Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 47

Lily regarded the excellent dinner set out in the best private parlour in the Blue Boar in Stamford for her delectation. She felt decidedly queasy and she was too honest with herself to put it down to travel sickness. No, it was nerves and the strong conviction that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

It was not too late to turn back, of course. All she would suffer would be some lost pride and Aunt Herrick saying ‘I told you so’ for at least a week. And she would have to live with herself afterwards, knowing she had not got the backbone to do what was right.

But what if Jack did not understand? What if he thought she was pursuing him? She had already demonstrated just how fast and shameless she was by proposing marriage to him. And he could only have deduced from her willingness to yield to his caresses that she was positively wanton, she concluded, mentally flagellating herself for her shortcomings.

Lily pushed a fritter around her plate. I am pursuing him. But only to apologise. I could write. That would be cowardly. One should face up to things when one made a mistake.

He would be home by now, after that interminable stagecoach journey. She was feeling tired and frazzled and she had been in her own comfortable carriage for just one day, able to stop whenever she wanted and without a bullet wound in her arm. Stubborn man. Stupid, proud, stubborn man. Brave, proud, stubborn man. I love you. I ought to go home. I am not brave enough to do this. I will go home in the morning.

‘A mistress?’ Penelope stared at her eldest sister in horror. ‘Papa?’

‘Several mistresses. Very expensive ones, by all accounts,’ Caroline said grimly. ‘Oh, stop frowning at me, Jack! She ought to know, she is old enough.’

‘Well, I think men are beastly. All of them,’ Penny blurted out.

‘I haven’t got any expensive mistresses,’ Jack protested, only to be glared at by all three girls. ‘Nor cheap ones either!’

‘Do you mean to say …’ Penelope was set on getting to the bottom of the entire sordid matter now ‘… do you mean that when Papa was away so much in London, he wasn’t sitting in the Lords, or looking after business at all?’

‘He was gambling and wenching and spending money,’ Caroline said ruthlessly, ignoring Jack’s attempts to silence her. ‘And all Jack inherited were debts. Piles of them. It is entirely due to Jack that we are not all in a debtors’ prison now.’

‘Poor Mama,’ Susan lamented.

‘Does she know?’

‘Of course she knows, she knew all the time. And when you attack your poor brother, who works and worries to keep a roof over your head, how do you think it makes her feel?’

‘I couldn’t help it, I didn’t know,’ Penelope said indignantly. ‘I am sorry Jack, I shouldn’t have said it, even if it were true. But how horrible for Mama. I do not think I ought to get married—I think I should stay unmarried and be a Comfort to her.’

Despite everything, Jack felt a bubble of laughter rising in his chest. Desperately keeping from making eye contact with Caroline, he said seriously, ‘I would much rather you did get married, Penny. It would be less of a financial burden to me if you did.’

‘Oh. Well, if it would help, I will try and find a rich husband as soon as possible. Is it all right to ask them first about mistresses? After all, I think I should check.’

‘No!’ Susan and Caroline chorused.

‘If you say so,’ she said doubtfully. ‘And Caro can marry Mr Willoughby.’ She ignored her sister’s blushes and explained, ‘He is very nice, but rather dull, and not very rich. And quite old.’ Caroline rolled her eyes at Jack, who shrugged sympathetically, then felt the humour drain out of his veins as Penelope added brightly, ‘And Jack is very handsome, as well as being an earl, so he can find a rich wife easily. You should have looked for one in London, but I expect you did not think of it, being so tied up with more important things.’ She frowned over the problem. ‘I think you should go straight back there—it must be the best place to find them. And we should all contribute our dress allowances so you can buy some fashionable clothes.’

Jack fought to keep the mildly amused smile on his face. ‘That is a very noble offer, Penny, but I am afraid none of the rich ladies would want me. I met lots in London and they all want dukes and rich men. Poor earls are quite out of fashion.

