by Janet Grace
He shot his brother a sharp smile, and John grinned and shrugged.
Alnstrop had retired to bed with his head full of contented plans. He would take the microscope over to the Grange, together with a gift for the boy. He and Miss Stapely ... Louisa ... would walk out alone in the garden and stroll among the concealing shrubs in the warm sun. He would speak eloquently. She would accept blushingly, gazing up at him in just that way... He smiled. Later, he would explain the tedious necessity of a visit to Alnstrop, and beg her permission to gladden Mama’s heart with the good news. He would return to her shortly, and together they would plan their future ... He slept with deep satisfaction.
When he awoke it was pouring with dreary, depressing rain. Over breakfast, John reminded him that the assembly was in two days’ time. He would certainly miss it. He could not ignore Mama and poor twittering Cousin Esther. He would have to explain and apologise to Miss Stapely. Already he felt his proposal was at a disadvantage, and he frowned in frustration.
He rode into Aleminster, the microscope packed up on the saddle-bow, and chose a cunningly wrought wooden puzzle for Geoffrey. His continued hopes that the skies would clear and the sun beat down to warm a stroll in the shrubbery were dashed, and he arrived at the Grange drenched, despite his cape. He had worn his finest coat, more elegant than waterproof.
Herring, the Grange butler, had shown him into the morning-room, where Georgiana had come to him with the news of Geoffrey’s fever. She had been happy to send him on up to find Louisa and deliver the toys himself. She was busy helping Cook make cooling drinks for poor Geoffrey, and wished to get back, though she thanked him prettily for calling. He felt he was intruding, a nuisance, but could not leave without seeing Louisa.
And here was his love. In a faded dress and apron for nursing, her hair pinned askew, and utterly dazed with exhaustion. Her eyes flicked frettingly towards the open door, anxious for the child. What could he say to her now?
His eyes skimmed over Hetta’s letter, barely taking in the words.
‘She sounds very happy,’ he remarked abstractedly as he laid the paper down. Her head jerked as it rested on her hand, and he realised she had been dozing as she sat. In a wave of tenderness he set aside all his plans, and reached to hold her hand.
‘Just a quick word, my dear, then you are going to sleep. I have brought the microscope I promised, for when you have time with the children.’ He fetched the parcels and laid them on the table. ‘Also a toy to amuse Geoffrey. But I wanted to tell you—’
A knock on the door interrupted him, and Annie came in, with a surprised bob towards Lord Alnstrop and a message for Louisa.
‘It’s Dr. Turnbull, miss.’
The doctor bustled straight in, a sprightly, cheery man, cheeks red and round, waistcoat buttons straining.
‘Right, Miss Stapely, here we are again. Entertaining visitors, are you? Well, I never! How do you do, sir? A fever, eh? Well, well, with all the excitement I’m sure it is only to be expected. Let’s have a look at the young man, eh? I am sure you will excuse us, sir.’
He bustled on into the night-nursery.
Louisa turned to Alnstrop. Her weary mind floundered uselessly for words to speak her feelings, but produced only empty formalities.
‘I must go now. I am sorry. Thank you so much for these.’ She gestured vaguely at the parcels. ‘You are most kind. I will give Geoffrey your present when the doctor leaves. Thank you.’ She paused, hunting vainly for the words she needed, then shook her head. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Come along, Miss Stapely. How has the patient been?’ She turned to the bedroom.
‘I have to go to Alnstrop for a few days,’ his lordship said desperately to her retreating back.
I want to hold you and kiss you, his thoughts insisted futilely.
‘Oh.’ She frowned, confused, as the doctor called again. ‘Goodbye, then.’
Glancing back at him in perplexed distress, rubbing her tired eyes, she vanished into the bedroom, closing the door. A prey to hideous frustrations, Lord Alnstrop left.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The evening was warm and fine for the first of the annual Aleminster summer assemblies. These dances were held through the drier summer months, when roads in the surrounding countryside were mostly fit to travel, once each month on a night of full moon, least alarming to anxious mother’s shepherding their hopeful daughters in creaking family coaches.
