by Mary Balogh
She opened her eyes, realizing that her right hand was still clenched about the card he had placed there. She opened her hand and looked down at it, still folded in two, the partially opened sides facing away from her.
It was over. They had said good-bye. He would come again with assistance if she should need it—if she discovered that she was with child, that was.
But it was over.
Very deliberately she folded the card once more, tore it across and across again, and as many more times as she could before dropping the pieces into the back of the fireplace. She recognized the rashness of what she did. But she had sent him away. She could never now appeal to him for aid.
“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said softly before turning determinedly to the washstand and pouring cold water into the bowl.
Ten minutes, Anne and Susanna had said. She would look presentable by the time she arrived in Claudia Martin’s sitting room. And she would be smiling.
And she would be armed to the teeth with amusing anecdotes about Christmas.
No one was going to know the truth.
No one was even going to suspect.
Lucius spent the following week at Cleve Abbey and then removed to London even earlier than he had planned, too restless to remain alone in the country with his own thoughts—or, more to the point, with his own emotions.
The latter consisted predominantly of anger, which manifested itself in irritability. Being the rejected rather than the rejecter was a new experience for him in his dealings with women. It was also, he supposed, a humbling experience and therefore good for the soul. But the soul be damned! The very idea that anything good might come of his experience only added to his ill humor.
What could be good about losing a bedfellow one had only just begun to enjoy?
That Frances Allard had been quite right in ending their budding affair did nothing to alleviate his irritability either. When he had made his offer to take her to London with him, he had not stopped to consider in what capacity he would take her there. But it could not have been as a wife, could it? Devil take it, he had just promised to wed an eligible bride before the summer was out, and he did not imagine that either his grandfather or his mother would consider a schoolteacher from Bath in any way eligible.
He had always been impulsive, even reckless. But this time part of him realized that if she had taken him up on any of his suggestions, he would have found himself in an awkward position indeed. He had not only promised his grandfather, he had also pledged himself to turn over a new leaf, to become a responsible, respectable man, perish the thought. He was going to court a wife during the spring, not indulge his fancy with a new mistress.
And that was what Frances would have been if she had come with him. There was no point in denying it. He could not have kept her long. Part of turning over a new leaf involved committing himself to one woman for the rest of his life—the woman he would marry.
It was time to say good-bye, Frances had told him. They had enjoyed a pleasant day or two together, but it was time to get back to normal life.
Pleasant!
That particular choice of word still rankled for a while even after he had arrived in London and immersed himself in the familiar daily round of his clubs and other typically masculine pursuits with his numerous friends and acquaintances.
His lovemaking had been pleasant. It was almost enough to make a man weep and tear his hair and lose all confidence in himself as a lover.
She had done him a favor by saying no. She really had.
Which fact made ill humor cling to him like an unwanted headache.
But it was not in his nature to brood indefinitely. And there was plenty to occupy his mind, in addition to the familiar pleasures of town life.
There was the fact that he was now living at Marshall House on Cavendish Square, for example, and that soon his mother and sisters were there too. There was all the novelty of being part of a family again for an extended period of time and being involved in all their hopes and fears and anxieties over the coming Season—in which he was pledged to play an active role this year. Emily was to make her come-out and needed to be properly outfitted for it and her presentation to the queen. And he needed to court a bride.
And there was the fact that Portia Hunt was expected to arrive in town immediately after Easter. His mother reminded him—as if he could have forgotten—at breakfast one morning after reading a letter from Lady Balderston.
“I will write back to her this morning,” his mother informed him, “and tell her that you are already in town too, Lucius, and living at Marshall House this year and planning to escort your sisters to a number of ton events.”
In effect, his mother would be announcing to Portia’s mama that he was poised to take a bride at last. Why would someone of Viscount Sinclair’s reputation be planning to attend balls and routs and Venetian breakfasts and such like events, after all, if he were not seriously in search of a leg shackle?
The Balderstons and Portia—as well as the Marquess of Godsworthy, her grandfather—would come to London, then, fully expecting that a betrothal was imminent. Lucius did not doubt it. It was how society worked. A great deal could be said and arranged—especially by women—without a direct word ever being spoken. The direct word would come from him when he finally made his call on Balderston to discuss marriage settlements and then made his formal offer to Portia herself.
The mere thought of what awaited him was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.
However, he might be pleasantly surprised when he saw Portia again. It struck him that it must be two years or so since he had actually held any sort of conversation with her. Perhaps seeing her again would help him focus his mind on duty and the inevitable future. After all, a man must eventually marry. And if he must, and if the time happened to be now, he might as well marry someone eminently eligible and someone he had known most of his life. Better the devil you know . . .
Not that he was making any comparison between Portia and the devil. Good Lord, she would be the quintessentially perfect bride. He could not do better if he hunted the length and breadth of the country for the next five years. He did not have five years, though. He had promised to be married long before this year was out.
He was almost looking forward to her arrival in town.