‘Anyway, I have a plan. I had hoped to find investors, because that seemed the least risky option, but I will borrow from the bank instead, so you can be quite comfortable and keep your dress allowance. And you will not have to interrogate rich bachelors about their mistresses either.’

‘Well, that is a relief,’ Caro said brightly. ‘I think you had better go to bed now, Penny.’

‘All right.’ Penelope kissed Jack goodnight, then looked her surprise when Susan joined her. ‘You too?’ The door remained ajar after they went out and Penny’s whisper came back clearly. ‘I expect you are just being tactful, aren’t you? I expect Caro wants to talk to Jack about Mr Willoughby …’

‘Impossible child!’ Caro laughed and for a moment Jack thought he had got away with it. Then his sister’s wide grey gaze became solemn. ‘Tell me about her. There is someone, isn’t there? Is it the rich spinster with the riot outside her house? Miss France?’

Could he talk about it, even to Caro? Why not? His damned pride again, he supposed.

‘Yes. Miss France. Lily.’

‘How pretty. Not an elderly spinster, then, whatever Mama thinks?’

‘No. She is twenty-five or -six. Tall, red-headed, very lovely. Very, very rich. A tea merchant’s daughter and heiress. She is spoilt, stubborn, interfering, opinionated, bossy, insensitive, has absolutely no taste …’

‘And you love her?’ Caro was smiling at his outburst.

‘Yes I love her.’ It was like a liberation, being able to talk about it. ‘Under it all she is brave and honest and clever and kind. But I do not know why I love her. I would never in a thousand years have imagined loving a woman like that.’

‘Well, George Willoughby is thirty-five, and not very good looking, and only moderately well off and very decent and a little dull. And if he does not ask me to marry him soon, I am going to go into a decline,’ Caroline pronounced. ‘So you see, there is no accounting for love. In fact, they both sound so improbable for us that it proves it is love, don’t you think?’

‘Probably.’ Jack crossed his legs and stared at the polished tip of his evening shoe. ‘Do you want me to ask Willoughby his intentions?’

‘Goodness, no! Poor George—you will scare him halfway to Alnwick. I can manage him. But what about your Lily? Did she turn you down?’ Caroline reached over and squeezed his hand consolingly.

‘No. I turned her down.’

‘What?’ Caro gasped. ‘She asked you to marry her?’

‘Yes. She wants to marry a title.’

‘But you told us you were going to London incognito.’

‘I was, and I did, and she did not know. But she had it all worked out. I would become a rich mine owner, enter Parliament, be ennobled—and we would all live happily ever after.’

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Caro said weakly. ‘I can quite see why you turned her down.’

‘You can?’ Jack found himself bristling in Lily’s defence. His sister’s reaction should have justified his original feelings. Now, illogically, it placed him on Lily’s side.

‘Well, especially if you were not in love with her then …’

‘I was. It was just my damned pride and her confounded desire to organise everything just how she wants it. I lost my temper, said things I shouldn’t, then later she found out that I did have a title and she thought I had turned her down because she wasn’t good enough for me and we had another row.’ It sounded so futile, recounted baldly like that. Why couldn’t he have explained to Lily how he felt? Where had all the words gone?

Jack got to his feet and began to pace. Caroline watched him for a moment, then jumped up and threw her arms around him. ‘Poor darling!’

‘Ow! Bloody hell, Caro!’

‘What have you done?’ His sister regarded him narrowly. ‘I thought you looked under the weather, more than a sleepless journey could account for. Have you been fighting? Those bruises on your face are too fresh for the riot in the street.’

It was never any good trying to fool her. His mother he had often managed to hoodwink; Caro, since she was about five, never. ‘Yes.’ There was an appalling desire to swagger; Lily had spurned his attempt to defend her honour, his sister at least would value it. Jack pulled himself together and produced a bald explanation. ‘Lily was betrothed. Then she broke it off. The man involved spread unpleasant rumours about her. I called him out.’