Louisa was seated reluctantly in the Addiscombes’ coach as it wended its way through the evening-shadowed lanes. Georgiana, beside her, was abrim with excitement—this was to be her night with John. Mrs. Addiscombe, spreading across the opposite seat in her voluminous puce ball gown, and armed with a large ostrich-feather fan and her smelling salts, was also preparing to enjoy herself, admiring her daughter and shredding the characters of her acquaintances.
Louisa sat miserably while they chatted. She knew it was unreasonable to hope that he would come to the assembly, despite his promises after the picnic. She had not once heard from him in the two days since his visit to the sickroom. He had gone to Alnstrop. Why? Why had he left so suddenly, and with only that brusque word of goodbye? She had been so tired. Had she misunderstood his feelings? Had he fled to escape an entanglement that was becoming an embarrassment to him? She sighed, and Georgiana turned towards her.
‘Does the coach journey upset you? Never mind, it is not much further now. Don’t worry that you will sit out on all the dances. You look so pretty, we will find you any number of partners. It is all going to be such fun.’
She squeezed Louisa’s hand.
‘I am sure dear Miss Stapely will be happy to sit and accompany me,’ her mother remarked tartly.
‘Of course, Mama, but you must allow her to dance! What a pity Lord Alnstrop had to travel home. He would have danced with Louisa, I am sure. I really don’t know why he went, for John said it was nothing important. Just some old cousin fussing. To think of missing the assembly just for that! John would never have done such a thing.’
Louisa ceased listening. She found she was gripping her little silk and ivory fan so tightly that she was in danger of snapping the delicate struts. She shut her eyes and forced her hands to relax.
She was unaware that much of her heartaching doubt was a direct result of John’s self-absorbed, careless happiness. She was not to know that Robert, returning from the Grange to Little Stoneham Manor, had struggled for many hours before his departure to Alnstrop over a letter to his love. He’d tried to explain his feelings, express all his love and longing for her, and his hopes that they might have a future together. He did not quite make his marriage proposal—that he would ask her when they were together. He wanted to see the delight in her face mirror the joy in his own, and crush her into his arms for the embraces he still dreamed of. But over long hours and many false starts, for he was not a man who expressed his deepest feelings readily, he poured out the love in his heart.
He gave the letter to John with a certain diffidence, but exhorting him to be sure to give it to Miss Stapely as soon as he next visited the Grange, and left for Alnstrop, his mind a tumble of anticipating dreams.
John, his mind on other things, had nodded to his brother, with a reassuring friendly thump on the shoulder, and commanded him not to worry about a thing—he, John, would take care of it all. He sent his kindest regards back to his mama, stuffed the letter into his waistcoat pocket, and promptly forgot all about it. John had not noticed that there might be anything particular in his brother’s feelings for Miss Stapely. Had he thought about the letter at all, which he did not, he would have assumed it to be no more than Robert’s polite excuses at missing the Aleminster assembly.
John was a young man newly finding that he was in love beyond his wildest dreams, feeling he was discovering true love with an intensity no man had ever experienced before. He was not a man to do things by halves. Instead of immediately calling at the Grange the next day, as Robert had assumed he would, he spent the two days before the
assembly ensuring his house and estates were in the best possible order, ready to lay at the feet of Georgiana when he proposed to her at the dance.
So, while John and Georgiana each longed for the hours to pass until the assembly, and Robert waited eagerly for a reply to his letter, Louisa dragged her dispirited steps around the woods and fields with the three children, impatient of their chatter and oblivious of the beauties of the summer countryside. The assembly seemed to loom before her. For one night she had thought it was going to be the height of her dreams. Now it would be an empty mockery of her hopes, for he had gone away and she would sit alone.
The coach-wheels clattered from the dirt on to the cobbles, and within minutes they were jostling with a motley assortment of carriages to pull up at the entrance of the assembly rooms.
The dances certainly were the local social high points in the lives of the young people. Everyone, Mrs. Addiscombe reflected happily as she billowed through the vast pillared doorway to survey the dance-floor, was there.
It was a splendid sight for provincial misses seeking glamour and excitement. A vast central chandelier threw a golden glow over the floor, winking as it moved gently in the draught from the great, welcoming doors. A sweep of stairs at the far end of the room led up to the gallery which entirely circled the room, enabling those resting from the energies of the dance-floor to lean on the balustrade and watch their friends and acquaintances twirling and swirling beneath them. Groups of tables and chairs were set out, both up there and around the edge of the dance-floor, for those needing rest and refreshment. Aleminster might be provincial, but it prided itself that it knew how to do things in style.
