Belatedly remembering the existence of his handkerchief, he took it from his pocket and gave it to her. “Will you smile for me, Min? Show me you can smile. Because we have to go back out there and face them, and it’s horribly obvious you’ve been crying.”
“I suppose I’m all red and swollen and uglier than ever.”
“No!” he protested gallantly. “Well, a bit red maybe. But not ugly at all.”
This last did nothing to improve the redness, and he opened his mouth, unsure whether pressing the point or retreating from it entirely would be the most helpful tactic, when the door opened and Miss Sedgewick walked into the room.
“Don’t mind me!” she said cheerfully as Jack abruptly stood up. “I suppose I ought to claim I didn’t know you were in here, but no, I followed you quite deliberately.”
She advanced towards the couch with her hand out, ready to shake Min’s. Min stood also, looking very shy and embarrassed, and dropped a curtsy.
“Miss Caroline Sedgewick! A pleasure! I’ll introduce myself while Lord Orton gathers his wits.” She shot him a twinkling smile. “Goodness, my dear Lord Orton, your expression is enough to convince a lady you two have been up to no good in here. No, no,” she started laughingly as Min stammered a horrified rebuttal. “Of course I know you haven’t. I wouldn’t have come in at all if I thought there was any chance of that. I’m here for precisely the opposite reason—to offer my chaperonage because you reallycan’tbe coming in here all alone with Miss Fanshaw, my lord, no matter how innocent your chivalrous intentions. The world has such a scandalous imagination.”
She reached out and squeezed Min’s forearm. “I see I’ve shocked you, Miss Fanshaw. You’re not used to me—howfortunate for you! I’m a sad prattle, and the unavoidable truth is that I’m terribly rude. But in my defence, one must be! It’s all the rage now. Just look at everyone’s favourite Beau. Here”—she drew Min down to sit on the sofa beside her—“we will be comfortable while we decide what to do.”
Jack, still standing, looked down at the two heads that were now turned to each other, one chestnut brown, one icy blonde. The icy-blonde hair was paired with icy-blue eyes and a brisk, crisply drawn face. Not pretty, as Jack’s friends often vigorously rebutted him when he was in his cups and the topic of Miss Sedgewick inevitably came wistfully to mind. Not at all pretty, but striking. When Miss Sedgewick looked at you, you knew you were being looked at.
She turned her face up to him now, the cool eyes laughing at him, knowing she was the object of his study. “I’m afraid we’ll get little help from your sisters, Lord Orton. The elder is busy consoling the younger who is—very loudly and violently—claiming her future prospects have been entirely blighted by associated embarrassment, and, in doing so, is making a very good job of blighting them herself.”
Jack cursed.
“Exactly how I would’ve put it, if a lady was allowed to. But, I confess, it was the plight of Miss Fanshaw here that drew my Samaritan instincts. No, no, I can’t pretend.” She wagged an admonishing finger at herself. “I confess it was nothing but curiosity to see the girl Lady Sefton described to me asunique. And I begin to see what she means. Look at this face. These heavenly curls. All natural!Youdo not keep your maid labouring for hours with hot tongs, do you, my dear Miss Fanshaw?”
“I…” began Min, bewildered.
“London’s great curse, you see, is that it’s always bored. We’re desperate for novelty. And you…” She took hold of both of Min’s hands and studied her face. “You could be somethingextraordinary.” She shrugged in the French fashion. “Or perhaps not. We shall see.”
Then she patted Min’s hands and did a double take. “My goodness! Did this happen when you fell? But no, this is not that type of injury. What has happened?”
“It’s nothing. Just a reaction I get sometimes to turpentine.”
“Turpentine? You take it as medicine? Wait—no! Lady Sefton said you are an artist. Oils, is it? How marvellous. Far better than insipid watercolours.” She gave a broad smile, the devil hiding in its corners, as it so often did with Miss Sedgewick. “Now I know how I shall win your friendship, Miss Fanshaw. So many of my friends are artists. I’ll introduce you to them all, and you’ll become quite dependent on me. And we’ll find you an alternative to turpentine. You can repay me with your notice when you’re a great leader of society.”
“Caroline…” began Jack warningly. Then, remembering himself with a flash of heat to his neck, “Miss Sedgewick—”
She glanced up at him, smiling at his slip, dressed all in white, entirely pristine. She’d never permitted him to do any more than flirt with her. But it was another of Miss Sedgewick’s many tantalising attributes that she could make the slightest conversation feel like the greatest of intimacies.
“No, no, my dear Lord Orton, don’t fear for your friend. I’m perfectly aware Miss Fanshaw is an innocent little country mouse. I love her for it and wouldn’t change her for the world by influencing her with my rackety ways. But Iamof half a mind to take her under my wing.” She gave Min another studying look, her head tilted. “Would you like that, Miss Fanshaw? Do you think we could be friends?”
When Min shot him an anxious look, Miss Sedgewick laughed and reassured her. “Don’t worry, Miss Fanshaw! I promise you I’m quite respectable. I know I talk rather wildly, but one must, you know, when one has nothing else to recommendone to society. Terrible, isn’t it, to make trade of one’s talk? But if milliners tookbon mots, I’d be wealthy beyond dreams. The honest truth, my dear, is that I am very respectable, very fashionable, and entirely without a penny to my name. I abuse myself freely, you see—what conflicting attributes I command! To be both fashionable and respectable is difficult indeed, but to be both fashionable and poor is the hardest thing of all. But it’s the truth, and if it doesn’t put you off me entirely, then let me offer you my friendship.”
Min was listening in a silence that seemed, to Jack, half cowed, half stunned. A brown mouse pinned by a snowy owl. He stood by, frustrated and uncertain, as Miss Sedgewick rattled on. For the first time since they’d met, he was almost annoyed with her, though he couldn’t say why, only that he knew she was making Min uncomfortable. But he was more annoyed with himself. It was because of him that Min was upset and in this room, and as little as he felt Min was quite ready for the acquaintance of characters like Miss Sedgewick, he was very aware that, in this instance, Min required female assistance and his own sisters were too self-absorbed to give it.
There wasn’t a single Orton who had acquitted themselves well tonight.
“I’ll escort you from this room,” continued Miss Sedgewick, “and find you some gloves, for there must be some spare somewhere, and that way you’ll be seen leaving in my company, not our entirely blameless Lord Orton’s. There, my lord,” she flashed him another, even more devilish smile, “your spotless virtue is perfectly safe in my hands, as always. I leave you free to attend to your sisters.”
Six
Jack was dragged froma poisoned sleep a great many hours before he wished to be by his valet—or so he thought—stomping around his room.
“Devil take you, Gribson.” It was an effort to even grunt that much. “Go back to hell where you belong.”
“Jack? Jack, will you please wake up!”
“George?”
He cautiously opened an aching eye—and shut it again on being confronted by the bright light streaming through his opened curtains. It looked suspiciously like morning. He dragged a feather pillow further over his head with a groan.
