But George met her eyes again just at that moment, and she saw the same guilty fear that pricked her.This is our doing. We’ve driven him away.
But how?How?And why? What could Jack feel for the supposed union of his two closest friends but joy?
That burning look of last night again seared through her… And his strange, brittle manner of the whole evening… And the angerwith which he’d first come to her on hearing the news, and the bewilderment that seemed to shadow it…
Yes, because he was annoyed at losing his two most devoted flunkeys—was no longer first in importance to either of them. It could all be explained. And very rationally too.
“That’s a fine little place he has up there.” Captain Sedgewick sounded wistful. “Melton country, you know. We’ve had some wonderful hunting, nothing like it. Can’t think why he’s gone up there now, though. Entirely the wrong time of year. Unless…I say, George, he better not have got up some party and not included us, because those after-hunt revels were wilder than the rides themselves, and I won’t forgive him if I miss one.”
Ignoring her brother with the smoothness of long habit, Miss Sedgewick said, “What a pity! He’ll be sorely missed.” Her manner was as bright as ever, but even if she gave no sign of the guilt that prickled her friends, there was a trace of artificiality to her smile. Jack’s abrupt departure from town seemed to have taken even her by surprise. “No doubt he’s gone to visit his mother. She’s been unwell, as you know. I do hope she’s not taken a turn for the worse. But look!” she added in a lower voice, as a signal from below showed them it was time to take their seats. “There are his sisters in the Ashburton box. Eleanor, at least, must be feeling better after her influenza. We’ll ask them for news at the first lull.”
She sat down beside Lucy, giving her a laughing smile, because, yes, it was obvious what had happened. The sisters had taken the first opportunity of their brother’s absence from town to escape his imposed imprisonment. They even made no secret of it, arriving at George’s box in the first interval, the silent Lord Ashburton in their colourful wake.
“We’re not encroaching are we, Mr Simmons?” cried Nell, resplendent in saffron-coloured satin and a concoction ofmatching feathers at a daring angle among her elaborately plaited hair. “How could we be when we’re almost family?”
George gave a visible start at that, but it was Lucy whom Lady Ashburton’s smile landed upon, and she came directly over to her side even before George had quite finished politely welcoming the newcomers to his now quite crowded box.
“My dearest, dearest Lucy!” Nell said, joyously taking Lucy’s hand between both of hers. A far cry from when they had last seen each other, when she’d treated Lucy like the worst kind of harlot. “It seems the most colossal age since we last saw you. How we chafed at being kept at home with only Jack to bring us news of how you fared. But it turns out Eleanor only had the most trifling of colds after all. Jack quite overreacted calling it influenza! But one can understand his caution, with our mother’s ill health on his mind. He is the most caring and dutiful of men, don’t you agree?”
Lucy opened her mouth, but before she was able to rifle through Jack’s good qualities to discover whetherdutifulandcaringwere indeed in the mix, Nell continued in a low voice, “There can be no ill will between us, can there?” She drew Lucy to sit down beside her, a hand tucked into Lucy’s arm so they sat close together, in the perfect attitude for whispered confidences. Nell’s perfume was quite overpowering.
“All that silly confusion is quite forgotten by us, I assure you,” said Nell. “And you won’t punish me for my sisterly devotion, I know. My first instinct is always to fly to Nora’s defence, especially as she’s so much younger. You have no sisters of your own, Lucy, so you don’t know what it is like. But I was torn—torn—between loyalty to my own flesh and blood and the unshaken faith I’ve always had in you, forweare almost like sisters, are we not?”
Lucy could have laughed at such an outrageous claim if it hadn’t been so grimly obvious Nell also held another ferventbelief, and one just as absurd: that Lucy was a great heiress. It entirely explained Nell’s change in attitude. Lucy’s stomach sank, a tense ache tightening her shoulder blades. It would soon turn into a headache. It always did around the Ortons. But Lucy’s hesitation—which unfortunately took the form of a grimace—went unheeded by Nell, who leant in even closer and continued:
“I cannot think what got into Nora’s head, other than that she was overcome by the occasion—the Marquess of Pembroke spoke to her, you know, and he never speaks to anyone!—and also that she had a headache, because her hair was gathered back so very tightly. So it can all be explained. Some peevish disorder of the mind, or some such thing.” She chafed Lucy’s hands merrily, and a little painfully. “And besides, Jack spoke to me—you must understand he defended your character with such…such wrath and vigour. Like a…a tiger defending its…ah…flock.” She squeezed Lucy’s arm significantly and said in a reverent whisper, “What Jack’s sentiments are toyou, you must surely know.”
