Chapter 17 #2
“Do you know,” said Jack, in a thoughtful mood again, “confronted with this news, seeing the thing unfold before me, involving people I know and care about… After a night full of reflections, I realise I’ve never entertained a serious thought of matrimony in my life.
Because here are you and George, and the whole thing seems so damned real and final… ”
He trailed off. She’d removed her gloves as he was speaking, tugging them sharply from damp fingers. Now she crossed to the armchair by which Miss Sedgewick kept her sewing box, though her hands were shaking too badly to do any sewing at all, let alone a repair as finicky as this.
She glanced up as she rummaged through the box. Jack was looking at her, and she tried to keep her features neutral—that was the best she could aim for. The role of radiant bride-to-be was beyond her power. But Jack’s scrutiny wasn’t one of suspicion. It was something deeper than that.
“You always were ahead of me, though,” he said softly.
She picked up thread, scissors…put them down again, searching slowly and blindly as she listened with every fibre.
“In every kind of good attribute. Kindness and fairness and wisdom. It shouldn’t be a surprise that you’re leading the way again.
” He aimed for a smile, but it fell strangely short, wry and twisted.
“And I know how well you see things. Lucy Fanshaw with her artist’s eye, observing the whole world, and no doubt finding a great deal of it—the human part of it—sadly lacking.
Perhaps that explains it—how you were able to see in George at one glance what I’ve spent seven years of friendship getting to know: that he is a thoroughly good man, to his core, without a single fault other than a tendency to think less of himself than he ought.
You must have seen it at once. Whereas the rest of us fools…
Well, you know me more than well enough to recognise all my faults.
And I’m sure I’ve only developed new ones as I’ve grown. ”
She’d forgotten she was pretending to search the sewing box. She was motionless. Listening.
“Is that why you greeted me as you did, Min? Lucy, I mean. At Almack’s.
” There was the faintest smile in his voice, as though he hoped to find some joke somewhere along the way.
“Do you remember? You held out your hand as though you were the queen and I was the dirt on the hem of your gown. ‘Lord Orton. How do you do?’ It floored me almost as much as this engagement has done. But I suppose this is the power of old friends. They know so much of us they form a perfect mirror. A mirror that sees too much… It’s very unflattering, you know,” he added, an even fainter laugh now in his voice, “the portrait of myself I see reflected in your eyes.”
Her heart had grown increasingly unsteady as he spoke. Jack, earnest, affectionate, sore… That Jack was hard to withstand. But every word was bittersweet.
“And in your eyes,” she found herself saying, “I hardly see myself at all.”
Jack frowned as though he did not understand, or as though he didn’t quite hear her—she’d spoken very quietly. He took two steps closer, about to question her, ask her to repeat herself, and her heart thundered with each one. But Miss Sedgewick came into the room.
“Lord Orton! What a pleasant surprise. William said you were here.”
He bowed and made a perfectly natural and friendly greeting even as Lucy started, guilty and hot, shutting the sewing box as though she’d been caught stealing sweets.
“Has Lucy told you where we’re headed?” Miss Sedgewick asked him. “To her very own nirvana—Somerset House. Some of your friends will make up our party—Mr Warde, Lord Kiethly. And some of my own—Mr Thornton and so forth. I think you know him a little. And Mr Cotton is a member of your club.”
Jack frowned at the mention of Mr Warde. “And is George coming too? Surely he must.”
“He had a prior engagement, unfortunately,” replied Miss Sedgewick smoothly while Lucy did her best to hide another anxious start.
Yes, they ought to have thought to invite George!
How strange it would look that he was omitted from the party.
But in all the plans they’d made yesterday, today’s excursion had been forgotten.
“An engagement is exactly what he has, so I hear,” Jack said with a smile and a glance at Lucy. “I came to offer my congratulations.”
“Isn’t it wonderful!” said Miss Sedgewick. “I hardly thought our sensible George capable of such a whirlwind romance. But our dear Miss Fanshaw is a rare creature that no man of sense could be immune to.”
If she said this last part with a significant twinkling smile aimed at Jack, he himself seemed immune to that, saying only, “Yes, quite.”
Then he tilted his head with a quizzical glance at Lucy. “But the engagement is a secret outside our little party, is it not? Then as far as the world knows, Lucy is still as unprotected as she was before.”
What a time for Jack to start getting intelligent! It was very inconvenient. But that Jack believe the engagement was real ‘for his own good’ Miss Sedgewick had insisted, whatever that might mean.
“It is only…only temporarily secret,” Lucy said. “Until our relatives are informed.”
“I hardly think she’s in danger in a large party on a visit to Somerset House,” said Miss Sedgewick.
“Maybe,” said Jack. “But I’m still coming with you.” He flashed Lucy a smile. “I can play cicisbeo. I’ll be George’s proxy, his second. The Lord knows he’s been mine often enough, and in far less appealing circumstances.”
“Let us hope there are no duels to threaten the artworks,” Miss Sedgewick said with a roll of her eyes. How lightly they both took it! While she trembled, hot and cold in turns! She would finally enter the hallowed ground of Somerset House and might be sick all over it.
Jack stepped closer to Lucy while Miss Sedgewick rang the bell to ask William to find a hackney.
He squeezed her fingers. “You look horrified! Don’t worry.
I’ll not spoil your excursion with mockery of the artwork as I used to do in the galleries back home, horrible little boy that I was.
You were quite right about that. But I hope I’ve improved.
I’ll be quiet, and good, and even attempt to look intelligent.
” He gave her another dazzling smile. “I’ll stand my guard in the background, and you’ll barely know I’m there. ”