“It will do as well as anything else. He loves me not. He loves me.” She lifted the stem with its single remaining petal. “Not. And so, you see, I am doomed to perish of unrequited love.”
“Nonsense.”
Emily pulled back to get a better look at Lucy, and Lucy gave her sister her full attention. They’d been close enough in age that as girls, before Lucy was married in such haste, they’d whispered to each other about the gentlemen they admired and hoped to marry. Kings and princes. Dukes and lords. Men of fabulous wealth and heroic character.
Her sister gazed in Lord Thrale’s direction. “You are correct, you know. He’s very handsome.”
“Agreed.”
Emily tilted her head. “If I’m not to marry him, perhaps you should.”
“We’re talking about the state of your heart, not mine.” The gulf between them was too wide, and that saddened her. Emily knew nothing of the woman Lucy had become. In fairness, Lucy knew almost nothing of how her sister had changed, and she had.
“Do you mean to say you have no opinion of Lord Thrale?”
“Of course I have.”
“Well?” Emily plucked another marigold and then another and began to weave a chain.
She reached for a marigold and gave it to Emily to add to her yellow necklace. “As you say, he is handsome.”
“That’s all?”
“Severely handsome.”
Emily laughed and added another flower. “Aldreth?”
“Handsome.” Lucy added the next while her sister took another marigold and worked it into Emily’s chain.
“Lucky Mary, to have found a handsome man to fall so madly in love with.”
“I concur.”
They took turns picking marigolds and weaving their chain of gold. Emily looked at her from beneath her lashes. “What do you think of Harry?”
“Handsome, if you like a dark-haired man.”
“Mm. Yes. And doesn’t his mama know it too well?”
Lucy broke into laughter, and it was quite undignified. She did not care. “Doesn’t she?”
“It’s a shame so agreeable a man has such a disagreeable mama.”
“I’ll say nothing about that, thank you.”
“Cynssyr?”
“You know he’s too lovely for words.”
“What of Lord Bracebridge?”
Lucy worked in the next flower. “I don’t suppose anyone would say he’s handsome.”
“No one at all?” Emily dropped the chain of flowers and left Lucy holding it. Emily put her hands on her hips. “Why do you suppose so many women pursue him, then, if he’s not handsome? It can’t be because he’s an earl.”
“No?”
“Not only that. It’s maddening the way women fawn over him.”
“I don’t suppose his title is the only reason he is admired.” Thank goodness her sister was too innocent to understand the appeal a man like Bracebridge held for some women. She fastened in the last flower and turned the chain into a circle.
“He has a married lover.”
Lucy’s heart stilled. “You can know no such thing.”
“He does.”
Gently, she removed Emily’s bonnet and placed the finished flowers atop her sister’s fair head, a crown of brilliant yellow. “You’re wrong that yellow does not suit you.” She adjusted the garland and handed Emily her hat. “How I would love to be as dainty as you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“All the gentlemen swoon over you.”
“They swoon over you, too. I wish I were tall like you. And stop changing the subject. Do you find Lord Bracebridge attractive?”
“Not as anyone would define the word, no.” She smoothed a lock of Emily’s hair. She knew the game, this back and forth discussion of the men they knew, but this time, it was dangerous. Bracebridge was dangerous that way, and she was concerned that Emily seemed fully aware of that. Her innocent, beautiful, younger sister. “You do look well in blue and marigold.”
Emily frowned at her bodice. “I hate blue. This shade of blue. It’s insipid. I have decided I will never wear this blue again. Indeed, this is the very last blue gown you shall see me in.”
Lucy laughed, glad to leave behind the uncomfortable subject of the Earl of Bracebridge. “You sound determined.”
“No more pink, either. I don’t care what Anne or Mary say. No one takes me seriously when I wear such colors.”
“Not so.”
“You don’t think there’s something devastating about him?”
“About whom?”
“Lord Bracebridge.”
