Author: Beverley Oakley
Category: Nonfiction
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“No!” cried Fanny and Fenton in unison.
Fanny shook her head and tried to hide the extent of her alarm. “We don’t need any help from you, Antoinette.”
“But I like to help,” Antoinette protested and Fenton, who was so much better at handling Fanny’s flighty sister than she was, put a grateful hand on Antoinette’s shoulder and said in the practised, measured tone he’d perfected, “Your help is always appreciated, Antoinette, but in this instance, all you need to do is whatever is in your power to gently steer both young ladies away from Mr McAlister.”
“Do you suppose we’ve been observed?” Amelia slanted an anxious look up at Theo as they stood at the lakeside.
“I certainly have been.” Theo didn’t trouble to hide the annoyance in his tone. “In fact, I was told so in no uncertain terms last night by Lady Quamby that I was being watched.”
“She said that?” Amelia’s hand went to her mouth, but Theo quickly laid her fears to rest. “She thought I was after another worthy heiress.” He considered this, then amended his words. “You were mentioned also, of course. Do you know, I even overheard the term: the fox in the henhouse.” He gave a short laugh that didn’t disguise his rancour, and she put her hand on his wrist and shook her head. “My poor Theo. Don’t laugh. It’s horrible. And it is all because of me. Truly, I cannot bear to think what you’ve been through.”
“It wasn’t because of you, Amelia. It was an unfortunate series of events.” He had to be sanguine about the situation that had descended upon him like the slow, all-enveloping cloud that followed a massive eruption.
Below them, the water lapped gently at the riverbank. They were in the shelter of the hillside that hid the folly where they’d agreed to meet the day before, and across the lake could be seen the crenelated towers of the twelfth-century castle ruin that visitors to Lord Quamby’s estate were fond of visiting.
“Who was the other heiress?”
Theo turned away in case he betrayed himself. “Miss Scott.” He pretended to study a couple of swans. “Apparently she is to marry Mr Dalgleish.”
“Miss Scott? Her maid is helping me to dress this evening.”
“You’ve met her?”
Amelia shook her head. “Only insofar as to accept her offer of her lady’s maid when she learned that mine was indisposed.”
“Very generous.”
Amelia nodded, but her thoughts were obviously far away. She put her hand on Theo’s forearm. “So, the day after tomorrow? You are sure this is what you want?”
“If it’s what you want, Amelia.”
She worried at her lower lip, and for a long time was silent. Finally, she said, “On our own we are completely at the mercy of forces beyond our control. It is only when we join that we can make something of our futures.”
Since Theo had come up with a version of those words some weeks before, he made no comment. He certainly did not voice the fact that his heart was far less captured by the idea than it had been when he and Amelia had concocted this spontaneous and extraordinary means of solving their individual difficulties.
When she looked up at him, he forced himself to smile. “Don’t look like that,” he said, running his thumbs gently along the planes of her cheeks. “Your sister might still be with us had I not made such a mull of things. Do you imagine I live with that easily?”
“Theo! You tried to save her from…that brute! It was I who sent you after them. Had it not been for you, Catherine would have been forced to marry her…”
Rapist. Of course, she couldn’t say the word. Not just because of her delicate sensibilities, but because Theo’s failure to neutralise the threat now meant he had all but dressed Amelia for the very same fate.
“And now Lord Leighton is on his way here.” Theo spoke the brutal truth with misgiving for it was what gave Amelia nightmares.
He felt her tremble as she whispered the words again. “Are you certain you are willing to do this, Theo? As certain as you were before?”
He knew how important it was to show no hesitation, though, in truth, his heart quavered at the permanence of their dangerous plan.
“Why? Are you getting cold feet?” He stroked her cheek. “You always were one for masterminding grand adventures for your dolls and then growing fearful for them at the last moment.”
“And now you make me out as if I am still that same child.” Despite herself, Amelia managed a tremulous smile. “But Theo, is it enough that I…” She sniffed and bit off the words, unwilling to voice her thoughts.
