Before he could act on his impulse, Miss Jones approached, though she did not appear to notice him where he stood in shadow, half-hidden by a potted palm. She stopped at a window, her elegant profile to him, and gazed out into the deepening summer twilight. He thought of speaking to her, of complimenting her music or at least letting her know he was there, but he sensed she needed a few moments alone.
She was not granted them. Miss Arrington soon joined her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Miss Jones cringed slightly at the contact, and James was struck by how small she looked next to her cousin. What had it been like for her, growing up small and brown in a family of tall blonds? He had never minded being a trifle shorter than average, but he had an uncle and half a dozen cousins who fit the same pattern. He had never looked different.
“Well now, Lucy,” Miss Arrington said, “you’ve certainly received your share of attention this evening.”
“Everyone here is most kind,” she replied in a toneless voice. “It seems you will have pleasant neighbors.”
Miss Arrington shrugged. “I suppose. But I do wonder what your new admirers would think of you if they knew who and what you really are.”
Miss Jones stared out into the garden. “I am your cousin.”
“Hmph.” Miss Arrington dismissed the relationship with a wave of her hand. “Somehow I doubt Mr. Cathcart or Mr. Fitzroger or especially Lord Selsley would dance attention upon you if they knew about Lousy Lucy from the workhouse.”
With a triumphant smile, Miss Arrington glided away, rejoining Lord Almont. Miss Jones stayed at the window for a moment, head bowed, shoulders shaking. Then she looked about, saw the door but not James, and fled out into the night.
Chapter Four
James glanced about to make sure no one was looking, then slipped outside after Miss Jones. Lousy Lucy from the workhouse? What the devil?
She wasn’t hard to find. She had collapsed onto the nearest stone bench and was weeping silently. He produced a handkerchief from his pocket, extended it toward her and cleared his throat. “Miss Jones?”
She started and looked up at him, rubbing her eyes. “L-Lord Selsley.” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
He pushed the handkerchief into her hands and sat beside her. “I did.”
She looked at him, then away. “It’s true.”
“What do you mean?” He tried to imagine the girl sitting beside him—pretty and accomplished, with the accent and manner of a gentlewoman—anywhere near a workhouse, and failed utterly.
“Portia—Miss Arrington—was telling the truth. I came to Swallowfield from a workhouse in London. With a head full of lice.”
“But you’re her cousin,” he said. He had no doubt that it was true, that Miss Jones was no mere foundling taken in on some charitable whim. Despite her different size and coloring, she resembled her cousins quite strongly in her features.
“Yes. Our mothers were sisters,” she said, twisting the handkerchief in her hand.
“What happened?”
“My grandfather was a squire,” she said, “of good family, but not grand, and of no great fortune. But you’ve seen my aunt. She married a baronet, and because my mother was even more beautiful, everyone said she would marry a lord.”
“I gather she did not,” he said.
“Indeed. When she was seventeen, she went to London for her Season—and promptly fell in love with a clerk she met at a circulating library.”
“Your father.”
“Yes. He was quite romantic and full of dreams for how he would make his fortune someday. He and my mother eloped and of course her family disowned her. I was born less than a year later, with another new baby almost every year after that.”
“You mentioned two brothers…”
“Two living.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Father never came close to making his fortune. On the contrary, even as a child I could tell we were poorer every year. The winter I turned nine, we all sickened with typhus. Only Owen, Rhys and I survived.”
She narrated the tragedy of her life in the flat, emotionless tone of one who does not ask for or expect comfort. All the same, James wanted to put his arms around her, as if he could protect her from her past.
“Hence the workhouse,” he said gently.
“Yes. My mother had had no contact with her family since she eloped, and Father’s family, if he had any living, were poor and far away in Wales. So when they died, the parish authorities sent us to the workhouse.”
He shuddered at the image her words generated. “How did your mother’s people find you?”
“That was my doing. The year before they died, Mother had turned bitter, and she talked to me about her family. Before, I hadn’t known. But when they took us to the workhouse I knew I had an aunt in Essex, and that she was married to a baronet named Sir Henry Arrington. So I thought, if only I write to them, maybe they will help us. I had to do something. Rhys was only three, and I was afraid that place would kill him.”
“It’s not as though you and your other brother were grown!”
She shrugged. “We were older. We could look after ourselves.”
“So you wrote your uncle, and he rescued you?”
She gave a short, wry laugh. “It wasn’t quite as simple as that. First I told the director of the workhouse that our uncle was a baronet, and he must send for him to come and get us.”
“But he did not?”
“Of course not. He laughed, then had me whipped for telling lies.”
“Good God.” James had a sudden urge to ask her which workhouse it was so he could find out if the director was the same man as a decade or so previously, and have him shamed and sacked if that was the case.
Miss Jones sighed. “Well, I’m sure it did sound fantastical. Orphaned London urchins without a penny to their names, the niece and nephews of a baronet? Why should anyone have believed it? So I knew I would have to write him myself. But it took me six weeks. I had to make a friend of one of the cooks and persuade her to get me pen and paper and to post the letter for me once it was done. Then my uncle came for us. We were there two months, all told.”
