Then, in the easiest way that she could, she explained to her sister what had happened.
“I do not know why I am so overcome,” she finished.“It was not the act itself.It was the quarreling with him afterwards.He was dreadful.And I was too.We cannot stay here, Sally.I will have to go back to Lord Montaigne and ask for another favor.Thankfully, he and his wife are so kind.”
“Perhaps they could help us with the debts,” Sally suggested.She had always been partial to having Lord Montaigne do something for them in that way.
Beatrice shook her head.“They are too large for any help of that kind.And it would not be honorable, under the circumstances.”
“It does seem very strange,” Sally said, thoughtfully, “that Lord Leith should be known as such a rake and to be so…tame in his tastes.Why, even Fred Larkin and I—”
Beatrice started.“Pardon me, Sally?Are you saying that you havebeddedFred Larkin?”
The girl gave a sly smile.“Does it count as bedding if it happens out of doors?”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that.Here, she had taken her sister for a complete innocent, but she might truly be wilder than Lord Leith himself.
“I cannot believe you, sister.I thought you knew naught of such things.”
“We all make our assumptions.”
“Do you love him?Fred?”
Sally nodded.“Yes.Very much.”
“But you’re here, in London, with me.”
Her sister waved her hand as if it were no matter.“Fred said he would wait for me.No matter how long it takes.Even though Cressida Marberry follows him around like a dog.”
“Sally,” she said, exasperated and touched by the girl’s guileless, silent sacrifice, “if you love Fred, and he loves you, you should marry, instead of acting as my servant and flitting around the townhome a lord sets up for his mistress.”
Sally shook her head.“But then you would have no family with you, Beatrice.You would be alone!It would not do.I would much rather wait.”She took her hand.“And do not forget, if it weren’t for you, who knows where I would be.Probably in the workhouse.You saved me when my grandmother died and brought me to Parkhorne Hall.I wouldn’t have anything—and certainly not Fred—if it weren’t for you.”
“You would be fine without me,” Beatrice said, even though she knew very well her sister had been at the mercy of the parish.
“Pish!We both know that is not true.And think of where poor Fred would be.He’d probably be married to Cressida Marberry by now and a miserable man.”
Beatrice laughed again.Cressida Marberry was a sweet girl actually, but she had long been a kind of rival of her sister’s.
“We must leave, Sal.”
“Then we’ll leave,” her sister said.“And go back to Lord Montaigne.Or to someone else.Or back to Parkhorne, if we need to.All will be well, in the end, Bea.Don’t worry.But do you think it is possible with Lord Leith—do you think he was embarrassed?That is all to say, perhaps he spoke in haste.”
Beatrice considered the possibility.If he was really as unyielding in the bedchamber as she suspected, he might have been mortified by her words of reproach.It seemed unbelievable to her that no other woman had ever said anything to him of the matter, but she supposed that many women were merely thankful to not be dealing with worse.And he did not keep any one woman for very long, so perhaps the incentive for saying anything was that much lower.
“It is possible, I suppose.But it still does not solve my problem, even if we can have compassion for his feelings.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“Thank you, Sally,” Beatrice said.“Now you must go back to bed.”
The girl was soon off, leaving Beatrice to her thoughts.
She tiptoed back to bed and stared at the door to Lord Leith’s room.For a moment, she thought of opening it and crossing its threshold.
Beatrice had never quarreled with a man before.Well, she had quarreled with her father, but that had been a different thing altogether.And of course, she had bickered with her brothers.But she had never fought with a lover.
She supposed that, no matter what, she and Lord Leith were now lovers.She did regret that they had quarreled so fiercely, but she had simply been so dismayed that her plan had been ruined.
The truth was that, in the past, her dalliances had never lasted long enough for quarreling.Usually, her liaisons only lasted for a few weeks—a few months, in the case of the linen draper, although they had begun to cool even before he had had to leave the village.
