He was about to reach out for her hand, forgetting his surroundings again, when Portfrey and Elizabeth joined them. Elizabeth wanted to know about the little blind girl she had heard Miss Martin had brought to Lindsey Hall.
Miss Martin told her about Lizzie.
“How very brave and admirable of you, Miss Martin,” Elizabeth said. “I would love to meet her and all your other charity girls too. May I? Or would it appear to be an intrusion, as if I thought them merely an amusing curiosity? Lyndon and I have extended the school at home so that all local children are eligible to attend, but I have toyed with the idea of making it also a boarding school to accommodate children from farther distances.”
“I think,” Miss Martin said, “the girls would be delighted to meet you.”
“I have just persuaded Miss Martin to let me come on the same errand,” Joseph said. “I met two of her former pupils when I escorted them and her to London several weeks ago, and now they are at Lindsey Hall too, one as governess to the Hallmere children, the other as governess to Aidan Bedwyn’s children.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth said, “then we will go together, Joseph. Will tomorrow afternoon suit you, Miss Martin, weather permitting?”
And so it was arranged—as simply as that.
Tomorrow he would see Lizzie.
And Miss Martin again.
Lily and Neville were coming inside, he noticed.
Portia and McLeith remained outside.
When she came back in, Joseph thought, he was going to have to spend the rest of the evening with her, perhaps in private conversation if it could be arranged. He was going to love her, by Jove, even if he could neverfallin love with her. He owed her that much.
Miss Martin got to her feet, bade him good night, and went to join the Butlers and the Whitleafs. Soon she was glowing with animation.
15
Some of the older girls had gone out for a walk. One of the youngerones was playing quietly and ploddingly on the spinet in the schoolroom at Lindsey Hall. Another read silently to herself, curled up on the window seat. A third was embroidering a large daisy across the corner of a cotton handkerchief. Molly was reading aloud fromRobinson Crusoe, and Becky, Lady Aidan’s elder daughter, was listening with rapt attention. Claudia was teaching Lizzie to knit, having cast on twenty stitches and knitted up a few rows to get her started. The collie lay at their feet, his head on his paws, his eyes turned upward.
Claudia looked up when the door opened. It was Eleanor, who had been enjoying a prolonged breakfast with the duchess.
“Miss Martin,” she said, “the Duke of McLeith has ridden over from Alvesley again and wishes to see you. I will stay with the girls while you are gone. Oh, Lizzie is learning to knit, is she? Let me see if I can help. And I do apologize, Molly. I have interrupted your reading. Please continue.”
Her eyes twinkled at Claudia. They had had a long talk after Charlie’s last visit. Eleanor was convinced that his interest was more than just fraternal.
Claudia found him in the morning room downstairs, in conversation with the Duke of Bewcastle and Lord Aidan. Both withdrew soon after her arrival.
She sat. Charlie did not. He crossed the room to the window instead and stood looking out. His clasped hands tapped against his back.
“Ever since you forced me to remember,” he said, “the flood-gates of memory have opened, Claudia. Not just rememberedevents,which are relatively easy to forget, but rememberedfeelings,which never can be. They can only be suppressed. In the last week I have done nothing but remember how wretchedly unhappy I was after I left you, and how totally unable I was to come back to face you when I felt obliged to marry someone else. I really had no choice, you know. I had to marry—”
“Someone from your own world,” she said, interrupting him. “Someone who would not shame or embarrass you with the inferiority of her birth and manners.”
He turned his head to look at her.
“That was not it,” he said. “I never thought those things about you, Claudia.”
“Did you not?” she said. “Was it someone impersonating your handwriting who wrote that final letter to me, then?”
“I did not write those things,” he protested.
“You were sorry to be so plain with me,” she said, “but really you ought not to have been taken to live with Papa and me in the first place since there was always the possibility that you would inherit a dukedom one day. You ought to have been given a home and upbringing more suited to your station. The fact that you had lived with us all those years had put you in an awkward position with your peers. I must understand why you felt it necessary to break off all connection with me. You were adukenow. You must not be seen to associate too closely with people who were beneath your notice. You were to marry Lady Mona Chesterton, who was everything a duchess and your wife ought to be.”
“Claudia!” He looked pale and aghast. “I did not write those things.”
“Then I wonder who did,” she said. “Losing someone one loves is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone, Charlie. But to be rejected because one is inferior, because one is despised, because one simply is not good enough…It took me years to gain back my self-respect, my self-confidence. And to put the pieces of my heart back together. Do youwonderthat I was less than delighted to see you again in London a few weeks ago?”
“Claudia!” He passed a hand through his thinning hair. “My God! I must have been so upset that I was out of my mind.”