‘Wonderful! You are so brave—but I am glad we did not know about it before, the suspense would have been dreadful. Did you kill him?’

‘Of course not! I would be in Calais by now if I had—or in prison. I deloped.’

‘But surely Miss France was thrilled that you had risked your life for her honour?’

‘She found out about the duel at the same time as she discovered the truth about who I was. She was too angry, thinking I considered her beneath me, to really take in the duel.’

‘Well, go and tell her again that you love her, you idiot!’ Caro’s glare was uncomfortably reminiscent of Lily in a temper. ‘You have told her that you love her, haven’t you?’

‘Er. No.’

‘Men!’ Caroline took a rapid turn about the room. ‘Well, for goodness’ sake, get back down there and do it! She is probably as miserable as you are.’

‘Why should she be? Lily does not love me. Her pride was hurt, that is all.’

‘Give me strength!’ His sister sat down in a billow of skirts. ‘Who was she betrothed to before?’

‘A baron.’

‘But she broke it off, and before she knew you had a title?’

‘Yes, but she did not know me then, in any guise.’

‘That is not what I mean. She is quite capable of throwing away an opportunity to marry a titled husband if she does not like him. And she was prepared to marry you on the off chance that you might have a title one day. In fact, she was so determined that she defied all modesty and convention and proposed to you herself.’ Caro regarded him quizzically. ‘Call me a fanciful female if you like, but that gives me just the tiniest suspicion that she likes you rather more than a little.’

‘You are a fanciful female,’ Jack responded grouchily. He was not going to admit it, but it felt as though a weight was being lifted off his heart. ‘You deduce that through intuition, I presume?’

‘No, common sense. Now, tell me all about the latest London fashions so I can give you a shopping list for when you go back again.’

‘When are you returning to London?’ Caroline demanded over breakfast on Tuesday morning, four days after Jack had arrived back at Allerton.

‘I have not said that I am.’ He reached for the preserve jar and contemplated the gooseberry jam for a while before pushing it away again.

‘Back to London?’ Lady Allerton put down her post and regarded him with concern. ‘You never said anything about going back to London so soon.’ With his father’s peccadilloes recalled so recently to his mind, Jack thought he glimpsed a related anxiety in his mother’s surprise.

‘Caro has a long shopping list she unaccountably forgot to give me before,’ he replied, making light of it. ‘There is possibly some business I might do—I have not yet decided.’

Caroline’s sigh was meant only for his ears and he ignored it. It would be easier if he could make up his mind what he did want to do. Never normally indecisive, Jack found his days filled with busy, purposive activity but his nights sleepless and undecided. And when he did sleep it was to dream about Lily—hectic, erotic dreams that left him tired and frustrated. And unable to make up his mind.

The bank had proved—in the face of his determination and his new research—perfectly obliging in the matter of a loan, which would enable him to expand the existing working, if not open another one. Provided the seams ran true. If they did not and the coal failed, then the only course to repay the loan would be to sell the mine and to give up the castle.

For the mine workers and their families it could mean ruin, unless he could sell the pit. Even then, there would be no guarantee the new master would treat the people as he, Jack, had always tried to do. The loan was the last chance for them, a gamble he was instinctively uneasy about, but one he had to risk.

His own family would have to fall back on the old Dower House, which would be cheaper to run. And then he could content himself with learning to be a farmer and carrying out all those breeding experiments on sheep he had always promised himself he would find time for. It was a less than entrancing prospect, but one which would at least provide for his family in modest comfort.

Mr Roper, his nearest neighbour, was interested in hearing about the latest news on steam engines that Jack had gleaned in London and reciprocated with his own experiences with pumping, admirably concealing his disappointment that Jack had not ridden over to offer him the Allerton shaft to buy.

So, all in all, things were as well as he could expect, and could only be made worse by gallivanting off to London, spending more money and distracting himself with a woman who drove him to distraction and who did not want him, whatever Caroline said.