“That was bravely done of you.” He had thought from the moment he met her that there was more to Miss Jones than met the eye, and now he was sure of it. She had shown courage and determination in rescuing herself and her brothers from a dreadful situation, and he was sure that same strength of character still lurked beneath her meek exterior.
“I had to take care of my brothers. Anyone would’ve done the same.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” They sat in silence for a moment. “Then your uncle took the three of you home?”
“I was the only one he took to Swallowfield. I’m so very near Portia in age that Sir Henry thought I’d make a good companion for her.” James could just detect the bitterness in her voice. “Since Owen and Rhys were much younger than his sons, he placed them with a vicar and his wife who took in pupils to board.”
“That must’ve been hard on you, being separated from them.”
“They were only twenty miles away, and they visited fairly often…but it was hard, at first. I missed them, and I was so used to being the oldest, the one who took care of the others. And, of course, there were the lice.”
“From the workhouse?”
Again that bitter laugh. “I’d had lice all my life. I never knew there was anything so remarkable or horrific about it until my first night at Swallowfield. Nurse shrieked and refused to have anything to do with bathing me for fear she’d get them herself. They shaved my hair. Shaved it all off.” She twisted one of her glossy brown ringlets around her fingers as if to remind herself it had grown back. “And, Portia had her name for me.” She turned toward him and frowned, looking at him for the first time since beginning her story. “Aren’t you disgusted with me, Lord Selsley?”
“I’m disgusted with your cousin,” he said emphatically.
S
he blinked. “But—you are a viscount. I was a workhouse girl, with lice. I don’t belong here.”
“Accidents of birth and circumstance. In both cases.”
She looked bewildered.
“I was lucky,” he continued. “You were unlucky. I cannot see how that reflects upon your worth.”
“If Portia tells everyone…”
“Some might turn away from you, it’s true. But I would not. I have not, and I flatter myself I have a certain amount of influence here. Truly, I think she would reflect far more discredit upon herself than upon you. What kind of person would spread such a story about her own cousin?”
“Portia,” she said gloomily.
“She won’t do it,” he said. “She’s to be the next marchioness. If she thinks what happened to you was so very shameful, she won’t want it known. After all, she is the one who must live here. You’ll be going home after the wedding.”
“That’s so.” Miss Jones brightened considerably.
“Of course it is.”
She returned his handkerchief. “Thank you, Lord Selsley. Thank you so much for…for your kindness.”
He smiled. “Think nothing of it.”
She shook her head, then reached up to brush back one of the loose ringlets of hair that had fallen across her face. “My aunt’s abigail wanted to cut my hair before I came here, because short hair is so fashionable.”
It was. Miss Arrington and Anna were the most fashionable young ladies in the assembly that evening, and Miss Arrington wore her hair a la Titus, almost as short as a man’s. Anna had worn hers so last Season and was now engaged upon growing it out. It was just long enough to brush her shoulders now. Miss Jones, on the other hand, had a wealth of hair, the great mass of it braided in a coil at the back of her head, with just a few of the shorter ringlets left free to frame her delicate oval face. He guessed that when her hair was down it must extend at least to her waist, if not farther.
“But you refused,” he said, rejoicing that she had.
“Yes. It’s ridiculous, absurd, but I cannot bear the thought of having it cut. It—it makes me think of when it was shaved.”
James knew it was very wrong of him, when Miss Jones had just confided in him, confessing the great secret of her childhood ordeal. But he could not stop his hand from reaching up, stroking lightly over the braided coronet, then twisting one of those loose ringlets around his fingers. “Don’t ever cut it,” he said, startled at how husky his voice sounded, shocked at how much he wanted to see her hair down, how vividly he imagined it spread across a pillow.
Though it was deep twilight, there was enough light that James could see her eyes widen, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. What was he doing? She was so innocent, barely out in society, and he had only met her that morning. He dropped his hand as though the lock of hair burned him.
“I must get back before anyone misses me,” she said, sounding confused.
Indeed she must. If anyone found them here alone in near darkness…
He stood and extended a hand to help her rise. “Come, I’ll show you a door into a different part of the castle,” he said. “If anyone notices how long you were gone, you can simply say you became lost trying to find your way back from the ladies’ retiring room.”
She laughed softly. “I almost couldn’t find my room after visiting the library earlier today. This castle is a perfect maze.”
“It’s often so in houses that have been added on to and improved upon over the centuries,” he said as he led her toward the door. “Orchard Park is very nearly as large, but since my father had it built all at once, it’s much more difficult to lose one’s way. Here.” He tested the door to make sure it was unlocked. “I believe this leads into the library. Can you find your way from here?”
“I can. Thank you, Lord Selsley. You’re—you are very kind.”
He shook his head. “If I may offer you a final piece of advice, Miss Jones?”
“Of course.”
He squeezed her hand lightly, then released it. “The next time a man you’ve known for less than a day touches your hair, you really ought to slap him for his troubles.”