“Say it, Amelia,” he prompted softly. “Is it enough that you…what?”
She sighed, then said in a rush, “That I can keep your creditors at bay to repay you for what you have done? What you did for Catherine. And now, me? Or is the price too high?”
“Saving you from an unbearable fate that I all but forced upon you?”
“No. Being married to me for the rest of our lives.”
He lowered his head and gently touched his lips to her forehead. “I would not have suggested marriage if I hadn’t thought it was…” He might have said the only way to save ourselves but settled on, “how best we might make peace with what has happened.”
They had wandered a little away and were now in the midst of a copse of trees. In the distance, a flock of starlings circled the castle ruin; their loud chattering swept across the lake by a chilly wind. Amelia squeezed his hand and rested her cheek against his chest. “Perhaps marriage is easier when love is not a consideration,” she murmured as he stroked her hair.
He was silent as he considered her words. How much easier it would have been had his heart been in the ordered state it had been less than a week ago. But he couldn’t think of that.
“Love must always be a consideration in marriage, Amelia. You don’t doubt that I love you, I hope.”
“Not as a wife, I know that. But love grows and changes, I’ve heard.”
“I have heard that, too.” It is what gave him hope that he wasn’t condemning himself to perpetual unhappiness. It is what he had to focus on instead of that damnably inconvenient kiss with Miss Scott the night before.
“Shall we go back?”
He nodded. “You walk up first and I’ll follow, later. I shan’t dance with you tonight, but I will get a message to you when our coach-and-four is ready to take us to the border. My own carriage is falling to pieces and won’t make the journey, but I am assured that a suitable conveyance will be ready soon.”
She nodded, her expression focused across the lake, as if her mind were on something very different.
“Tomorrow evening, I shall cut you.” She turned. “Give you the cut direct,” she said, though he hardly knew what she meant until she added, “If anyone has observed us today, they may fear that you have been…grooming me for a repeat of what they believe you did to my sister.”
“Ah, kidnap.”
“Or they’ll think I’ve somehow been taken in by your abundance of charm and I, plain little peagoose that I am, are therefore in danger.”
“You are very much in danger, Amelia.”
She knew what he meant and nodded. “And you are my salvation though nobody knows that. They believe my uncle, of course, for he is Lord Quamby’s friend, and he has very effectively painted you the villain.” She gave him a watery smile. “Tomorrow night I shall do my best to suggest that I am no longer in charity with you, Theo. I am not much of an actress but I shall do my best.”
Chapter 16
Lizzy had successfully evaded Mrs Hodge all day by the time she sat at her dressing table to prepare herself for the evening entertainment. Disappointingly, it looked as if Theo had been equally determined to evade Lizzy.
The brief excitement she’d felt at the flattering manner in which Mabel had arranged her curls in a fetching topknot, earlier, had been crushed by the even briefer nod of acknowledgement she’d received from Theo when she passed him on the stairs on her way down to breakfast.
She’d paused upon the lan
ding, her heart hammering in her chest, her mouth growing dry, a half-smile upon her lips. Surely, she had not behaved too poorly the night before? Surely, if there were to be recriminations of anyone’s behaviour, his was as reprehensible as hers had been?
But he’d walked right past her, and Lizzy had been cast into a greater case of the dismals. Women got the blame for everything. And it looked as if Theo was like any other gentleman who had taken advantage of a young lady throwing themselves at him. Clearly, Lizzy had been too forward, too eager, too trusting, too naïve. She had been too whatever it was that made a situation less than ideal for, as the woman, she should have set the tone, kept the tone, behaved…properly in such a situation. Though what properly really meant, she had no idea.
“Yer ain’t one ter go ʼbout so gloomy,” said Mabel as she teased a curl into place. “ʼAs that Mr Dalgleish not bin payin’ yer proper attention?”
“He has been paying me plenty of attention.” Lizzy sighed.