‘I have a shopping list too,’ Susan put in. ‘I have been looking at those wonderful ladies’ journals you brought us, Jack, and I can see we are woefully behind the mode, all of us.’

‘Then I am afraid you will just have to make do with what the Newcastle modistes can produce and your dress allowances will stretch to,’ Jack said, making up his mind. ‘I am staying here for the foreseeable future.’ He reached for the preserve jar again and spread jam on his toast. He should feel braced and decisive. Relieved, even. Why, then, could he almost smell the smoke of burning bridges and the crackle as lost hopes went up in flames?

Caroline was silent. He could feel her eyes boring into him and kept his own gaze fixed on his newspaper. She was in love, all she could see was happy endings. She wanted her own lover to act decisively, so she was urging her brother to do the same thing. But she had no responsibilities to consider. No family name to protect. No pride to weigh her down, a jeering voice whispered in his ear.

After the meal the family dispersed to their various occupations, and Jack managed to evade Caroline. He should have known better; coming out of his study in search of some estate papers, he found himself cornered.

‘Jack! Please reconsider—you are going to regret this all your life if you do not.’

He went back into his study, but, short of shutting the door in her face, had to stand aside to let her in. ‘No. I will not discuss it any further, Caroline. I have duties, responsibilities and I am not going to change my mind on this.’

He could see the calculation plain on her face: to pursue the matter and risk a breach between them, or to yield when she felt so passionately that she was right. He loved her for caring and wished her anywhere but here. Eventually, when he had come to terms with the loss, he could consider it more rationally. Now, all he wanted was to never have to think about Lily France again.

The sound of the heavy knocker thudding on oak had both of them turning towards the door. ‘Who on earth can that be?’ Caro puzzled. ‘It is scarcely half past ten. Who could be calling?’

‘Your suitor come to place his case before me?’ Jack teased, seeing an opportunity to get his own back.

But the voice at the front door was not that of the respectable Mr Willoughby with his slight Northumberland burr. It was female, decidedly southern, clear and carrying.

‘No, I have come to see his lordship, not Lady Allerton. His lordship is not expecting me. My card.’

Caroline swung round to stare at him. ‘Is that …?

‘Lily.’ It cannot be. I am dreaming. I must be. Jack felt his fists clench and as they did so his biceps contracted, sending a stab of pain through his wounded arm. Oh, no, this was no dream. This was real.

‘Jack.’ Caroline was tugging urgently at his sleeve. ‘Jack—you didn’t … there wasn’t anything that might have made her realise she had to come … was there?’

His sister was blushing hotly and, as her meaning sank in, Jack felt his own colour rise too, guiltily. ‘No,’ he replied bluntly, not even trying to pretend he misunderstood her.

‘Well, thank goodness for that.’ Caroline flapped a hand in front of her hot face and opened the door. ‘Grimwade, his lordship is in the study.’

Lily looked around the great hall with its soaring beamed roof and tried not to gape like a yokel. Allerton Castle should not have been a shock—after all, she had seen the print of it. But from the outside it just seemed unreal, something from a story book. It was only when the great oak doors had swung open to reveal a lugubrious butler and she had forced her shaking legs over the threshold that it all ceased to be a fantasy and became hideously real.

Every morning on the journey following that evening in Stamford she had woken, determined to put the doubts and fears of the night before behind her and press on to do what she had set out for. Now, surrounded by the faded evidence of generations of pride and ancestry, every word of her carefully dignified speech fled.

‘I will ascertain whether Lady Allerton is at home, ma’am. Whom may I say is calling?’ The butler’s livery was ancient, the carpet he was standing on threadbare, but he regarded her with the air, she was convinced, of a man who could spot a cit at one hundred yards.

‘No, I have come to see his lordship, not Lady Allerton. His lordship is not expecting me. My card.’