Oh no.
Her heart, which had continued sinking, made a horrible throb somewhere down in her gut that made her feel a little ill.
Jack’s sentiments? Jack’s sentiments were as laughable as all the rest.
“You’re entirely helpless and naïve, ignorant and unworldly...you’ve little enough to recommend yourself to any man seeking a wife…”
Except, of course, her traitorous mind, always so vivid, chose to conjure the exact flash of Jack’s dark grey eyes, a startling heat in them as they dipped to her mouth even while his arm was still warm around her.
Inevitably, a scarlet blush burnt her cheeks, and Nell smiled knowingly, pleased, as though Lucy had just confirmed her most avaricious hopes. She patted her hand.
“My sister and I will call on you tomorrow, my dear. Seven years’ separation has been too long. Let us not suffer another day apart. Soon we will be as close as we ever were. And dare I say it? Perhaps soon we’ll beeven closer still.”
Subtlety had never been a gift possessed by any of the Ortons, and Nell and Nora were the very first visitors to arrive at Miss Sedgewick’s house the next morning. They came bustling in, full of their usual style of loud, rapid chatter, and very full of compliments for everything, most of all Lucy herself.
“How ravishing this primrose muslin looks on you!” Nell exclaimed as she sat, despite Caroline’s frowning comment an hour before that it made her sallow. “Exactly what I would have suggested for you if we hadn’t been so rushed that time in Madame Binet’s, but you must remember how long Nora took choosing between froggings for that pelisse, and I can’t say there was a straw of difference between the two she most agonised over.”
Nora immediately began to protest, which gave Lucy an opportunity to relax the false smile she was wearing. They were Jack’s sisters, and she would attempt politeness for his sake and her own dignity, but this brazen greed…! And after the way they’d treated her! Her hands were white-knuckled on her lap, her pulse hot and rapid in her ears.
“What a pity Jack had to leave town just when you were getting so happily reacquainted,” Nell now said, not even waiting for the maid who’d brought the tea tray to leave. “Oh, yes, we heard the whole! We may have been trapped at home, but our friends tookpity on us, and we’ve had letters every day keeping us up to date with all theon-ditfrom around town. Jack took you to Somerset House. And has dined here several times. But you always were inseparable—it’s just like old times. Didn’t I say as much last night, Nora?”
Nora looked up halfway through a large bite of one of the cakes the maid had brought. Mouth full, she nodded enthusiastically, a few crumbs dropping. “Just like old times!” she confirmed after a hasty swallow. “Made for each other!”
And Lucy had planned to spend the morning in her studio, preparing for a visit from Mr Thornton later that day! She could have been in her sanctuary, doing sane and soothing things with paint and canvas. She could have been doing something that mattered, something that wasreal. But when she looked to Miss Sedgewick for help, or at least sympathy, her friend was merely smiling in an enigmatic way, her attention on Nell in the manner of one artist studying another’s work—one professional judging another.
Finding no help in that quarter, Lucy flashed Nell a faint simulacrum of a smile and busied herself by picking up a piece of cake she had no appetite to eat.
If only she could tell them about George! That would put a stop to all this. Except that was no good, was it, because it was all a lie. Who did it benefit? Only Jack knew, only Jack believed it. And what good had it done other than drive him from town?
What a mess of lies and misunderstandings she was tangled in! Ever since arriving in London nothing had been neat or straight or sensible. Even Nell’s original invitation had been a type of falsehood, and Lucy’s acceptance of it had also been a lie, because she’d come to London only for the art. Then Nora’s wicked rumour… And then the one about her supposed fortune… And now she’d been driven into a false engagement! Andstillpeople made things up! Nell was inventing dreams andschemes of her own design, based on nothing at all but the heady fumes of greed. And knowing her lack of tact, she’d probably spread enough hints to make all London think Lucy was as good as promised to Jack before he even returned to town.