But something else was different about this spring too. He was anxious about his grandfather’s health and pounced upon every letter that came from Barclay Court. And one of those letters, delivered a week or so before the Balderstons were expected, brought word that the earl had made arrangements to remove to Bath for a couple of weeks or so in order to take a course of the spa waters. They had always been beneficial to his health in the past, he explained, and he intended to see if they would have a similar effect again. He had taken a house on Brock Street rather than stay at a hotel.
Lady Sinclair, genuinely concerned though she was about her father-in-law’s health, could not possibly leave London at that particular moment. Emily was soon to be presented at court and there were a thousand and one details to be attended to before the great day dawned. And Caroline, two years older than Emily, could not leave London, as she was entering her third Season, still unmarried, though it was fully expected that Sir Henry Cobham would come to the point within the month and apply for her hand. Amy was too young to go to Bath alone to care for her grandfather even though she expressed her willingness to do so.
That left Lucius. It was desirable that he stay in town, of course. But he was deeply concerned about his grandfather and felt the need to assure himself firsthand that his health had not seriously deteriorated since Christmas. It would not hurt to be away from London for a week or two, anyway. He would be back by the time the Season swung into full action.
There would be more than enough time to go courting after he returned.
By that time almost three months had passed since Christmas, and he had more or less forgotten about Frances Allard except for the occasional
nostalgic memory of their one night together. Even so, he was not quite insensible of the fact that in going to Bath he would also be putting himself in close proximity to her again. He did not dwell upon the thought, though. He was unlikely to see her, and he would certainly not make any active attempt to do so. She was firmly in his past and would remain there. And indeed she had occupied a very tiny corner of his past.
He was somewhat disconcerted, then, when his traveling carriage came within sight of Bath in the valley below the road from London, all white and sparkling in the spring sunshine, by the power of the memories that assaulted him. He remembered so plainly the pain he had suffered the last time he had been on this road—being driven in the opposite direction—that he felt the pang of it even now. He remembered the almost overwhelming urge he had felt to turn back and beg her to come with him—on his knees if necessary.
The very thought that he might have done such an embarrassing and humiliating thing was enough to give him the shudders. He certainly had no wish to set eyes again on the woman who had brought him so abjectly low.
Amy, his youngest sister, was traveling with him. She was at the awkward age of seventeen. She had been released from the schoolroom after Christmas so that she could accompany the rest of the family to London in the early spring, but any excited expectations that fact had aroused in her bosom had soon been dashed. Their mother had been quite firm in her refusal to allow her to make her come-out this year, since it was Emily’s turn and Caroline was still unmarried too. Poor Amy had been less than delighted at the prospect of being excluded from almost all the dizzying array of activities that would soon brighten her sisters’ days and had jumped at the chance of accompanying her brother to Bath.
Listening to her exclamations of delight at the scene spread before her and pointing out to her some of the more prominent landmarks of Bath diverted Lucius’s attention. In fact, her company had enlivened the whole of the journey. He was rather enjoying his close contacts with his family again, if the truth were told, and was beginning to wonder why it had seemed important to him for so long to maintain a distance from them.
It was because he was no longer a thoughtless young man, he supposed. It was because he had finished sowing his wild oats and was beginning to realize the value of love connections.
He pulled a face in the carriage. Could he really have descended to such depths of dullness?
She had never written to him, though he had watched for a letter until well into February. She being Frances Allard. He was suddenly thinking about her again—quite unwillingly.
There was little possibility of seeing her, though, even accidentally. She lived at the school across the river, all the way down by Sydney Gardens, and would be busy with her teaching duties. He would be staying on upper-class Brock Street and would be mingling with other genteel guests and residents of the city. Their paths were very unlikely to cross.
He stopped thinking about her altogether after their arrival on Brock Street in order to focus the whole of his attention on his grandfather. He was looking frail, but he was his usual cheerful self and insisted that the Bath air and the Bath waters had already done him some good. He sat listening with twinkling eyes to Amy’s enthusiastic account of their journey and the amusing anecdote she told of stopping at one posting inn and being mistaken for Lucius’s wife. She had been addressed as my lady.
Lucius took Amy for a short walk to see the Royal Crescent at the other end of Brock Street after tea while their grandfather rested. He listened with amused indulgence while she exclaimed with delight and declared that the Crescent was the most magnificent architectural sight she had ever seen.
But later that same evening after dinner while his grandfather sat reading by the fire and Amy was seated at a small escritoire writing a letter to their mother and sisters, Lucius stood looking out the window of the sitting room at the stately architecture of the circular street known as the Circus not many yards distant. He found himself thinking that in all probability, if she was still at Miss Martin’s school, Frances was no more than a mile or so away. The thought annoyed him—not so much that she was only a mile or so distant, but that he was thinking about it at all. And about her.
He turned firmly away from the window.
“Feeling maudlin, Lucius?” his grandfather asked, lowering his book to his lap.
