Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Jack instructed the hackney onwards to his own address but got caught in a snarl of traffic at the junction towards Piccadilly. Some large ball must have just finished.
Jack called to the driver to stop, paid him, and set off on foot, a fretful agitation crawling in his bones.
He hadn’t gone far before he caught sight of a familiar carriage trapped in the same squeeze.
The crest on the door made him pause—the first time it had ever done so—but he surrendered to impulse and rapped on the door, smiling up at the watchful driver, who had glanced round at the noise.
He recognised Jack and returned his attention to his horses, though they scarcely needed it, being half asleep as they waited in the queue despite all the noise around them.
George always did have the most placid cattle.
“It’s me,” Jack called when George’s cautious, “Who is it?” sounded from within.
The door was unlatched, and Jack climbed into the lighted carriage, glad to find only George inside, though the lingering scent of perfume was evidence George had dutifully escorted at least one of his female cousins somewhere tonight.
“The Howarth’s ball,” George said tiredly before Jack could even ask.
Jack sat down opposite, flicking the tail of his coat out of the way. “No fun?”
“It was the youngest’s come out. Nothing but relatives, debutantes, and watchful mothers.”
“Ah.” He wrinkled his nose in understanding. Strict propriety and marital hopes. Always a hypocritical and dangerous stew.
“Also,” said George, “your sisters were there.”
“Yes, now I remember. They were half out the door when I arrived this evening with my mother.” His mood was rattled at best and dismal at worst, but he attempted a smile. “Nora on the catch for you, is she? It’s a pity your betrothed wasn’t there to keep you safe.”
Had George had any idea exactly where she’d had been tonight? He suspected not.
“When will you make the engagement known?” The question came out fully formed, though he hadn’t quite known he was about to ask it. Perhaps his voice sounded normal enough, but the words seem to hang there, edged in glass.
George rubbed his jaw and took a glance out of the window at the motionless traffic. “My parents wrote to say they’ll be visiting town next week.”
“You’ll tell them then?”
George gave a small hum, which might have been yes or might have been indecision, then fixed him with a look. “And where have you been all this time? And why is Warde driving your chestnuts?”
Jack cursed. “He bought them, did he? Just to annoy me, no doubt. Well, I hope they run away with him, damn the man. And they probably will. He hasn’t the skill or the strength to hold them.”
“You haven’t answered the question, Jack.” George ran an assessing gaze over him. “And now I’ve seen the state of you, I’m more worried than ever. You don’t look quite yourself.”
It had been a stupid idea getting in this carriage, trapping himself in a tête-à-tête with George. There was nowhere on earth to get friendly reassurance, no sympathetic ears. The world, quite rightly, didn’t look kindly on men who coveted others’ wives.
Jack took a breath, let it out, thumbing a ridge in the leather upholstery of the carriage seat. “I’m well near basketted, George. There’s the rub.”
His friend gave him a long look. “How bad is it?”
“Oh…” he waved a hand. “Fixable. Eventually.”
“If I can loan you—”
“No. No, none of that, old friend.”
“But, Jack—”
“But, George, no. I thank you. I esteem you. I scarcely deserve you, but no. I’ll not take a penny off you, loan or not. I can and will fix it myself.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing these last two weeks.” He gave Jack another assessing look. Did guilt leave physical marks? Were shame and longing twin tracks all over his face? They felt physical enough on the inside. “I did wonder.”
“I’m well on the way to recovery already. Now don’t give me that look. I’m aware everyone thinks me a careless fool, and I have been, but believe me that I’m able to fix my own mistakes.”
Unless, it seemed, they involved Lucy. But he pushed that thought aside.
George nodded slowly, expression speculative. “I do believe it, Jack. I believe you could do a great many things if you put your mind to it.”
Jack let out a humourless laugh, and he obviously hadn’t pushed the thought of Lucy very far from his head at all because, picking again at a seam in the leather upholstery, he found himself saying, “George…you know Lucy. It seems you now know her better than I. Why…why has everything gone wrong? Every time I meet her, it seems to end in some…some kind of disaster.” A score of memories flashed through his mind, leaving him cringing.
“Ever since that first night at Almack’s.
And I don’t understand it. We used to get along so well together.
