by Rose Lerner
Tony watched him carefully when he said six o’clock, as if that would put Nick off. True, it was earlier than he’d been waking up since he’d been back in England, but he’d gone without sleep plenty of times in the army. “Oh, and I found out why Sparks has been avoiding us,” Nick said, grinning, as they joined Ada for the walk to church. Maybe he was cut out for this brothering stuff after all.
“You did?” Tony looked as if he dreaded the answer.
“He’s in love with Miss Jessop.”
Tony’s jaw dropped. “That’s the whole mystery? He’s turned his back on his party for a girl?”
Ada sniffed. “I think that’s sweet.”
“He’s very much in love with Miss Jessop,” Nick said. “Jessop emphatically does not approve. I’m going to try to change his mind after church.”
“If he does, he’ll want Sparks’s votes.” Tony turned up his collar against the drizzle. “Better to convince Sparks that voting against the son-of-a-bitch is the best way to get his own back.”
Nick was a little shocked. But he was reluctant to break the fragile rapport he’d just established with Tony—and to be honest the same thought had occurred to him. There was nothing to be gained in playing holier-than-thou. “Mrs. Sparks asked me to talk to Jessop,” he prevaricated. “Things are at a delicate stage with her. She likes the man the Tories have picked out for her.” He smothered his jealousy at the thought.
“And if you do this, you think she’ll marry Moon?” Tony sounded as if he knew the answer was no, but couldn’t help hoping. Ada yawned ostentatiously.
“I don’t know,” Nick admitted. “She’s trying to make a go of things with him. She’s been visiting his shop. But the best we can hope for may be that Sparks uses Miss Jessop’s dowry to help Mrs. Sparks with her difficulties, and we get his vote but not hers.”
“That’s not good enough,” Tony said. “I need both votes to beat Dromgoole.”
“I can’t force her to the altar,” Nick snapped. “I don’t know what you and Mother were about choosing Moon anyway. They’ve nothing in common.” Damn. He held his breath, certain the secret of his kiss with Mrs. Sparks was written all over his face. His brother would be furious.
Tony opened his mouth, obviously to say something scathing. But perhaps he was as reluctant to risk their accord as Nick, because what came out was a forcedly good-humored, “Do you know what Mrs. Sparks’s difficulties are, by any chance?”
Nick gratefully accepted the change in topic. “I do. But she’s asked me to keep it quiet until things are settled. It’s a delicate matter.”
Tony gave him a searching look, as if he might say more, but they were caught up by some townsfolk in their Sunday best and the opportunity was lost.
After church, they dined with a couple of wealthy voters and their families. It was two before Nick could politely make his excuses. He stopped at a flower-girl’s cart and bought sunflowers.
The Jessops’ house was newer than Mrs. Sparks’s by half a century at least, with a clean neoclassical facade. The neatly painted green door was opened by a maid in a gray frock and white cap, who took his card and murmured that she would enquire if Miss Jessop were in.
“Show him in, I’m bored to tears,” the young woman’s voice called from the rear parlor. The maid looked uncertain, but did as she was bid.
The house was decorated in dark colors, the walls hung with still lifes and an unsmiling portrait or two. English oak predominated in the furnishings without a fanciful classical, Egyptian or Eastern touch anywhere to be seen. The solid, elegant style had been common fifty years ago but not precisely smart even then. Either Jessop really was conservative down to the marrow of his bones, or he worked hard to give the appearance of it.
The fire was kept very high in the parlor, and Miss Jessop wore a warm day dress patterned in dark greens and reds. Her pale face topped with carroty hair was the one bright spot in the room. She lit up when he entered.
“Sunflowers!” She held out her arms for them and bent her head to breathe them in. Her hair blazed even brighter by the contrast. “They smell sweet when you get close enough, you know. Like candy.”
Even that made him think of Mrs. Sparks, who didn’t care for candy.
Miss Jessop was safe to flirt with. They both knew it didn’t mean anything. He bent his head near to hers and breathed in. “Lovely,” he said in a low voice, keeping his eyes on her face.