“I did not say that.” She set herself to adjusting the tiny bows along Emily’s neckline. Emily was old enough to know her mind. If she was old enough to find a man like Lord Bracebridge interesting, perhaps it was not too soon for her to be married. To a steady man like Lord Thrale. “If you’ve decided to avoid pastels despite how well they suit you, you might try darker hues. Deep blues. Do not make faces at me. Dark blue will flatter you. Red, perhaps, if you are bold enough. Green with gold trim would do. A gown of forest green. With pearls and pewter trim.”
“What do you think?”
She considered her sister. She was exquisite, but it was true that the colors she wore, those pale shades, emphasized her youth, and what young woman wants constantly to be reminded that the schoolroom was so recently in her past when she noticed a man like Bracebridge? “Perhaps you’re right. Banish girlish colors from your wardrobe. Banish them this instant.”
“I meant about Bracebridge.”
There was an inscrutable sadness in her sister’s words, and it made her heart fold over. “Yes, he has something, that is undeniable.”
“He speaks Italian. Did you know that?”
“Italian, you say.”
“And Latin.”
“What gentleman is not conversant in Latin?”
“You see what I mean, then.”
“Not precisely.”
“He’s hardly less eligible than Lord Thrale. They are the two most handsome and eligible men we know. No one else compares.”
“I agree.” Was this possible? Had Emily fallen in love with Lord Bracebridge? If so, she foretold heartbreak for her sister.
“Would you marry him, Lucy? Lord Bracebridge, I mean.”
CHAPTER 20
Lucy linked arms with her sister again and got them strolling in the direction of Captain Niall and the others. “I haven’t thought about him that way. He’s done nothing to make me believe he might be so inclined, so I must question why you think he might think anything of me at all.”
“I overheard Anne say he ought to marry you.”
That brought her to a halt, to hear that Anne had said any such thing. Emily lifted her chin, but of all her sisters, Lucy knew Emily the best. They’d shared a room for years. They’d whispered secrets to each other in the darkness. Despite Emily’s nonchalance, she heard a different truth in her sister’s voice, in her eyes, in the set of her face.
“She told Mary so. I heard them talking about it. You’d get on well together, you and Bracebridge. That is my own opinion, by the way, though it mirrors Anne’s.”
“You are entitled to your opinion. As Anne is entitled to hers.” Bracebridge and her? What could Anne have been thinking? She could not think of anyone who would suit her less.
“Mary agreed.”
“Mary is entitled to her opinion as well.”
“Do you not find him appealing?”
Lucy caught her sister’s fleeting look of misery. “Do you?”
“He’s not handsome like Cynssyr or Aldreth. Or even Thrale. No, I don’t care for his looks at all.”
“That’s not been my impression.”
“Then you have mistaken me.”
She studied Emily, peering into her sister’s face. “I had thought perhaps you had a fondness for Mr. Glynn.”
“He’s agreeable enough.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Emily’s chin firmed. “I’m not in love with anyone.”
They continued toward the other guests. The more she thought about this situation, the more she worried about her sister’s attachment to Bracebridge. Carefully, she said, “Do you think he’s recovered from his disappointment over Anne?”
“No.” Emily adjusted her crown of marigolds. “I don’t think he has. “
“Nor I,” Lucy said, relieved by that admission.
“When I marry, it will be for a grand passion. Nothing else will do.” She clasped her hands to her bosom with deliberate drama. “My future husband will marry me because he loves me desperately and cannot take one more breath without my love.” She turned in a circle. “If I thought a gentleman felt that way about me, and I felt the same for him, then, and only then, would I marry him.”
“What wouldn’t I give for a life with a man who thought a grand and fatal passion was a fate to avoid.”
“Oh, Lucy, how can we be so much alike and yet so different?”
Someone called to Emily and then one of the Leverton girls emerged from the crowd and hurried to them. “We are in need of your assistance. Good afternoon, Mrs. Wilcott. Do you mind if we take Miss Sinclair away?”
