by Mary Balogh
“People have always been kind,” she said.
“Kind.” He laughed gruffly as he took one small sandwich from the plate. “It is not kindness to be in the presence of greatness and pay homage to it, Miss Allard. I wish we were in London. I would invite the ton to spend an evening at my home and have you sing to them. I am not a renowned patron of the arts, but I would not need to be. Your talent would speak for itself, and your career as a singer would be assured. I am convinced of it. You could travel the world and enthrall audiences wherever you went.”
Frances licked her lips and toyed with the food on her plate.
“But we are not in London, sir,” Viscount Sinclair said, “and Miss Allard appears to be quite contented with her life as it is. Am I not right, ma’am?”
She lifted her eyes to his and realized how like his grandfather he was. He had the same square-jawed face, though the earl’s had slackened with age and was characterized by a smiling kindliness, whereas the viscount’s looked arrogant and stubborn and even harsh. He was gazing at her with intense eyes and one raised eyebrow. And his tone of voice had been clipped, though perhaps she was the only one who noticed.
“I like to sing for my own pleasure,” she said, “and for the pleasure of others. But I do not crave fame. When one is a teacher, one owes good service, of course, to one’s employer and to the parents of one’s pupils as well as to the pupils themselves, but one nevertheless has a great deal of professional freedom. I am not sure the same could be said of a singer—or any other type of performer, for that matter. One would need a manager, to whom one would be no more than a marketable commodity. All that would be important would be money and fame and image and exposure to the right people and . . . Well, I believe it would be hard to hang on to one’s integrity and one’s own vision of what art is under such circumstances.”
She spoke from bitter experience.
They were both looking attentively at her, Viscount Sinclair with mockery in every line of his body.
He had called her prim. It was foolish to allow such a description to hurt. She was prim. It was nothing to be ashamed of. It was something she had deliberately cultivated. His hand, she noticed, was playing with the edge of his plate—that strong, capable-looking hand that had chopped wood and peeled potatoes and sculpted a snowman’s head and rested against the small of her back as they waltzed and caressed her body . . .
Miss Marshall got up to offer the scones.
“Not, surely,” the earl said, “if one had a manager who shared one’s artistic vision, Miss Allard. But what of your family? Did they never encourage you? Who are they, if I might be permitted to ask? I have never heard of any Allards.”
“My father was French,” she said. “He escaped the Reign of Terror when I was still a baby and brought me to England. My mother was already deceased. He died five years ago.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” he replied. “You must have been very young to be left alone. Did you have other family here in England?”
“Only my two great-aunts have ever had anything to do with me,” she said. “They are my grandmother’s sisters, daughters of a former Baron Clifton.”
“Of Wimford Grange?” He raised his eyebrows. “And one of these ladies is Mrs. Melford, is she? She was once a particular friend of my late wife’s. They made their come-out together. And so you are her great-niece. Wimford Grange is no farther than twenty miles from my home at Barclay Court. Both are in Somerset.”
And that fact, of course, would explain why she and Lucius Marshall had been traveling the same road after Christmas. She did not look at him, and he made no comment.
“I have not seen Mrs. Melford for a few years,” the earl said. “But I wonder why the present Clifton has not helped you to a career in singing.”
“He is really quite a distant cousin, my lord,” Frances said. She had not even set eyes on him last Christmas.
“I suppose so,” he agreed. “But I probably embarrass you with all this talk of your family and your talent. Let us talk of something different. The concept of a school for girls is an interesting one when most people would have us believe that education is wasted on the female half of our population or that the little education girls require can best be learned from private governesses. You would disagree with both opinions, I assume?”
His eyes were twinkling beneath his white brows. He was effectively changing the subject and choosing one that was sure to provoke some response in her. It did, of course, and they had a lively discussion of the merits of sending girls away from home to be educated, and of instructing them in such subjects as mathematics and history. It was a topic too in which Miss Marshall was pleased to participate. She had always thought it would be great fun to go to school, she told Frances, but she had inherited her sisters’ governess and remained at home instead.
“Not that I did not have a good education from her, Miss Allard,” she said, “but I do think it would have been marvelous to have had pianoforte lessons from you and to have sung in one of your choirs. The girls at your school are very fortunate.”
Frances could almost feel mockery emanating from the direction of Viscount Sinclair’s chair even though she kept her eyes away from him and he did not participate a great deal in the conversation.
“Well, thank you,” Frances said, smiling at the girl. “But they are fortunate in their other teachers too. Miss Martin makes a point of choosing only the best. Though I suppose I aggrandize myself by saying that, do I not?”
“I would have liked it,” Miss Marshall said, “and to have had friends among girls my own age.”
The conversation came back to music eventually but no longer concerned Frances personally. They compared favorite composers and pieces of music and favorite solo instruments. The earl told them of performances by famed musicians he had heard years ago, in Vienna and Paris and Rome.