She gave him a startled stare. “Oh! Well, I hardly expect it to be a common occurrence.”
“One never knows. You have lovely hair.”
Again she reached up and twisted a ringlet around her fingers. Without speaking again, she released it and fled into the library.
James made sure the door was shut securely behind her, exhaled, raked his fingers through his own hair and hurried back toward the drawing room lest anyone connect his reappearance with Miss Jones’s.
“Lucy, stay a moment, if you please.”
Now that all the guests had gone, Lucy was eager to flee to her own room and reflect upon this harrowing evening in privacy, but at Sebastian’s voice she halted on the first step of the grand staircase.
They stared at each other in awkward silence for a moment, but she was determined to let him speak first. She had done nothing wrong—she pushed aside the memory of Lord Selsley touching her hair, for she had hardly sought him out—and if an explanation or excuse was due, it must come from Sebastian. She was glad she had stopped on the step; it made his six feet and three inches less imposing, though he still towered over her.
“I know I neglected you shamefully tonight, Lucy,” he said, looking over her head. “It will not happen again.”
“Do not trouble yourself,” she said as calmly as she could, remembering Lord Selsley’s advice. “I did not lack for company, after all.”
“No, but you are my betrothed. I should not have left you dependent upon the notice of others.”
“But we must be secret. If you danced attention upon me, we would draw suspicion.” She worried that she was giving him license to continue to dote upon Miss Wright-Gordon instead, but if she pleaded or begged she would make herself pathetic in his sight. And that must not be. Even if he married her, he would be lost to her forever, for how could respect remain, or love have a chance to blossom, where there was only pity and contempt?
“Well, at the very least, I shall be careful not to spend so much time with Miss Wright-Gordon again,” he said.
“Thank you, Sebastian.”
He closed his eyes, and Lucy sensed he was relieved she had not rung a peal over his head. “Good night, Lucy. Would you like to walk about the garden with me in the morning? I must strengthen this leg.”
“I’d be delighted. Only—would you mind terribly waiting until the afternoon? I mean to sketch again in the morning.” Never before had she suggested an alteration to any plan Sebastian had suggested, and she wondered at her own impulsive audacity.
“Afternoon it shall be,” he said formally.
“Good night, Sebastian.”
She hurried up the stairs to her room, where the maid Lady Marpool had assigned to her sat mending a petticoat and waiting for her. With difficulty, Lucy managed to maintain a calm façade while the maid helped her dress for bed and plaited her hair into a single long braid for the night. But as soon as she had dismissed the girl, she sat at her dressing table and buried her head in her hands.
It had been one thing to accept Sebastian’s proposal knowing that he did not love her. It was quite another to marry him after seeing how he acted in the presence of a woman he clearly did find appealing. Even supposing Lord Selsley was right and the infatuation between Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon died a hasty death, could Lucy bear to live the rest of her life by his side if he never showed the same fervor toward her?
Of all her Arrington relations, Sebastian had always shown the most kindness toward her, beginning from the bleak days when she first came to Swallowfield. Though neither he nor his older brother Hal had been there when she arrived, she had met them a few weeks later on their school holidays. Sebastian had brought presents for her, a doll and a prayer-book, both of which she still counted among her dearest treasures. They had been the first things in her new life that were hers
and hers alone. Everything else in those days, all her clothes, her playthings, the books she studied in the schoolroom, had been Portia’s castoffs.
Gladdened by his kindness, she had clung to him in a way she now realized must have been both a sad bore and a dreadful embarrassment for a boy of fifteen, but he had borne it with good grace and given her much advice on how to go on at Swallowfield and what her aunt and uncle expected of her.
A year later he had joined his regiment, so she had seen little of him from that point forward. But he’d written her regularly and continued to send her gifts—mostly books, improving books, but occasionally pieces of music or an intriguing trinket spotted in a shop in whatever town his regiment was then quartered.
When he’d come home on leave, she’d been almost too shy to speak to her handsome golden cousin in his splendid uniform. She had instead worshipped him from afar and considered him the ideal gentleman, just the sort of man she would most like, if she were ever so fortunate as to have the opportunity to marry. So when he had offered for her, it had seemed a dream come true. But what if that dream transformed into a nightmare?
Yet as dreadful as it had been to watch Sebastian with Miss Wright-Gordon, she had not passed the evening in complete misery, and for that she had Lord Selsley to thank. She had never in her life met anyone so kind and understanding, and simply thinking of him filled her with a warm glow. Whatever else came of her sojourn in Gloucestershire, she would always remember him fondly. He had been so tactful in his advice at dinner, and it still amazed her that he had heard her dreadful history and not turned away from her in disgust.
She blew out her candle and climbed into bed—literally climbed, for the ancient canopied bed was so high that it had a little set of steps attached to it. As she arranged the pillow and covers comfortably about her, her hands brushed against her braided hair—and she was arrested by the memory of Lord Selsley touching it. She could still feel the light pressure of his hand, the warmth radiating from him, and she tossed and turned against the heat her recollections generated.
A Marriage of Inconvenience Page 6