Everything was always easy and fun…and…and joyous.
That’s what I remember, George, when I think back to my childhood with Lucy.
Nothing but joy. And now everything is so damned difficult. And I don’t understand what’s changed.”
He stopped abruptly, aware of saying far more than he’d intended—and in far warmer tones than one should probably discuss a friend’s fiancée with the man himself.
He couldn’t meet George’s eyes, but shifted in his seat, uncrossing his legs and tugging the window curtain back as though it would grant him a breath of fresh air.
He should never have got in this damned carriage.
“Don’t you?” asked George quietly.
“Don’t I what?”
“Understand what’s changed. It seems obvious to me.”
“Then tell me!”
“You’ve both grown up. Lucy is a woman now. But you insist on treating her like a child.”
He scowled. “I don’t—I’m very aware she’s a woman, believe me.”
George merely regarded him steadily, no hint of jealousy, but Jack still flushed, guilty and hot. He twitched the curtain back again, muttering, “This damned traffic…”
If George knew Jack’s feelings… If he just said, “Look, George, I’ve made the worst damn mistake of my life and it’s killing me…
” If he said, “She’s everything, I adore her to the point of pain…
” or, “She lives in the root of my damned soul, and she always has done, God help me, there’s no one else… ” She was his, she was his…
If he said any of that. Or, hopefully, some saner, less mortifying version of it, then…then George would probably step aside. If Lucy wanted him to. He’d release her from her promise and hand her over, just as he’d so readily offered up his own fortune for Jack’s use.
But Lucy didn’t want that. Lucy had made her choice, and it was a wise one. The kind, temperate, wealthy George… Jack could hardly foist his bankrupt self upon her. He was in no position to marry anyone.
So why was he thinking of it at all?
Because it was terrifying to let go, give her up…
Because he could tear the upholstery of this carriage with his bare hands at the thought of it…
Because…because in his heart of hearts, Jack found it hard to believe George truly loved her.
How could he sit there so calmly if he did, when another man was practically frothing at the mouth with ardent…ardent something towards her? Yearning… Regret…
He couldn’t have sat there so calmly. He couldn’t even stand this now, sitting across from Lucy’s soon-to-be husband.
George’s parents came to town next week.
The engagement would be public. Lucy would never cry off then.
But why would Lucy ever want to? Jack didn’t know, only knew he was suddenly in danger of disliking the man sitting across from him, one of his dearest friends, and the sensation was horrible.
His hand was on the door latch even as the carriage jerked forward into ambling motion. He bid a hasty goodbye to the surprised George and jumped down from the moving carriage, narrowly avoiding getting run down by an irate tradesman driving a mule gig.
He stepped blindly from the road but turned with a wince as the gig took the paint off the wheel of an extremely smart coach further up the queue.
The shouts of the coach driver mixed with the cursing of the tradesman, and Jack winced again in sympathy, recognising the coach as the stiff-necked Lord Cotereigh’s. Someone was in for a very bad night.
Though not as bad as his.
He didn’t stay to look, but left the snarled vehicles and swearing behind him, heading he knew not where.
“You insist on treating her like a child.”
That wasn’t quite true. He argued with his mind as he paced the streets, avoiding drunks, whores, and the pleading calls of beggars.
He felt almost drunk himself, exhaustion scrambling his thoughts.
They were heavy and wisp-thin all at once, words and phrases and looks all falling over each other in his memory.
“You humiliated me, Jack,” and, “How dare you!”
Good God, Lucy with tears in her eyes. Lucy defeated, shoulders slumped. And it was all his doing. Some friend he was!
He looked up as someone shouted his name, grimacing as he recognised Warde and some others of his acquaintance.
They were all bleary-faced and bosky. Warde in particular looked well and truly foxed, his arm on a friend’s shoulder, his grin lopsided.
The brothels and theatres of Drury Lane weren’t far from here.
“Ho, Orton, well met, fair traveller. You’ve returned to us, have you?” Warde’s voice was loud with drink. “You’ve finished sprinkling your largesse over all the land—a chestnut or pair here, a hunting lodge there. Much obliged to you, sir!”
Jack inclined his head curtly to the group. “Warde. Leighton. Gentlemen.”
