Chapter 8
The next morning Jeremy rose early, intending to catch Juliet, who was usually an early riser, before she got distracted with whatever plans she would make; she was a great maker of plans.
When he came down to breakfast, the housekeeper, Mrs. Smith, said, “Mr. Beaumont, you’re up early.”
“Is anyone else up?”
“No, sir. I’ll have your breakfast to you in a moment.”
He ate, then moved to the sitting room, which was across the hall from the breakfast room, and sat reading the newspaper.
Half an hour later, he heard someone at the door. He lowered his paper, expecting to be summoned, but instead, the servant went past him and up the stairs. Moments later, Miss Moore came hurrying past.
He went to the doorway and peeked out. Mrs. Kendall was standing in the hall just a few feet away, whispering loudly to Amelia Moore.
“My dear, Mrs. Selkirk sent me word, and then Mrs. Roberts came to me last evening. She said there is gossip this morning about Juliet riding alone with that Mr. Fairweather, who I hear is no gentleman at all but a merchant’s son.
He was up to no good with Mr. Beaumont’s sister, to be sure, and now everyone will be talking about it.
And that is why you must come home with me at once.
You must not stay and be tainted by association. ”
“But Juliet is my friend. She did nothing wrong.”
“Did nothing wrong?” Mrs. Kendall cried in her loud whisper-voice.
“My sweet girl, you don’t understand because you’ve been always in the country, and you’re too poor to be a target for these kinds of men, but a young lady like Miss Beaumont must be very careful, and she should know that.
It shows a great recklessness to be gadding about alone, after dark, with a man to whom she is not engaged to marry. ”
Jeremy could feel the heat coming up the back of his neck and into his forehead. How dare this busybody say such things about his sister? And yet, she wasn’t wrong.
“Perhaps she did use poor judgment after we all told her she shouldn’t go with him,” Miss Moore was saying, “but if I leave now, it will seem as if the gossip is true.”
“You must think of yourself now, Amelia, of your own reputation. Come home with me.”
“I know you only want what’s best for me, and I am grateful to you and my uncle for bringing me to London and being so kind to me, but I cannot leave Juliet now. She is my friend, and she needs me. Please forgive me.”
He could hear the emotion in the way her voice cracked and trembled.
“Reconsider, Amelia.” Mrs. Kendall’s voice was harsher now. “Juliet cannot help you, she can only hurt you, and since Jeremy Beaumont has not made you an offer of marriage, there is nothing to be gained for you here. Come with me this moment, and I will send a servant for your things.”
“Please, do not force me to be disloyal to my friend.” A sob followed.
Mrs. Kendall huffed out a loud breath. “I wash my hands of it. If serious consequences come from your association with Miss Juliet Beaumont, I shall send you back to your mother. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Aunt. I am sorry.”
“Well, don’t cry. Crying never helped anything.”
There was a pause in which he heard a sniff.
“Be a good girl, and send me word if you wish to leave here.”
“Yes, Aunt.” Another sniff.
“Don’t sniff. It’s bad manners.”
“Aunt, please, will you tell Mrs. Roberts that nothing happened between Juliet and Mr. Fairweather? The gossip—”
“I told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to speak a word of it to anyone, and if I discovered that she had, I would never speak to her again. Depend upon it, she will keep it quiet, or she will never receive another invitation from me or my circle.”
“Thank you.”
“But I cannot say how many other people may have seen them together and may talk.”
A servant’s voice was heard nearby, coming closer.
Mrs. Kendall quickly took her leave, whispering something he couldn’t hear. Then Amelia Moore went past the doorway with a handkerchief pressed to her face.
His blood was still boiling, but he needed to focus his efforts on getting his sister married.
Someone with the means to support her, someone who wouldn’t mistreat her.
That was what they needed. He only hoped Shelley wouldn’t hear of this little scandal, or if he did, wouldn’t be put off by it.
After all, he couldn’t imagine finding anyone else whose character he trusted so completely.
And then there was Miss Moore. Perhaps he’d been unjust to her and wrong about her wanting to use Juliet to get to him. Just now she’d been loyal to Juliet while endangering her relationship with her influential aunt. She seemed as kind and unselfish as Juliet said she was.
But then again, perhaps she only begged to stay with Juliet because Miss Moore had no other friends in London.
He was beginning to form a plan. At first it had seemed too radical and too much of a risk, should Juliet discover what he’d done.
