Sally by M.C. Beaton

all.”
    “Your words surprise me. Miss Wyndham is young and beautiful and rich. All the things to gladden a mother’s heart. What’s up with her?”
    “Nothing,” said Sally weakly and then again,
“Nothing
,” in a stronger voice as she gathered the mantle of Aunt Mabel about her. “Your mother thinks she is too good for you. Her Grace thinks you need a lady with a little more vice in her.”
    He put down his glass and leaned back in his chair and laughed loud and long while Sally stared at him with adoring eyes.
    At last he finished laughing, and Sally adjusted her expression to one—she hoped—of rather prim wisdom.
    “And so the decision, I gather, is to be left to you? I think that must be why Mama sprang this surprise on me.”
    “I should think so,” quavered Sally, very much Aunt Mabel.
    What
is
your decision?”
    Sally bent her head and appeared to concentrate. Actually she had made a lightning decision. This handsome marquess should really marry no one else but Miss Sally Blane. How it was to be achieved, she could not even begin to imagine. But she had wanted to work on Fleet Street—and she did. All things were possible if the modern Edwardian career woman put her mind to it.
    “I think you should only marry for love,” she said.
    He raised his eyebrows. “And what makes you think I am not in love with Miss Wyndham?”
    “You are too detached,” said Sally.
    “Love, in my opinion,” said the marquess, “is only a fleeting fancy. I am heading rapidly for middle age. I am thirty-five years old, which must not seem much to you”—Sally winced—“nonetheless, it is time I settled down.”
    “Have you never been in love?” asked Sally curiously.
    “Oh, hundreds of times.” He paused, momentarily taken aback by the strange look of pain in the expressive eyes of the old lady opposite, who was now gulping her whisky as if it were water. “It never lasted. Can I get you another drink? Perhaps something milder? Sherry, perhaps?”
    “No,” said Aunt Mabel grimly, “whisky will do very well” Made bold by the spirit, she addressed him earnestly. “My dear lord, I have had great experience in matters of the heart. If you marry some girl simply because you think she will make a suitable wife, then your marriage will be doomed from the start. And then think of the children—the sticky, jammy, screaming,
awful
children,” said Sally with sudden drunken fervor, thinking of Emily’s noisy brood.
    He crossed one elegantly tailored leg over the other and leaned back in his chair. Sally studied his handsome profile in the lamplight and sighed.
    “I am beginning to think you do not approve of marriage at all,” he said. “Are you, or have you been, married yourself?”
    “No, my lord.”
    “In that case—”
    “But I must assure you, as a detached observer, I have great insight into the problems of matrimony,” said Sally.
    He looked at her curiously. It was almost as if, by some trick of the light, a young and beautiful and intense girl were superimposed like a phantom over the wrinkled and aged features of Aunt Mabel.
    Then he noticed that the hand holding her glass was trembling slightly and gently took the drink from her and put it on the table.
    “We will discuss this further tomorrow,” he said, getting to his feet. “I think you should rest. It is very late.”
    Sally allowed him to help her to her feet.
    “Would you assist me to my room?” she quavered. “I do feel shaky.” And in truth, she did, not being used to hard liquor.
    Ah! The benefits of being old
,? thought Sally as the marquess put one strong arm around her. She leaned against him gratefully and moved as slowly as possible so as to prolong this delicious experience.
    He felt the old lady tremble slightly and experienced a qualm of anxiety. She was a queer old bird, and it was certainly long past her bedtime.
    He escorted her to the door of her sitting room and politely held the door open for her, receiving a