“Aye, in truth, I thought it ʼtwas the other one, then.” Mabel looked knowing.
“The other one? What can you mean?” Lizzy tried to make it a joke but gave up and put her head in her hands, causing Mabel to cluck her annoyance as she dropped a hairpin. “Yes, it’s Theo, of course,” whispered Lizzy. “Today he’s barely even looked in my direction. And then…” She couldn’t go on as she recalled the leap of jealousy she’d felt when she’d seen him in other feminine company.
“Then what, miss?” Mabel prompted.
“I saw him walking by the lake with…” She frowned, adding in a rush, “Oh, I forgot! I’ve promised your services to another young lady. What was her name?”
“Miss Harcourt. Yer told me last night, miss. ʼAn aye, I shall tend to ʼer shortly, afore I see ter Mrs ’Odge.”
Lizzy glanced at Mabel. “And you must make her look a fright so that Theo doesn’t look twice at her.” She turned back to the looking glass and sighed. “She has a fortune, I hear. Oh Mabel, what if she is the young lady with whom he has an agreement?”
“There ain’t nothin’ yer can do ʼbout it, if there is,” Mabel said sagely, returning to Lizzy’s hair.
“Promise me you will learn everything, Mabel. I want you to discover who Miss Harcourt is and what she is to Theo.”
With Mabel’s accord duly given, Lizzy appeared at Mrs Hodge’s apartments, as directed, and went down to the saloon with her, pleased when the older woman was swept into conversation with a hump-backed dowager sitting near the window nursing a Pekingese.
Feeling both abandoned and free, Lizzy trailed through the throng, hoping for a glimpse of Theo.
When she saw Susan near the fireplace, her husband seated in a wingbacked chair enjoying most of the heat and with a smarmy smile upon his face as he discussed hounds with his cronies, Lizzy couldn’t help a pang at the unhappiness upon the young woman’s face.
Was that Lizzy’s fate?
The room was buzzing with chatter by now, making Lizzy feel even more alone amongst strangers. She took a few steps forward, but Susan just turned her back on her and pretended she had something to say to their hostess, Lady Quamby.
Feeling abandoned, if not downright beleaguered, she jumped when Harry Dalgleish stepped up to her side and briefly touched her forearm.
“Why such a sad face, little one?” he asked, a note of kindness in his tone that kindled a small flame deep in her heart.
“Do I look sad?” she asked, knowing that if she were to feel anything, it should be outright guilt smiling at Harry given the way she had carried on with Theo the night before.
The fact she wasn’t flaming up and finding it hard to breathe must make her completely beyond redemption.
So, because she was a sinning minx, as Mrs Hodge put it, and she would be punished as she ought, there was no point in wondering what form that punishment would take so she must simply accept it with no complaints when the time came, and she’d simply carry on with Harry as she had before.
He was her destiny, it would appear.
So perhaps he was her punishment, also.
“You look positively forlorn. As if you were contemplating the most delicious slice of caraway seed cake only to have it whisked from your hands and gobbled down by someone else who had far less right to it.”
Lizzy raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I despise caraway seed cake. I think it’s the kind of cake I like least of all cakes.”
“And caraway seed cake is my favourite.” He, too, raised his eyes to the ceiling and said in a parody of her tragic look and tone, “How do we proceed from here, in the face of such diametrically opposed fancies?”
Lizzy put her head on one side. “Perhaps that’s for you to decide, Harry,” she said, almost ready to join him in the levity of the moment, but then feeling the tug at her heartstrings when she contemplated Theo and the warm and wonderful things he’d made her feel—only to leave her with such abrupt coldness. “But perhaps you’re right,” she added in a more considered and serious tone. “Perhaps there is no point in proceeding if we have such diametrically opposed fancies.”
Harry was clearly not ready to let it go at this. Feigning a look of the gravest dismay, he intoned, “You cannot say such a thing when my heart has been engaged by the loveliest, liveliest girl in the world.”
