by Merry Farmer
It wasn’t until Flossie called out, “Stay calm, we’re on our way,” that Polly realized her intrepid friend had grabbed the oars and begun rowing toward the sodden pair. Well, they were the emergency boat, after all.
Whatever went on with the rest of the competition, Polly did not get to see. She and Flossie rowed out to George and Lady Arabella, offered towels and comfort to the soaked couple, then helped them steer their way back to the dock. Polly ended up more or less as an observer. Flossie was all concern and compassion for the terrified Lady Arabella, while George seemed somewhat put out by the interruption. He helped Lady Arabella out of her boat, then offered to walk her up to the hotel to recover, leaving Flossie and Polly sitting on the dock.
“Well, that was exciting,” Polly exclaimed as Flossie watched the couple mount the stairs to the hotel, George with his arm around Lady Arabella.
“I hope she is not permanently injured,” Flossie fretted.
Polly laughed. “Oh my dear Flossie. She is no more injured than you or I. And I wager she’ll find herself engaged before the end of the house party because of it.”
Flossie whipped to her, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“I’m certain.” Polly crossed to her friend’s side and slid an arm around her waist, hugging her. “That is simply how the titled class does things.”
Flossie’s look of shock softened to incredulity. “Well, it’s not how I would do things,” she said, ending up laughing.
No, Polly thought. You do things far more subtly, but you still end up in a comfortable bed.
The competition continued without further incident. With Polly and Flossie on the dock instead of in the water, where Mr. Throckmorton could be distracted, Elizabeth was able to order Mr. Throckmorton to row this way and that, and they ended up collecting quite a few tokens. By the time the half hour was up and Flossie waved for all of the boats to come in, the house guests were smiling and merry. Elizabeth was denied her prize, though. In the end, Lady Stratton and the boob Caldwell were declared the winners. Oddly enough, as Mr. Throckmorton presented their prize, a pair of silver wine goblets, he didn’t once look directly at Lady Stratton.
“Does that seem odd to you?” Polly asked Elizabeth that evening as she helped her to change for supper. “Not to look at her at all?”
“I suppose so,” Elizabeth said. She sighed as she tugged on her long gloves, not interested in the topic. There were other topics that Polly knew she would find interesting, however.
“I believe I have discovered something else about Mr. Throckmorton,” she said.
Elizabeth perked up. “Oh?”
Polly took her time hanging and straightening Elizabeth’s soiled day dress. News like this was juicy enough to make anyone wait for it. Elizabeth pretended she didn’t care as she sat on the side of her bed, smoothing the skirts of her gown in such a way as to show off her figure. It was a valiant effort, but Elizabeth was tired and off her game after the events of the day. Her efforts at temptation were pale.
Polly weighed how she wanted to deliver her revelation and how much to say. “I believe he has a mistress,” she said at last. Might as well commit to the full extent of what she suspected.
Elizabeth froze halfway through pulling on her second glove. “Oh? What makes you say that?”
Polly grinned, approaching the bed and leaning against the post. “I’ve gathered enough information to piece together the puzzle. Mr. Throckmorton’s slip with the French letter in his pocket this afternoon was the final piece.”
Elizabeth sat straighter. “Dear me, is that what that was?”
“Oh yes,” Polly said. She inched her way to sit on the bed beside Elizabeth, taking her arm and sliding her glove the rest of the way up. “That is definitely what that was. Furthermore, Mr. Throckmorton wasn’t the only one startled by its sudden appearance.”
Elizabeth blinked. “But there was no one else there besides you and I and—”
“Flossie,” Polly finished her thought. She grinned. “Flossie Stowe.”
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. The ends pulled up into a grin. “Jason Throckmorton and Flossie Stowe?” She raised her free hand to her mouth to hide a laugh. “But I suppose that makes perfect sense. They are both intelligent, they’re both ambitious, and they’ve both risen above themselves.”
Polly bit her lip. She wasn’t certain how she expected Elizabeth to react, but it certainly wasn’t with such casual acceptance.
“Oh, this is perfect,” Elizabeth went on, disconcerting Polly even further. She pulled her arm out of Polly’s hands and stood. “This is beyond perfect.” Her eyes were alight with excitement, and more than their fair share of mischief.
Polly stood and followed her to the vanity. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I need to start paying far greater attention to Jason Throckmorton than I have been,” she said, taking a seat and reaching for her jewelry box.
A stab of something not unlike jealousy hit Polly’s gut. “More attention?”
“Yes, of course.” Elizabeth giggled. “Much more. There is no suitor more confident and reliable than a man who already has a mistress.”
Polly frowned at her in the mirror. Elizabeth fastened a pearl earring in her ear, then pivoted to face her.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “If Mr. Throckmorton is already getting what men need from your friend Flossie, then he has no need to seek that out from me.”
“True.” Polly hesitated in her attempt to catch up to Elizabeth’s logic.