“Go along, Emily.” She watched her sister’s departure with Miss Leverton. There was a trail of admiring looks in her wake. Lucy was near enough now to Captain Niall and the others that they were already making room for her to join them. Well. There was Emily safe with the Leverton girls.
She scanned the crowd for her father. With so many sporting men here she hoped he was too busy to drink himself into disrepute. One edge of her lace shawl slipped off her shoulder, and she fished for the end before it could hit the ground, a feat that entailed her walking forward so as to put air between the ground and the lace. She caught the end and collided with someone.
“Careful, Mrs. Wilcott.”
She looked up. Thrale had his hands on her shoulders, gripping tightly enough to keep her from tumbling to the ground. The sun was in her eyes, so bright she couldn’t see anything but his face. She refused the image that came to her, of that night in the parlor, when they’d cleared the floor and sparred.
“I apologize, my lord. I don’t know why I am constantly knocking you over. One day I’ll do you a great harm.”
“No need to apologize.” He didn’t smile. He so rarely did, and it calmed her, the solidity of him. His steadiness.
“Forgive me, nevertheless. I’m forever losing track…” She waved a hand as if she could hardly remember the end of her sentence let alone the reason she’d walked into him. He went along with her charade.
“As long as you’ve not injured yourself. Have you?”
“No.”
He did not reply. Or release her shoulders. An oversight on his part. The moment stretched out. He touched her temple, and there was an elongated moment during which her stomach dropped to the other side of the earth. The possibility that he meant something by that touch devastated her. He didn’t. He couldn’t. She did not want that between them. “Very pretty.”
Lucy froze. They had in silence agreed that their improper meeting in the parlor had never happened, but she could not forget the light in his eyes nor her reaction to him. No coat. No neckcloth. More than a glimpse of his upper torso.
“There are marigolds at Blackfern.”
“Marigolds?” She could not fathom why he was talking about marigolds or how that had anything to do with her.
“Such as the one in your hair.”
She touched the side of her head, and yes, of course. Emily had put a marigold in her hair. “Oh. I’d forgotten. Emily has a crown of them.”
“That’s what you two were doing. Captain Niall was certain you were plotting something nefarious that would cost us a dozen fetching hats.”
“I don’t know why you are so suspicious.”
Seconds before the following silence would have stretched for too long, Thrale spoke.“They were a favorite flower of my mother’s. Marigolds. I grow them at Blackfern as a remembrance to her.”
“Blackfern.”
“A rather dreary name for an estate, but it is the Thrale seat. I’m dashed if I know if there’s a black fern anywhere near.” Whatever the state of things between them, uneasy, yes, very much that, he knew the worst about her and, so, she was less anxious that she might otherwise be.
“Blackfern summons the most Gothic images, don’t you agree?”
“No.”
“You should be grateful for such a name. Why, someone might have given it a mundane name. A workaday name. A name that implies an industrious occupation. The Cooperage, for example.”
“A more pleasant name than Blackfern, I daresay.”
Again, she could think of nothing to say. Nor could he, it seemed from his silence. The image of him standing by the river bank in a sweat-dampened shirt and fighting britches filled her head. “The afternoon has turned quite warm.”
He nodded. Nothing more than polite. “Yes. Very warm. Shall I fetch you something to drink? Lemonade? Oh, but it’s orangeade you prefer. Have I remembered aright?”
“Yes, thank you, but I don’t recall telling you any such thing. How did you know?”
“You said so once to your sister.”
“Which sister? Not recently I think.”
“To Lady Aldreth. In London, last year. In the meantime, sit here where it’s cooler.” He released her shoulders and guided her to an oak tree where a table and chairs were in the shade. She watched the guests enjoying themselves as they always did at her father’s entertainments. Even Mrs. Glynn. She rubbed the back of her neck, unable to erase her recollection of Lord Thrale so near to undressed. A too intimate vision. That broad chest. His strong thighs. He would not be a timid lover, she thought. He couldn’t be. Not him.
“Ma’am.” Thrale stood before her, a glass of orangeade extended.
