Chapter 5
Five
Min’s cry of alarm turned into a sob of pain as she tried to sit up. Jack was on his knees at her side, saying he barely knew what to the crowd of gawkers clustered around them.
“Heat of the room… Needs some air… No, thank you…” He waved away a vinaigrette, a handkerchief, and several helping hands.
He got Min to her feet, holding her arm clamped to his side as he began to walk her from the room.
His manner was lighthearted, his assurances to the onlookers given smiling—best to laugh these things off—but he was horribly aware of the trembling arm he held and the sniffed-back tears.
There was a side room just outside the ballroom, which, given the presence of a fainting couch, seemed exactly designed for occasions such as this.
Jack headed towards it. “Don’t worry, Min, absurdly slippery, the floors here.
Apparently Garcell slipped right over the other day, halfway through an inadvisedly vigorous reel.
Nearly took Lady Buckingham down with him—”
But before they could get to the couch, Min tore free of his grip and spun to face him, cheeks burning so red even the freckles were almost overpowered.
“How could you! I told you I couldn’t dance, and you still forced me to do it! You never listen! You never have! You said I haven’t changed a bit? Well neither have you, Jack! You’re still as much a bully as you ever were!”
What the…?
“Bully?” he repeated, astounded. “Me?”
“Yes!”
“No, come on, Min, that’s not right…” He reached for her arm, but she spun away from him, hiding her face in her hands.
The line of her shoulders shook on a silent sob.
He watched, sick and miserable, not knowing what to do.
There were even freckles there, on her back—peeking out above the scooped curve of her dress, dotting the line of her spine and disappearing into the dark clustered ringlets that shone, abundant and warm.
The ringlets swayed as she gave her head an angry shake, wrestling her tears.
“We’re friends, Min,” he pleaded, “of course we are. For many years we were the best of friends. So how can you talk so? I’ve never bullied anyone in my life.”
“You care for nothing but your own amusement. And you never listen.”
Or that’s what he thought she said. It was hard to tell when her voice was so muffled by both hands and tears. But really…this was the outside of enough…it made no sense. And it was hell anyway, standing and watching.
He took her elbow and drew her down to the fainting couch, sitting beside her.
Seven or eight or nine years ago he would’ve put his arm around her shoulders while she cried.
Now he took her hand instead, examining the bare fingers ruefully.
He couldn’t even remember where he’d put the torn glove.
Dropped it, probably, in his haste to get to her side.
“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.”
She sniffed. “How was it?”
“I couldn’t quite imagine it. But not like this.”
She said nothing, gaze fixed on the wall opposite. Pale blue wallpaper, tatty now, and hardly luxurious even when it’d been new. How Almack’s was so fashionable, he had no idea. But at that moment, it seemed Min vastly preferred the sight to looking anywhere near him.
“I’m listening now,” he said, her fingers in his hand as lifeless as one of his sister’s old toy dolls. “Tell me what you’ve been up to, my little Minnow, to make your hands so sore and red like this? Don’t tell me Nell’s put you to work in the laundry!”
She didn’t even laugh, and the feeling intensified of having taken a wrong stop—one far worse than Min’s in the dance.
It had started, now he thought about it, when he first greeted her, in the moment she held out that cool hand and uttered the polite Lord Orton. He’d felt odd ever since. Dislocated somehow.
“Can you really not dance?”
“Obviously not.”
“And you never did? At your aunt’s?”
But she was clearly in no mood for conversation.
Jack frowned at the same patch of wall as her, but unseeing, old thoughts resurfacing.
“When your father died and we first heard you were going to live with some grand old relative, I was almost glad, though I hated to lose you. But I thought finally—finally Min will get to live in a house where she’s appreciated and taken notice of.
I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead, but you know I never liked the way your father abandoned you in favour of all those dusty old books, even if he was old and dusty himself. ”
“He was grief-stricken.” It was the same quiet defence she’d always made. “He never recovered after my mother died. Everyone said so.”
“Not everyone. My father said he was a dull old stick even before that happened. Always had been.”
