Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Lucy dressed hastily without the aid of her maid. It was early enough that the woman wasn’t expected at her room for at least another half hour, and Lucy was too excited, too elated, too alive, to sit still and wait.
Hearing Jack’s voice downstairs in conversation with Caroline, Lucy stole down the stairs. She might surprise him when he left the parlour, steal one last kiss before he left. She didn’t even know when she would see him again. His hasty exit from her room had left no time to discuss plans.
Perhaps he would come again tonight.
“It’s good timing,” she heard Caroline say. “News of your engagement will keep any creditors at bay.”
What creditors? The stair creaked under her, and she backed up to the one above.
“How fortunate,” came Jack’s voice. “But don’t, for the love of God, go telling Lucy I only married her for her money.”
Lucy froze then shook her head, an odd shiver running through her. What nonsense. It was a joke. Caroline was laughing. But nevertheless, she stole silently back up the stairs, jumping as she heard the front door close behind Jack, and went into her room, closing the door slowly behind her.
How fortunate, how fortunate…
Caroline hadn’t been joking when she talked about creditors. Her voice had been serious, and surely even she wouldn’t joke about such a serious matter.
Jack was…in debt? Seriously so? And he hadn’t told her?
Lucy was still motionless at her dressing table, staring at the rumpled bed, when her maid came into the room.
“Oh! You’re dressed already, my lady! But what is this creased, old dress?
And your hair! This will never do for a day like today, not when every eye will be on you.
” She smiled as she came to stand behind Lucy at the dressing table, meeting her eyes in the reflection.
“I’ve heard your news, my lady. You don’t mind me mentioning it?
Everyone can talk of little else. You, a viscountess!
I’m so happy I could sing. But I’ll spare you that. ”
Lucy forced a smile and let the lady chatter away as she stripped Lucy of her dress and helped her into a new one before re-styling her hair.
“Much better!” She beamed at Lucy in the mirror, but a frown crept into her delight. “You’re pale, though, my lady. Are you well this morning?”
“Only tired, Sarah. Thank you.”
“Oh! Of course, and here’s me forgetting what it was Miss Sedgewick said to me just as I was starting up the stairs for your room, too excited to recall it!
She gave me a message for you: she has gone out, only to visit some shops, but she said she didn’t like to disturb you to come with her as you were probably so tired after all the excitement of last night.
Yes, that was it, and I dare say she’s right, looking at you now. ”
Sarah was innocent of any cruder meaning in Caroline’s words, but Lucy couldn’t miss it, not with the disordered bed behind her and the faint soreness between her legs.
The whole room probably smelled of him—of man and passion and bodies and all that they’d done.
She hid her blush, pretending to be intent on rummaging for something in her dresser drawer, and dismissed her maid.
Downstairs, she paced the parlour, went into her studio and left it again, then sat abruptly down at Caroline’s writing desk and penned a note to Jack. She could write to her fiancé, could she not?
Jack, I have heard—her pen sputtered—of your difficulties. Please come at your earliest convenience. She paused, then signed it, Yours, L.
But Caroline’s footman returned not long after she’d sent him, the note still in his hand.
“I beg pardon, Miss Fanshaw,” said William guiltily, returning the letter.
“I did try, but they wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t so much as take the note from my hand.
That old butler of Lord Orton’s, he’s ever so severe, acted as though I was nothing but a dirty beggar, no matter how I told them I was come from Miss Sedgewick’s. ”
They’d probably thought he was a creditor, Lucy thought, embarrassed on William’s behalf—embarrassed too at what he must think of her, denied by her own fiancé’s staff!
But she’d heard enough stories of bankrupts to know how it could be, the debtor hounded with writs, bailiffs attempting to seek entrance by any means fair or foul.
Jack’s house was probably locked up like a citadel. No wonder his servants were suspicious.
“Thank you, William,” said Lucy, her voice carefully calm. “It was of no importance.”
“Sorry again, miss,” he said and returned to his endless work.
Lucy resumed her pacing, several times almost resolving on visiting his house herself.
But she was already regretting her note, feeling unequal to facing Jack, her emotions too new, too raw.
Better to be mistress of herself. And Jack was unlikely to be at home; he was never at home; who really knew where Jack ever was…
“But I bet there’s brandy, and horses, and cards. Or worse!”
Nell’s words, spoken what seemed a lifetime ago on that carriage ride to Almack’s. Well. They were all common enough reasons for a man to get into debt, were they not? It was all common enough, a hundred thousand Childe Harolds, debauching themselves into despair.
“There are forever ruined nobles fleeing,” Jack had said last night, “most of them to escape their creditors…” A last resort, if a rich enough wife could not be found. But she was not rich.
“You don’t know, Lucy,” Jack’s voice again, “You may well be—what could be more natural? The rumour has good foundations.”
“It’s a hell of a gamble, Jack!” she told the empty room. “Or was gambling the problem?” And she still didn’t believe it, could not, would not. It was real. His feelings were real. She knew it.
“How fortunate…”
With a growl at her own useless, spinning thoughts, Lucy tossed her undelivered note aside and went resolutely upstairs to don her coat, gloves, and bonnet. She rang for her maid. She would go and buy pastels. She would work on her picture. She would be sensible and sane.
The problem with attempting to stay sane was that almost everyone she met on her shopping trip stopped to congratulate her on her happiness.
And every tall, well-dressed man seen from the corner of her eye appeared to be Jack.
Every gleaming carriage and well-matched pair seemed to be folly, every shop window seemed to be profligate indulgence, and every dark tavern entrance seemed to be ruin.
The short shopping trip exhausted her more than the whole of her first day in London had, when the loud, dizzying streets had left her breathless.
