A Convenient Fiction

by Mimi Matthews

  “Laura? Did you hear me?”

  Laura turned back to Henrietta. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  “I said that I wish Alex and George could bathe with us. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable? But there’s no chance of that, is there? Not with Alex looking after your brother.” Henrietta shot a narrow glance back down the beach where Teddy was seated behind his easel. Alex stood nearby, his back to the sea.

  Laura had had precious little contact with him since he’d handed her up into the carriage outside Bramble Cottage. From the time they had boarded the train in Lower Hawley, to their arrival at the York Hotel, Henrietta had commanded all of his attention. Laura hadn’t particularly minded. She’d been too much in awe of her surroundings—and too much occupied with settling her aunt and brother. But now…

  She looked at him, a little wistful.

  Like most of the fashionable gentlemen at the seaside, he was wearing a sack coat and matching trousers in a neutral shade of tan. Unlike the rest of the men, however, Alex managed to make the staid ensemble look dashing.

  His coat was unbuttoned, pushed back by his hands on his hips to reveal the tan waistcoat, white linen shirt, and loosened necktie beneath. And his head was uncovered, his dark hair disheveled from running his fingers through it.

  He looked like precisely what he was: a rogue. A feral wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Only a fool would fail to recognize the danger he represented.

  “I’m going to marry him,” Henrietta announced.

  Laura’s gaze jolted back to her friend’s face. “What?”

  “I know he wants to marry me.”

  “Has he asked you?”

  “Not yet, but he’s implied his intentions in dozens of ways. I expect that soon he’ll broach the subject properly. And when he does, I mean to accept him.”

  The bottom seemed to fall out of Laura’s stomach. “But Hen…you don’t know him. It’s been less than two weeks—”

  “Papa was of the same view. Until I pointed out to him that two weeks of daily meetings—of seeing the object of one’s affection every day for hours on end—is the equivalent of months of courtship. Why, during a London season a lady meets a gentleman once in a ballroom, and then again for ices at Gunter’s, or a visit to the botanical gardens. An outing or two later, the fellow’s proposing. And no one objects to that, do they?”

  The cry of the seabirds and the shouts and laughter of the children on the beach softened to a hum in the background. Laura’s head was spinning. She stared at Henrietta, her mind latching onto a single sentence. “Is he the object of your affection?”

  “I believe so. And I’m the object of his affection—of that I’m certain.” Henrietta smiled. “Do you know, Laura…he almost kissed me last week. He stopped at the final moment, his lips over mine. He’s a decent sort of gentleman, for all he pretends to be a worldly sophisticate. But I have a mind to tempt him.” Dimples popped in her cheeks. “If he doesn’t kiss me by Sunday, it will not be my fault.”

  Laura opened her mouth to say something. An objection. A warning. She didn’t know what. But Henrietta forestalled her.

  “Yes, I know, he may well be a fortune hunter,” she said, “but what gentleman of my acquaintance isn’t? They all want Edgington Park, and they all covet my inheritance. It’s to be expected when one is situated as I am.” She linked her arm through Laura’s. “A man who cared nothing for what I can bring to a match would be a simpleton. And I’ve no intention of marrying a simpleton, no matter how noble he might be. Indeed, such a worthy suitor would likely bore me out of my wits.”

  Laura allowed Henrietta to steer her down the sand. The sparkle of wonder she’d felt on arriving at the seaside faded to a dull shine.

  Alex Archer didn’t belong to her. He never had.

  “I should like to be a friend to you,” he’d said.

  Not her sweetheart. Not her husband. And certainly not her love. Just her friend. And very soon, the husband of Henrietta Talbot.

  Laura’s heart twisted. For a moment, she didn’t know how she could bear it.

  But she’d borne it before. With George. In the weeks after he’d made his insulting proposition, she’d wanted to hide in her room, weeping tears of heartbreak and anger by turns. Such girlish dramatics would have been a luxury then, just as they were now. A luxury she couldn’t afford. Not when there was a household to run, a brother and aunt to look after, and clear-starching to finish in the kitchen.

