CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
“And why should she find the sight of me in conversation with Annabelle Marsh worthy of a report to my mother?”
“She knew I was concerned lest you do something rash,” Lady Hastings said with a touch of bravado in the face of the silky menace she detected in his voice.
“Such as?”
There was no softening in his expression, but his mother had gone too far to pull back now. “Well, you had admitted back in Hertfordshire that you found her very beautiful, and I feared —” She stopped as astonishment flashed across his face.
“I also found her daughter very beautiful! Did you really believe I was dangling after a woman a decade older than myself, Mama?” He gave her shoulders a little shake in reproof.
“You never once mentioned the daughter!” Lady Hastings said, mounting a feeble defence.
“Nor, apparently, did Lady Cath,” he said dryly. “Shall we sit? Your tea will get cold.” At her nod, Jack led his mother back to the settee and dropped into an armchair covered in blue damask facing the end of the tea table.
Lady Hastings, her relief at finding that she and her friend had had the wrong end of the stick dissipating, studied the set of her son’s mouth as she fixed his tea and leapt to another conclusion. “What is her name? Are you in love with her?”
“Her name is Laura and yes, I am in love with her.”
“You do not seem to be very happy about it. Does she not return your feelings?” Lady Hastings asked diffidently when her son did not elaborate on his brief reply.
“No … I don’t know … she has some lunatic notion of remaining unmarried and farming the estate alone.”
Looking at her son’s brooding face, Lady Hastings struggled to subdue a sudden rush of animosity toward the unknown girl who was making him so miserable before she could command her voice.
“I would love to meet your Laura, and Mrs. Marsh, of course, to thank them in person for their kindness to you after your accident. Shall I invite them to tea?”
“If she’ll come after this afternoon’s fiasco,” he replied gloomily.
Though eaten up with curiosity to learn what had taken place between her son and his reluctant beloved, Lady Hastings heroically refrained from probing into the matter.
Choosing her words with care, she said, “Miss Marsh might find it a trifle awkward at first, but I am persuaded her mother will feel otherwise.”
She had her reward when Jack brightened and said eagerly, “Yes, Mrs. Marsh will stand my friend. Thank you, Mama. I am so glad that you are here.”
Jack would have been less blue-devilled could he have seen that his erstwhile antagonist was every bit as miserable as he as a result of their contretemps in the Physick Gardens.
It was fortunate that Laura met no one on her way to her room, because she had scarcely time to close the door behind her before the tears that had been threatening since she’d turned her back on Jack in the gardens gushed out in a freshet, before she’d even removed her hat.
Twenty minutes later the storm was over, and she lay sprawled on her bed, becalmed in the bitter knowledge that the future she’d wished for would indeed be hers.
She had assured herself a state of single blessedness by her unwarranted attack on the man who had done her the honour of wishing to make her his wife.
With tried and true formulas for refusing unwanted offers in every girl’s social repertoire, she had selected insult and accusation instead.
Recalling her words, she cringed in shame as it suddenly seemed crystal clear that her accusation had been an instinctive retaliation for Jack’s observation about her mother and Lord Exton.
She moaned at the understanding that Jack’s words had not been intended to wound, while hers had been the product of uncaring spite.
She flung an arm across her eyes, but could not shut out the image of his stricken look before he’d adopted the pose of stiff formality that he’d maintained until they had separated at her door.
Laura swung her legs off the bed, determined not to wallow in self-flagellation any longer.
It was real, it was merited, but it was crucial that she guard her privacy.
Not that Mama would pry, but she would recover the tone of her mind more quickly if no one else knew about the incident.
Acting on this resolution, she moved over to the dressing table carrying the basin and water pitcher, casting a look of loathing at the simpering shepherdess and her swain on the wall above the washstand in passing.
One shuddering glance in the mirror confirmed her fears, and she set about repairing the storm’s ravages.
She bathed her face several times and then sat quietly in the chair with the damp washcloth over her eyes.
Her thoughts were poor company as she examined her recent behaviour and feelings with pitiless honesty.
She was appalled to acknowledge that, after vigorously promoting a renewal of the old romance between her mother and Lord Exton, she could have reacted in such a selfish and petty fashion to a disinterested opinion that the affair would soon culminate in marriage.
It had not simply been the realisation that Lord Exton’s gain would be her loss, which was unbecoming enough to own.