She laughed, a light sound in the dark room. “You almost carried that off. I’m impressed.”
“I carried it off,” he said with mock wounded vanity.
She shook her head. “Something that shopworn only comes off if you mean it.” A smile lingered about her lips as she said it, as if she was remembering something—and then it turned sour. She really was very pale.
But that was fashionable in England, even if it was hard for him to get used to after Spain. Mrs. Sparks’s skin might have a light golden overlay, like a perfectly baked tart, but she wasn’t a lady. Maybe Miss Jessop’s pallor was merely stylishness and indolence, and not that she was trapped in this house like a flower in a pot.
Maybe it was only Nick who felt uncomfortable and trapped indoors these days, yet still disliked to go outside and let people see him.
“Here, Peg, put these in water, will you?” she asked. The maid took the flowers and went out, leaving them alone. Miss Jessop turned to him eagerly, lowering her voice. “Have you a message from him?”
Nick blinked. “From who?”
Her face fell. “Mr. Sparks, of course.” She gestured after the vanished flowers. “I thought…”
“The flowers were from me. I suspect Mr. Sparks is still recovering from last night’s drinking. He wasn’t at church.”
“I noticed.” She sighed. “Then you must take a message. My father’s forbidden him the house and has me under constant watch. Tell him I shall contrive to be alone under the Market Cross for five minutes Tuesday at nine o’clock.”
He frowned. “My dear girl, if it came out I was aiding in the seduction of the Tory MP’s innocent daughter, it would do my brother a deal of harm in the election.”
Her gray eyes narrowed. “I’m not a girl, Mr. Dymond. I’d have been in caps years ago if I weren’t vain of my hair. You want Mr. Sparks’s vote, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“If you help us, you shall have it.”
In the end, it wasn’t much of a dilemma. It was unlikely there would be any more scandal than there was already. Five minutes in public in broad daylight could hardly ruin the girl, and Sparks would be pleased. So would Mrs. Sparks—but that was entirely beside the point, Nick told himself. “I have your word for his vote?”
She nodded. “And—can I borrow five pounds?”
His eyebrows rose. “What for?”
She bit her lip. “For Jeffrey, my man. He’s been turned off for helping Mr. Sparks and me.”
Damn. “Miss Jessop, you must see that I can’t possibly give money to a servant who has connived at a young gentlewoman’s illicit behavior. Not during an election.”
Miss Jessop made a restless, unhappy movement. “I knew I shouldn’t ask him to help. But I didn’t know when I would get another chance. I didn’t want to be my father’s hostess for the rest of my life.”
“Of course you won’t be,” Nick said uncomfortably. “You’re a very pretty girl.”
She snorted. “Don’t be dense. Besides, plenty of women who can walk go their whole lives without finding what Mr. Sparks and I have. As my father’s hostess, I have a wider circle of acquaintance than most women, and Mr. Sparks—” She shut her lips, as if on something private and precious.
The certainty, the intensity of her desire—Nick felt a faint embarrassment, and for a moment, an envy that ate at his chest like acid. Envy for a woman who couldn’t walk.
It wasn’t his leg that kept him from feeling like a whole man, he realized. It was something far deeper, a lack within himself. He had never wanted
anything with such a bone-deep conviction. Sometimes, it seemed, he could go all day without wanting anything at all.
The maid reappeared in the doorway, Mr. Jessop on her heels looking suspicious.
“I’m glad I found you at home,” Nick told him, trying not to look at Miss Jessop’s sharp, unhappy face. The brash sunflowers looked out of place in a delicate porcelain vase with a shepherd and shepherdess painted on the side. “I was hoping to speak to you on election business.”
“I’ll show you to my study.” Mr. Jessop’s gaze lingered on his daughter. “Are you comfortable where you are, Caroline?”
“I have the bell if I should want anything,” Miss Jessop said with polite, angry distance. She didn’t look at her father. “Thank you for the flowers, Mr. Dymond.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Out of the question,” Mr. Jessop said. “Do you know what Sparks called me in his paper after Brand’s reform bill was defeated?”
