“Hm. Still a plan with some appeal.”
Fortunately the coffee arrived before George had wasted much energy explaining why Jack shouldn’t murder two of his friends. As if he ever would. Terribly messy business, all that.
He crossed slowly to the table where the coffee had been left, rubbing his face and regretting, as he often did, almost everything.
“Look,” said George as Jack lifted his coffee, winced at the smell, and put the cup back down. “That isn’t why I’m here.”
He’d left his own cup untouched, his face, Jack now realised, pinched and pale with anxiety.
“I went to your sister’s house just now, to ah…um…pay my respects to the ladies and deliver their posies—not that Ididactually dance with Miss Fanshaw, but I asked her, and it seemed only polite to…to…well, you know…pay my respects.”
A slow smile broke over Jack’s face, and he reached again for the coffee without thinking. “You’re getting atendrefor Min, are you? My goodness, this is capital.” He sipped the coffee, grimaced, and swallowed it with effort while George protested and blushed, the two efforts equally violent.
“But, no, this reallyiswonderful.” Jack crossed his bedroom and sat on the window ledge, leaning back, cup cradled between his hands. The window was cold through his linen shirt. He grinned, a little painfully because of the ache in his head, at his stammering friend. “I’ve spent five years protecting you from every fortune-hunting harpy to cross your excessively wealthy and lamentably trusting path, and now I finally see an end to my guardianship.”
“Jack! Don’t roast me, come on now, old man. It’s nothing of the kind. You know paying such a visit is the thing to do, it means nothing—your sisters, too! How could I not make the call?”
“But, no, it’smarvellous. I can hand you over to dear little Min’s tender care, all my worries at an end. Two of my dearest friends!” He saw them as they’d been last night when he looked up and found them blushing together across the room at Almack’s. Min smiling at a young man… That had been strange. In all the years he’d known her, she’d only ever spoken to him or his father or her own. “Sheis no fortune hunter—she’s all heart and sweetness and will make you a most excellent wife.”
He laughed, though it was a strangely limp effort, and frowned at his coffee, forcing himself to take another sip. “Is this why you’re here? But you must know I’m not her guardian. It’s thatterrible aunt of hers you need to write to. Though I suppose she’s of age and needs no permission at all.”
“Jack, will you please be serious! Iamhere about Miss Fanshaw, but it has nothing at all to do with that. As I was saying, I went to your sister’s house this morning to pay my call and found the whole house in uproar. It seems there was an almighty row, and the consequence is that…that Miss Fanshaw has packed her bags and gone!”
The coffee spilt as Jack stood and near-dropped his cup onto the nearest table. “Gone? What the devil do you mean?”
“Like I said, there was a terrible argument. Helen accused Miss Fanshaw of setting her cap at you—”
“Excuse me?” exploded Jack. “She saidwhat?”
“I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of it; Helen was too upset to speak—”
“Helenwas upset!”
“But as far as I can tell, your sister Eleanor told her that Miss Fanshaw had admitted to such a hope. And with you having danced with her, and the two of you going off together—because Eleanor apparently said Miss Fanshaw fell on purpose, and it was all a ruse—”
“Eleanor said that, did she?” Jack glared at the door, hungry for vengeance. “Then I’ll have a few choice things to say to her in return. What the hell has been going on, George?” He looked sharply at his friend. “You said Min is gone? Gone where?”
George was stricken.
“That’s the terrible thing, Jack. Nobody knows!”
If Jack had happened to meet any of his associates on his way to his sister’s house, they might have been shocked to see himlooking far less immaculate than usual. Fortunately, they were all still in bed, sleeping off the night before.
He rang the bell, then rapped on the door for good measure, and strode inside the moment the resigned-looking butler opened it. “My sister?”
“The drawing room, my lord.”
Jack marched up the stairs and into the room. He found Nell sitting on a sofa, dabbing at her face with a handful of lace-edged muslin handkerchief and sighing woefully. She looked up at Jack’s entrance and fresh tears brimmed in her eyes.
“Oh, Jack! George told you? Thank goodness you’re here. Ashburton has gone off to look for the wretched girl, and Nora keeps to her room and does nothing but cry, and I have no one at all here to support me through this awful time.”
“Where’s Min?”
“Gone, thank goodness! Who would’ve believed she could’ve grown into such a creature. But it’s always the quiet ones. And to think, I invited her here out of the goodness of my heart, and she chose to repay me by imposing upon me in such an unspeakable way. And now Nora’s entrance into society has been ruined, and I know our mother will blame me. As if I could’ve known! And, anyway, it wasyoursuggestion to invite the Fanshaw girl, so I don’t see how any of this is my fault, and—”
“Nell, if you carry on in that manner, I’ll throw you out of this window.”
She gasped, finally lifting her face from her handkerchief and looking at him properly. What she saw made her turn pale. “Jack! It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t do anything. Lucychoseto leave. You ought to be glad she’s gone and you’re free from her tricks.”
