Chapter 15
Fifteen
“Whatever is the matter?” Miss Sedgewick said, entering Lucy’s bedroom on the heels of a faint knock. “I heard you come in and rush upstairs. A headache? Tell me Jack didn’t rattle your poor bones over all those dreadful roads.”
“Yes.” Lucy sniffed, a miserable swaddle of tangled sheets and tear dampened pillows. In other circumstances she would have been mortified at being found in such a pathetic state. But she had no mortification left. Her humiliation was complete. “It is…a headache.”
“Mm, so I see.” Miss Sedgewick sat on the corner of the bed. “One of those pesky headaches in the region of the heart, perhaps.”
Those words nearly made the organ in question stop completely. She sat up in alarm, pushing handfuls of curls from her face. “No! What do you mean? No, it was just the roads, the rattling…”
“Of Jack’s voice?” suggested Miss Sedgewick, chuckling. “That would do it, for sure.”
Lucy was betrayed into a sodden laugh, which was just as quickly followed by an inconvenient wave of tears at the remembrance of Jack’s voice and all the things it had said.
Miss Sedgewick rather awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Why all this misery? Surely these should be tears of joy. I hear I’m to offer you congratulations!”
Again, her heart thudded in panic. “What…whatever do you mean?”
“You are suddenly a great heiress! It’s every young girl’s greatest dream.”
Thank goodness! Jack hadn’t, it seemed, announced their supposed engagement to the world. But the current rumour was hardly welcome.
“You heard that too? Jack…Jack mentioned it. Does everyone know?”
“It seems so. It certainly explains the morning we had. And I’m extremely popular because of it. I’ve had three callers in the time you were gone, all of them sniffing for confirmation of it. And a sight of your fair face.”
“Fair!” She swiped angry hands over her eyes. Irritation was a handy tool to stem her tears. “How money blinds everyone! And it’s not even true. My aunt is more likely to leave her fortune to her dog than me.”
Miss Sedgewick laughed. “She seems like someone I’d like to meet.
” Then she got up and retrieved a handkerchief from Lucy’s dressing table, handing it to her as she sat back down.
“But is this confusion why you’re so upset?
These rumours come and go, you know. The scrutiny may be unpleasant for some time, but if there’s no truth in it, it’ll eventually deflate—like one of Blanchard’s balloons when the hot air goes out. ”
Lucy knotted the handkerchief in her fingers. “Jack did not seem to think so.”
“Ah, how did I guess Jack would be at the bottom of this.”
“He seemed to think I was in grave danger. That every fortune hunter in town would be beating down our door.”
“Yes, he’s right.”
Lucy glanced up and saw her sympathetic smile.
“Perhaps not quite beating down the door,” Miss Sedgewick amended, “but he’s right that you’ll attract a great deal of attention, and often from gentlemen whose motives may be…dubious.”
“Yes, they will want to marry me for my money. I understand that much. But Jack made it seem like I would be entirely defenceless.”
“Determined men can be…impertinent.”
“He said I was na?ve!”
“Ah.”
“And helpless!”
“Oh dear.”
“And ignorant!”
Miss Sedgewick winced. “I see.”
“He made it clear that he thinks me a complete idiot! He said he would not permit—permit!—certain people to talk to me, as though I cannot look after myself. And what right does he have? He is not my father, or my brother, or my…or my anything at all. He is nothing but a boy I used to know. And he still acts exactly like a boy! He said it would be fun to be engaged—”
“To be what?”
“Engaged! He thinks it would be a great prank! ‘Imagine the look on everyone’s faces,’ he said, ‘little Minnow engaged to the great Jack Orton. How everyone would laugh!’ And they would—because look at me!
And he said he would buy my trousseau and dress me up, just as if I’m a little doll.
That’s all it is to him. Another childish game.
And I am just a child to him. When I am not! ”
“Oh dear,” said Miss Sedgewick, again gingerly patting Lucy’s shoulder.
But Lucy, already embarrassed by her outburst and by a very awkward recollection, swiftly wiped her face.
“He did not mean really engaged,” she hastily reassured her hostess. “It was only to be a ruse, to protect me. I know he…and you…and I should not have spoken so harshly of him. Forgive me.”
Miss Sedgewick only smiled. “No, no! Abuse him freely! I do it often enough. Even to his face. Though it doesn’t seem to do the trick.”
Lucy, a sharp, complicated feeling in her chest and a hot prickling all over her skin, said nothing and focused all her attention on the damp, tortured handkerchief she held.
“He doesn’t love me, you know,” said Miss Sedgewick.
Startled, she looked up.