“No, sir.” His mother had cut out the article and enclosed it in a letter, gleeful comments scrawled in the margin. He hadn’t read it. “But that was two years ago. Ask for an apology, if you like. I promise you would get it.”
Jessop snorted. “I daresay I would. I’d have respected him more if he had not been so willing to abandon his principles and his party in the midst of an election for the sake of his own convenience.”
“I’m not best pleased myself.” Nick injected understanding into his voice. “But we must both try to remember that he doesn’t view it as a mere convenience, but as his entire future happiness.”
Jessop looked unimpressed. “He meets the girl in a sneaking sort of way, courts her behind the backs of any of her friends who might advise her against him, and tries to force my hand by asking her consent before my own? My daughter might not see through such stratagems, but I flatter myself I’m a little older and wiser.”
Older, certainly. “You put the worst possible construction on it. The truth is he was loath to tell his own friends he was walking out with a Tory until he was sure it was a lasting attachment. Partisan stupidity is to blame for this muddle from first to last. Surely we, as reasonable men, shouldn’t allow that sort of prejudice to stand in the way of a love match.”
Mr. Jessop’s tolerant laugh set Nick’s teeth on edge. “You young people and your love matches. When you’re my age, Mr. Dymond, you will realize parents really do know best what will bring their child happiness. I’m profoundly grateful I never married any of the young ladies I found myself in love with.”
“You think Miss Jessop is more likely to find happiness in an arranged match than with the man she has chosen herself?”
Jessop sobered. “I don’t know that my daughter will marry at all. Her condition has kept her from receiving the attention she deserves. I don’t believe a fair-weather friend like Sparks will long regard her infirmity as anything but a burden, himself. Even if she were whole, I’d hesitate to allow a match so far beneath her station. Better to be comfortable and beloved in her father’s home than poor and resented in her own establishment.”
Nick’s throat was so tight with revulsion that he couldn’t speak. There was a hot weight on his lungs that would become rage if he allowed it to spread. Here, in a few sentences, was so much of what he had hated in his own upbringing: his mother’s confidence in her own superior understanding not only of the world, but of Nick himself. Her certainty that the few small things he might have to offer were already known to her.
“I know you mean well,” Jessop said gently. “You’re a good lad, and we’re all proud of you.” His gaze fell meaningfully on Nick’s leg.
Nick’s hand had been resting on his thigh; he dug his fingers into his flesh until his mended bone ached, to keep from making a fist. Mrs. Sparks wanted him to help her brother-in-law. He could imagine the look on her face when he confessed to knocking Jessop down for being patronizing.
He could imagine the look on Tony’s face, too. It made his gut hurt, but it was almost tempting—an easy, quick, simple pain, and an end to this pretense that he could be of use in any capacity that required more than physical courage and a knack for making himself agreeable.
Mr. Jessop leaned forward. “Have you given any thought to leaving the Whigs? The Opposition benches are no place for a soldier.”
Nick blinked in disbelief. “I thought you valued sticking to one’s principles.”
“And it’s principle I’m speaking of, not this party nonsense. Loyalty to your country and your King, and offering him your support in the struggle against Napoleon’s tyranny. Who could refuse to listen to a hero’s voice?”
You aren’t listening to me right now, Nick thought. He opened his mouth to say that the Whigs opposed tyranny, both abroad and at home, and one or two similar polite catchphrases before taking his leave.
“Opposition has turned the Whigs into a bunch of pettifogging old women,” Jessop said. “Men of action belong in the Ministerialist party.”
“Is that why when the men in my regiment needed new boots, it took over a year for England to send them?” Nick was horrified. Had he really said that? But when he opened his mouth to apologize and smooth the moment over, more words tumbled out. “Is that why when they came, the contract had been given to a pinch-penny profiteer who glued on the soles instead of sewing them? Do you know what a man’s feet look like when the soles of his shoes have fallen off and he’s marched thirteen hours without them?”
