by Mary Balogh
The two seamstresses turned identically flushed and laughing faces his way as he stepped inside. Frances bit into her lower lip, looking faintly embarrassed, but then she laughed too.
“Oh, dear,” she said.
The vivid loveliness of her merry expression smote him like a fist to the abdomen and fairly robbed him of breath for a moment.
“Another gentleman who chooses to arrive five minutes before his appointed time,” Miss Martin said severely.
“I do beg your pardon.” Lucius raised his eyebrows. “Should I perhaps go back outside and wait on the pavement until the five minutes have expired?”
They all dissolved into laughter again—even Miss Martin smirked.
“No, no, I am ready,” Frances said as the thread was snapped free and the ribbon about her hem pulled into place. “You have met Miss Martin, Lord Sinclair. May I present my fellow teachers, Miss Jewell and Miss Osbourne?”
She indicated the two seamstresses, both of whom were young and pretty. They were both looking at him with frank interest.
“Miss Jewell?” He bowed to the fair-haired, blue-eyed teacher. “Miss Osbourne?” He bowed to the auburn-haired little beauty.
They both curtsied in return.
A night out for one of their number, he suddenly realized, must be a momentous occasion for all of them. He felt that he was being given an unwilling glimpse into another, alien world, in which life for women was not a constant and idle round of parties and balls and routs. Yet these teachers were all young and all personable. Even the stiff-mannered, dour Miss Martin was not an antidote.
But why the devil had Frances chosen to be one of them? She did not need to be.
The porter, silent and glowering, as if he resented the intrusion of any male except himself into this hallowed female domain, held the door open, and Lucius followed Frances out onto the pavement and handed her into the carriage.
“The weather has stayed fine for the occasion,” she said brightly as the carriage rocked into motion.
“Would you have canceled if it had rained, then?” he asked.
“No, of course not.” She clung with both hands to the ends of her shawl.
“You were, then,” he said, “merely making polite conversation?”
“I am sorry if I bore you,” she said, an edge of annoyance in her voice. “Perhaps I ought to have remained silent. I shall do so for the rest of the journey.”
“What do you usually do for entertainment?” he asked her after she had suited action—or rather inaction—to words for a minute or so. “You and those other teachers? You live in Bath yet you have never been to an assembly. Do you put the girls to bed each night and then sit together conversing over the clacking of your knitting needles?”
“If we do, Lord Sinclair,” she said, “you need not concern yourself about us. We are quite happy.”
“You said that once before,” he told her. “And then you changed the word to contented. Is contentment enough, then, Frances?”
He thought she was not going to answer him. He watched her in the faint light of dusk. She was not wearing a bonnet tonight. Her dark hair was sleek over her head and dressed in curls at the back of her neck. They were not elaborate curls, but they were certainly more becoming than the usual knot. She looked elegant and lovely. She was going to make every other woman in the Upper Rooms look overfussy.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “Happiness must always find its balance in unhappiness and excitement in depression. Contentment is more easily maintained and brings with it tranquillity of mind and peace of soul.”
“Good Lord!” he said. “Could anything be more of a complete bore? I think you are a coward, Frances.”
She turned wide, indignant eyes on him.
“A coward?” she said. “I suppose it was cowardly of me not to throw away my career, my security, my future, and my friends and go off to London with you.”
“Very cowardly,” he said.
“If cowardliness means being sane,” she said, “then, yes, by your definition I am a coward, Lord Sinclair, and make no apology for the fact.”
“You might have been happy,” he said. “You might have taken a chance on life. And I would soon enough have discovered your talent, you know. You might have sung for larger audiences than you will ever find here. You cannot tell me that with your voice you have never dreamed of fame.”
“And fortune,” she said sharply. “The two inevitably go together, I believe, Lord Sinclair. I suppose you would have made me happy. I suppose you would have sponsored my singing career and have made sure that I met all the right people.”
“Why not?” he asked. “I would not have chosen to keep your talent all to myself.”
“And so,” she said, her voice trembling with some emotion that he thought must be anger, “a woman is quite incapable of knowing her own mind and finding the contentment, even happiness, she wants of life without the aid and intervention of some man. Is that what you are saying, Lord Sinclair?”
“I was unaware,” he said, “that we were speaking of men and women in general. I was speaking of you. And I know you quite well enough to understand that you were not made for contentment. How absurd of you to believe that you were. You are fairly bursting at the seams with passion, Frances—not all of it sexual, I might add.”
“How dare you!” she cried. “You do not know me at all.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I certainly know you in the biblical sense—and one night was quite enough for me to draw certain conclusions about your capacity for sexual passion. I have spoken with you—and quarreled with you—on several occasions, this evening included. I have laughed and played with you. And, perhaps most significant of all, I have heard you sing. I know you quite well.”
“Singing has nothing to do with—”
“Ah, but it does,” he said. “Anyone who uses an extraordinary talent to the full, forgetting very self in the process, has no choice but to pour out himself or herself. There is no hiding on such occasions, whether the product is a painting or a poem or a song. When you sang at the Reynolds soiree, you revealed far more than just a lovely voice, Frances. You revealed yourself, and only a dolt would have failed to see you for the deeply passionate woman that you are.”