“The Continent was still open to young bucks making the Grand Tour in my day,” he said. “And, ah, we had a time of it, Miss Allard. The French, and particularly Napoléon Bonaparte, have much to answer for. Lucius was deprived of that treat, as was his father before him.”
“You need to get my grandfather onto this topic when you have an hour or three to spare, Miss Allard,” Viscount Sinclair said. They were mocking words, and yet it seemed to her that they were affectionately spoken. Perhaps he had some finer feelings.
“You saw Paris?” she asked the earl. “What was it like?”
The Earl of Edgecombe was indeed only too ready to talk about the past. He entertained them so well with stories of his travels and the places and people he had seen that Frances looked up in surprise when Viscount Sinclair got to his feet and announced that it was time to return Miss Allard to the school.
At some time during the past hour she had relaxed and started actively to enjoy herself. Perhaps Anne had been right last evening. Perhaps she was setting to rest a few ghosts today. She had seen the other side of Viscount Sinclair’s nature today—the arrogant, mocking, less pleasant side that she had seen when she first met him and had largely forgotten the next day and the next. It was as well to be reminded of what exactly she had walked away from.
She could not have been happy with such a man. Though he was also, of course, a man who had come to Bath in order to care for his grandfather and who had brought his young sister with him.
Ah, life was confusing sometimes. People would be so much easier to like or dislike if there were only one facet to their natures.
The earl and Miss Marshall rose with her. The earl took her hand in his and raised it to his lips once more.
“This has been an honor and a pleasure, Miss Allard,” he said. “I do hope I have the chance of hearing you sing again before I die. I believe it will become one of my dearest wishes, in fact.”
“Thank you. You are very kind.” She smiled at him with something bordering on affection.
Miss Marshall actually hugged her.
“This has been such fun,” she sai
d, revealing all her youthfulness in the exuberance of her farewell.
“It has indeed.” Frances smiled warmly at her. “And I have been treated royally by my hostess. Thank you for entertaining me so well.”
But the girl turned impulsively to her brother just as Frances would have stepped out of the room ahead of him.
“Luce,” she said, “you have been saying that if I am to be allowed to go with you and Grandpapa to the assembly in the Upper Rooms three evenings from tonight, we must find an older lady to accompany me. May we invite Miss Allard. Oh, please, may we?”
As Frances looked at her in dismay, the girl gazed at her brother, her eyes imploring, her hands clasped to her bosom.
How dreadfully gauche of the girl to ask in her hearing!
“Older?” Viscount Sinclair cocked one eyebrow.
“Well, she is,” the girl said. “I did not say old, Luce, only older. And she is a teacher.”
“It is a splendid suggestion, Amy,” the earl said. “I wish I had thought of it for myself. Miss Allard, will you so honor us? Though perhaps since you live in Bath, attending one of the assemblies will be no great treat for you.”
“Oh, but I have never attended one,” she said.
“What? Never? Then do please agree to attend this one as our special guest,” the earl said.
“Please, please do, Miss Allard,” Miss Marshall cried. “Caroline and Emily—my sisters—will expire of envy if I write and tell them I am to go after all.”
Frances was terribly aware of the silent figure of Viscount Sinclair standing beside her. She turned and glanced up at him, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. How could she refuse without hurting Miss Marshall, who obviously was desperate to be allowed to attend an assembly before she was officially out?
He did not help her. But how could he without appearing churlish in front of his relatives?
“I wish you would, Miss Allard,” he said curtly. “You would oblige all of us.”
The trouble was that she had always thought it would be wonderful to actually dance in the Upper Rooms, which she had seen, but only with a party of girls one day when she took them sightseeing. She had once attended balls in London and had always enjoyed them exceedingly.
But how could she go to this one?
How could she not, though? Now the invitation had been extended by all three of them.
“Thank you,” she said. “That would be delightful.”
Miss Marshall clapped her hands, the earl bowed, and Viscount Sinclair ushered her out of the room without another word, one of his hands firm against the small of her back and feeling as if it burned a hole there.
They rode side by side in the carriage back to the school without exchanging a word. It was most disconcerting. At one moment Frances almost asked him if he really minded her going to the assembly, but of course he minded—as did she. She thought of asking him if he wished her to send back a refusal with him after all. But why should she? She had been properly invited, even if it had been impulsive of Miss Marshall to speak out as she had without consulting her brother privately first.
Besides, if he minded or if he wished for her to change her mind, he had a tongue in his head just as she did. Let him be the first to speak.
And yet her heart, she realized, was in a very fragile condition, and she would certainly do it no good by seeing him again after today. Even now she would suffer some sleepless hours in the nights to come, she did not doubt. Good heavens, she had actually made love with this silent man beside her. She could recall every detail of that night of intimacy with great clarity.
And of their wretched parting the next day.
The carriage drew to a halt outside the school at precisely half past five. Peters opened the carriage door and set down the steps, and Viscount Sinclair descended and handed Frances down onto the pavement. He escorted her to the door of the school, which Keeble was already holding open.
