The Bachelor List

by Jane Feather

  Constance gave a wry smile. “The Go-Between seems to be up and running. And we have to put together the next issue of The Mayfair Lady too. An edition every two weeks is a lot of pressure.”

  “No peace for the wicked,” Prudence said with a shrug. “Where are you intending to spend tonight?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, we could work on the paper if you didn't have other plans.”

  “I think I will have,” Constance said. “But we could do some work first.”

  “You can't do without sleep altogether,” her sister protested.

  “Oh, for the moment I can,” Constance said. “Just for two more nights. Once we're back in town it'll be different. Look, there's Father in that wretched motorcar of Barclay's.” She gestured to the driveway, where a motorcar was chugging up to the house, Lord Duncan in driving goggles behind the wheel.

  “We're never going to keep him from buying one of those,” Prudence said with a sigh.

  “He can't buy it if there's no money,” Chastity pointed out. Her sisters hadn't heard her soft-footed approach.

  “He'll borrow it at some outrageous rate of interest,” Prudence stated, her mouth tight.

  “Perhaps we can pawn the silver,” Constance suggested. “And Mother's diamonds. They must be worth the price of a motor.”

  “You're not serious!” Her sisters stared at her.

  She shrugged. “I can see it coming to that. Either that or we prepare to have a major confrontation and force him to acknowledge the truth.”

  Her sisters gazed out over the garden in bleak-faced silence. Constance was right. They could manage the ordinary expenses of daily life and some of the luxuries their father considered necessaries, but any expense as extreme as a motorcar was beyond their ingenuity.

  “Perhaps we could put him off the idea,” Chastity said thoughtfully. “Supposing he had a miserable experience with one. You know how he can make up his mind one minute and change it the next without so much as a blink of an eye. Maybe we could just put him off the whole idea.”

  “Chas, you are very clever,” Constance said, patting her sister's shoulder. “I'm sure we can come up with a plan.”

  “Oh, yes, easy,” Prudence scoffed. “In our copious free time.”

  “Don't be gloomy, Prue.” Constance leaned over and kissed her sister. “We haven't been defeated yet.”

  “Satisfied passion seems to have made you overly optimistic,” Prudence declared.

  Constance smiled.

  “Oh, I think I'm too scared, Lord Lucan. The lake's so deep and cold.” Hester stood on the little jetty at the side of the ornamental lake clutching her parasol. “What if the boat overturns? I can't swim.” She gazed up at him, her eyes round and large as platters beneath an enchanting straw bonnet festooned with flowers.

  “There's nothing to be afraid of,” he said, patting her shoulder. “I'll row you safely across to the island, I promise you.” He offered her a smile that managed to be both protective and slightly patronizing as he held the little rowboat against the side of the jetty. “It's very pretty over there,” he added in a cajoling tone.

  Hester looked doubtfully across the expanse of smooth green water to the little island adorned with a Grecian temple. Two other rowboats with a full complement of passengers were already approaching the island, and no one so far had managed to get their feet wet.

  “Come, Hester, David will take care of you,” Chastity said from her position in the rowboat. “He's a very good oarsman, I can vouch for it, and we'll have the most beautiful view of the sunset from the temple.”

  “Oh, I do so wish to see it, but . . . oh, dear.” Hester bit her lip and fixed her eyes once more upon Lord Lucan, who unconsciously straightened his shoulders.

  “I rowed for Harrow, Hester,” he offered, and it seemed to Chastity that his voice had somehow become deeper as his posture became more commanding. Her lips twitched. Little Hester certainly seemed to arouse the man in David Lucan.

  Chastity exchanged a glance with Constance, whose own eyes were alight with amusement as she stood on the jetty with Max, who was tapping his foot with ill-concealed impatience at this shilly-shallying.

  Max stepped around Constance and twitched the painter out of David's hand, murmuring into his ear, “For God's sake, man. Just pick her up and put her in the boat while I hold it steady.”