Leighton, the only clear-eyed one of the group, gave him a look that was as much amusement as sympathy.
“And now I hear you’ve liberated the fair Caroline Sedgewick too,” continued Warde. “Come, drink with us, celebrate your boon!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hasn’t there been a shift in your loyalties? It was Miss Fanshaw you followed around the whole of Somerset House.”
“She’s an old friend. New to the city. It’s my duty to look out for her.”
“Ah. Of course. And as an old friend, perhaps you know the terms she stands on with her aunt?”
“Not wholly.”
Warde laughed, a dark edge to it. “Come now, Orton. We are old friends too. It’s why I’m a little hurt you’re interfering in the sport of men who are…
ah…far more in need of the prey than you.
Though I suppose you now have your own reasons for preferring the heiress to Caro.
Money is the perfume that makes any girl sweet, eh? ”
Jack’s jaw tensed.
Warde leant forwards, grinning. “You have to admit even those awful freckles are prettier than the King’s Bench. And the figure she’s got is full enough. Blow out the candles, no need to look, I could easily find my way around her in the dark.”
Jack moved quicker than thought, but someone stepped between him and Warde. An iron grip circled his upper arm, and a seemingly invincible force marched him halfway down the street, Warde’s laughter echoing behind him.
“If you really are looking out for the lady,” came Leighton’s low voice in his ear, though Jack could hardly hear it over the hammering of his heart, “you’ll do a better job of it alive.
Warde never fights fair. Besides…” He let Jack go with a not-unfriendly shove.
“The devil owes me two hundred guineas. And I mean to collect while he’s still breathing. ”
Leighton left Jack with a rough pat on the shoulder, strolling unconcernedly back to his friends, who were already beginning to move off in the other direction.
Jack took several deep breaths, rage thudding in his ears, blurring his vision.
But was it any wonder he worried about Lucy’s safety when the world was full of rogues like Warde?
He knew what men could be. He’d moved freely in every circle of society.
In his wilder years, he’d seen some of the very worst.
Jack flexed his fingers, taking another deep breath, easing the tension from his body.
He tugged his cuffs straight, smoothed his coat front.
Lucy had no idea what men could be, and wasn’t it a gentleman’s prerogative to protect a woman?
That’s what he’d always been taught. That’s what all good society agreed upon.
But… “I’d go mad, Jack. If I can’t create the things I want to, I’d go mad…”
The ghost of Lucy’s despair haunted him as he turned and walked resolutely away, Warde’s sniggers ringing in his ears.
If Lucy followed her heart, the spiteful gossips and rogues would win. But if she didn’t, they’d also win, wouldn’t they? Because Lucy would be miserable. Like a prisoner, she’d said.
Wasn’t he already chafing and angry because he no longer had the freedom to spend money however he wished?
He had to be careful now, circumspect, think and judge and weigh every move.
He felt vulnerable in a way he’d never done before.
Watched and judged, and God, he felt trapped when he really thought about it, a great choking worry forever around his throat, almost every avenue cut off.
Might that be how Lucy felt when the world told her no, she mustn’t do what she so desperately wanted to do?
He saw her again, standing outside Thornton’s, the tremor in her voice, her shoulders rigid. And that was his fault. Even now, as he itched to take the memory of her in his arms and soothe all that frustration and despair away, he knew it was his fault…
But how to help her?
If, by some miracle, it were possible to go back in time to the moment he left Cotton at the Cocoa Tree, how could he have helped her? Because devil take it, the gears in his brain had finally turned and the answer they presented was so obvious he could have shot himself in irritation.
Protecting Lucy meant protecting her dreams and freedoms. If she was determined upon this path and he couldn’t protect her reputation, then he could still try to protect her, herself, all the things that made her who she was, and for Lucy, that was her art and her dreams and her peculiar stout determination to do what she thought was right, no matter how Jack or anyone else tempted or teased her otherwise.
It was time he listened.
It was time he helped.
It was time he stopped thinking about what he wanted for her and instead think about what she wanted for herself.
He was her friend. Forget the confusion of desire and want. If all that went away, or even if it doubled by tomorrow, he’d still be her friend. And that meant he had to help her. That’s what friends did.
At the very least, he had to say sorry.
For a great many things.