It was strange. He had not consciously thought these things before. But he knew that he spoke the truth.
“I am quite contented as I am,” she said stubbornly, setting her hands palm down on her lap and staring down at her spread fingers.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “very much the coward, Frances. You give up the discussion and fall back upon platitudes because your case is unarguable. And you lie through your teeth.”
“You become offensive,” she said. “I have given you no permission to speak so freely to me, Lord Sinclair.”
“Perhaps that is so,” he said. “You have given me only your body.”
She inhaled sharply. But she let the breath out slowly again and refrained from answering him.
He had not noticed the passing landmarks of the journey. He realized suddenly, though, that they were approaching the Upper Assembly Rooms. It was just as well. Good Lord, he had not intended to quarrel with her. He might not have done so if she had not irritated him by opening the conversation with her bright, inane comment on the weather.
As if they were no more than polite strangers.
The sooner he left Bath and got back to the serious business of getting himself married, the better it would be for everyone. And Portia Hunt was in London waiting for him. So were her mama and his and all their family members.
Bath, London. London, Bath . . . Devil take it, it was like the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea!
Where had the familiar life gone that had given him perfect contentment for the past ten years or so?
But as he descended from the carriage and turned to hand Frances down, he did catch himself out.
Contentment?
He had been contented for the past
ten years?
Contented?
A dozen times during the past three days Frances had been on the brink of writing to Miss Amy Marshall with some excuse not to attend the assembly. There was too much schoolwork to be done—classes to prepare and papers to mark—and there were extra music lessons with individual girls to be fitted in, and practices with the junior and senior choirs and the madrigal group.
Her life as a teacher occupied most of her waking hours.
But her friends, who ought to have supported such a responsible attitude, had not cooperated on this occasion.
“You must go and enjoy yourself for Miss Marshall’s sake,” Claudia had said. “You said she needed a female chaperone, and it may be too late to find another. And you must go for the Earl of Edgecombe’s sake too. He sounds like a courtly gentleman even if he is an aristocrat.”
“And you must go and enjoy yourself for our sakes,” Anne had said with a sigh. “You are actually going to attend one of the assemblies at the Upper Rooms, Frances—as the invited guest of an earl and a viscount. We will want to enjoy it vicariously through you. We will want to hear every single detail the morning after.”
“And perhaps,” Susanna had added, the usual twinkle of mischief in her eyes, “Viscount Sinclair will realize that he ought not to have let you go after Christmas, Frances, and will begin a determined courtship of you. Perhaps he will sweep you off your feet and put poor Mr. Blake to rout.” But she had also rushed up to hug Frances, all teasing at an end. “Do enjoy yourself. Just enjoy yourself.”
Anne had come to Frances’s room, though, while she was getting ready for the evening and asked her if it really was going to be painful for her to be in company with Viscount Sinclair for a whole evening.
“Perhaps,” she had said, “I ought not to have said that about your going to enjoy the evening for our sakes. How selfish of me!”
But by then it had been too late to avoid going, and Frances had assured her that going to tea at Brock Street really had cured her of any foolish infatuation she may have felt for the man after Christmas.
That had been just before Susanna and Claudia had also come to her room and just before Viscount Sinclair was due to arrive, and they had all gone downstairs with her to wait in the visitors’ sitting room. And then, of course, Anne had noticed that part of the ribbon at her hem had come unstitched and Susanna had dashed upstairs for needle and thread and pins, and all had been laughing panic while Anne had stitched.
It had not occurred to any of them to move from the hallway into the sitting room or to Mr. Keeble not to open the door when the viscount had knocked on it.
It had all been rather embarrassing and rather funny. And then he had offered to go back outside to wait and the situation had seemed funnier still. And, of course, it really was rather exciting to be going to an assembly. Perhaps even to dance there.
Perhaps with him.
He had mentioned their dancing together when he had brought her home after tea that afternoon.
But she was no longer feeling so cheerful as she descended from the carriage outside the Upper Rooms. Gracious heavens, he had called her a coward. And a passionate woman.
You are fairly bursting at the seams with passion, Frances—not all of it sexual, I might add.
He had referred openly to the night they had spent together. He had reminded her that he knew her in the biblical sense.
He had accused her of hiding behind her contentment, too cowardly to reach for happiness.
It was not cowardice. It was a hard-won good sense.
If only, she thought as she stepped ahead of him through the doors into the Upper Rooms, he did not look so devastatingly handsome tonight in his black tailed evening coat and pantaloons with a silver embroidered waistcoat and white linen and expertly tied neckcloth. Or so suffocatingly male with his square-jawed, handsome face and intense hazel eyes.
And then she forgot some of her agitation at the realization that she was actually here. She was attending a ball at the Upper Assembly Rooms. At least part of her reason for deciding to come after all, she realized, was her desire to be part of such a gathering again. She had missed society. She had not been actively unhappy without it, but she had missed it. Fellow guests moved about the high-ceilinged entry hall and she felt an unexpected welling of excitement.