  The tips of David's ears burned crimson. He stared at Max, then cleared his throat, and without further ado took the advice. Hester gave a little scream as he lifted her off the jetty and deposited her rather unceremoniously into the rowboat. She sat on the thwart with a gasp, clutching her parasol, and gazed at David in awe as he jumped down into the boat beside her.

  He was still blushing as he stammered, “F-forgive me, Hester. I thought it best to help you make up your mind.”

  “Oh, yes, David,” she breathed, her eyes shining. “I won't be at all frightened now. I know it's quite safe.”

  Max tossed the painter down to David. “Give me strength!” he muttered to Constance. “How the hell deep is this damn lake?”

  “No more than three feet,” Constance returned with a chuckle. “Don't be such a curmudgeon. It's young love we're promoting here.”

  He gave her a look to curdle milk and declared, “We'll take that other boat.” He gestured to a skiff, the last remaining craft at the jetty.

  “There's room for us all in David's boat,” Constance murmured.

  “We'll take the other one,” Max repeated. “My patience won't stand another second of that simpering.”

  “Oh, you are so unromantic,” Constance declared. She called out to her sister, “Max wants to take the skiff, so we'll see you over there.”

  “You want me to be romantic?” Max demanded in clear surprise as the rowboat pulled away. “That's rich, coming from someone who doesn't have a romantic bone in her body.”

  Constance laughed. “Unfair and ungallant.” She untied the skiff's painter. “Are you rowing or am I?”

  “I am.” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and Constance caught herself watching his hands again, the deft movements of his long fingers. She had noticed already that his forearms and angular wrists were very strong, and she wondered not for the first time what he'd done with his life before he'd gone into politics. There was something very physical about him. Not the kind of man to have spent time in dusty offices or the halls of academe. How strange that she'd had no real interest in his past. It had seemed sufficient to know that he was Letitia's brother and an MP who could be put to good use. Now, however, she wasn't so sure. She still didn't even know his age, let alone whether he'd ever been married.

  She jumped unaided into the skiff. “How old are you, Max?”

  He gave her a quizzical look as he stepped in beside her. “That's rather sudden.”

  “Not really. I've just never thought to ask before. I'm twenty-eight, if you want an exchange of information.”

  He shook his head as he sat down on the mid thwart. “It never occurred to me to wonder.” He took up the oars. “I'll be forty in two months' time.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “I guessed around there.”

  He laughed and pulled away from the jetty. “Any other questions?”

  She let her hand dangle in the cool water as he rowed. “Ever been married?”

  “No.”

  It was her turn to look quizzical now. “Ever been in love?”

  “That's a different matter.”

  “What happened?”

  He shipped his oars and the little skiff bobbed gently as two stately swans glided by. “I met her in India. She was the wife of the commander of the garrison at Jodhpur. She was lonely, bored, rather older than I was.” He shrugged. “To cut a long story short, we had a very passionate liaison. She was going to leave her husband, ask him for a divorce, and we were going to come back to England and live, social outcasts of course, but happily ever after.”

  His mouth twisted in an expression of self-moc
kery and his blue eyes had an ironic gleam in them that Constance didn't like very much. “But you didn't,” she said.

  “No, we didn't. She decided she couldn't bear the disgrace, that it would damage her family's reputation. There was a child, a son, and she was afraid that her husband wouldn't permit her to see the child if she left him.”

  He took up his oars again and resumed course towards the island. Constance felt that she should be satisfied with his answers, but she knew he'd left a lot unsaid. She took her hand from the water and shook silvery drops from her fingers, watching as they caught the light from the sinking sun that was turning the surface of the lake a soft pink.

  “What were you doing in India?”

  “After Oxford I joined the East India Company's cavalry.” He gave a short laugh. “I didn't get on with my father and putting an ocean between us seemed like a good idea. I resigned my commission when . . .” He shrugged and let the sentence hang. “So there you have my history, Miss Duncan.”