She had been thrown into a distempered freak by the fact that an outsider had recognised the obvious conclusion when she had not.
How could she have failed to see what was under her nose?
Laura took special pains with her appearance that evening.
They were attending a musical party and she needed the confidence of looking her best to counter her inability to provide any musical entertainment for her fellow guests.
She allowed Sukie free rein for creativity in arranging her unruly hair high on her head, with two contrasting ribbons threaded through the curls to replicate the two shades of blue in her silk gown.
After consulting with Sukie, she settled on a cameo pendant, that had belonged to her paternal grandmother, worn on a gold chain as her only jewellery, and went down to dinner with her head held high.
Laura was prepared to hear her mother ask about the outing with Jack Hastings.
For ten minutes she held forth on the delights of the Physick Gardens.
Her mother was enchanted, her uncle and cousin civilly indifferent, so she yielded the floor in due course and channelled her thespian talents into a convincing pretence of making a meal of food that held no appeal in her present state of internal upheaval.
Presently the ladies left for their engagement. Laura was still in full flight, counterfeiting the appearance of one expecting nothing but pleasure from the evening.
Some of the music was very good indeed. Sophia played a Mozart divertimento and a Vivaldi concerto with great artistry, looking perfectly enchanting all the while.
Laura was on tenterhooks during the first half of the programme fearing that Jack might put in an appearance, and resigned during the second half to the idea that he was not going to do so.
Lord Exton arrived shortly after the Mount Street ladies were seated and joined them.
Laura smilingly moved down a chair to make room for him next to her mother.
Thanks to Jack’s prediction, her perceptions with regard to the earl and her mother were sharpened this evening.
Lord Exton would never commit the social solecism of slighting his company to concentrate solely on Annabelle.
As always, he made everyone feel comfortable in his presence, but tonight Laura was especially attuned to his voice, and she thought she detected a different timbre when he spoke to her mother — deeper and more intimate.
By the end of the evening she was convinced of his intentions, but her mother’s feelings were less easily read.
That Annabelle was contented in the earl’s company was beyond question, but years of concealing her basic unhappiness behind a serene demeanour had taught her to preserve her innermost being from the eyes of the world.
Laura actually heard little of the second half of the programme as she gave full rein to her thoughts.
She knew at the deepest level that Annabelle’s first priority was her daughter’s happiness.
Despite her own unhappy experience, she wished Laura to marry, but she would never push her to accept an offer.
Laura grew absolutely still in her seat while her intellect and her instinct arrived at the same conclusion: Jack Hastings had assumed too much.
Lord Exton may have proposed marriage, but Annabelle would not accept him until she felt her daughter’s happiness was in a way to being achieved.
“Lady Cartwright has an extensive range, but I could wish there was a bit less vibrato in her delivery,” said a quiet voice at her side, amidst generous applause for an operatic aria performed by a Rubenesque woman unknown to Laura.
Laura turned and met Lord Exton’s smiling eyes as she clapped dutifully. “I confess that I am not enamoured by vibrato either,” she whispered, responding to the warmth of his smile, “but one must admire her sheer carrying power.”
Returning to her inner dialogue, she found some truths emerging from the chaos that was her current mental activity.
It was true that she would no longer be the chief focus of her mother’s love and attention when Annabelle married, but she would gain immeasurably also.
She already held Lord Exton in esteem and, yes, affection which would only increase with shared memories and increasing knowledge.
She could not have chosen a better stepfather, and young Henry was a bonus, the brother she’d always wanted.
It would be a great comfort to know her mother’s next twenty years, God willing, would be spent with a man she could truly love.
There was no earthly reason to postpone her happiness until her daughter’s problematical marriage.
Much as she would miss the farm, the least Laura could do would be to live willingly under Lord Exton’s roof until he and her mother accepted that she was mature enough to take over the running of her own property.
Satisfied to have evolved a workable plan to present to her mother, Laura tried to keep her attention fixed on the entertainment, and succeeded reasonably well for what remained of the evening.
It was not until she was climbing the stairs to her bed-chamber that she acknowledged a possible stumbling block to the success of her plan: first it would be necessary to convince her mother that she had set her mind irrevocably against marrying.
A little voice from some obscure corner of her mind immediately suggested that before embarking on such a task, she must first convince herself. The insistent little voice was still whispering in her ear when she finally succumbed to exhaustion hours later.