“A man whose bedroom needs are already being cared for has no reason to rush to the altar,” she went on. “Men like that only want a wife as a figurehead. Certainly there is the odd necessity of an heir, but even that can be worked around. I could name a dozen or more men with families entirely separate from their presented family, men who have no more need of their wives than their wives have of them.”
“But what would be the purpose, then?” Polly asked.
Elizabeth stood, face shining. “To give a woman that last prize of legitimacy that being a wife entails. To add a ‘Mrs.’ to her title. This is astounding news, Polly. Truly it is.” She walked on to the table under her window, picking up a bottle of scent and dabbing a bit on her neck.
Polly followed her. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see?” Elizabeth faced her. “Lowborn or not, Mr. Throckmorton is as rich as Croesus. And he has his baser needs taken care of. He would—he will—make the perfect fiancé, and perhaps, one day, the ideal husband, after all.”
Episode Eight - A Life Interrupted
Alexandra
Where was he? Surely he had to come down for breakfast soon. A man needed to eat, after all.
Alexandra picked over the dazzling selection of fruits and pastry, meats and eggs, that adorned the sideboard in the breakfast room. The house party was less than a week from coming to a close, and the guests had long since stopped treating each other as strangers. Now they related to each other as old friends, chatting away with relaxed manners and easy smiles over coffee and tea. Spirits were high after the evening before, when Lord Charles Richmond and Miss Anne Brockhurst had announced their engagement. He was titled and she was beautiful, both of them were wealthy, and Alex’s mother could now count the party and herself a success.
Success. Such a funny little word to describe something so subjective. Alex speared a sausage from the platter and shook it off the serving fork onto her plate. She had no appetite, but if she didn’t look pleased for her mother’s sake, then she would hear it later. Lady Charlotte sat at the head of the table, deep in discussion with Anthony Fretwell over some trifle or another, grinning like she was the one who had become engaged and not Miss Brockhurst. There was another success. Two lovebirds, well past their prime, flaunting their happiness.
Alex took a deep breath and forced her nerves to steady. She told herself she was tired after a long, sleepless night, and that’s why she was so cross as she took a seat next to
Lady Stratton.
“Good morning,” she smiled at the fine lady.
“Good morning, my dear.” Lady Stratton blinked at her. “I say, you look a might piqued.”
Alex did her best not to appear as peevish as she felt as she replied with, “I’m afraid I had a restless night.”
“Oh, I see,” Lady Stratton replied with a knowing smirk.
The woman’s innuendo was bad enough and would have provoked Alex to challenge her, except that in this case, there truly wasn’t anything salacious about her sleepless night. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. Instead of tumbling through the night with George in a delirium of ecstasy, Alex had lain awake all night wondering why he hadn’t come to her. Not only that night, but the night before. The night before that he had tip-toed into her room, slipped into her bed, and taken her without words and without even removing her nightgown. She had hardly begun to warm up to him when he gasped with completion, rolled off of her, and stolen away as quickly as he’d snuck in. The whole thing had left her baffled.
“Truly, my dear, you do look unwell,” Lady Stratton observed, drawing attention to the fact that Alex had been sitting motionless, staring at her cooling breakfast in thought. “You are a physician, are you not?”
“I am,” Alex replied.
Lady Stratton shifted closer to her. “Perhaps you should put your unique skills to work to diagnose what might be troubling you.”
Alex returned Lady Stratton’s suggestion with a polite smile. She could have poured tea into the woman’s lap or told her off, but at least the woman had acknowledged that she was a doctor.
“Thank you, I may,” she said and picked up her fork to take a bite of sausage.
As soon as she raised the link to her mouth, her stomach clenched. Hadn’t George encouraged her to treat his own sausage in a similar fashion just last week? She had balked then, telling him it felt too strange. Was that why he was making himself scarce now? She set the sausage and fork down without taking a bite, reaching for her tea instead.
“Ah, George, there you are,” Mr. Fretwell greeted his son from the other end of the table. “Come to join us at last?”
Alex sucked in a breath and looked up, heart trembling. There he was, looking as dapper and sun-kissed as any gentleman could first thing in the morning. And on his arm was Lady Arabella. The knot in Alex’s stomach tugged tighter.
“Good morning, Father,” George said, stepping closer to his father’s chair to shake his hand.
He let go of Arabella’s arm, leaving her free to drift toward the sideboard with a cheery smile. She took a plate and began filling it with only the lightest pastries.
“I was just trying to explain the situation in Hampshire to Lady Charlotte,” Mr. Fretwell went on. “I could have used your skill with words.”
“Ah, well, I’m afraid I had a previous engagement,” George said. He continued to speak, raising his voice as he stepped away from the table to fix himself a breakfast plate. “Lady Arabella and I went for a morning stroll.”
Arabella flushed pink and lowered her eyes as George swayed near to her.
“Capital.” Mr. Fretwell nodded in approval. “A morning stroll with such a pretty companion is a splendid idea.” He glanced to Lady Charlotte, who executed a more mature version of Lady Arabella’s blush.
Alex lowered the teacup that she’d brought halfway to her lips without sipping. The taste in her mouth was sour, and the food in front of her only served to turn her stomach. Her heart beat a panicked tattoo against her chest as Lady Arabella sent a clandestine smile in George’s direction.
