Chapter 12
Twelve
One of the benefits of Jack’s story about Nora having the influenza was being saved the necessity of having to visit his sisters or worry about their whereabouts.
He surely shouldn’t be calling on a sick house; it was folly to risk spreading the disease around.
Which was why, only a few days after he’d put the plan in motion, he was annoyed to return from a visit to Jackson’s boxing gym and learn Nell was waiting for him in his drawing room.
“And Mr Blatherstock called,” Dalcher added, the butler’s second painful hit following the first in a manner the boxing master would’ve been proud of.
“Did he say why?” Jack asked, pausing in the act of removing his gloves. Blatherstock normally handled all of Jack’s business affairs with minimal input. It had always been one of his most admirable qualities.
“Only that he wishes to speak with you. From his manner, and the fact he said he would call again soon, I believe it may be of some importance, my lord.”
What a plaguey nuisance. “Wait… Wasn’t there a letter the other day?
You handed me a whole bundle, and I never got through them.
I think I recognised Batherstock’s stamp on one of them.
They ought to still be on my desk. Bring them to the drawing room, will you?
Maybe I can read it while my sister talks. It’ll pass the time, at least.”
A professional to his core, the butler made no response to this latter remark, and Jack climbed the stairs. He found Nell standing impatiently by the window in his drawing room.
“Why you insist on living in this dreary bachelor house when you could live in the big house at Grosvenor Square, I don’t know,” was how she greeted him. He crossed to the small table near the fireplace and poured himself a drink.
“And saddle myself with the headache of all those additional servants and housekeeping duties? No thank you. I already have more business to think about than I care to.”
On cue, Dalcher entered, a bundle of letters on a tray, which he put down on the table at Jack’s hip with a small bow and the sombre announcement that there were, in fact, two letters from Blatherstock.
Jack picked them up as Dalcher left, frowning as he broke the wafer on the latest.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Nell. “Conduct your business while I’m here, by all means! It’s not as though the carriage is waiting or the horses growing cold.”
“And don’t mind me,” muttered Jack, “attempting to keep an eye on the family fortune.” But he tossed the letters back to the tray with a sigh.
“Tell me what emergency has brought you here. Your maid’s run away with the footman?
You’ve finally spent all of Ashburton’s money?
Nora’s decided Min is actually a fairy changeling? ”
Nell sniffed, seeming to decide that making a reply to any of this was beneath her. Instead she gave him a disapproving look, mouth pursing as she noted the hand wrapped around his drink as he took a sip.
“Gentleman Jackson. Pshaw! Look at your knuckles. How you can enjoy making a mess of your hands at that ruffian sport is beyond me.”
“Lots of things are beyond you, Nell. I wouldn’t let it bother you.” He ignored her scowl. “Why are you here, spreading influenza across half of London?”
She looked at him as though he was stupid. “But there is not really—”
“Oh, do shut up,” said Jack, going to close the door against any passing servants. “Have the feathers you wear got inside your skull?”
Colouring angrily, she said, “It’s your stupid story! I never agreed to it.”
“No. You only agreed to Min being lost on the streets of London. Thank God for Miss Sedgewick. I dread to think what would have happened if she hadn’t come to the rescue.”
To his surprise, instead of her usual scowl at the mention of his favoured one, Nell laughed. A wicked, sharp little laugh.
“Rescue! You’ve got worse than feathers in your head if you think Miss Sedgewick is acting out of any charitable motive. You were right when you said she knows everyone—and therefore everything. It seems she caught wind of it days before anyone else, and her plan is already in motion.”
“Plan? What plan?”
“Harbouring Lucy under her own roof, where she’s in exactly the right place to be caught by her brother. Your beloved is the web, her brother is the spider, and Min is the juicy fly!”
Had one of Jackson’s hits rattled his brain? “What the devil are you talking about? Spiders, webs? Sedge to marry Min? He hasn’t two shillings to rub together. He’s on the hunt for an heiress. Has been for a while. Problem is, everyone knows it.”
“And you have just delivered him one!”
“Me? Who?”
“Lucy!”
He looked at her. “Min’s as poor as a church mouse. Her father left her nothing, it was all entailed away.”
“But her aunt is leaving her everything.”
His glass paused in mid-air. Was that true?
Min hadn’t mentioned it, but it certainly seemed like something that might be possible, now he thought about it.
Min had been living as her aunt’s sole companion for years.
And the old dragon, guarding her hoard from all those grasping relatives Min had laughingly described to him, might be clear-sighted enough to see Min wasn’t one of them.
“It it’s true, Min doesn’t know,” he said decisively, sure of that much. “And I don’t see how Miss Sedgewick, or anyone else, can know it either.”
“You said yourself the Sedgewicks have family up there.”
