Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind

by Heidi Ashworth

  Surely Lucinda noticed it also. Seated next to Lord Avery, she had an eye-popping view of the decadent stickpin but seemed to make a point of not looking at it. In fact, she was giving the lion’s share of her attention to Sir Anthony, seated across from her.

  As it was perfectly acceptable to speak across the table in such an intimate setting, he lost no time in striking up an animated conversation with the pretty heiress. Ginny felt an uncomfortable burning whenever he turned his gaze to Lucinda, who looked like an angel in that gauzy ice-pink creation. It matched the color of her lips to perfection and enhanced the creamy white of her skin.

  Perhaps he was simply being polite as always. Didn’t he spend nearly as much time conversing with herself as well as Mrs. Barrington? Curse him! There was no reading his actions when he was so faultlessly correct.

  Ginny looked down at the folds of her lilac silk. She had been so happy to have it arrive with the rest of her clothes, and just in time to dress for dinner too. She had pounced on it immediately as being the prettiest of the lot and had instructed Maren to fashion her hair in a new, more becoming style.

  “Are you not hungry, Miss Delacourt?” Mrs. Barrington leaned toward her.

  “Oh, yes. Very.” Ginny picked up her fork and began to eat. Mrs. Barrington had been so kind. She did not wish to offend her, and, as the food was delectable, Ginny had no problem doing her duty. “Umm, delicious.”

  Lucinda giggled into her hand. “My, what an appetite, Miss Delacourt! I’m afraid I couldn’t eat another bite. I always tell Mama that seven courses is plenty, but Papa insists on nine or ten.”

  Nine or ten! What course were they on now? Ginny replaced her fork, hoping the others could not see the burning she felt, oh too well, in her cheeks.

  “Of course, of course,” the squire insisted. “I must keep up my weight. It wouldn’t do, no, wouldn’t do at all to get too thin.”

  Too thin! Why, the man was likely to blow away in the next wind. Mrs. Barrington, on the other hand, could stand to skip a course or two. She was not precisely fat but tended to bulge in the wrong places. How Lucinda managed to curve with such appreciable effect was little less than a miracle.

  From the way Sir Anthony’s eyes seemed to glow when he looked at her, Ginny supposed he thought so too. Somehow he had always managed to cover his admiration for her with that fashionable sangfroid. She may as well admit it; Sir Anthony did not find her attractive. And no wonder; she had been a positive thorn in his side since they had set out days before.

  Entering the drawing room after dinner, Mrs. Barrington took her daughter by the arm and led her to a shadowy corner, where they began a loudly whispered conversation. Ginny could not help but notice that the names of Sir Anthony and Lord Avery were being bandied about with alarming frequency, but that alone was not enough to tell who was currently in favor. The way Lucinda threw out lures to the both of them told her nothing either, except that she insisted the men be fawning over none but her, as always.

  Presently the whispering ceased. Lucinda uttered a fierce “As you will, Mother!” and flounced away to find a seat next to Ginny.

  Mrs. Barrington remained in the shadows. “You may wonder what our little conversation was about, Miss Delacourt.”

  “Oh, no, I was lost in my own thoughts, I’m afraid.” It was patently untrue, but Ginny owned that there were times a polite lie was better than the truth. Perhaps Sir Anthony was rubbing off on her.

  “There are things that are private between a mother and her daughter,” Mrs. Barrington continued. “I hope you can understand our little lapse in manners.”

  Ginny glanced at Lucinda and saw her mute agony. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Barrington. It has been years since I have had a mother, but I do have a greataunt. Unfortunately, she doesn’t limit her words of guidance to my ears alone. I’m afraid the lower footmen are all very much aware of every scrape I’ve ever fallen into.”

  “Do you fall into very many scrapes, Miss Delacourt?” Lucinda asked. “You used to be so boring! This is the best, most famous quarantine ever!”

  Ginny waited for the customary clapping of hands, but it did not come. Perhaps it was an artifice she reserved for the gentlemen. “Thank you, and since we shall all be getting to know one another better, it would be most pleasant if we availed one another of our Christian names.”

  Lucinda smiled her delight, her cheeks dimpling. No wonder men admired her. Indeed, the pitfalls of her nature must seem wondrously small compared with her beauty, not to mention that vast fortune looming in the distance.

