Lucy looked up from the window. He hadn’t been to call. She hadn’t yet seen him. Nell said he wasbusy, giving a roll of her eyes, and that he was forever away from home on some escapade or other.
“Jack?” repeated Nora disdainfully. “What on earth does he have to do with anything?”
“Because Jack is… Jack has… No offence, dear”—she patted the silent block at her side—“Jack haspresence. He is, heaven knows how, one of the most fashionable and popular men in London, and if we want to see you brought out right, Nora, then he needs to be there. To walk into Almack’s onJack’sarm…”
Nora pulled a face at her sister’s reverent air. “I don’t need Jack’s help.” She preened again, adjusting the tips of her gloves. “I’m pretty. I’m rich. And I’m an Orton.”
Lucy bit her lip, again hiding her smile, though it was all true, however vainly spoken. Norawaspretty,wasrich, and the Ortons were one of the oldest families in the country; they could trace their lineage back to the Normans.
The hall of Orton House held an ancient, dulled painting of the first viscount: he who’d previously been Baron Henry Orton. He’d been made Viscount Orton some hundreds of years ago in return for services rendered to,“Some boring old king or something,”Jack had told her once, yawning.“Lord, who cares about history, Min! I wish to God this old house would burn down. It’s damp and draughty and damned well haunted, I’m sure of it. I’m going to build a new one all in modern brick when I’m in charge.”
Fortunately, the fourteen-year-old Jack’s wish had not come to pass, and Orton House still stood, Lucy assumed, as it had always stood, an enormous and chaotically pretty expanse of old stone deep in the soft Herefordshire countryside. Fourteen-year-old Jack’s other statement, that the house was haunted, he’d later attempted to bring to life by jumping out at her from various dark corners with a blood-curdling yell. The first attempt he’d found hilarious. The second one had brought him an ineffectual slap. The third, she was sorry to say, had punished him with her tears. In her defence, she was only just turned eleven.
Suppressing the memory—suddenly more vivid and lifelike than she cared for—she turned her thoughts instead to the old painting of Henry Orton, the first viscount. She’d looked at it often, had looked at all the paintings often; the great cathedral-like hall with its tall, mullioned windows being one of her favourite places at Orton House. Even when the sky was flat and grey, the light washed eagerly through the stained-glass panels decorating the very top of the windows, adding colour to the smooth, ancient stone of the floor and bringing new life to the colours of the faded tapestries and dulled oil paintings.
Henry Orton, First Viscount Orton, had been a slim man, with very dark hair and—she guessed because Jack’s eyes were that colour—stormy-grey eyes, though she hadn’t really been able to see them properly with all the murk that darkened the painting. He’d been savagely handsome, wildly so, something savage in his expression too. A man who’d started a family and a title that had lasted generations. Orton after Orton, all of them dark and beautiful. Helen was. Nora was. Jack was. But what the savage Henry Orton would have made of his descendant sitting smugly in a cascade of pink tulle and satin, preening over silk gloves, Lucy could only imagine with a smile.
“I don’t see why Lucy is smirking,” Nora exclaimed hotly. “Iampretty, and rich, and an Orton. And some of us here are none of those things.”
Lucy flinched, but it could hardly be denied. She fixed her attention on the gap between the curtains.Inspiration.She washere for inspiration. Look how the massed lantern lights made almost the whole sky glow… This city was alive.
“And,” added Nora, “I’m going to take London by storm!”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” retorted Nell. “You’ll be lucky to stir a mild breeze, and it’ll be nothing but a damp squib if Jack doesn’t help set the thing off right. And if Idon’tmake you a success, both he and Mother will blame me! As ifIhave anything to do with it. And I bet you ten to a dozen he won’t even be there. I told him to be in London five days ago when you both arrived, and where is he? No one knows. But I bet there’s brandy, and horses, and cards. Or worse.”
Lucy’s attention flicked again to Nell’s face, but the very real anxiety which underlay the angry words appeared to have more to do with Nell’s fears for her own success than her brother’s whereabouts.
Jack Orton. It was a strange name from an old story; one she’d long since stopped telling herself. And, more properly, his name was John. But no one ever called him that.“John is a dreary name,”he’d told her.“No one interesting is ever called John.”
“And what about Min?”
“Ah, that is a name only you are called.”
“But—”
“It’s short for Minnow, obviously.”
“But why do you call me that? Because I’m small?”
He’d only laughed. Most of her memories of Jack involving him laughing. At her. Would he be any more serious as a grown man? She doubted it. She might have lived a very sheltered life since leaving her first home on the edge of the Orton estate, but in her lonely years of growing from girl to woman, she’d still come to realise that she was the type of woman who would always be laughed at. And Jack was the type of man to do the laughing.
When she arrived at Almack’s, she discovered she was right.
Three
Jack arrived back inLondon only five days after his sister demanded he be there, which, given he’d been in a party of friends including Miss Sedgewick, he thought extremely commendable.
Besides, there was no point rushing over there the moment Min arrived. She’d be bewildered. Tired. She’d be—
How odd. Min here. In this very city.
He took his gloves off in his hall, smiling as he tossed them onto the side table along with his hat. He’d ridden home from Brighton—a long day of hard riding—and he was tired, dirty, and in need of his dinner. But once he’d put himself to rights…
Surprising them would be fun. He could step into Nell’s house with a word of silence to the butler, slip into the drawing room and—
“A message for you, my lord.”
His own butler stepped forward and handed him the note, along with some murmuredwelcome homesand a hopefulwill you be dining here?
