,’ she said quite irately, ‘are you turning me down?’
James began to laugh.
38
‘You mustn’t expect anything grand,’ Kitty instructed. ‘Netley is a far more modest home than Radcliffe Hall.’
‘I shall endeavour to keep my expectations low,’ James said agreeably.
Kitty frowned at this. ‘Though I should not be surprised if you do find it, in fact, far more characterful than Radcliffe Hall,’ she corrected.
‘Of course,’ he said, apologetically. ‘I have no doubt that I will also find it far superior to Radcliffe Hall in every way.’
The Season was over. The wedding was planned. And the Talbot sisters were travelling home at last. Ensconced in the perfectly proportioned and comfortably furnished Radcliffe carriage, their homeward journey was infinitely more pleasant than the outward had been, with the trees and fields and hedgerows passing smoothly by the window. For most of the journey, Radcliffe had ridden beside the carriage, but this afternoon he had opted to keep the ladies company within – perceiving, perhaps, that Kitty’s nerves were becoming more ragged as they neared home. She had spent the journey wondering if her sisters would look different when they arrived, wondering what she might have missed in the months they had been parted – worrying too, how they would feel about how she had changed, for she would be returning to them quite different, too. She was finally released from the weight of their crushing debt.
It had seemed almost incomprehensible to Kitty how quickly it had been resolved in the end. The morning after their engagement, Radcliffe had turned up at the doorstep of Wimpole Street quite unannounced, with a promissory note for a draft on his bank. They had sat together in the parlour, she penning the letter to Mr Anstey and Mr Ainsley to inform them that the bill was now paid in full, he adding his note without so much as a blink at the eye-wateringly large sum she had quoted. Within moments, it was done. Such a slim envelope, she had thought, to hold so much weight. With an effort, she had resisted the urge to rip it open to read everything through again – just to be quite, quite sure it was done. She looked over to James, intending to confess her disbelief, before all at once realising that they were by themselves again, for the first time since they had stood upon that candlelit terrace. From the look in his eyes, it was a realisation she was not alone in making.