Simply Perfect

by Mary Balogh

  He had discovered with some surprise that Sonia was unfaithful to him. And while he had felt unable to turn her out because of Lizzie, he had never again slept with her.

  Miss Martin was no simpering miss.

  “You have been celibate for more than two years, then?” she asked.

  He chuckled despite himself.

  “A lowering thing for a gentleman to admit, is it not?” he said.

  “Not at all,” she retorted. “I have been celibate far longer than that, Lord Attingsborough.”

  “Not all your life?” he asked, feeling somewhat as if he were in the middle of a bizarre dream. Was he really having this very improper conversation with Miss Claudia Martin of all people?

  “No,” she said softly after a short silence. “Not all my life.”

  Good Lord!

  And of course his mind immediately framed the question—who?

  And just as immediately came up with an answer.

  McLeith?

  Damn the man!

  If it was true, he deserved to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

  At the very least!

  “Oh,” she said suddenly, her eyes focusing upon something out in the sunshine while she turned instantly into the prim, outraged schoolteacher. “Oh, just look at that!”

  And she strode out onto the wide expanse of grass and began to remonstrate with a working man who was at least three times her size because he had been beating a scrawny black and white dog, which was whining in fright and pain.

  Joseph did not immediately go after her.

  “You cowardly bully!” she said. It was interesting to hear that she did not yell, though her voice acquired power enough to be heard for some distance. “Stop that immediately.”

  “And ’o is going to stop me?” the man asked insolently as a few passersby paused to watch and listen.

  Joseph took one step forward as the man raised his stick and brought it down on the dog’s cringing back again—except that it stopped in midair, Miss Martin’s hand beneath it.

  “Your own conscience, it is to be hoped,” she said. “Animals must be loved and fed if they are to give loyal service. They are not to be beaten and starved by brutish louts.”

  There was a faint cheer from the bystanders. Joseph grinned.

  “ ’Ere,” the man said, “watch ’o you are calling brutish or I’ll give you good reason. And p’raps you want to love and feed the good-for-nothing ’ound if you are so ’igh and mighty about it. ’E’s useless to me.”

  “Ah,” Miss Martin said. “So now you would add abandonment to your other sins, would you?”

  He looked at her as if he would love nothing better than to plant her a facer—Joseph hurried closer—and then leered, displaying a fine mouthful of rotten teeth.

  “Yeh,” he said, stooping down suddenly to scoop the whimpering dog up in one hand and push him against her until her arms came beneath him to hold him. “Yeh, that’s exactly wot I’m doing. Make sure you love and feed ’im, ma’am. And don’t habandon ’im and add to your sins.”

  He grinned in appreciation of his own wit and he went striding off across the park to the mingled cheers of a few young blades and the murmured disapproval of other, more genteel bystanders.

  “Well,” Miss Martin said, turning toward Joseph, her hat slightly askew on her head, giving her a rakish air, “I seem to have acquired a dog. Whatever am I to do with him?”

  “Take him home and bathe and feed him?” Joseph grinned. “He is a border collie but a very poor specimen of his breed, poor thing.”

  He also smelled.

  “But I have no home to take him to,” she said while the dog looked up at her and whined. “And even if I were in Bath I could not have a dog at the school. Oh, dear me. Is he not adorable?”

  Joseph laughed aloud. The dog was anything but.

  “I will house him in my stables if you wish,” he said, “and look around for a permanent home for him.”

  “In a stable?” she said. “Oh, but he has been dreadfully mistreated. One only has to look into his eyes to know that—even if one had not witnessed that shocking display of brutality. He needs company and he needs love. I will have to take him to Susanna’s and hope that Peter will not toss both him and me out.”

  She laughed.

  Ah, yes, he thought, she was capable of passion right enough—even if only passion for justice toward the downtrodden.

  They walked side by side back along the path to his curricle, and he felt suddenly cheerful again. She was not the sort of woman who would abandon even a dog in need or delegate the giving of tender care to someone else. Surely she would help Lizzie too—though she was under no obligation to do so, of course.

  He took the dog from her arms and placed him in the hands of his astonished tiger while he helped her up onto the seat of his curricle again. Then he placed the dog in her lap and she cradled him safely with her skirt and her arms.

  “Part of your dream has come true, I believe, ma’am,” he said.

  She looked at him with uncomprehending eyes for a moment and then laughed.

  “Now all I need is the rustic cottage and the hollyhocks,” she said.

  He liked her laughter. It made him feel cheerful and hopeful.

  “He was not a weakling, that brute,” she said as Joseph took his place beside her and gathered the ribbons in his hands. “I will probably bear the welt of that stick across my palm for a good day or two. I would have screamed if I had been willing to give him the satisfaction.”

  “The devil!” Joseph exclaimed. “Did he hurt you? I ought to have blackened both his eyes.”

  “Oh, no, no,” she said. “Violence is no answer to violence. It just breeds more.”

  “Miss Martin,” he said, turning his head to grin at her yet again, “you are remarkable.”

