Chapter 21
Twenty-One
It was only George who escorted the two ladies to Bond Street that morning, and by some unspoken agreement, no one seemed to want to say Jack’s name.
Lucy told herself it was good he’d not come, because she couldn’t think of seeing him with anything other than a racing heart, damp palms, and an urge to run away.
But by the evening, on her way to the theatre and after a whole day hearing nothing of him, the nervous apprehension had morphed into a sort of nervous excitement, though it was hard to tell in the tangled mix of embarrassment and guilt.
She only knew she both wanted and did not want to see him.
Wanted to get it over with. Wanted to reassure herself that the odd, intense way he’d looked at her last night was nothing but a mirage, an odd intoxication caused by the whirling dangers of the waltz.
And that it had died as quickly as the music.
Because being looked at like that by Jack, as though she were something he would devour the way flame consumes paper… She wasn’t built to cope with looks like that.
A flush scalded her from throat to cheek. She sat back in her corner of the carriage and prayed Caroline would stay absorbed in her observations from the window.
She must have imagined the look anyway. Jack had already made it clear how he felt. The mirage was all her own making.
It was only wishful thinking. The stupidest wish anyone could have.
When they arrived at the theatre they met George, and he showed them to his family’s box.
The Sedgewicks couldn’t afford their own, and as well as Lucy, he’d invited both the brother and the sister, too goodhearted to exclude Captain Sedgewick from the party, though it was obvious the men had little enough in common.
“Jack can’t make it.” George addressed himself to Caroline, though his eyes flicked to Lucy.
“Sent me a note to apologise. Had to go into Herefordshire on some estate business and mentioned he might go up to Leicestershire too, though I can’t think why, unless it’s to do with that little hunting lodge he has up there.
Either way, I suspect he’ll be gone a good week or more. ”
How stupid to feel so disappointed! It was for the best. And the fact that the news made it seem someone had just shuttered half the candles in the room showed just how wise some time away from Jack would be.
And at least she wouldn’t have to act the lover with George in front of him.
But George met her eyes again just at that moment, and she saw the same guilty fear that pricked her. This is our doing. We’ve driven him away.
But how? How? And why? What could Jack feel for the supposed union of his two closest friends but joy?
That burning look of last night again seared through her… And his strange, brittle manner of the whole evening… And the anger with which he’d first come to her on hearing the news, and the bewilderment that seemed to shadow it…
Yes, because he was annoyed at losing his two most devoted flunkeys—was no longer first in importance to either of them. It could all be explained. And very rationally too.
“That’s a fine little place he has up there.
” Captain Sedgewick sounded wistful. “Melton country, you know. We’ve had some wonderful hunting, nothing like it.
Can’t think why he’s gone up there now, though.
Entirely the wrong time of year. Unless…
I say, George, he better not have got up some party and not included us, because those after-hunt revels were wilder than the rides themselves, and I won’t forgive him if I miss one. ”
Ignoring her brother with the smoothness of long habit, Miss Sedgewick said, “What a pity! He’ll be sorely missed.
” Her manner was as bright as ever, but even if she gave no sign of the guilt that prickled her friends, there was a trace of artificiality to her smile.
Jack’s abrupt departure from town seemed to have taken even her by surprise.
“No doubt he’s gone to visit his mother.
She’s been unwell, as you know. I do hope she’s not taken a turn for the worse.
But look!” she added in a lower voice, as a signal from below showed them it was time to take their seats.
“There are his sisters in the Ashburton box. Eleanor, at least, must be feeling better after her influenza. We’ll ask them for news at the first lull. ”
She sat down beside Lucy, giving her a laughing smile, because, yes, it was obvious what had happened.
The sisters had taken the first opportunity of their brother’s absence from town to escape his imposed imprisonment.
They even made no secret of it, arriving at George’s box in the first interval, the silent Lord Ashburton in their colourful wake.
“We’re not encroaching are we, Mr Simmons?” cried Nell, resplendent in saffron-coloured satin and a concoction of matching feathers at a daring angle among her elaborately plaited hair. “How could we be when we’re almost family?”