No, she told herself. She was imagining things. George was a sociable man. He was friendly with all of the house party guests. She hadn’t noticed him singling Lady Arabella out once during the entire month they had all been together at Huntingdon Hall.
Except perhaps last night.
Alex bit her lip as she remembered. Lord Charles was Lady Arabella’s brother, and when he had stood up to announce his engagement to Miss Brockhurst, George—who had been standing next to Arabella—leaned closer to her to whisper something. He had brushed a lock of her hair aside and his fingers had lingered around Arabella’s neck. Arabella had blushed then, as she was blushing now.
No, it couldn’t be. Arabella was a sweet, kind woman. She and Alex had become friends—or they would have become friends if Alex hadn’t been needed at the hospital so much as of late. Arabella was too young for George, too reserved. George needed someone bolder, someone with backbone. Someone like her.
She stood just as George turned toward the table with a loaded plate. Leaving her own dishes where they were, she turned around as if to go. With her best attempt at theatrics, she pretended to trip over the leg of her chair, shouting out in what she hoped sounded like shock and pain.
“Dear me,” she said, louder than she needed to. “I seem to have twisted my ankle. Mr. Fretwell, would you be so kind as to escort me to the hall to sit down?”
George’s expression hardened. “Surely a footman could help you.”
“Yes, and if you will assist me in finding one.”
Alex grabbed his arm and turned him away from the table to take her out of the room. She didn’t even give him time to set his plate down.
“What do you want?” he asked once they were in the hall. Holding a full breakfast plate, his face pinched in irritation, he seemed years younger than he was.
Alex took a breath and turned to face him. She would have pressed closer, but for the damned plate.
“I waited for you last night,” she said, praying that she didn’t sound too pleading. She was a grown woman, after all, a physician. Yet, that didn’t stop the itching desperation that curled in her gut.
George only stared at her, holding his breath.
At last, he blinked. “Why would you wait for me?”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. Her words caught in her throat. Why was he being so cold after all they’d shared? She closed her mouth and swallowed, stepping as close to him as she could. He held his breakfast plate firmly between them, like a shield on edge.
“I thought you wanted me,” she murmured, eyes darting around the hall to be certain they weren’t overheard.
George pursed his lips. Tension rolled off of him like that before a storm. He took in a breath and leaned closer.
“I did want you,” he said. He let a beat pass, then continued. “And I had you.”
His words fell like water on parched soil, sitting on the surface, fully formed and obvious, but unable to sink in. Numbness invaded Alex’s hands and feet, inching its way up her limbs at a snail’s pace, like leprosy.
“I thought we had something special,” she continued in a whisper.
This couldn’t be happening to her. The blankness, the distance in George’s eyes had to be something out of a nightmare. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t true.
“We did, love,” he said, shifting his weight to one hip. He plucked the corner off of the scone on his plate and popped it in his mouth, chewing as he continued with, “It was lovely, really. We’ll always have that to remember.”
The numbness crept on, sending chill tendrils deep into Alex’s chest, reaching for her heart.
“But…but I assumed—” She swallowed, sucked in a panicked breath. “I have never done anything like that before.”
“Yes, I could tell.”
The off-handedness of his comment sent a shoot of anger through the hollowness expanding inside of Alex.
“I would never even think of doing anything like that unless…unless it was forever.”
George finished a second bite of scone and laughed. “Whatever do you mean?”
“We…I assumed….” Everything was falling apart around her, like a patient bleeding out on the operating table. Nothing she could do would stop the swift, merciless march of death. “I want to marry you,” she said at last, pushing the words out as though with her final breath.
George’s eyebrows twitched up. “Marry m
e?” He huffed a laugh, inching away from her and holding his plate higher. “Alexandra, really. You can’t be naïve enough to think a man like me would marry a woman like you.”
Sharp prickles of hopelessness tore at Alex from the inside out. “Why not?” she demanded, sounding more like a child mewling over being unable to leave the nursery. “I am a gentleman’s daughter, the niece of an earl.”
George sneered. “You’re an over-educated spinster,” he corrected her. “With a profession at that.”
“But I—”
“Look, Alexandra.” He took on a scolding tone. “I may not have a title, but I have ambitions. I plan to marry money. More than that, I plan to marry a woman who acts like a woman, who looks like a woman. I want a flower, not a healing herb.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry that you got the wrong end of the stick. We were just having a bit of fun, you and I. I thought you knew that.”
His tone was so supercilious that the urge to beg rising up out of Alex’s heart stopped cold in her throat. She stared at him, unblinking. How could this possibly be happening? Where was the George who had been so tender with her in the night, who had made love to her like—
But he hadn’t been that tender, had he. He had taken, like a thief in the night.
And how desperately she wanted him to continue to take and take and take until she forgot herself in the splendor of him.
“Come now,” he said, taking another step back. “This is growing awkward. What will the servants think if they see us in the hall like this? I have a reputation to think of.”