Her maid had found a hackney cab and stepped up inside with the bulk of Lucy’s purchases when a man’s voice hailed Lucy. She turned to find Mr Warde driving a pair of chestnut horses. Very familiar chestnut horses, she thought, as she eyed their foam-flecked mouths with unease.
“Miss Fanshaw,” cried Mr Warde, sweeping the hat from his head.
The action necessitated him placing both reins in one hand.
An unwise move, given the way the chestnuts tossed their heads, making the curricle lurch forward.
Warde muttered something under his breath and got the pair under control, smiling once more at Lucy.
“You recognise these beauties, Miss Fanshaw?”
“They look remarkably like Lord Orton’s.”
“The one and the same! I couldn’t miss the opportunity to add them to my own stable when he was so sadly obliged to break up his own. Always had a good eye for horses, Orton. Pity he’s never had the same head for money.”
Lucy said nothing. The bait was not to her liking.
“Good eye for women too,” continued Mr Warde with a cruel smile, clearly deciding he needed a sharper hook.
“Though I daresay he’s had you in his back pocket all along, ready to play the marriage card the moment the bailiff came a’knocking.
Oh, don’t look so affronted, girl. It’s no secret how you spend your Friday evenings.
If you want the liberties of acting like a man, you have to expect to be spoken to like one. ”
Cheeks burning, Lucy lifted her chin and turned to go. But Mr Warde wasn’t done.
“What was wrong with George Simmons, eh?” he called loudly enough for several passersby to turn and stare.
“His fortune didn’t tempt you? Not compared to Jack’s face, I suppose.
More fool you, miss. But you’ll have a lifetime to repent.
He’ll burn through your fortune soon enough, and how pretty will he look then, when he’s staring at you in resentment over the dinner table, saddled with that freckled face and not even any juice left to squeeze out of it? ”
Lucy probably shouldn’t have, the poor horses were innocent, but she stepped up to the nearest one and landed it a hearty slap on the rump. Mr Warde cursed as the horse half reared, setting the other one into a frenzy.
“Enjoy your drive, Mr Warde,” she said sweetly, as the out-of-control pair tore off down the street, Mr Warde cursing and red faced behind them.
It was the last enjoyment she knew for some time. Nell and her mother arrived at Miss Sedgewick’s moments after Lucy returned.
“We couldn’t stay away,” exclaimed the dowager viscountess. “Indeed, it seems so strange that you’re living here when you’re already almost a daughter to me—always have been! How jolly we’d be living all together at Ashburton’s until your wedding.”
Misinterpreting the sceptical look Lucy couldn’t quite suppress, Nell said, “Nora would’ve come here today too; she’s as excited as any of us!
But she received an invitation to spend the day with one of her dearest friends—Miss Maxwell, do you know her?
I dare say not, but her uncle is the Duke of Richmond.
Sort of an uncle anyway. But they are very close. ”
“Quite understandable,” murmured Lucy. Acquaintances of dukes outranked soon-to-be sisters.
Returning to her favourite topic, Jack’s mother said, “How very droll we were last night when you and Nora returned from that ball, Nell, trying to figure out which of us could claim congratulations for having brought the thing about. For my part, I’m convinced it’s me, because if I hadn’t been poorly, you’d never have got it into your head to invite Lucy.
But what an argument you and Nora got into over it! ”
“I believe she’d drunk far more champagne than she ought, Mama. She was in such a silly, excitable mood.”
Jack’s mother laughed. “She would keep insisting it was her doing because if she hadn’t been born, she’d never have needed to come to London for her come out.”
Nell sniffed. “It’s quite obviously me who saved the family. I invited Lucy. She and Jack would never have seen each other at all if it wasn’t for that, and then where would we be?”
“Saved the family? Why, whatever do you mean?” asked Lucy brightly, innocent as could be.
The two ladies exchanged a look, Nell colouring hotly while Jack’s mother took to smoothing the lie of her dress. “Oh nothing, my dear! But obviously it’s an excellent thing for Jack to be taking a wife, and we couldn’t be happier that it’s you, of course.”
“After all, we did practically make you one of our own when you were such a lonely little child,” said Nell. “I think it a perfect sort of justice that all our kindness gets repaid.”
“Repaid?” asked Lucy, still smiling very sweetly.
“Goodness!” said Jack’s mother. “Is that the time? How it does fly!”
Lucy agreed politely and showed them to the door.
“Oh,” she said, “and if you are still wondering which of you is most to be congratulated for mine and Jack’s engagement, I can answer it with certainty.
It is none of you. Jack is the only Orton I have ever liked.
I came to your house every day for him and him alone.
The rest of you make me want to run a mile. Good day, ladies.”
The door was closed upon two stunned faces, but not before Lucy heard Jack’s mother say, in hopeful tones, “It’s the wedding stress, I daresay. Poor girl is not quite herself…”
But the laugh Lucy gave as she returned to the parlour turned into a sob. She pressed her hand to her mouth, wanting Jack. Wanting to wring his neck. Wanting answers to a hundred things. But the clock just ticked in the silent room and no one came.
No one and nothing. Until the letter.
It was delivered about an hour after the Ortons left, its postmarks declaring it to be from Northumberland, but the hurried scrawl of the address wasn’t her aunt’s handwriting.
Anxious, she broke the wafer.
Dear Miss Fanshaw,
I hope you forgive my writing to you when I am unknown to you.
But I am the physician who has been attending your aunt, Mrs Agatha Bodlam, during the course of her illness these past two weeks.
She has given me leave to write to you, being unable to do so herself.
It is bad news. Your aunt’s illness is likely to be fatal, and its progression makes such a result likely in the next few days.
She begs that you return here as soon as you may.
She has expressed an earnest wish to see you.
I believe it would give her great comfort and can only add my own plea that you make haste.
The matter is urgent.