  “And now you're a politician.” She dipped her fingers in the water again, making little circles on the smooth surface.

  “It seemed a suitable career for a man of my age and gravitas.” He glanced at her and she saw he was smiling now, the laugh lines creasing around his brilliant blue eyes as he squinted against the sun.

  “And what political issues interest you the most?” she inquired, drying her fingers on her handkerchief.

  “That's far too big a question to answer now.” He pulled strongly on the oars and the skiff darted up to the jetty on the island, where the guests were beginning to climb the hill to the temple.

  “Jenkins is opening the champagne on the terrace,” Prudence said, giving her sister a hand out of the skiff. “If we don't hurry, though, we'll miss the sunset. You took ages getting across.”

  “Ah, well, Max is not too expert with a pair of oars,” Constance said with a devilish smile. “He caught at least three crabs.”

  “Calumny!” he exclaimed.

  She laughed and began to stride up the little hill in the wake of their guests, who were already crowding onto the paved terrace outside the little white structure. Jenkins and a manservant moved among them with trays of champagne flutes.

  “You seem to be getting along remarkably well with our Right Honorable Gentleman,” Prudence said in an undertone, taking a glass from the tray. “Are you sure you haven't lost your objectivity, Con?”

  Constance hesitated. She glanced to where Max stood at the edge of the terrace, glass in hand. She always thought he looked very striking in ordinary formal dress, but he was undeniably attractive with his tall lean frame clad in white flannels and open-collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing bronzed forearms. His hair glistened in the sun. “Just to look at him makes my knees go weak,” she said. “Whether that's the same as losing my objectivity, I don't know. Don't you think he's the most handsome man?”

  Prudence laughed. “He's good-looking, I'll give you that. You don't think he's pompous and arrogant anymore?”

  “Oh, yes, he's both of those things,” Constance declared. “It's just that there are some physical compensations that at the moment seem to outweigh the disadvantages.”

  “That won't last,” Prudence said. “Lust has a time limit.”

  “Then my objectivity, if it is temporarily lost, will soon return,” her sister responded.

  Prudence raised an eyebrow but made no comment.

  Chapter 11

  Max was striding up the steps of the house in Manchester Square early on Tuesday morning when the door opened before he could reach it and the three sisters emerged, dressed for the street.

  “We'll be back late this afternoon, Jenkins,” Constance was saying over her shoulder as she stepped out, drawing on her gloves. “Oh, Max. What are you doing here?”

  It was a less than ecstatic welcome, he thought. “I should have thought that was obvious,” he said with a wry smile. “I was coming to call upon you. What are you doing out so early? It's barely nine o'clock.”

  “I'm afraid that we have to go out.”

  “Anywhere special?”

  “We're taking a train,” Chastity said.

  “Yes, an early train and we must hurry, or we'll miss it,” Constance said. “I'm so sorry, Max. Can you call another time?”

  “Where are you going by train?” he inquired, intrigued but also a little put out by her casual demeanor. They had parted company at Waterloo the previous day on their return from Romsey. It had been a decorous farewell, taking place as it did in public, but he had rather expected a hint of special warmth in her manner towards him when they met next. He had actually tried to resist the urge to rush around to Manchester Square at the earliest possible opportunity, but the impulse had been irresistible. Now he was beginning to regret it.

  “Oh, just an errand we have to run in the country,” she said with a vague gesture, starting down the steps. “But you could call tomorrow. We'll be out in the morning, but tomorrow afternoon we have our At Home.”

  “Unfortunately I must be in the House of Commons tomorrow afternoon for Prime Minister's Question Time,” he said a little stiffly. “I was hoping to invite you for lunch today. I was going to leave an invitation with Jenkins since I assumed you would not yet be up and about.”

  “I'm so sorry.” Constance had already begun to walk quickly along the pavement. “That would have been lovely, but we have this other engagement, you see. Prudence, can you hail that cab coming around the corner?”

