ABIGAIL HAD AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR during the morning. Who would it be? she wondered as she hurried down the stairs to the yellow salon, where she herself had waited just four days before. Her mother-in-law or one of her sisters-in-law? But no, they would have come up. Laura? Mrs. Gill? Some stranger who had read the marriage announcement in the paper that morning?
She felt apprehensive. But when she stepped inside the salon and saw who her visitor was, she cried out in delight and went hurtling across the room.
“Boris!” she cried, hugging the tall, thin young man who stood where she had stood on a previous occasion. “Where have you been? I have not seen you in an age. How did you know I was here? Did you read the announcement of my marriage? What do you think of it? Were you ever so surprised in your life? I would have liked to tell you before the wedding, but I never know where you may be found. Have you come to congratulate me? How thin you are! You are not eating well, are you? Are things not going well for you? Have you—?”
“Abby,” he said, with a firmness of voice that seemed well accustomed to breaking into her monologues, “hush.”
“Yes,” she said, smoothing her hands over the lapels of his coat. “It is just that I am so very pleased to see you, Boris. Miles is from home. What a shame! I do so want you to meet him. He is our kinsman, you know. Did you know that the old earl was dead? Or did you think I had married a white-haired old man?”
“Abby,” he said, and she could see at last that he was not sharing her delight, “you did not come begging to him, did you?”
“Begging?” she said. “No. Not for money, anyway. Mrs. Gill dismissed me from my post, Boris, and would not supply me with a character. I thought the earl would give me a letter, he being our cousin and all. That is all. It was not really begging.”
“He is not our cousin,” he said. “Even the old earl was not, not really. The connection was very remote, and you know very well that he would not have acknowledged any connection at all with us, Abby. We have always been disreputable.”
“No,” she said, all the joy gone out of her morning. “Only Papa, Boris, and he could not help it.”
“Not to mention Rachel,” he said.
“Our stepmother?” She spread her hands before her and examined the backs of them. “Perhaps she had good cause too, Boris. Papa was not easy to live with.”
“We are off the point,” he said. “Why did he marry you, Abby?”
“He fell in love with me?” she said, looking at him inquiringly, eyebrows raised, willing him to believe her.
“Nonsense,” he said impatiently. “This is real life.”
“He needed a wife,” she said, “and wanted to marry before his mother and his sisters arrived to try to arrange a dazzling match for him. He wanted someone quiet and sensible and good-natured—those are his exact words. And so he asked me.”
“Quiet?” he said. “Sensible? Come on, Abby. Was he born yesterday? Did he tell you that he had an understanding with Lord Galloway’s daughter?”
“Who?” she said, frowning.
“The Honorable Miss Frances Meighan,” he said. “Reputed to be a rare beauty. A friend of the family. All the right connections and an enormous dowry. He didn’t tell you, did he? He married you out of pity, that’s what, Abby.”
“He did not,” she said indignantly. “That is not true, Boris. Men don’t marry women out of pity.”
“Why, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know why,” she said, “apart from what I have told you. Don’t spoil things, Boris. You always do that. Just when I am happy, you always come along and try to convince me that I am being unrealistic.”
His shoulders slumped suddenly. “I’m sorry, Abby,” he said. “You are happy with him, then? How long have you known him, for goodness’ sake? I have never had wind of it. Come and be hugged, then. Yes, I wish you happy, of course I do. Oh, of course I do, Ab.” He hugged her tightly. “You of all people should have an eternity of happiness. And of course you are right. He would not have married you out of pity. People just don’t do that. He has probably been wise enough to discover just what a gem you are.”
“He can help you,” she said eagerly, pulling away to look up into his face. “You are not doing well, are you, Boris? You really are very thin—and marvelously handsome. Are all the ladies swooning over you?”
“Oh, yes,” he said with the boyish grin she remembered from earlier days. “Women have a habit of swooning over penniless adventurers.”