George gave a visible start at that, but it was Lucy whom Lady Ashburton’s smile landed upon, and she came directly over to her side even before George had quite finished politely welcoming the newcomers to his now quite crowded box.
“My dearest, dearest Lucy!” Nell said, joyously taking Lucy’s hand between both of hers.
A far cry from when they had last seen each other, when she’d treated Lucy like the worst kind of harlot.
“It seems the most colossal age since we last saw you. How we chafed at being kept at home with only Jack to bring us news of how you fared. But it turns out Eleanor only had the most trifling of colds after all. Jack quite overreacted calling it influenza! But one can understand his caution, with our mother’s ill health on his mind.
He is the most caring and dutiful of men, don’t you agree? ”
Lucy opened her mouth, but before she was able to rifle through Jack’s good qualities to discover whether dutiful and caring were indeed in the mix, Nell continued in a low voice, “There can be no ill will between us, can there?” She drew Lucy to sit down beside her, a hand tucked into Lucy’s arm so they sat close together, in the perfect attitude for whispered confidences. Nell’s perfume was quite overpowering.
“All that silly confusion is quite forgotten by us, I assure you,” said Nell.
“And you won’t punish me for my sisterly devotion, I know.
My first instinct is always to fly to Nora’s defence, especially as she’s so much younger.
You have no sisters of your own, Lucy, so you don’t know what it is like.
But I was torn—torn—between loyalty to my own flesh and blood and the unshaken faith I’ve always had in you, for we are almost like sisters, are we not? ”
Lucy could have laughed at such an outrageous claim if it hadn’t been so grimly obvious Nell also held another fervent belief, and one just as absurd: that Lucy was a great heiress.
It entirely explained Nell’s change in attitude.
Lucy’s stomach sank, a tense ache tightening her shoulder blades.
It would soon turn into a headache. It always did around the Ortons.
But Lucy’s hesitation—which unfortunately took the form of a grimace—went unheeded by Nell, who leant in even closer and continued:
“I cannot think what got into Nora’s head, other than that she was overcome by the occasion—the Marquess of Pembroke spoke to her, you know, and he never speaks to anyone!
—and also that she had a headache, because her hair was gathered back so very tightly.
So it can all be explained. Some peevish disorder of the mind, or some such thing.
” She chafed Lucy’s hands merrily, and a little painfully.
“And besides, Jack spoke to me—you must understand he defended your character with such…such wrath and vigour. Like a…a tiger defending its…ah…flock.” She squeezed Lucy’s arm significantly and said in a reverent whisper, “What Jack’s sentiments are to you, you must surely know. ”
Oh no.
Her heart, which had continued sinking, made a horrible throb somewhere down in her gut that made her feel a little ill.
Jack’s sentiments? Jack’s sentiments were as laughable as all the rest.
“You’re entirely helpless and na?ve, ignorant and unworldly...you’ve little enough to recommend yourself to any man seeking a wife…”
Except, of course, her traitorous mind, always so vivid, chose to conjure the exact flash of Jack’s dark grey eyes, a startling heat in them as they dipped to her mouth even while his arm was still warm around her.
Inevitably, a scarlet blush burnt her cheeks, and Nell smiled knowingly, pleased, as though Lucy had just confirmed her most avaricious hopes. She patted her hand.
“My sister and I will call on you tomorrow, my dear. Seven years’ separation has been too long. Let us not suffer another day apart. Soon we will be as close as we ever were. And dare I say it? Perhaps soon we’ll be even closer still.”
Subtlety had never been a gift possessed by any of the Ortons, and Nell and Nora were the very first visitors to arrive at Miss Sedgewick’s house the next morning.
They came bustling in, full of their usual style of loud, rapid chatter, and very full of compliments for everything, most of all Lucy herself.
“How ravishing this primrose muslin looks on you!” Nell exclaimed as she sat, despite Caroline’s frowning comment an hour before that it made her sallow.
“Exactly what I would have suggested for you if we hadn’t been so rushed that time in Madame Binet’s, but you must remember how long Nora took choosing between froggings for that pelisse, and I can’t say there was a straw of difference between the two she most agonised over. ”