She produced the rectangle of pasteboard from her reticule, suddenly seeing it for the over-ornate piece of design it was. Too much gilt edging, too fancy a script. The butler managed not to sneer at it as he laid it on a silver salver. The centre bore an engraved crest, elusive from years of polishing. ‘If you will wait in—’

‘Grimwade, his lordship is in the study.’ Lily turned and saw a tall, slender young woman emerge from a door between two massive pieces of tapestry. She was plainly dressed, but she had a style that gave the gown its own elegance. As she moved into the light Lily was aware of a pleasing, heart-shaped face, dark hair and a pair of familiar deep grey eyes.

‘You have come to see my brother? I am Caroline Lovell, Lord Allerton’s sister. Refreshments in the front parlour, please, Grimwade.’ Lily found herself swept into a room at least three times the size of anything she would have thought to describe by such a homely term as parlour.

‘Please, will you not sit down, Miss France? It is Miss France, is it not?’

‘Yes.’ Lily felt at a disadvantage in front of this self-assured young woman in her simple gown. She had taken enormous care to select the plainest of her own walking dresses, afraid of giving any offence by appearing ostentatious. Yet she still felt overdressed and awkward. ‘How did you know?’ She tried not to stare at the tarnished suit of armour in the far corner. Did people really have them in their homes?

‘Jack described you to me.’ Lily swallowed against the embarrassment. She had obviously not succeeded in muting her regrettable taste in clothes if she was instantly recognisable. This elegant young lady must despise her. But Miss Lovell was still smiling. ‘He said you were tall, lovely and red haired.’

‘Oh!’ Had Jack ever commented on her appearance? Is that truly how he thought of her? Lily shook herself mentally; this was not why she had come here. ‘I did not intend to disturb you, Miss Lovell, I simply wished to have a few words with Lord Allerton and leave.’

‘But you must have some tea at least before you go!’ Miss Lovell turned as the door opened. ‘You see, here is Grimwade with the tray, and my mother and other sisters. Mama, this is Miss France, all the way from London, who has called to see Jack. Miss France, this is my mother, Lady Allerton. My sister Susan, and my youngest sister Penelope.’

This is a fairy story! I come here to confront an ogre in a castle and I find myself in a tea party with four ladies. I am trapped now, I can hardly insist upon seeing him …

Lily smiled and curtsied and said everything that was proper and found herself seated while four pairs of dark grey eyes observed her with polite interest.

‘Have you come far today, Miss France?’ Lady Allerton was pouring tea into cups that seemed to be made of parchment, they were so thin.

‘From Newcastle only, Lady Allerton. I stayed at York on Sunday, having travelled up from London. What very lovely china.’ It was probably ill bred of her to comment, she realised as soon as the remark was out. The aristocracy took old things for granted.

‘Thank you. It is Sèvres, from my grandmother’s family.’ Lily could hear her own words echoing in her memory from when she had ranted at Jack about the upper classes’ obsession with all things old. How he must have laughed inwardly at her ignorant indignation when he owned such exquisite heirlooms himself. ‘A long journey, Miss France. How fortunate the weather has been clement. Do you visit family?’

‘No. It is a business visit.’ There was no point in pretending, even if her ladyship regretted offering hospitality to a cit. ‘I trade in tea and I have a branch of the business here. It is a long time since I visited my agent here. I think I may then go into the Lake District to see the sights, if the weather holds fair.’

‘Tea, how fascinating. Please, give me your opinion on this blend.’

Surprised, for most ladies seemed not to have any understanding that tea blends might vary at all, Lily took a careful sip and rolled it around her mouth. ‘Essentially a green tea, with overtones of Oolong. I think it might be given a little more body with a hint of Nilgiri, but that is very much a personal thing.’

‘How clever.’ The youngest Miss Lovell—Penelope?—clapped her hands. ‘What lovely names and how wonderful of you to know all about it.’

‘Miss France is very clever, Penny.’

The fragile cup rattled in its saucer and Lily put it down hastily on the side table. Jack came in, a smile on his lips and a decidedly chilly question in his flinty eyes.