  “Are you all right?” Henrietta asked.

  Laura pasted on a smile, refusing to betray the pain that Henrietta’s happiness caused her. “I’m always all right.”

  She had to be. What other choice was there?

  The York Hotel was an elegant establishment situated directly opposite the harbor, its three stories of windows facing out to the sea. Alex crossed the crowded lobby, his head bent and his hands thrust into his pockets. After an afternoon spent on the beach, he was more than ready to retire to his rooms to wash and change for dinner.

  It wasn’t that Teddy hadn’t been good company. Indeed, with his caustic remarks and dictatorial demands, Laura’s brother was surprisingly amusing. He was rather talented, too. Alex had enjoyed watching the progress of his preliminary sketches, and the resulting effect when he’d transferred his ideas to paint and canvas.

  George had even joined them for a time, long enough for Alex to observe the decided tension between him and Teddy.

  “You don’t like him?” Alex had asked when George left them for the bathing machines.

  “He’s a scoundrel,” Teddy had said, squinting at his canvas as he applied another dab of blue. “He treated my sister abominably two years ago. I don’t know why he ever came home.”

  Alex hadn’t been able to get any more information out of Teddy, except to learn that Teddy himself was partially in the dark regarding George and Laura’s infamous falling out.

  It didn’t matter, in any event. Laura had no need for Alex’s protection. She’d dealt with George once before, all on her own, and seemed more than capable of dealing with him again should the need arise.

  There was no point in fretting over her. In worrying about her safety. Her comfort. Her happiness.

  It was time to get his head on straight. To remember why it was he’d come back to England.

  And it hadn’t been to lose his heart to an impoverished perfumer’s daughter.

  He glanced out the front windows of the hotel as he passed them on the way to the staircase. The calm, untroubled waters of Margate were nothing like the wild and raging seas of North Devon. There, he’d been out of control. A victim of the storm.

  Here, he was master of his own destiny. Whatever happened, it would be his choice.

  He entered his hotel room on the third floor. George stood in front of the looking glass in his shirtsleeves, frowning as he tied his cravat.

  “Squire Talbot expects us downstairs in half an hour for a preprandial drink,” he said. “You’d better hurry and change.”

  Alex stripped off his coat. “If you think you’re drinking tonight, I advise you to think again.”

  “You can’t be serious. I know I rather lost control of my urges that night at the vicarage, but I’ve been dry as a bone ever since.” George met his eyes in the mirror. “Come, Archer. We’re on holiday. A glass of wine with dinner can do no harm.”

  “One glass leads to another, which leads to a bottle, and then God knows what else. I’ve no intention of dragging your drunken carcass out of a gin shop at four in the morning—or worse.”

  “Worse? In Margate? Drunken sailors, maybe, but I doubt there are gin shops and opium dens along the promenade.” George fastened his cufflinks. “You’re becoming an old woman.”

  Alex ignored the barb. He didn’t care what George thought of him. All he needed was for George to stay sober and clear
headed until this affair was brought to a close. Alex hadn’t come this far in the game to end it playing nursemaid.

  “A drop of wine—or whiskey, come to that—never harmed anyone,” George said. “If you had any notion of what I suffer—”

  “Is it too much to ask that you hold up your end of the bargain?”

  “What about your end?” George heaved an impatient breath. “Do it tonight, will you? There’s dancing at the assembly rooms. Henrietta was nattering on about it earlier. You can propose to her during the waltz. It’s what I would do, if I were you.”

  Alex paused in the act of unbuttoning his waistcoat. He couldn’t stop himself from asking: “Is that how you proposed to Laura? At a dance?”

  George bent his head, resuming his toilette with increased focus. “That was another sort of proposal.”

  “What sort, exactly? You’ve never made it clear.”

  “If this is a preface to you mauling me about as you did at the vicarage—”

  “It’s simple a question. One with a simple answer, I trust.”

  George’s lips compressed. And then: “I asked her to be my mistress.”