She pulled her hand from his and wiped a tear from the end of her nose. The wetness glimmered on her sore, red finger. He felt acutely useless. “What does this have to do with anything, Jack?”
“Just that I’d always hoped you were having fun up there in Northumberland with your aunt. But you weren’t, were you? She was an even duller stick than your old man.”
Min kept on staring at the wall. Her tone was that of a well-disciplined schoolchild reciting their lessons. “She took me in and looked after me. I am very grateful.”
“Well, of course you are, Min. You’re very good at being grateful for things you shouldn’t. You used to put up with me and my wretched sisters, you were so grateful for company. I’d hit windfall apples at you with my cricket bat, and you’d still come back the next day for more.”
Another sniff. “I told you you were a bully.”
A wider smile. “You said you wanted to learn to catch!”
“You ordered me to stand there and catch.”
“I think we remember the past quite differently.”
He said it laughing, but her voice was quiet.
“Yes. And I think we lived it differently too.”
There was a note of sadness in that, one that plucked his ribs like a harp string, moved his hand like a puppet’s to take hers again, but he stopped himself, feeling awkward.
“How odd.” That wasn’t what he ought to say. But it was one of the loudest thoughts in his mind. “How odd it is to see you again. It’s been barely an hour, and it feels like the last seven years never happened. How did I manage to almost forget you?”
She said nothing, but she’d entirely stopped crying. Indeed, all of her was as still and lifeless as her hand had been.
Belatedly remembering the existence of his handkerchief, he took it from his pocket and gave it to her. “Will you smile for me, Min? Show me you can smile. Because we have to go back out there and face them, and it’s horribly obvious you’ve been crying.”
“I suppose I’m all red and swollen and uglier than ever.”
“No!” he protested gallantly. “Well, a bit red maybe. But not ugly at all.”
This last did nothing to improve the redness, and he opened his mouth, unsure whether pressing the point or retreating from it entirely would be the most helpful tactic, when the door opened and Miss Sedgewick walked into the room.
“Don’t mind me!” she said cheerfully as Jack abruptly stood up. “I suppose I ought to claim I didn’t know you were in here, but no, I followed you quite deliberately.”
She advanced towards the couch with her hand out, ready to shake Min’s. Min stood also, looking very shy and embarrassed, and dropped a curtsy.
“Miss Caroline Sedgewick! A pleasure! I’ll introduce myself while Lord Orton gathers his wits.
” She shot him a twinkling smile. “Goodness, my dear Lord Orton, your expression is enough to convince a lady you two have been up to no good in here. No, no,” she started laughingly as Min stammered a horrified rebuttal.
“Of course I know you haven’t. I wouldn’t have come in at all if I thought there was any chance of that.
I’m here for precisely the opposite reason—to offer my chaperonage because you really can’t be coming in here all alone with Miss Fanshaw, my lord, no matter how innocent your chivalrous intentions.
The world has such a scandalous imagination. ”
She reached out and squeezed Min’s forearm.
“I see I’ve shocked you, Miss Fanshaw. You’re not used to me—how fortunate for you!
I’m a sad prattle, and the unavoidable truth is that I’m terribly rude.
But in my defence, one must be! It’s all the rage now.
Just look at everyone’s favourite Beau. Here”—she drew Min down to sit on the sofa beside her—“we will be comfortable while we decide what to do.”
Jack, still standing, looked down at the two heads that were now turned to each other, one chestnut brown, one icy blonde.
The icy-blonde hair was paired with icy-blue eyes and a brisk, crisply drawn face.
Not pretty, as Jack’s friends often vigorously rebutted him when he was in his cups and the topic of Miss Sedgewick inevitably came wistfully to mind.
Not at all pretty, but striking. When Miss Sedgewick looked at you, you knew you were being looked at.
She turned her face up to him now, the cool eyes laughing at him, knowing she was the object of his study.
“I’m afraid we’ll get little help from your sisters, Lord Orton.
The elder is busy consoling the younger who is—very loudly and violently—claiming her future prospects have been entirely blighted by associated embarrassment, and, in doing so, is making a very good job of blighting them herself. ”
Jack cursed.