  And really quite good-looking, he thought, with her cheeks flushed, her hat off-center, and her eyes glowing.

  She laughed again.

  “And sometimes,” she said, “an impulsive fool. Though, goodness, I have not been that for years and years. Doggie, what is your name? I suppose I will have to give you a new one.”

  Joseph continued to grin at his horses’ heads.

  He was really quite charmed by her. There was certainly a great deal more to her than just the prim, stern schoolteacher.

  9

  Claudia had scarcely a moment for reflection from the minute of her return from the visit to Lizzie Pickford until the time came to go on a picnic the following afternoon.

  She was busy for an hour or two bathing and grooming and feeding the collie, which was little more than a pup, reassuring him when he seemed frightened, and taking him out into the garden a few times to relieve himself. She left him with Edna and Flora while she and Susanna and Peter went to dine and spend the evening at Marshall House with Frances and Lucius, but he slept the night in her room—actually on her bed much of the time—and got her up early to go outside again. At least, she had discovered with some relief, he was house-trained. Susanna and Peter had been remarkably tolerant about the sudden invasion of their home by a scruffy dog, but they might have been less so of puddles on their carpets.

  And this was the very morning Edna and Flora were to leave the house on Grosvenor Square to take up their new appointments. Bidding them farewell and waving them on their way in Peter’s carriage, Edna tearful, Flora unusually quiet, was as emotionally wrenching as such occasions always were. This was Claudia’s least favorite part of her job.

  Then, just as she and Susanna were consoling themselves with a cup of tea, there was an unexpected visit from Frances, who came to tell them that she and Lucius had decided to leave for Barclay Court, their home in Somersetshire, the following morning so that she could get the rest she needed for the remainder of her confinement.

  “But you must come to visit us afterward,” she said. “Both of you must come for Easter—and Peter too, of course. We will entertain the three of you together.”
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br />   “Why only three?” Susanna asked, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Why not four? Claudia is going out for a drive with Joseph, Marquess of Attingsborough, this afternoon, Frances, for the second day in a row. And they are both to be at Vauxhall Gardens this evening with Lauren and Kit’s party. And did you know that the reason we could not find her at the garden party the day before yesterday was that she was out on the river with him?”

  “Oh, famous!” Frances said, clapping her hands. “I have always thought the marquess a handsome and charming gentleman. I must confess I find it hard to understand his interest in Miss Hunt—a personal bias, I daresay. But Claudia, you simply must supplant her in his affections.”

  “But she cannot, Frances,” Susanna said, her eyes wide. “It is out of the question. He will be a duke one day, and you know how Claudia feels about dukes.”

  Both of them laughed merrily while Claudia raised her eyebrows and stroked her hand over the back of the dog, who was curled up beside her, his head in her lap.

  “I see you are having a great deal of enjoyment at my expense,” she said, desperately hoping she could keep herself from blushing. “I hate to ruin your pleasure, but there is absolutely no romantic motive whatsoever behind Lord Attingsborough’s taking me driving and boating. He is simply interested in the school and in education…for girls.”

  The explanation sounded ridiculously lame, but how could she tell the truth even to her closest friends? She would thereby divulge a secret that was not hers to tell.

  They looked at her with identical sober expressions before looking at each other.

  “In the school, Susanna,” Frances said.

  “In education, Frances,” Susanna said.

  “For girls.”

  “It makes all the sense in the world. Why did we not guess for ourselves?”

  They went off into peals of merry laughter.

  “But let us not forget about the Duke of McLeith,” Susanna said. “Another duke. He insists that he and Claudia were like brother and sister when they were growing up, but they are adults now. He is very personable, did you not think, Frances?”

  “And a widower,” Frances added. “And he was very eager to see Claudia again when Lucius and I were still at the garden party.”

  “If I were the two of you,” Claudia said, “I would not buy new gowns for my wedding just yet.”

  “Your cheeks are pink,” Frances said, getting to her feet. “We have embarrassed you, Claudia. But really, I do wish…Oh, well, never mind. I daresay you have no love to spare from that little dog at the moment. He is dreadfully thin, is he not?”

  She bent to tickle him beneath his chin.

  “You should have seen him yesterday,” Susanna said. “He was scruffy and dirty and looked rather like an abandoned sewer rat—or so Peter claimed. But we have all fallen in love with him.”

  The dog raised his eyes to Claudia without lifting his head and sighed deeply.

  “That is the trouble,” Claudia said. “Love is not always a comfortable or convenient thing. Whatever am I to do with him? Take him back to school with me? The girls would riot.”

  “Apparently Edna and Flora almost quarreled last evening while we were out,” Susanna said. “They both wanted to hold him at the same time and pet him and play with him.”

  Frances laughed. “I must be on my way,” she said. “I promised Lucius I would be home for luncheon.”

  And then there were all the hugs and good-byes to go through again, just as painful as the ones earlier. It might be a long time before either Claudia or Susanna saw Frances again. And she had all the dangers of a confinement to go through before then.