Mrs. Addiscombe quickly commandeered a table beside the dance-floor, well-placed for all those hopefuls seeking Georgiana’s hand for the dances, but also with an excellent strategic view of the door and the other tables, so she could see exactly who was there.
Georgiana was immediately claimed by a large group of friends, and stood chattering happily among them. Her dance-card had been full for days, but even to the unlucky ones she was quick to talk and smile. The young men revelled in her, vying for her attentions, but, amazingly, Louisa thought, the girls all liked her too. None of the group noticed how frequently Georgiana’s eyes strayed longingly to the doorway. John had yet to arrive.
Louisa, looking, had she but cared, very attractive in a rich, cream silk ball-dress which dated back to the days of her own season, did notice Georgiana’s wistful glances, for her eyes too kept straying unbidden to the door. She knew he was not coming. But still she tortured herself by watching the door, because her heart still hoped.
With a sigh of pleasure Mrs. Addiscombe settled back into her chair, leant conspiratorially towards Louisa and began to talk.
‘Look over there. Those are the Hodge-Bayloes, with those three daughters who all look and sound exactly like horses, poor dears, and not thoroughbreds, at that. I swear they will tackle each dance as a steeplechase if they can get themselves a partner.’ She tittered at her own witticism. ‘And there are the Cockcrofts, with that boy of theirs who makes such a mooning, round-eyed fool of himself over dear Georgiana, though I suppose one can hardly blame him.’ She paused, and scanned the room for other victims. ‘But where was I?’
Louisa, endeavouring to make the minimum appropriate conversational noises necessary to maintain Mrs. Addiscombe’s babbling flow, rearranged her features into an expression she hoped conveyed enthusiastic interest.
‘The Cockcrofts?’
‘Oh, my dear, yes. Good heavens, look at Lady Crockham, naturally giving herself airs over the rest of us and parading that poor squint-eyed creature she calls her daughter. Lord knows what she paid for the dreadful creation the child is wearing.’
To Louisa’s immense relief this happily vitriolic flow was abruptly ended by the arrival to John Ferdinand, come to pay his respects to Mrs. Addiscombe and Miss Stapely before claiming Georgiana’s hand for the first of the three dances claimed by his pencilled name on her card.
He looked superb, his lean elegance emphasised by the shoulder-hugging fit of his black tailed jacket, cut away to show to best advantage the long, elegant line of his black trousers. These were still an excitingly new fashion in Aleminster, and Georgiana’s eyes lit up with pride. Only the snowy white shirt and cravat, held with a simple diamond pin, relieved the simplicity of his costume, but the effect was of breathtaking sophistication. Georgiana drifted light-footed into his arms, and he swept her away on to the dance-floor.
Mrs. Addiscombe sighed with exaggerated delight.
‘Look at them, Miss Stapely. There is no one to touch them. The most beautiful couple in the room.’ She dabbed at her eye with her handkerchief.
Louisa looked, and her heart squeezed tight with pain. She struggled to banish the thought of Robert, immaculate in evening dress, crossing the floor to claim her. I have never seen him in evening dress, she thought, and she felt stupidly deprived.
‘Mrs. Addiscombe.’ The cold voice startled Louisa from her thoughts as she looked up to see Mr. Blane bowing over her employer’s hand. ‘May I sit with you?’ He was already seating himself, still holding Mrs. Addiscombe’s hand, which he raised deferentially to his lips. He pointedly ignored Louisa. He was not one, she thought, to bother himself with the servants, and she shifted her chair a little aside.
His dress was magnificent, from the vast height of his shirt-points and swelling, pouter-pigeon folds and fall of cravat, the lush velvet of his jacket, the huge size of his buttons, the positive gallery of dangling fobs below his tight-laced waist, the skin-tight breeches, and elaborately tasseled, mirror-bright Hessian boots. Aleminster gazed with furtive amazement. Beside John Ferdinand he looked, Louisa thought, tawdry. But he was delighting Mrs. Addiscombe. To his flirtatious sallies, nudges and squeezes of her hands she responded with ever more schoolgirlish simpers and giggles. Louisa stared stonily ahead in an effort not to hear.