Viscount Sinclair set a hand at the small of her back in order to move her forward. But before she could feel more than a shiver of awareness at his touch, Miss Marshall came hurrying toward them—she must have been watching for them from the ballroom doorway. She looked fresh and pretty and youthful and quite exuberant.
“Miss Allard,” she said, stretching out both hands, as she had done on Brock Street, clasping Frances’s, and kissing her cheek, “how very prompt you are. Grandpapa and I arrived barely five minutes ago—and yes, Luce, we fairly crawled here, I swear. How lovely you look in silver, Miss Allard. Your gown perfectly complements Luce’s colors.” She laughed lightly.
Oh, gracious, what an unfortunate remark! Frances moved away from his hand and smiled brightly as the girl took her arm and they moved off in the direction of the ballroom. Lord Sinclair came along behind.
“Oh, my!” Frances said when they paused in the doorway. “I have only ever seen the room in daylight. It looks very much more splendid with all the candles lit, does it not?”
There were several chandeliers overhead, each filled with lit candles. The orchestra members on the dais were tuning their instruments. A number of people stood or sat in conversational groups or promenaded about the perimeter of the dance floor.
She must notice every single detail, she thought, so that she could give a faithful account of it all to her friends tomorrow.
“This is the first assembly you have attended in a while, is it, Miss Allard?” Viscount Sinclair asked.
She had told him and his grandfather at tea the other day that she had never attended an assembly here. But she understood his meaning in a flash. And when she turned to look at him, she found the expected almost satanic gleam in his eye.
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
“It looks as if it will be well enough attended,” he said, “though we are only in Bath and cannot therefore expect a great squeeze. An assembly can, of course, be perfectly enjoyable with very few guests. Even two are enough, provided one is a man and the other a woman so that they can dance together. Even an orchestra is not indispensable.”
“How absurd, Luce!” His sister laughed merrily.
But Viscount Sinclair kept his eyes on Frances and his eyebrows raised.
“Would you not agree with me, Miss Allard?” he asked.
She would not blush, she thought. She would not.
“But then it would not really be an assembly, would it?” she said.
“And the man and woman concerned,” he added, “might soon tire of dancing and look for some other diversion. You are quite right. I suppose we should be thankful that there is a tolerable crowd here this evening.”
Why was he doing this? Frances wondered. He had not seemed pleased to see her at any of their three meetings since his return to Bath.
Fortunately, the Earl of Edgecombe came up to them at that moment. He had remained in the ballroom with his granddaughter while she was alone, he explained after greeting Frances and bowing over her hand, but now he would remove to the card room if they would all excuse him.
“I have danced at a few informal assemblies at home,” Miss Marshall confided to Frances while Viscount Sinclair took his grandfather through into the other room, “but never at anything this grand. Caroline and Emily will be envious when I write and tell them about it tomorrow.”
There were not a great many young people present, Frances noticed. And though she had been dazzled at first glance by the finery of the guests, she could see on closer inspection that very few were dressed in quite the style one would expect to see at a ton ball. She was glad of it, though. She had been afraid that she would feel conspi
cuous in her less than fashionable gown.
“It is rather grand,” she said. “But next year, Miss Marshall, when you make your come-out, you will be delighted to find that there is something even grander than this to experience.”
“Oh, you must call me Amy, please,” the girl said. And then her expression brightened further and she raised her fan to wave to someone across the dance floor. “There is Rose Abbotsford with her mama. And that must be the brother she spoke of. He is exceedingly handsome, is he not?” She unfurled her fan as her brother came up to them again.
“Before you set your cap at all the young blades in the room, Amy,” he said, “do remember that you are to dance the opening set with me. As it is, Mama will probably have my head for allowing you to come here at all.”
And then a gentleman was bowing before Frances, and she saw that he was Mr. Blake.
“Miss Allard,” he said. “I did not dare hope to see you here this evening. But I am, of course, delighted to do so.”
He glanced at her two companions as she curtsied to him, and she introduced him to them, though he had of course seen them at the Reynolds soiree.
“It was exceedingly kind of you, my lord,” he said to Viscount Sinclair, “to invite Miss Allard here as your guest.”
“Oh,” Frances said, embarrassed, “I am here more in the nature of a chaperone than a guest, Mr. Blake.”
“No, indeed, you are not,” Amy cried, tapping Frances sharply on the arm with her fan. “The very idea!”
“Thank you, sir,” Viscount Sinclair said in such a stiff, haughty voice that Frances looked sharply at him. He held a quizzing glass almost but not quite to his eye. “But Miss Allard is the personal guest of the Earl of Edgecombe.”
Mr. Blake bowed, and looking at him, Frances was not sure he had understood that he had just been dealt a frosty setdown. She felt indignant on his behalf. Did Viscount Sinclair feel that he had been imposed upon by having a mere physician presented to him? Good heavens, she was a schoolteacher.
“Is it now too much to hope,” Mr. Blake asked her, “that you are free to dance the second set with me, Miss Allard? I had already spoken for the opening set with Miss Jones before I saw you.”