  Claudia felt quite in need of a rest by the time the morning came to an end. But she had to take the dog for a walk before leaving him in the care of the kitchen staff for the afternoon—a charge they undertook cheerfully. Indeed, the little collie would soon be fat if left for long to the tender ministrations of Susanna’s cook.

  But despite a certain weariness, most of it emotional, Claudia was looking forward to the picnic in Richmond Park or Kew Gardens with the Marquess of Attingsborough and his daughter. She knew she must keep reminding herself that in a sense it was just work—looking over a prospective pupil. And it was not an easy task she had been set. She liked Lizzie Pickford. She also felt desperately sorry for her. But that was an emotion to be quelled. Nothing could be gained from pity alone. The real question was, could she do anything for the child? Could her school offer anything of value to a blind girl?

  She was looking forward to the afternoon nevertheless, and not entirely because of Lizzie. Despite all the distractions of last evening and this morning, she had been unable to keep her mind entirely off that conversation she had had with the Marques of Attingsborough in Hyde Park. He had made some startling revelations.

  So had she.

  He had actually told her in so many words that he had been celibate for more than two years!

  And she had told him…Well, it was better not even to think about that. Maybe, if she was very fortunate indeed, he had forgotten.

  They went to Richmond Park. They drove there in a closed carriage, Lizzie sitting close to Joseph’s side while Miss Martin sat facing them. Lizzie said nothing, but she clung to his hand and sometimes patted it or his knee with her free hand. He knew she was both excited and nervous.

  “Lizzie has never ventured far from home,” he explained to Miss Martin. “Her mother thought it best that she remain in familiar surroundings, where she feels safe.”

  Miss Martin nodded, her eyes upon his daughter.

  “We all do that most of our lives,” she said, “though our familiar surroundings usually consist of a broader compass than just a house and garden. It is good to feel safe. It is also good to step out into the unknown on occasion. How else can we grow and acquire knowledge and experience and wisdom? And the unknown is not always or even often unsafe.”

  He squeezed Lizzie’s hand and she pressed the side of her head against his arm.

  When they arrived at the park he led her inside. The footman who had accompanied the carriage spread a large blanket on the grass in the shade of an ancient oak tree and then fetched the picnic basket before returning to the carriage.

  “Shall we sit?” Joseph suggested. “Is anyone ready for tea yet? Or shall we wait until later?”

  Lizzie let go of his hand in order to drop to her knees and feel the blanket around her. She was still very quiet. And yet he knew that she would talk about this afternoon for days to come. He had never taken her for a picnic before. He had allowed Sonia to set the rules and had unconsciously concurred with them—his beloved blind child was to be protected at all costs. But why had he never given her a treat like this before?

  “Oh, let us wait until later,” Miss Martin said. “Should we not go for a walk first and get some exercise? It is such a lovely day and such a lovely park.”

  Joseph frowned at her. Lizzie turned a panicked face up to him and clutched the blanket with both hands.

  “But I do not know where we are,” she said. “I do not know where to go. Papa?” She lifted one hand and searched the air with it.

  “I am here,” he said, stooping down and taking her hand in his, while Miss Martin stood there, very straight and very still, her hands clasped at her waist. For an irrational moment he resented her. “A walk is probably a good idea. We might as well have had a picnic in the garden if we are not to make the most of all this space. We will go just a little way, sweetheart. I’ll draw your hand snugly through my arm like this, and you will be as safe as you can possibly be.”

  He raised her to her feet as he spoke. She was so small and thin, he thought. Surely she was small for her age.

  They moved slowly and haltingly forward, Lizzie’s arm tense within his. He could almost read Miss Martin’s thoughts as she moved beside them. How could this child possibly be ready for school?

  And indeed, how could she? He was wasting Miss Martin’s time. But th
en she spoke up, her voice firm but not ungentle.

  “Lizzie,” she said, “we are walking along a straight and lengthy avenue of smooth green grass with great old trees on either side. There are no obstacles to cause you harm. You can step forward with absolute confidence that you will not collide with anything or step into any holes, especially as your father has hold of your arm. If you were to take mine too, I daresay we could stride along at a spanking pace and maybe even break into a run. Shall we try it?”

  Joseph looked over his daughter’s head at her. He found himself smiling. She was very obviously a woman accustomed to managing girls.

  But Lizzie looked up, pale and frightened.

  “Mother said I was never to leave the house and garden and that I must never walk fast,” she said. “And Miss Edwards said…”

  But she paused in the middle of the sentence, and before Joseph could speak, she grinned—an expression he saw far too rarely on her face. It made her look downright mischievous.

  “But Miss Edwards is gone. Papa sent her away this morning and gave her money for six months.”

  “Your mother was a wise lady,” Miss Martin told her. “You should indeed remain at home unless you are accompanied by someone you trust. And you should always walk with caution when you are alone. But today you are with your papa, whom you trust more than anyone else you have known, I daresay, and you are certainly not alone. If you hold your papa’s arm and take mine too, we will be cautious for you and see that you come to no harm. I believe your papa trusts me.”