He was just gushingly assuring a blushing Mrs. Addiscombe that surely those unfortunates who had not already the privilege of her friendship would mistake herself and Georgiana for two gorgeous sisters, and be unable to make their choice between the two of them, when the music drew to a close. Georgiana, partnered by Alexander Fetton, with John and Catherine Fetton close behind, came breathless and laughing back to their table. Georgiana regarded Mr. Blane apprehensively as he sat twirling the head of his silver-topped cane idly between his fingers, and studying her speculatively. John regarded him with a wary bristling, but the group chattered cheerfully enough until the music struck up for the next dance.
James Blane slid languorously to his feet and held out a commanding hand.
‘My dance.’ He watched Georgiana through coldly narrowed eyes. He knew he outshone every other man in this provincial desert, was in fact conferring a great favour on this nothing of a girl, but he wanted her to know it too, and come, blushingly tremulous, into his arms.
He became aware that John Ferdinand had also risen to his feet, and Georgiana was indeed blushing, but not with eager anticipation.
‘Oh, no, I am sorry, Mr. Blane,’ she was saying, gazing up at him with anxious appeal. ‘I have Mr. Ferdinand’s name down against this dance. Indeed, I cannot see your name at all.’ Her eyes were all wide innocence.
‘Then there is a mistake,’ he said icily, ‘for I pencilled them in myself when I called at the Grange last week.’ Leaning over, he twitched the card with its little dangling pencil from between Georgiana’s fingers, and studied it.
‘This card has been altered.’ The lines of his face had hardened in fury. ‘My name has been erased.’
He flung the card back into Georgiana’s lap, his voice loud, and people at the neighbouring tables began to turn and look.
John took an angry step forward, just as Mrs. Addiscombe apprehensively clutched his arm, but he ignored her hold and spoke, his voice as cold as ice.
‘Her choice of partner is a lady’s privilege which no gentleman,’ his vo
ice lingered on the word, ‘no gentleman would question.’ He turned to Georgiana. ‘I believe it is my name on your card. Would you care to take the floor?’ Blane stepped forward, his hand clenched on his cane and murder in his eyes. Mrs. Addiscombe jumped to her feet between them like a ruffled hen.
‘This is all too much. You will bring on one of my turns, indeed I feel the palpitations now. Mr. Ferdinand, you have had one dance with my daughter and will have another. There has obviously been a misunderstanding. Allow Mr. Blane this dance and stay and keep me company instead. You are a generous gentleman.’
She had not relinquished her hold on his arm, and now began to sway on her feet, one limp hand to her forehead. Though coldly furious at her intervention, John had no choice but to give way with what good grace he could muster, and turn his attention to the spasms of his beloved’s mama, while his beloved, with one frightened glance at Blane’s rigidly angry face, was swung ruthlessly away into the dance.
Louisa and John were kept busy for some time, petting and fanning a petulantly demanding Mrs. Addiscombe. It was as they were thus engaged that John guiltily remembered his brother’s letter. His hand went automatically to his waistcoat pocket, forgetting he was now in evening dress. No matter, he could simply make his brother’s apologies himself.
‘I am sorry Alnstrop could not be here to join us tonight. Naturally, he would have apologised himself if he I could, but he has been called back to Alnstrop.’
‘Really? I trust it is nothing serious?’ Her sudden anger at this casual mention of Lord Alnstrop’s absence made it easier to sound cool and unconcerned.
‘Lord, no, nothing serious.’
They were interrupted by Mrs. Addiscombe’s plaintive demands for a drink. By the time a glass of weak wine and water had been procured, and she had managed a few feeble sips, the dance had ended and Georgiana and Mr. Blane had completely disappeared.
With a furious muttering under his breath, John abruptly abandoned Louisa to cope with her employer alone and, standing tall and fierce at the edge of the dance-floor, began to rapidly scan the room. His search was fruitless, and with long strides he crossed to the staircase. Louisa saw him leap up four steps at a time, oblivious to the raised eyebrows of the Aleminster matrons he passed. Within seconds he had circled the balcony and was back on the stairs, panic and fury fighting in his expression. Louisa watched him anxiously while soothingly holding out the glass of watered wine. She trusted Mr. Blane as little as John did.