“I shall come to escort you to the Upper Assembly Rooms three evenings from tonight, then,” Viscount Sinclair said.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Perhaps,” he said, and it seemed to her that his eyes burned into hers, “we will get to dance together again, Miss Allard.”
“Yes.” She turned and hurried inside and up to her room, where she hoped to be able to gather her scattered thoughts sufficiently to get a few of her essays marked before dinner.
I shall come to escort you. . . .
Perhaps we will get to dance together again . . .
Life was so terribly unfair. Just last evening she had been feeling happy again. And now . . .
Now it seemed that everything about her—every part of her body, her head, her emotions—was in a seething turmoil.
She read attentively through one four-page essay before realizing that she had not absorbed a single word.
It would be well, she told herself severely, to remember that she was a teacher. It was her primary and only really important role in life.
She was a teacher.
She started to read from the beginning again.
12
Lucius frowned at his image in the looking glass a few moments after he had dismissed his valet. He always took pains to look his best. It was, after all, part of being a gentleman always to look fashionable and well groomed, especially when one was known as something of a Corinthian. But why the devil had he made poor Jeffreys discard three perfectly respectably tied neckcloths before he had been satisfied with the fourth?
Was he turning into some sort of dandy?
He was going to an assembly in Bath, for the love of God, not to a ball at Carlton House! He would be fortunate if there were a dozen people below the age of fifty there. It was very probably going to be one long snore of an evening. And yet here he was, going to more than usual trouble over his appearance.
He could hardly believe that he, Lucius Marshall, Viscount Sinclair, was actually going to attend such an insipid gathering. He rarely attended balls or routs even in London, though he would have to do so this spring, of course. He could treat this evening as something in the nature of a rehearsal for things to come.
His frown became a grimace, and he turned away from the glass.
Amy was already dressed and pacing the sitting room floor, he found when he went downstairs, even though she and their grandfather were not scheduled to walk across to the Upper Rooms for half an hour yet. She had been in a fever of excitement all day, quite unable to settle to anything.
“Well, you look remarkably pretty this evening,” he said after she had caught up the sides of her skirt and pirouetted before him and he had looked her over critically from head to toe. He approved of her pale blue muslin dress—he had helped pick it out two days ago—and her carefully curled and coifed hair. Her maid had had the good sense not to try to make her look older than her years. Although she did not have either Caroline’s height and elegance or Emily’s dimples and natural curls, she might yet turn out to be the prettiest of the three, he thought. Margaret, of course, had been a beauty in her day and was still handsome now that she was in her thirties and the mother of three.
“Will I do, then?” Amy looked at him, flushed and bright-eyed.
“Very well indeed,” he said. “If you are mobbed by all the gentlemen tonight, I shall have to beat them off with my quizzing glass.”
“Oh, Luce.” She laughed in obvious delight. “I hope you will not look quite so fierce when you stand beside me or no one will muster the courage to ask me to dance at all. You do look splendid, though.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He made her a mock bow. “You will walk slowly when you leave the house with Grandpapa, Amy? You will not gallop along in your excitement and force him to keep up with you?”
She sobered instantly. “Of course I will not,” she said. “I think the waters really must be doing him some good, do not you, Luce? He has looked quite well lately.”
“He has,” he agreed, though they both knew that he
would never actually be well again.
“I just can’t wait to go,” she said, clasping her hands to her bosom, “or to see Miss Allard again. She is exceedingly amiable and treats me like a grown-up. And she is lovely too, even though she does not dress in the first stare of fashion. I admire her lovely dark hair and eyes. Oh, when will Grandpapa be ready?”
“At exactly the time he said he would be,” Lucius told her, striding over to the window. “You know how punctual he always is. And if I am to be punctual, I must be on my way. I see Peters has the carriage outside.”
A couple of minutes later he was on his way to Miss Martin’s school again.
There had been letters from his mother and Caroline this morning. Prominent in the news they had both been eager to impart was the fact that the Marquess of Godsworthy had arrived in town for the Season with Lord and Lady Balderston—and with Portia, of course. His mother had called upon the two ladies with Caroline and Emily. Miss Hunt was in good looks, they had reported. Lady Balderston had asked about him and said she looked forward to seeing him in the near future.
Portia Hunt was always in good looks, and so that was no news. He could not remember ever seeing her with the proverbial hair out of place—not even when she was a child.
The carriage drew to a halt outside the school doors, and Lucius descended to the pavement, feeling rather as if he were up to something clandestine—he was about to escort another woman to a ball.
A strange scene met his eyes when the porter answered the door to his knock. Frances Allard was standing in the middle of the hallway, wearing a dress of silver-shot gray muslin with a silver silk sash beneath her bosom and two rows of the same silk ribbon about the hem. Another lady was kneeling on the floor beside her, a needle and thread in her hand while she stitched up a part of the ribbon that must have pulled loose from the dress. A third lady was bending toward the second, a few pins cupped in the open palm of her hand. Miss Martin was draping a paisley shawl about Frances’s shoulders and smoothing it into place.