“And I very much doubt the contents of the old lady’s will are going to be posted up by the inn door for everyone to see. How do they know what Min herself doesn’t?”
“Apparently the doctor has been called.”
“Her aunt is unwell?”
“Apparently.”
He scoffed at the word and finished his drink, putting the glass down. “Apparently,” he repeated. “This is all just rumour and conjecture, isn’t it? More rumours. I told you I didn’t want Min to be the talk of the town, and here you are—”
“It’s not me spreading it around! Lady Weeton called on me this morning, I had it from her!
You can imagine the whole town already knows.
And you should’ve seen her expression when I told her Lucy had removed to the Sedgewicks’s.
She saw the implications of it, and so will everyone else.
You’re right about everyone knowing the captain is holding out for an heiress, and now he’s recruited his sister to the cause. ”
“It would please you vastly, wouldn’t it, to have the whole town share your low opinion of Miss Sedgewick? To reduce her to a mercenary, with as few scruples as a bawdy house procurer?”
Nell pulled a face. “You may know of such people. I do not.”
Jack tried to cool his temper. “Miss Sedgewick acted out of charity and goodness of heart. They might be difficult concepts for you to understand, but I can assure you it is so. When I dined at their house, from what I observed, Miss Sedgewick is taking pains to keep her brother away from Min. He wasn’t even there. ”
Nell only smirked. “Just you wait and watch, Jack. He’ll soon be sniffing around her like a fly around honey. And so will every man with an eye to an easy fortune.”
Jack didn’t like this mental image one bit, but it was easy enough to dismiss.
“The only one who’s shown the faintest interest in Min is George. And you can hardly accuse him of being on the hunt for a rich wife.”
Nell smiled strangely. “He’s not quite the only one, Jack.”
Jack frowned. “Who else?”
“You have always been fond of her.”
He laughed. “That’s hardly a secret. She’s my oldest friend.”
But Nell went on. “Mother said several times it was a pity she moved away when she did, at sixteen and you nineteen. If she’d still been there another year or two, and you twenty-one…”
Jack laughed without humour and reached for the brandy again, pouring a light splash into his glass.
“And if I’d offered for poor penniless Min back then, you’d have all been up in arms—just as you were only the other day when Nora made up her ridiculous story.
Now you catch a whiff of money and you’re suddenly wishing us happy!
Shame on you, Nell. Could you at least try not to be so disgustingly transparent? ”
Nell sniffed in annoyance but held her ground. “You cannot deny that you like her, though. You always have done. It was always Lucy you chose to spend time with.”
“You’re surprised I preferred her company to such sweet, darling sisters? You and Nora did nothing but screech and complain.”
“Because we didn’t like having frogs in our water jugs!
Or being told to jump rivers that were too wide!
Or hold your pony for hours while you climbed trees for nests, or tried to wheedle cider from the farmer’s wife, or tobacco from the waggoner, or whatever terrible boyish prank was in your head to do. ”
Jack just chuckled. “She screeched about the frog alright. And I did mean that for you, Nell. It was a pity Min happened to find it.”
“You whittled things for her!” Nell announced suddenly in triumph.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’d spend hours whittling little gifts for her from scraps of wood. Dolls and animals and boats. You taught her to fish! And if she ever wanted to go into the village, you’d always drive her yourself, even though old Marsh would’ve done it in the donkey gig.”
Jack pulled a face at the thought of Min being stuck behind a donkey with no one but a gnarly old groom to escort her.
“If I was eager for any chance to go into the village, it was probably only to buy things I shouldn’t.
Or get a glimpse of that barmaid. Ah, Sarah Linton,” he sighed in dreamy reflection.
The voluptuous little blonde had been responsible for the sexual awakening of every young man in a ten-mile radius.
Nell scoffed. Jack set down his glass and adopted a more serious expression. “Look, dear sister. I’d as lief marry George as Min. So you may as well put that out of your head.”
“But don’t you think we ought to get her away from the Sedgewicks?
We could say the doctor made a mistake, that Nora has recovered.
Invite Lucy back to my house where I can keep a proper watch over her and guard her from any fortune hunters that might throw themselves in her way.
You yourself cautioned me just how green she is.
Like a lamb, you said! And she was invited to London under our family’s protection. Imagine the scandal if—”
“I will guard her myself,” Jack interrupted firmly, certain Min had no wish to return to Nell’s house.
After seeing her in her element last night, he could hardly blame her.
“Even if there’s no truth in this rumour, the damage is done.
It’s enough that people believe she’s heiress to that old nabob’s hoard.
Because you’re right about one thing, Nell.
She’s now a target for every fortune hunter in London.
But leave her to me. I’ll watch over Min. Just as I always have done.”
To his surprise, his sister made no further protest but took her leave seeming strangely satisfied.