  The door opened and the gentlemen entered the room. Lucinda whirled around, clapped her hands, and cried, “Oh, just in time! Miss Delacourt and I have decided to dispense with the formalities. We are to be plain Lucinda and Ginny. Isn’t that famous?”

  “Lucinda!” Mrs. Barrington called from her corner of the room.

  “Oh, yeth” Lucinda gathered her gauzy skirts and stationed herself in front of Lord Avery. She followed this with a deep curtsy and a modest sweep of her lashes before she folded prim hands in front of her. “Lord Avery, we are moth happy to have your prethenth here tonight.”

  So, Lord Avery was Mrs. Barrington’s choice of husband for her daughter. Ginny hadn’t truly expected otherwise, even though Sir Anthony was every bit as wealthy and a good deal more sensible. Not only that, but the Crenshaw family was as old and respectable as the monarchy itself. Lord Avery was only the second earl since the title was created.

  “You may call me Eustace,” Lord Avery said, looking deep into Lucinda’s eyes.

  Mrs. Barrington tensed and stared at the back of Lucinda’s head.

  “As you wish … Eustace”

  Mrs. Barrington relaxed. “Very proper, Lucinda. Of course, there is no need to call Sir Anthony anything but that.”

  Sir Anthony inclined his head and found himself a seat on the opposite side of the room.

  “As for myself,” the squire announced, “you may all call me, yes, you may call me anything you like. Though Squire suits me best” He then took up a seat next to his wife, and the two fell to whispering between themselves.

  “Well ,” Ginny remarked. “It will be a long ten days if we don’t find something to do with ourselves”

  “Oh, yeth, let’s make plans.” Lucinda grabbed Lord Avery’s hand and, with a glance in her mother’s direction, ensconced him on the sofa next to her. She then proceeded to stare at Sir Anthony, who had taken up a chair on the other side of the fire from Ginny.

  “Lucinda, since Rose Arbor is your home, perhaps you can offer some ideas of what there is to do here for entertainment,” Ginny asked.

  Lucinda furrowed her pretty brow. “Well, let’s see. There’s cards and spillikins. Oh, and this is a famous house for Hunt the Slipper!”

  Lord Avery leaned forward in his seat. “There is a vast library with all the poets. I am told there is even a copy of Homer. Have you read Homer, Miss Delacourt?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Isn’t he the one who wrote about the Greeks?”

  “One of the many. Were you aware, Miss Delacourt, that Helen of Troy was believed to have dark hair?” Lord Avery stared intently at her brown locks.

  “Why, no, I was not,” Ginny said faintly.

  “I think what Miss Delacourt is after,” Sir Anthony hastened to add, “is information regarding entertainment that is peculiar to Rose Arbor.”

  “Rose Arbor is not peculiar!” Lucinda said with a stamp of her foot.

  “Not at all, Miss Barrington. Only, pray tell us, what is available to us here that might not be other places?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly!” Ginny exclaimed.

  “Well, we don’t have any ghosts or hidden passages, if that is what you mean. It’s just a boring old house” Lucinda lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not a single murder or lovelorn suicide.”

  “Lucinda, we can’t hear what you are saying,” Mrs. Barrington warned from her dark corner.

  “Yes, Mama” Lucinda stared i
nto her lap, looking miserable.

  The fire crackled and popped in the grate, and everyone’s gaze seemed to be fixed somewhere among the roses patterned in the carpet at their feet.

  Ginny looked to Sir Anthony for guidance. Surely his wealth of protocol could somehow get them lightly over this particular spot of rough ground. “Might you have an idea or two for us, Sir Anthony?”

  “Just the usual amusements one resorts to in this situation.”

  “Oh? Have you often found yourself in this situation, Sir Anthony?” Ginny was suddenly very interested in the other young ladies’ homes in which he was obliged to pass the time. “What, pray tell, did you do to amuse yourself then?”

  “Cards, games, play-acting. The usual house party fare.”

  “Play-acting. Of course!” Lord Avery was so gratified by the suggestion he actually favored Sir Anthony with a hard stare. “It must be none other than the Bard! `Heaven is here, where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog and little mouse, every unworthy thing, live here in Heaven and may look on her, but Romeo may not.”, Unlike Romeo, Lord Avery was able to look at whomever he pleased. So why was he looking at her and not Lucinda?