  “Well, I won't keep you.” He bowed and waited as the three sisters climbed into the hackney. Constance waved to him as the hackney moved off, and he could read only distraction in her gaze, not a hint of intimacy or even regret at her abrupt departure.

  He frowned. He was far too experienced to be put out by a woman's seeming indifference, let alone to suffer from piqued pride. It was an old feminine trick to blow hot and cold. For some reason women thought it made a man more eager. But he'd learned to ignore it before he was out of adolescence. It was strange, though. Constance was the last person he would have expected to employ such a hackneyed girlish trick.

  Constance sat back in the corner of the cab, hanging on to the leather strap as the hackney swung around the corner into Marble Arch. “Well, that was a little awkward.”

  “You were a little brusque,” Prudence observed.

  “It's just that I know where we're going,” Constance said. “We're in cahoots with his sister's governess, on an underhanded mission to liberate her from Letitia's tyranny. I couldn't think what to say to him.”

  “You could have invited him for dinner this evening. Or even suggested he take you out,” Chastity pointed out. “He did look rather hurt,” she added sympathetically.

  “I suppose so.” Constance fixed her gaze on the street beyond the window. Chastity's sensitivity was having its usual chastening effect. She said slowly, “But in truth I don't want things to move too fast. It was one thing while we were at Romsey, but back in London it seems, well, too precipitate.”

  “You certainly didn't hesitate about jumping into his bed,” Prudence observed in a rather dry tone. “I would call that more than a little precipitate.”

  “Maybe I got a little more than I bargained for,” Constance said frankly. “I seem to be paying for it with doubts now.” She turned back from the window and gave her sisters a rather helpless little smile. “Some kind of lover's remorse.”

  “So, you did lose your objectivity.” Prudence looked at her sharply.

  “I must have done.” Constance shrugged. “But it's coming back now. I have to take control of things again. And the only way to do that is to go slowly.”

  Her sisters merely nodded. They didn't disagree with her, but they had watched her spectacular loss of control with some trepidation and both rather doubted her ability to get it back again as easily as she seemed to think.

  “So, how are we going to proceed with Henry Franklin?” Prudence asked.
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  “First we have to find him. Then we have to get him alone,” Constance said, happy to have the subject changed. “We'll try his father's office first.”

  “Are we going to cajole him or bully him?” Chastity asked.

  Constance considered. “Maybe both,” she said. “Of course, it depends what he's like. How resistant he is. But maybe you should be nice and I should be nasty. Then when he doesn't know which way is up, Prue can chip in with some practical suggestions.”

  “That might work,” Prudence agreed. “But if he's really weak and already bullied by his father, we're going to have to give him courage . . . build him up, not knock him down.”

  “Let's decide when we meet him.”

  The hackney drew up outside Waterloo station and they hurried onto the concourse. The train for Ashford was already steaming at the platform. “We'll buy tickets on the train,” Constance said. “There's no time to stand at the ticket window.”

  They settled into a compartment, bought their tickets from an elderly and avuncular ticket collector, and Constance unscrewed the lid of the thermos flask she carried in a capacious straw handbag. She filled three dainty cups and passed them around as the train's whistle blew and the train jerked forward.

  “Did you bring sandwiches?” Chastity leaned forward to peer in the basket.

  “Cheese scones and cold sausages,” her sister told her. “But we should save them until later. I've no idea whether we'll get any lunch.”

  “Oh, but there's Bakewell tart too,” Chastity declared happily, ignoring her sister's suggestion and taking a slice of the almond and jam tart. “Mrs. Hudson's specialty. We can have that now. It goes so well with coffee.”

  The journey took an hour and a half and the train chugged into Ashford station just before noon. The sisters descended to the platform and looked around for a pony and trap to hire to take them into the town.

  “Franklin Construction,” Prudence said, reading off the paper that Amelia Westcott had given them. “West Street.”