“That is the point, at least partially.” Mrs. Marsh was forming her words with care. “Her father was born a gentleman, buthisfather wasted a large estate, leaving nothing but the farm. My husband eschewed all society and trained Laura up to succeed him as the son he had been denied would have done.”
“She insisted the day we climbed St. Paul’s that she was a farmer, not merely a farmer’s daughter, but why should that keep her from taking her place in society? Which of course it did not, because here she stands,” he added as she hesitated.
“Mydaughter is a complex personality, and her father’s influence —” She broke off and spread her hands in a little gesture of helplessness.
Jack leaned closer and grasped her hands in an attempt to render comfort. “And I am a bully and a boor to be harassing you about what is none of my business — yet — and on a dance floor too. Nothing could be more inappropriate,” he finished with a cheerful grin that drew a faint smile from his companion and more than a little understanding in the look she gave him as the music wound down and the knots of people shifted and merged into new patterns.
Being committed for the next number, he rose and took his leave of her, pleased to see that Redmond was forced to give way before Laura’s next partner. As he crossed the floor, Jack was still turning the conversation with Mrs. Marsh over in his mind, unaware that he had been under stringent scrutiny during the time he had spent with her.
Though unable to hear the conversation, his godmother, Lady Crofton, newly arrived in town, was sitting a short distance away. Thanks to the removal to two persons between herselfand the group of chairs where Mrs. Marsh sat at the moment when Lord Hastings had joined her, she had been granted an unobstructed view of the engrossed pair. Not only did she witness the widow’s manifest pleasure at his arrival, but she was unpleasantly struck by the apparent intimacy of the tête-à-tête. Their appearance gave the lie to this being a meaningless exchange of social nothings. Nor had the Marsh woman’s increasing unease and Jack’s comforting — to use the least objectionable interpretation — clasp of her hands escaped Lady Crofton’s censorious eye.
Impelled by some idea of confronting him as he walked away, she half-rose out of her chair, but prudence prevailed over emotion. Unable to recall a single instance when confronting a male with the stupidity of his proposed course of action had ever resulted in the abandonment of said action, she sank back on to the chair and considered her options. Having rejected the strong possibility of alienating her godson by reading him a lecture on the folly of dangling after seductive widows, Lady Crofton passed quickly over the option of minding her own business and set herself to mentally composing an urgent letter to her bosom friend, Jack’s long-suffering mother.
Between keeping up her own end of the conversation with the friend who had requested her company while she did her duty by her newly launched daughter, and maintaining a covert watch over as much of her godson’s activity as came within her field of vision, she did not get very far, but her resolution to warn Hannah Hastings of her son’s continued contact with Annabelle Marsh did not waver. Over the next hour or two she caught glimpses of Jack partnering a number of attractive girls and was relieved to see that he did not attempt to sit in the widow’s pocket despite his obvious infatuation. She managed to avoid actual eye contact with Annabelle Marsh during the time she sat in her vicinity, which was long enough to note that several othermen singled her out for sustained conversation. She recognised Lord Exton among them. Being a fair-minded woman, she did not begrudge her lovely neighbour the attentions of any man save Jack Hastings.
It was not until late in the evening when Lady Crofton was leaving the refreshment room that she permitted herself to come face to face with her godson, who blinked in surprise and then enveloped her in an exuberant hug, lifting her off her feet.
“Lady Cath, have you been here all evening? I had no idea!”
“Put me down, Jack, you’ll have every tongue in the place wagging.” Lady Crofton aimed for severity but fell short, as women generally did when attempting to bring Lord Hastings to a sense of his shortcomings.
Her unrepentant godson obeyed her command, planting a kiss on her cheek as he did so. “Have you been in town long? You are looking very much the thing tonight. I like that cashmere shawl.” He re-draped it for her as he spoke.
“I arrived last week. What do you hear from your mother?”
Jack’s smile faded. “The same as always. She is feeling well, everything is fine, she has no complaints about anything and no items of news to report, not even small happenings on the home farm or in the parish. I have asked her repeatedly to come to town; I’ve even opened up the house instead of staying in rooms this spring, but she claims she is unequal to undergoing the rigours of the season.”
“Do not despair, Jack,” Lady Crofton said, patting his cheek. “I believe you can expect to see your mother here within the sennight. Now you will have to excuse me; my friend is signalling that her carriage has arrived. I must go. Come and see me soon.”
“I will, I promise.”
Jack was looking at his godmother’s retreating back, puzzling over her strange prediction regarding his mother when Laura appeared at his side. “Was that Lady Crofton?”
“Yes. She is my godmother, you know.”
“I did not recognise her at first, but Mama was sure she’d seen her tonight, though Lady Crofton didn’t seem to see Mama.”
Jack blinked and stared at Laura’s neutral expression, caught by something in her voice, but he went back to her first statement. “Why did you not recognise her?”
“I’ve only ever seen her at church and from a distance.”
“I thought everybody knew everybody else in the country.”
“Not if you are the family of James Marsh. We know everyone in the village, of course, and Mama has remained on friendly terms with some of the genteel families she met when she first came to Hertfordshire as a bride, but I do not remember my parents ever exchanging visits with anyone. I did have one friend when I was a girl, and even stayed briefly with her family once, but she married last year and moved away.”
Jack was listening to this bald tale of isolation with pity and dismay as they walked back into the ballroom, when they were jolted out of their mutual absorption by Sir Oswald’s voice.
“Ah, here you are, my dear Laura, just in time to meet a friend of mine.”
Turning, they found themselves facing Sir Oswald and Sophia in company with a man some few years younger than Sir Oswald and of somewhat the same stamp, slender to the point of attenuation, well barbered and shaved, his dress precise to a pin.
“May I present Sir Cyril Mildmay, my dear? Miss Marsh is my sister’s daughter, Cyril, and this is Lord Hastings.”
Civilities were exchanged. As Laura rose from a curtsy, Sir Cyril remarked in what she uncharitably labelled a fatuous tone, “I see all the ladies in your family have great beauty, my friend. You are to be felicitated indeed.”
In the few minutes before Jack and Laura excused themselves, Laura found herself again wishing she possessed her cousin’s easy manner with all types of persons. Her own tongue wastied in knots, her smile forced, but Sophia received the knight’s fulsome compliments with smiling equanimity, responding with a watered-down version of her customary flirtatiousness.
Laura felt like one rescued from a quagmire as she and Jack walked back to her mother, and she wondered that her fastidious uncle should tolerate such pointed gallantries toward his daughter, for it had been clear to her that Sir Cyril had been slathering over Sophia. Perhaps this was the style amongst the older generation of beaux, she decided, dismissing the incident with a mental shrug of distaste as she prepared to enjoy the rest of the evening.