“Me, sir?” Lucius rested a hand lightly on Amy’s shoulder as she wrote. “Not at all. I am delighted to be here with you. I was glad to see you eat a good dinner and come to spend an hour with Amy and me in here.”
“I thought,” his grandfather said, regarding him with twinkling eyes from beneath his bushy white eyebrows, “that perhaps you were pining for the sight of a certain pair of fine eyes.”
So brown they were almost black. Wide, expressive eyes that could spark with anger or dance with merriment or deepen with passion.
“Pining, sir?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Me?”
“You are talking of Miss Hunt, Grandpapa, are you not?” Amy said while she dipped her quill pen in the silver ink holder. “She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Some people might call them fine, but I prefer eyes that can laugh even if they are the most nondescript shade of gray. And Miss Hunt never laughs—it is undignified and unladylike to do so, I daresay. I do hope Luce does not marry her.”
“I daresay Lucius will make the right choice when the time comes,” their grandfather said. “But it would be strange indeed if he did not admire Miss Hunt’s blue eyes and blond hair and flawless complexion, Amy. And she is a refined lady. I would be proud to call her granddaughter.”
Lucius squeezed his sister’s shoulder and took the chair on the other side of the hearth. His grandfather was quite right. Portia was a beauty. She was also elegant and refined and perfect. Rumor had it—in other words, his mother had informed him—that she had turned down numerous eligible suitors during the past few years.
She was waiting for him.
He concentrated his mind upon her considerable charms and felt the noose tighten about his neck again.
8
The following day was cold and blustery and not conducive to any prolonged outing, but the day after that was one of those perfect spring days that entice people to step outdoors to take the air and remind them that summer is coming in the not too distant future. The sun beamed down from a cloudless sky, the air was fresh and really quite warm, and there was the merest of gentle breezes.
After an early morning visit to the Pump Room to drink the waters and a rest afterward at home with the morning papers, the Earl of Edgecombe was quite ready for an afternoon airing with his grandchildren on the Royal Crescent. Fashionable people strolled there each day, weather permitting, to exchange any gossip that had accumulated since the morning, to see and to be seen. It served much the same function as Hyde Park in London at the fashionable hour, though admittedly on a smaller scale.
Strolling along the cobbled street of the widely curving Crescent and then down into the meadow below was not exactly vigorous exercise, and Lucius missed his clubs and activities and acquaintances in London, but really he was quite resigned to spending a week or so here with just a few early morning rides up into the hills as an outlet for his excess energy. It was good to see his grandfather in good spirits and slightly better health than he had enjoyed at Christmas. And Amy, now leaning upon Lucius’s arm, positively sparkled with enjoyment at the change of scene, free as she was of the stricter social restrictions that London had imposed upon a young lady who was not yet out.
They were in conversation with Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford when Lucius, half bored but politely smiling, looked up toward the Crescent and became idly aware of a crocodile of schoolgirls, all uniformly clad in dark blue, making its way along Brock Street, presumably having just admired the architecture of the Circus and coming to do the same for its companion piece, the Royal Crescent. A lady, probably a teacher, marched along at its head, setting a brisk pace and looking rather like
a duck cleaving the waters for its two straight lines of ducklings following along behind.
. . . probably a teacher.
He squinted his eyes in order to look more closely at the woman. But the group was still too far away for him to clearly distinguish the features of any of its members. Besides, it would be just too much of a coincidence . . .
“And Mr. Reynolds has agreed to take a house there for the summer,” Mrs. Reynolds was saying. “Our dear Betsy will be with us, of course. A month by the sea in July will be just the thing for all of us.”
“Sea bathing is said to be excellent for the health, ma’am,” the earl said.
Mrs. Reynolds uttered what sounded like a genteel shriek. “Sea bathing, my lord?” she cried. “Oh, never say so. One cannot imagine anything more shocking to tender sensibilities. I shall be very careful not to allow Betsy within half a mile of any bathing machines.”
“But I could not agree with you more, Lord Edgecombe,” Mrs. Abbotsford said. “When we spent a few days at Lyme Regis two summers ago, both Rose and Algernon—my daughter and my son, you will understand—bathed in the sea, and they were never more healthy than they were for the rest of that holiday. The ladies were kept quite separate from the gentlemen, Barbara, and so there was no impropriety.”
Lucius exchanged an amused smirk with his grandfather.
“Now before I forget, Lord Edgecombe,” Mrs. Reynolds said, “I must beg you . . .”
The crocodile had reached the corner of Brock Street and the Crescent, and the teacher stopped it in order to point out the wide sweep of magnificent architecture before their eyes. One slim arm pointed. One slender hand gesticulated.
She had her back to Lucius. Over a fawn-colored dress she wore a short brown spencer. Her bonnet too was brown. It was impossible from where he stood to see either her face or her hair.
But his mouth nevertheless turned suddenly dry.
He was in no doubt at all of her identity.