“Exactly how I would’ve put it, if a lady was allowed to.
But, I confess, it was the plight of Miss Fanshaw here that drew my Samaritan instincts.
No, no, I can’t pretend.” She wagged an admonishing finger at herself.
“I confess it was nothing but curiosity to see the girl Lady Sefton described to me as unique. And I begin to see what she means. Look at this face. These heavenly curls. All natural! You do not keep your maid labouring for hours with hot tongs, do you, my dear Miss Fanshaw?”
“I…” began Min, bewildered.
“London’s great curse, you see, is that it’s always bored. We’re desperate for novelty. And you…” She took hold of both of Min’s hands and studied her face. “You could be something extraordinary.” She shrugged in the French fashion. “Or perhaps not. We shall see.”
Then she patted Min’s hands and did a double take. “My goodness! Did this happen when you fell? But no, this is not that type of injury. What has happened?”
“It’s nothing. Just a reaction I get sometimes to turpentine.”
“Turpentine? You take it as medicine? Wait—no! Lady Sefton said you are an artist. Oils, is it? How marvellous. Far better than insipid watercolours.” She gave a broad smile, the devil hiding in its corners, as it so often did with Miss Sedgewick.
“Now I know how I shall win your friendship, Miss Fanshaw. So many of my friends are artists. I’ll introduce you to them all, and you’ll become quite dependent on me.
And we’ll find you an alternative to turpentine.
You can repay me with your notice when you’re a great leader of society. ”
“Caroline…” began Jack warningly. Then, remembering himself with a flash of heat to his neck, “Miss Sedgewick—”
She glanced up at him, smiling at his slip, dressed all in white, entirely pristine. She’d never permitted him to do any more than flirt with her. But it was another of Miss Sedgewick’s many tantalising attributes that she could make the slightest conversation feel like the greatest of intimacies.
“No, no, my dear Lord Orton, don’t fear for your friend.
I’m perfectly aware Miss Fanshaw is an innocent little country mouse.
I love her for it and wouldn’t change her for the world by influencing her with my rackety ways.
But I am of half a mind to take her under my wing.
” She gave Min another studying look, her head tilted.
“Would you like that, Miss Fanshaw? Do you think we could be friends?”
When Min shot him an anxious look, Miss Sedgewick laughed and reassured her.
“Don’t worry, Miss Fanshaw! I promise you I’m quite respectable.
I know I talk rather wildly, but one must, you know, when one has nothing else to recommend one to society.
Terrible, isn’t it, to make trade of one’s talk?
But if milliners took bon mots, I’d be wealthy beyond dreams. The honest truth, my dear, is that I am very respectable, very fashionable, and entirely without a penny to my name.
I abuse myself freely, you see—what conflicting attributes I command!
To be both fashionable and respectable is difficult indeed, but to be both fashionable and poor is the hardest thing of all.
But it’s the truth, and if it doesn’t put you off me entirely, then let me offer you my friendship. ”
Min was listening in a silence that seemed, to Jack, half cowed, half stunned.
A brown mouse pinned by a snowy owl. He stood by, frustrated and uncertain, as Miss Sedgewick rattled on.
For the first time since they’d met, he was almost annoyed with her, though he couldn’t say why, only that he knew she was making Min uncomfortable.
But he was more annoyed with himself. It was because of him that Min was upset and in this room, and as little as he felt Min was quite ready for the acquaintance of characters like Miss Sedgewick, he was very aware that, in this instance, Min required female assistance and his own sisters were too self-absorbed to give it.
There wasn’t a single Orton who had acquitted themselves well tonight.
“I’ll escort you from this room,” continued Miss Sedgewick, “and find you some gloves, for there must be some spare somewhere, and that way you’ll be seen leaving in my company, not our entirely blameless Lord Orton’s.
There, my lord,” she flashed him another, even more devilish smile, “your spotless virtue is perfectly safe in my hands, as always. I leave you free to attend to your sisters.”