Now he saw that things were as bad as he’d feared.
He needed to get Juliet married. He clearly couldn’t live his own life until she did.
But if Juliet had a good, upstanding gentleman by her side to keep her from being preyed upon by men like that Fairweather . . .
Jeremy would talk to Shelley, ask him to meet them somewhere, as if by chance, and Shelley would take it from there.
Their conversation on the trip to Kent made him think Shelley would be amenable.
The best part of their plan was that Shelley had a friend, Lord Gotthurst, who Shelley thought would be amenable to escorting Miss Moore—if she was pretty.
He had assured Shelley that Miss Moore was very pretty.
“Lord Gotthurst is a good sort of fellow, if a bit shallow in his insistence on outward beauty.”
“Perfect,” Jeremy said. “I don’t think he will have a problem with Miss Moore’s outward appearance.”
It seemed a good plan. Everyone would get what they wanted. Juliet would get a husband, and Jeremy would see his sister find her happiness. Then he could see about finding his own happiness. And Miss Moore would at least be occupied, if she did not find her own happiness.
Perhaps he had been unjust to her. Either way, he was grateful for her loyalty in standing by Juliet.
“Where are you going?”
Juliet and I looked up to see Jeremy hovering above us on the stairs.
“We were going for a walk,” Juliet said.
“I think you should stay in the house.” He came down the stairs until he was standing beside Juliet.
“Why?”
“Because of what happened, because people may talk about seeing you riding alone with Fairweather at night, and the less they see you, the less they are apt to talk, especially if they think it may not have been you.”
Juliet stared up at him, open-mouthed.
He was right, although I didn’t want to say it.
People had seen her—obviously, since Mrs. Kendall had already heard about it—and they might either forget about it or decide they had been mistaken if they heard little or nothing about it for a while.
But the way Jeremy was hovering, telling her not to even go for a walk . . .
“Do you expect Amelia and me to just sit in the house with the curtains drawn? I’m not going to behave like a scared little girl.” Juliet’s voice shook. She was as upset as I’d expected her to be.
“I will go with you on your walk, if you insist on going, but it looks like it may rain.”
Sure enough, when we had put on spencers and bonnets and stepped outside, it was raining.
“It’s not so bad,” Juliet said, looking up at the sky, until the rain made her blink and sputter. “It may stop soon.”
But the sky was quite dark.
“Perhaps we should wait for it to let up,” I said.
“Very well, if you think so, Amelia.” She cut her gaze toward her brother.
We went back inside and played games. No one called on us, and we spent a rather gloomy day indoors.
Juliet and I had both caught colds.
Mr. Beaumont was still very insistent on us staying out of sight for a while, and we were both so sick and our noses so red and runny that we had no desire to go anywhere or be seen.
During those long days of feverish headaches and stuffed noses, my mind often wandered to my family.
Were the boys behaving for Mother? Were the girls applying themselves to their reading, as Mother was always trying to get them to do?
And the boys to their studies? The tutor should be back by now.
Did poor little Diana feel abandoned by me, her favorite person to put her down for her nap?
She was too young to understand where I’d gone or when I might return.
My heart ached to see her, to be home and to talk with Mother and Father and take a walk with my brothers.
It was when I was too ill to do anything that I was attacked by the sharp ache of homesickness.
But by the time we were getting better, even I was restless to be doing something, and Juliet was bouncing like a rubber ball.
“We’ve been invited to a party!”
As we sat at the breakfast table, Juliet waved the invitation in the air directly after taking it from the silver tray.
Jeremy, who had stayed near, often playing cards with us or reading in the sitting room with us, checking in on us several times a day and engaging us in conversation, raised his brows at her.
“Who is it from?”
Juliet handed the invitation to him. “Lady Snowden.”
He looked at it, saying, “It’s in four days. Will you ladies be ready?”
“Four days? I’m ready today!” Juliet stood up. “I think Amelia is feeling as well as I am, and it’s not raining. Today we will certainly walk to the park and even go shopping. I need a new dress.”
He sighed and put aside his newspaper. “Which will it be? Shopping or walking to the park?”
“Both!”
“Which one first?”
Juliet looked at her brother with her lips slightly parted. Then she turned to me. “Amelia? Would you rather walk to the park or go shopping? I think for myself, I’d like to go shopping.”
“Shopping sounds lovely.” I didn’t have any money for buying another dress, but I enjoyed shopping with Juliet.