“Thank you, my lord.” She sipped the drink and fought to be someone besides a woman who admired a man in a sweat-soaked shirt. A woman of Ton. Not a serious woman at all. She swooped a hand toward one of the chairs. “Do sit.”
He did, though he turned the chair so that he was facing partially away from her. Perhaps to have a view of the guests. Likely to put more space between them. He stretched out his legs. “Too many people here. Your lawn will be trampled to death.”
She drank more of her orangeade and found she was glad of his company. “Will you live the rest of your life in the country, then? I don’t know how else you’d avoid crowds.”
“I would be very happy to do so.” He tapped the arm of his chair. “Where has Captain Niall got to? Mr. Glynn engaged me to secure you and this seating whilst he brings his sister to join us. Niall, too.”
“Ah.” She sat forward. “I admire Miss Glynn exceedingly. Don’t you?”
“She is an accomplished young lady.” He tapped his fingers on the chair arm again.
Another silence descended. “Were you content in your solitude at Blackfern?”
“Hm?”
She waved to indicate he needn’t reply, but he answered after all.
“The solitude of those years did not make me long for parties and entertainments, if that’s what you mean.”
“What? Never?”
“Never.”
“I don’t believe you.” She took another sip of the orangeade. “When I was young, I lived for parties. Lived for them. We all did. Even Anne.”
“Ah, yes. Your assembly.”
“The gentlemen who attended never looked as if they were unhappy to be there.”
“With the Sinclair sisters in attendance?” His eyebrows rose. “I imagine not.” He let out a breath. “As a young man, my days and evenings were occupied. I had little time for parties and no great love for them in the event.”
“Did you attend no local gatherings? No dinners or teas? Were there no public dances like ours?” She set her gloved hands on the table. “Or did you retreat to your tower garret to dri
nk cold tea and cast a gimlet eye upon the village below?”
“I dined out now and again.”
“Did you?” The muscles of his thighs flexed when he moved his legs, and she thought of him pacing himself up that hill and back, ending, perhaps, at the Academy to spar, peeled off to his skin. “A yearly event for you?”
“Once a decade, more like.” He let out a sharp and rueful laugh. “Blackfern is a solitary estate.”
“High upon a hill with nothing but eagles and falcons for company?”
“Not quite.” He shifted. The wrought-iron chair had been constructed for form more than comfort, and not for a man his size. He gave her a quick smile. “Not so far from that. At times, however, both in my youth and now, even I require gentler company than my own.”
“I am trying to imagine you as a young man. I fear I cannot.”
He made a gesture that included his person. “I have always looked like this. Just so.”
“What about dancing. Do you like to dance?” She hastened to amend that sentence. “I mean, the young ladies are disappointed when you do not, so one would hope you enjoy dancing.”
“I don’t dislike it.” He picked up his glass and frowned when he found it empty.
She pushed her orangeade across the table. “I am refreshed now.”
“Thank you.” He lifted her glass in a toast. “To your health, Mrs. Wilcott.” He drank and said, glass still in his hand, “It is a gentleman’s duty to engage young ladies to dance when he attends a ball.”
“You make dancing sound tedious.”
“Do I?” The cool gray of his eyes steadied her. God yes, let his eyes take her mind off his magnificent body. “I don’t mean to.”
“I wonder if you say that because you’ve done so little dancing,” she said. “Did you have a dancing master as a boy? I can’t imagine you being as clumsy as I was when I was learning to dance.”
“I had no dancing master. My father failed to see to that.”
She could not stop looking at his thighs, shaped by muscle, nor could she fail to recall the breadth of his chest. Magnificent in every respect. “How did you learn to dance, then?”
“My tutor saw I learned the basics.”
“We Sinclair sisters had a dancing master for a time. Monsieur LeGrande. He told Papa he was French, but he had the most atrocious accent. Even I, who paid no attention to our lessons in French, could tell he did not speak the language well. I suspect he was German.”
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