Miss Sedgewick smiled softly and continued, “He thinks he does. But he doesn’t really.”
“He…he doesn’t?”
“Not a whit!” said Miss Sedgewick cheerfully.
“And…you do not mind?” She couldn’t help the incredulous note that crept into her voice.
“No! It would be awkward if he did, given that I don’t love him, and, moreover, haven’t the slightest inclination to marry any man, even a conveniently rich and handsome one like Lord Orton.”
She laughed at the expression on Lucy’s face.
“Ah, your loyalty does you credit. But there’s no need to look so horrified.
I do like the man. He’s a dear friend, and I have no wish to hurt his feelings.
The problem, as I’ve said before, is that he’s not very clever.
Or rather, he might be clever, if he ever gave it a try, but life has never demanded it of him, and so he’s never taken the trouble to stop and think.
” Musingly, she tilted her head. “Unless it’s to exert his intellect over choosing the perfect coat or boots, of course, but that is a feat of far less importance to a lady than most gentlemen presume.
” With a chuckle and a brisk pat of Lucy’s knee, she added, “Forgive me prattling on. I’ve known Jack for two years, and his oddly deployed intellect has long been a source of fascination to me.
But suffice to say, where Jack is concerned, hints and subtlety don’t work, and I haven’t the heart to be blunt.
Never fear, however, because I believe the awkwardness will soon be cleared up. ”
“H-how?”
Miss Sedgewick smiled. “Chemistry! My plan is in motion. Indeed, I can hardly call it my plan at all. It is more…a natural law in action, to which I’m a mere observer, providing a little nudge here and there.
And, I confess, it’s turning out to be far more entertaining than I could ever have imagined. ”
This was all a bit abstract for Lucy, who already had plenty to digest.
Miss Sedgewick regarded her for a moment. “Do you really dislike Jack’s scheme so very much? It’s mad, of course, but it might serve very nicely. Indeed, it might be the answer to a great many of the things that currently trouble you.”
“How can you ask? I can think of nothing worse than to have to…to pretend. To make a mockery of it all. And have Jack pretend that he…when in reality he… No. I’ll not do it. I cannot.”
Miss Sedgewick nodded sympathetically. “Yes. I can see the awkwardness of attempting to maintain a deception when you yourself cannot be deceived.”
Lucy gave her a startled look, but Miss Sedgewick was already in motion. She stood up, fetching a damp cloth from the washstand and passing it to Lucy to wipe her cheeks. “Come now, I can’t let you weep your heart out in bed, no matter how charmingly you do it. We have company.”
“Jack…?”
“No. Though he did arrive hot on your heels to ensure you’d arrived home safely, of which I reassured him before sending him on his way. Don’t worry, my visitor is someone far more soothing to the nerves—the last of the three callers I’ve had today. George Simmons.”
“Mr Simmons! But Caroline…I don’t feel at all fit for company. And my face…” She lifted the washcloth in a helpless gesture. “It is always so obvious when I have been crying.”
“He’ll not mind it. And having heard you fly up the stairs—and seen Jack’s face—he’ll not even be surprised.”
“Jack was upset?”
“Is upset the word? He’s certainly just suffered an upset. If I understand things correctly, you’ve just told him no for the first time in his life. And I strongly believe it’ll do the two of you a great deal of good.”
Mr Simmons stood as the ladies entered the parlour, bowing as graciously as though they’d met on her court presentation and she wasn’t rumpled and tear stained, with slightly shaky knees.
“I feared you were ill, Miss Fanshaw, when we heard you come in just now. I pray that is not the case.”
Embarrassed, she couldn’t quite think what to say, but Miss Sedgewick replied, “As I’ve already explained to you, she’d just been for a drive with Jack, and that’s enough to make anyone feel unwell.”
Mr Simmons laughed, but it was with a faint blush that he met Lucy’s eyes with a smile. “Commiserations, Miss Fanshaw. But if you’re unwise enough to submit to it again, I can assure you that by the eighth or ninth time, you hardly fear for your life at all.”
It surprised a breath of laughter from her, and Miss Sedgewick turned to her with a conspiratorial grin as they all sat down.
“You see, Lucy, you’re among friends here.
We’re all of us fellow sufferers at Lord Orton’s careless hands.
Mr Simmons and I have long commiserated each other on our unfortunate fondness for such a thoughtless fellow.
We meet to lick our wounds, share our grievances, and give the succour to our exasperated souls which can only be found by voicing one’s complaints aloud to a sympathetic ear. ”
Mr Simmons’s smile disappeared under a more violent blush. “It is…it is not really true!” Then, ruefully, “You’ll think us disloyal wretches, Miss Fanshaw.”