  Alex’s hand froze on his cravat.

  “She’d just come out of mourning, and there I was, half-seas over on Squire Talbot’s Christmas punch. I knew she’d always fancied me. Ever since we were children. So I kissed her, and I mumbled some rot about setting her up in a townhouse, after which she slapped me.” George slipped his waistcoat on over his arms. “And then I went to London, found a chorus girl to warm my bed, and congratulated myself on a lucky escape.”

  “And now you’re back.”

  “Not of my own volition.”

  “I trust you have no intention of repeating your offer.”

  “Do you want her? Is that it?” George turned from the glass. “Forgive me if I get confused. I thought it was an heiress you required. A lady with a substantial property. Henrietta Talbot, in fact.”

  Alex didn’t reply. How could he when he didn’t know the answer himself?

  “She is in the palm of your hand. If you don’t take her…” George huffed. “Well, it doesn’t seem fair, does it? That you should keep my markers when I’ve all but delivered Henrietta to you on a silver platter.”

  Alex went to the washstand and filled the basin with water. “No, it isn’t fair. But life seldom is, is it?”

  They dined in the hotel’s public dining room, all of them dressed in their evening finery. Squire Talbot presided over their party at the head of table. Alex was seated between Henrietta and Mrs. Bainbridge. Laura sat opposite him, between George and Teddy. There was no opportunity to speak to her. It would have been unseemly to talk across the table. Besides which, she was thoroughly engaged with her brother, discussing his progress at painting, by the sound of it.

  She was also extraordinarily beautiful, garbed in a silk evening dress with a ribbon belt and a low, lace-trimmed neckline that revealed the curve of her porcelain shoulders and hinted at the swell of her bosom.

  After a few brooding stares in her direction, Alex made a point of directing his attentions to Henrietta. She was equally lovely in a gown of printed pink, her golden ringlets pinned atop her head in a profusion of rosette-studded curls.

  “I’d no notion it would be so crowded,” she said. “But it seems every London clerk and his wife has come to stay. And we must endure their company, both on the beach and here at the hotel.”

  “You can blame the railway,” Alex said. “It’s democratized Margate.”

  Henrietta raised a spoonful of soup to her lips. “To think this hotel was once patronized by royalty!”

  Alex wondered what Henrietta would make of his own pedigree—or lack of one. He had no illustrious antecedents. No grand familial connections. Indeed, if he were to wager on his bloodlines, he’d bet everything he had on his mother having been a scullery maid, or a common prostitute. As for his father…

  He’d long suspected that, like Justin Thornhill, he’d been sired by the notorious Sir Oswald Bannister, baronet. Sir Oswald had owned Greyfriar’s Abbey, a ramshackle estate in North Devon, situated high on a cliff overlooking the sea. Renowned for his drunkenness and lechery, he’d been one of the orphanage’s foremost patrons—which was no surprise when one considered that the place was populated with several of his bastards.

  Justin had been one of those bastards. As a lad, he’d been tall, dark, and leanly muscled, just as Sir Oswald had been. He’d also possessed Sir Oswald’s distinctive gray eyes—as stormy as the fog over the Devon sea.

  Alex had been blessed with many of the same features. Unlike Justin, however, Alex had never seen a scrap of proof that Sir Oswald was his father. He had only his instincts to guide him. Instincts that had told him, from a young age, that Justin must be his brother.

  Since coming to Lower Hawley, Alex had been thinking of Justin more frequently. He’d been thinking of Tom, too. Of how he’d looked when last Alex had seen him; beaten, bloody, and betrayed. And of Neville, lying on his sickbed in the orphanage, unable to formulate even the simplest words without a struggle.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex had whispered to him. “But I have to go. I have to get away from here.”

  He’d been consumed by an almost feverish sense of urgency. There had been no time to wait on wiser counsel. No time to work things out with Justin or Tom. Alex had known how the story ended for boys like him. They were disposable—and he was more disposable than most. There was nothing special about him. He hadn’t Justin’s nobility, or Tom’s razor-sharp mind. He had only his good looks. A handsome face and figure that had ended up doing him far more harm than good.