  Ginny was startled when Sir Anthony’s deep voice continued the quote with, “‘More validity, more honorable state, more courtship, lives in carrion flies than Romeo.”’

  Lord Avery whirled on him and wrung each word that followed through lips twisted with grief. “‘They may seize on the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand, and steal immortal blessing from her lips, who, even in pure and vestal modesty, still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.”’

  Sir Anthony rose, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. “‘But Romeo may not. He is banished!”’

  Lord Avery’s eyes flew open in surprise. “‘This may flies do, but I from this must fly.”’ With a little hopskip, Lord Avery found refuge on the sofa.

  Sir Anthony remained standing until the tension eased out of his flexed hands and his top lip uncurled from an especially lethal sneer. Ginny couldn’t remember seeing Sir Anthony so impassioned. She hadn’t believed it was possible and couldn’t fathom what accounted for it.

  Lucinda, who had been sitting entranced throughout, came to life, clapped, and shouted. “Bravo! Bravo, that was very well done” With her shining eyes turned on Lord Avery for once, she sighed. “I could do this every evening. It is vastly entertaining.”

  Ginny hesitated to point out that Sir Anthony hadn’t been acting, especially when she saw the liberating effect the little scene had on his self-possession. It would seem that the beast’s head had been raised; perhaps an entire play would open the door to the cage. She racked her brain for just the right one. It must have murder and mayhem. Oh, and one mustn’t forget love and romance. Let Lord Avery and Lucinda be his target for the first, but she was becoming more and more curious what Sir Anthony might be like when in the throes of romantic passion.

  “I agree with Lucinda,” Ginny said with a furtive glance at Sir Anthony through her eyelashes. “In fact, I have the perfect play. Hamlet.”

  “Hamlet! I have always wanted to be in Hamlet.” Lucinda rose and kneeled at Ginny’s knee, heedlessly crushing the pink gauze of her gown. “My dancing teacher, who was an acting teacher also, but only not for me because Mama frowns on it … and rightly so,” she dutifully added, “he said that the female role in Hamlet is every actress’s dream.”

  “Yes, I have heard that said.”

  “If we are to do Hamlet, I must insist on the lead,” Lord Avery announced. He took Ginny’s hand from where it rested on her knee. “Here I have found my fair Ophelia.”

  Ginny was aware of the renewed tension coming from Sir Anthony’s corner of the room. He pursed his lips, then smoothly said, “I think Lucinda should play the lead. She is so suited to the part, fair and slight and ethereal. Ophelia needs to look as if she needs protecting.”

  Unlike me, Ginny thought, who defends herself with a heavily loaded reticule and a well-sharpened tongue. It was a lowering thought. Perhaps there was something to Sir Anthony’s code of politeness. With as much tact as possible, she slipped her hand from Lord Avery’s grasp. “I am very much honored, but I am not a good actress. I would do much better with a more staid part, such as the queen”

  “Hearken well to her words, Avery. Miss Delacourt has very little experience in emoting a sentiment she does not feel.” Sir Anthony rose and took Lucinda’s hand, raising her to her feet. “But Miss Barrington strikes me as being just the lady to perform a mad scene with great gusto.”

  Lucinda’s eyes opened very wide. “Mad scene? Ophelia goes mad?”

  “Yes, of course, just before she throws herself into the river.”

  “Oh, but she doesn’t die, does she?” Lucinda, who had been looking quite starry-eyed, now grasped the lapels of Sir Anthony’s immaculately tailored evening coat. “I couldn’t possibly play a woman who drowns herself!”

  Sir Anthony didn’t reply. Instead, he gazed down at Lucinda’s white hands gripping his coat, then back at her face.

  Lucinda gasped exactly as if she had been given a good shake. “I am sorry. I shall play Ophelia if you wish it, Sir Anthony”

  There came a loud ahem from the shadows across the way.

  Lucinda jumped and whirled around to face Lord Avery. “Whom do you wish me to play, my lord, I mean, Eustace?”

  “My flower, do you truly care what I think?” Lord Avery looked deeply into her eyes.