Jessop had gone rather pale; it brought out his resemblance to his daughter. “I wasn’t on the committee for funding the War Office, so I can’t—”
“The army fights this war while you sit in committees to decide how many farthings should go to feeding and clothing us, and how many can be diverted to feed and clothe the Regent. If you imagine I would be proud to join you, you are very much mistaken.” He set his cane on the floor with a sharp click and stood. “I hope you will reconsider allowing Sparks’s suit. Talk to your daughter. Let her—”
“I can manage my family without your help, thank you.” Red blotches bloomed on Jessop’s pale skin. “Good day.”
Nick bowed, painfully aware that his visit had accomplished nothing except to completely alienate the Tory MP.
Nick’s leg was sore, and his arm ached from carrying a heavy ham without being able to switch arms. He had bad news to convey, and two flights of stairs to climb to deliver it. For all that, he couldn’t wait to see Mrs. Sparks.
But when he turned the last corner, he heard a chorus of female voices. She wasn’t alone. Why had he expected her to be alone? She had a life in which he had no place; she had a home in Lively St. Lemeston, and people she belonged to.
The door opened before he reached the top. Mrs. Sparks gave him a welcoming smile. “I thought I heard you. Here, let me take that ham.” He followed her up the last few steps. “Look, ladies, Mr. Dymond has brought us a ham!”
They appeared to be engaged in some sort of sewing project. Work boxes were scattered across the room, as were heaps of mangled old clothes, bags of scraps and old newspapers for piecing. It was a small room, so the effect was impressive when six pairs of female eyes were raised from their work and fixed on him.
Most were friendly, one or two were wary—and Helen Knight’s were hard and accusing. Nick swallowed. Had Mrs. Sparks told her sister about their kiss?
“Oh, how lovely,” a plump, blond young woman said warmly from the settle. “Thank thee, sir. And really, I must thank thee also for finally convincing our Phoebe to consider remarriage.”
Nick felt cold. He had to stop thinking of their kiss as if it meant something. It was nothing, a moment in time. There were more serious things at stake.
“Martha,” Mrs. Sparks hissed at the Quakeress. She tucked the ham under one arm and gestured at the empty spot on the settle. “Won’t you sit, Mr. Dymond?”
His leg ached, but he was damned if he would show her less than respect. “Not before you, madam.”
“Nice manners, tha
t boy,” an elderly woman in the old armchair whispered loudly to Miss Knight. “That whole family has lovely manners.”
“You mean they’re all shameless flirts,” Miss Knight muttered. She bowed her dark, braided head over a length of dark red worsted, carefully measuring out diamonds with a wooden ruler and chalk. Her body was as unyielding as the straight back of her chair.
“That too,” the old woman said.
Mrs. Sparks rolled her eyes and began moving things off the wooden chest by the window onto the floor. She had given him her seat—the only one available. He ought to protest, but his leg hurt. He hesitated.
“I haven’t more chairs,” she said in a small, defiant voice, flushing, and he realized she was embarrassed by her tiny lodgings. There would have been nowhere to put another chair, even if she owned one.
“When Mrs. Meade took sick, I offered to hold the meeting at the boarding house,” a woman in her forties said. Her mouth turned down at the corners, giving her the look of a bulldog. “There’s no need to cram us in here like—”
“You’re just afraid of the ghost,” the old woman cackled.
Miss Knight set down her ruler with a snap. “There is no ghost.”
“Oh, there’s a ghost,” the old woman said with great enjoyment. “I’ve heard her wailing many a time, poor thing.” There were several shudders around the room. Mrs. Sparks plopped down on the chest with a sigh.
Nick sat. “Is this your house, then, ma’am?”
Mrs. Sparks started. “How remiss of me! This is Mrs. Pengilly, who owns this house.” She pointed at Martha and the sallow, dark-haired woman next to her. “Mr. Dymond, this is Mrs. Honeysett, chairwoman of the Lively St. Lemeston Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor’s Committee for the Encouragement of Charitable Subscriptions and Bequests, and her sister-in-law Miss Honeysett.” Lastly, she indicated the bulldog and her companion. “This is Mrs. Humphrey, who runs the boarding house across the street.” Mrs. Humphrey nodded at him. “And this is her lodger Miss Starling.”