  He’d known then that, if he wanted saving, he would have to save himself. Even if that meant burning all of his bridges behind him. At the time, he’d believed he had no choice. All he’d been able to think of was getting away from there.

  And he had got away. As far away as a boy could get with one hundred pounds in stolen gold coins.

  It had turned out to be very far away indeed. So far that Alex had almost been able to erase the past. But the past was never really gone. Not when one had done what he had. The memories clung to him like ghosts. The specters of Justin, Tom, and Neville.

  Laura had said he was looking for a family. But he’d had a family once. Had them, and thrown them away. Sacrificed them. All to save himself.

  In his darkest moments, he’d begun to wonder if it had been worth it.

  Shortly after eight o’clock, Squire Talbot and the rest of their party made their way to Cecil Square and the imposing stone-faced building which housed Margate’s public Assembly Rooms. The entrance was flanked with Doric columns through which ladies and gentlemen of every class poured into the ballroom.

  Mirrors and stuccoed decorations adorned the walls, and in the corner a small but enthusiastic orchestra played reels, quadrilles, and waltzes.

  Alex danced twice with Henrietta, and twice with Mrs. Bainbridge before he finally approached Laura. To have refrained would have been unforgivably rude—tantamount to a snub.

  “It’s a waltz,” Laura said, as he led her out onto the floor. “Perhaps the next dance—”

  “Henrietta can’t object, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  Her chin lifted a notch. The gaslight from the chandeliers flickered in the glass-studded combs she wore in her hair. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Good.” He curved his hand around her waist, drawing her close as the music started. His heart thumped heavily. He’d only taken her in his arms on one prior occasion. It had been the day they’d met, when he’d hoisted her out of the pond. At the time, he’d been in no mood to appreciate the way she fit so perfectly against him. But now…

  Well.

  Her hand tightened on his shoulder as he spun her into a swooping turn.

  “Gracious,” she breathed. “It ma
kes one rather dizzy.”

  Alex wondered how often Laura had been called upon to dance the waltz in Lower Hawley. Not very often, he’d guess. He gathered her closer. “Focus on my eyes.”

  Her smoke-blue gaze met his. A flush of color crept up her throat and into her face. He felt a little warm himself, but he didn’t look away from her. Their eyes remained locked together as he moved her about the floor in rhythm to the swaying chords of the orchestra—first slowly, and then with increasing speed.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We can go slower if you like.”

  “No. It’s just that—” Her blush deepened. “I’ve only ever danced the waltz with Teddy. And that was years ago. Long before he became ill.”

  Alex raised his brows. “Are there no assemblies in Lower Hawley?”

  “None I’ve attended since my father died. I’m woefully out of practice. Any second, I expect to trip over my own legs—or yours.”

  “I’ll take care of you,” he promised.

  Her mouth lifted into a smile.

  And they danced, staring into each other’s eyes, saying nothing for an endless, suspended moment. Until…

  Until it was all simply too much for him. Too much intimacy. Too much silence fraught with unexpressed emotion.

  “I didn’t see you on the beach today,” he said after the next swooping turn.

  “I saw you.”

  He gave her an alert look. “Did you?”

  “With Teddy. You must have left the hotel very early.”

  “Ah. That.” He flashed a sudden grin. “Your brother wanted to be out with the morning light. He thinks he’s Mr. Turner, painting the seascapes of Margate.”

  She laughed. “I daresay he does.”

  Alex gazed down at her with what he knew must be a stupid, besotted smile. Her laughter did odd things to him. It seemed to unmake him, and then put him back together in a strange, new way. “What about you? Did you enjoy bathing in the sea?”

  “It wasn’t at all what I was expecting.” Her full skirts swung against his legs as he waltzed her around the crowded floor. “Did you know there’s a large woman at the exit to the bathing machines who grabs hold of you, thrusts you straight down under the water, and pulls you back up again? They call her ‘the Dipper.’”