Lizzy sighed again, this time with a little less forbearance. “It’s easy to say such things, but you know you would feel differently if—”
She stopped. No, she couldn’t say it. Ladies did not say such things. Marriage was a business arrangement, but it was an unspoken agreement that affection was preeminent.
“If what?” He put a light hand on her upper arm and led her to the window away from prying eyes and listening ears. “Speak plainly, Lizzy, so I can debunk what I think you are going to tell me. That’s if you continue to be the plain-speaking miss I’ve come to know.”
“You would not speak any honeyed words to me, and you certainly would not be engaging my attentions in such a manner if I came with no dowry.” There. She’d said it. Spoken those words which were so crass and that no lady would have spoken.
He acknowledged this with a smile. “There has been no secret of the fact that your dowry will enable both of us to live in great comfort in the very commodious, but at the moment, somewhat sparsely furnished manor I inherited last year. Look around, Lizzy.” He gestured to the various personages about the room. “Lord and Lady Quamby—do you think theirs is an alliance based on love?”
Lizzy hadn’t thought about this before, but when she looked from the aged peer with his old-fashioned bagwig and his dandyish clothes, and the sticks he used to hobble about, to his countess, the dazzling beauty, Lady Quamby, she saw the truth of it.
Harry nodded. “But see how happy and lively they are? Both brought to the marriage title, beauty, money and, together, they have forged a union that has worked for the past five years.” He put his head close to her ear and added in a whisper, “While, out of the public arena, they live their own lives on their own terms. Now consider Mrs Hodge’s daughter, Susan, and her husband…theirs was an alliance in which love played little part.”
“Yes, and that is what makes me so afraid,” Lizzy whispered in a rush, pressing her palms together and feeling suddenly quite desperate. “I do so want to have a marriage based on love.”
“And so you will have one if you marry me. You are young and beautiful, and you need a husband to rescue you from Mrs Hodge. You have made that clear enough. I am no ageing roué. I am young and not without my charms. I can rescue you from Mrs Hodge, and in return for the financial rewards that I concede without embarrassment are an important part of the transaction between us, I can give you the loving attention you need to feel properly regarded.” He cleared his throat, then added softly, “I can make you feel loved.”
Lizzy looked at him dubiously, and a flash of concern flitted across his face as he asked, “Did you not enjoy our kiss beneath the mistletoe?”
She hesitated. Wha
t could she say? For she had quite enjoyed it, even if she had enjoyed Theo’s far more.
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “If you are not sure, then perhaps you need a little more…exposure to the wonderful feelings that can be the result of mutual attraction. For let me be clear, Lizzy; I find you damnably attractive.”
“You do?” Pleasure skittered up her spine. She had felt damnably attractive last night, but when Theo had left her so abruptly, she’d felt the veriest of lowly creatures.
“I know…” He glanced over his shoulder as if afraid of being overheard, then dropped his voice. “Why don’t you meet me later this evening at the little folly overlooking the lake where I can kiss you properly. What we did beneath the mistletoe hardly constituted a kiss.” He pushed out his chest looking very confident she’d find this a splendid idea. “If you don’t want to, then there’s nothing more to be said. Any arrangement between us, unspoken in so many words though it still is, shall be forgotten.”
“This evening?” Lizzy contemplated the idea with caution. “I cannot possibly meet you tonight,” she said at last.
“Of course you can’t—though you could if you were madly in love with me already. I shall work hard to make that happen, Lizzy. All right. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning after breakfast. Ten o’clock. That is a safe and respectable time.” He squeezed her hand briefly. “Let me persuade you of how much I do love you, dearest Lizzy. How much I adore you, in fact.” He stroked her neck and put his face close to hers. “Do say you will meet me there, dear heart. I truly want to show you how wonderful marriage between the two of us could be.”
As Theodore wove his way through the well-dressed revellers who thronged the saloon in Quamby House, he reflected on the interesting sensation of being regarded as something of a pariah.