  With a flutter of lashes, she stammered, “Of course, Eustace. I wish to be agreeable.”

  Ginny, finding all of this painful in the extreme, began to rethink the wisdom of the awakening of beasts. “Why don’t we each choose our favorite Shakespeare soliloquy? There is no reason to do a whole play.” At least, she hoped a clutch of soliloquys would do as well. “Besides, I don’t think Shakespeare ever wrote a play that had only four parts”

  Lucinda, who had been looking close to tears, brightened visibly. “That’s a marvelous idea, Ginny! Why, I could be anyone I choose”

  “I agree, your idea is a stroke of genius, Miss Delacourt” Lord Avery took to pacing the room. “Especially considering there is no one but ourselves and the good squire and his lady to serve as audience. We shall all be surprised with each other when we recite our lines.”

  He put a hand to his heart and raised the other to the level of his eyes. “‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…’” He dropped his hands and exclaimed, “Yes, I think I shall choose a soliloquy from Hamlet.”

  “And I shall be Juliet,” Lucinda revealed. “She kills herself too, I know, but at least she doesn’t go mad first. There’s something so romantic about dying for true love, is there not, Sir Anthony?”

  There came the sound of parting lips from the shadows.

  “I mean, Eustace?” Lucinda quickly amended.

  He looked down his very fine nose at her. “I wouldn’t know, Miss Barrington.”

  Ginny decided to change the subject before Lucinda burst into tears. “And whom shall you depict, Sir Anthony?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps Caesar, or maybe Lear. I shall have to study before I choose. Doubtless you have already decided on your subject.”

  “I? Not exactly. Why do you say so?”

  Sir Anthony brushed a mote of dust from his coat sleeve. “I thought it would be an easy decision. I feel very sure you would make a splendid Kate”

  All were frozen in a stunned silence until Lucinda asked, “Who is Kate?”

  Lord Avery answered her in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. “Katherine. She is the heroine from The Taming of the Shrew.”

  Ginny felt as if she had been struck. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she would not give Sir Anthony the satisfaction of seeing them spill down her cheeks.

  Lucinda looked puzzled. “But Ginny is not the least bit shrewish. If she is not a good actress, I should think it would be difficult for her to play one”

  Ginny could not resist seeing how Sir Anth
ony responded to that remark and was gratified to see a wash of color suffuse his face. The muscle around his jaw tensed, and a vein at his temple throbbed.

  “You are quite right, Miss Barrington,” he said huskily. “Pray forgive my error. I find Miss Delacourt to be quite the actress, after all.” With that he made a deep bow to the company at large and walked out.

  Ginny didn’t know where to look. “I think I shall retire also. All this drama has left me most fatigued.” Whisking tears from her face, she quit the room and went immediately to the library. It had been a long time since she had read The Taming of the Shrew, and she intended to freshen her memory as to exactly what was so shrewish about its heroine. She found the correct volume, and, after leafing through the pages, her eyes fell on a most enlightening verse. “Her only fault, and that is faults enough, is that she is intolerable curst and shrewd and forward, so beyond all measure that, were my state far worse than it is, I would not wed her for a mine of gold.”

  So, this was how he thought of her! She felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes and cursed herself for being a fool. What did she care what he thought? It wasn’t as if she had attempted to engage his interest. Still, it didn’t feel pleasant to be thought of in such a light, even if the poor opinion belonged to someone like Sir Anthony. Especially Sir Anthony. She might as well admit it: She cared. Very much so.

  The tears came then in earnest. Ginny tucked the book under her arm and ran from the room. She managed to hold her sobs in check as she dashed upstairs to the upper hallway. Once in her own room she fully intended to sob her heart out.

  Thoroughly blinded by tears, she ran down the hall and threw open the door. Just as she was about to launch herself onto the bed and give full vent to her perplexing feelings, she stopped short. There in front of her stood Sir Anthony, his cravat gone missing and his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, his eyes dancing with amusement.

  “Have you gone mad?” Ginny cried. “Get out of my room this instant!”

  “Ginny, I…” Sir Anthony spluttered. For the second time in as many days, Ginny Delacourt had robbed him of words. Hastily, he began doing up the buttons of his shirt.