by Mary Balogh
Or the niggling suspicion that she had shown more good sense than he and had saved him from himself. He had had no idea when he set out from Brock Street that day that he was about to offer her marriage. He had not even known he was going to the school to see her, for God’s sake.
But calm good sense had never been his forte. He had always forged his way into the future with impulsive, reckless abandon.
He did it again not much more than twenty-four hours after his visit to Berkeley Square.
And again it was over Frances Allard.
17
“Mrs. Melford is in town, I have heard,” the Earl of Edgecombe said at breakfast. It was one of his better days healthwise, and he had got up to take the meal with his family.
For once there had been no ball or late party the night before, with the result that they were all gathered at the table with the exception of Caroline, who had joined a party at Vauxhall with Sir Henry last evening and had not returned home until after the fireworks.
“Is she?” Lady Sinclair asked politely, looking up briefly from the letter she was reading.
“With her sister,” the earl added. “They scarcely ever come to town. I do not know when I last saw them.”
“Oh?” His mother sounded quite uninterested, Lucius thought as he cut into his beefsteak. She was busy reading her letter again.
“They are great-aunts of the present Baron Clifton of Wimford Grange,” the earl explained. “Mrs. Melford made her come-out with my Rebecca, and they remained the best of friends all their lives until Rebecca’s passing. What pretty girls they both were!”
“Ah,” the viscountess said, looking up from her letter again, a little more interested now that she understood her father-in-law was talking about ladies who were virtually their neighbors in Somersetshire.
Lucius suddenly remembered why the name of Mrs. Melford was familiar to him.
So did Amy.
“Oh, but Mrs. Melford and her sister are Miss Allard’s great-aunts too,” she said. “Are they indeed in town, Grandpapa?”
“Whoever is Miss Allard?” Emily asked. “Do please pass the sugar, Amy.”
“She is a lady who has the most glorious soprano voice in Christendom,” the earl told Emily, pushing the sugar bowl across the table to her himself. “I do not exaggerate. We heard her sing when we were in Bath.”
“Oh,” Emily said, stirring a spoonful of sugar into her coffee, “the teacher. I remember now.”
“It is not going to rain, is it?” the viscountess asked of no one in particular, her eyes going to the window. “It will be most provoking if it does. I have my heart set upon walking to the shops today.”
“I believe I shall go and pay my respects to the ladies this afternoon,” the earl said. He chuckled suddenly. “It will be a pleasure to talk with people almost as ancient as I.”
“I shall accompany you if I may, sir,” Lucius said.
“You, Luce?” Emily looked at him in some surprise and then laughed. “You will go with Grandpapa to visit a couple of old women when Mama always says that pulling teeth would be easier than dragging you off to pay courtesy calls?”
“Elderly, Emily,” their mother said with sharp reproof. “Elderly ladies.”
“I will go too,” Amy said, brightening noticeably. “May I, Luce? May I, Grandpapa?”
“Well, I am not going,” Emily declared. “I am going shopping with Mama.”
“Nobody asked you, Em,” Amy pointed out. “Besides, Mrs. Melford and her sister are the great-aunts of my friend, and I particularly want to meet them.”
Lucius was left to wonder, as he got ready for the visit later in the day, why he wanted to meet them. Emily had, after all, spoken nothing but the truth when she had mentioned his aversion to paying social calls. And the two ladies must indeed be elderly. Doubtless the conversation would consist of lengthy health reports and even more lengthy reminiscences about the dim distant past and he would have to pinch himself to keep awake after the first few minutes.
Was he going simply because they were related to Frances? It would be the damnedest of poor reasons if that were so.
But what other reason could there possibly be?
In the event he was not bored at all. Mrs. Melford, a small, round lady, whose good-humored countenance still bore evidence of the prettiness his grandfather had spoken of, was delighted to see the husband of her old friend and exclaimed with delight over the fact that his grandchildren had chosen to accompany him. The two of them did indeed talk about the past, but they did so with such wit and humor that they kept both Lucius and Amy laughing and eager to hear more.
“But there is nothing more calculated to alienate young persons,” Mrs. Melford said at last, “than to have two old people prosing on about a past so distant that even to me it seems like something from another lifetime. Tell me about yourself, child.” She smiled kindly at Amy.
Amy immediately launched into a description of her newest triumph, her visit to Bath, where she had been allowed to attend a soiree and had heard Miss Allard sing, and where she had played hostess when Miss Allard came to tea and attended an assembly in the Upper Rooms with Miss Allard as her grandpapa’s special guest and her companion.
“I liked her exceedingly well, ma’am,” she said, beaming at her elderly hostess. “She treated me just as if I were a grown-up.”
“Well, and so you are, child,” Mrs. Melford said, “even if you have not yet made your come-out. You have that all to look forward to. How fortunate you are! You have the look of your grandmama, you know, especially about the mouth and chin, and all the world fell in love with her, as your grandfather will tell you. He did too.”
“I did indeed,” the earl confessed. “I rushed her off to the altar within six weeks of meeting her lest she see someone else she preferred.”
“She had eyes for no one else but you, as you very well know,” Mrs. Melford assured him as they all laughed. “But did you really meet our dear Frances when you were in Bath? And was she indeed singing again? I so wish we had been there to hear her.”
She spoke with obvious affection for her great-niece.
This was one of the ladies she had left behind the morning of that snowstorm, Lucius thought. It was in their ancient carriage, driven by their ancient coachman, that Frances had been traveling when he overtook her.
“It amazes me,” the earl said, “that no one discovered Miss Allard’s talent when she lived in London.”
“We understood that someone had,” Mrs. Melford said. “Her father always saw to it that she had voice lessons with the best teachers, you know. It was both his dream and hers that she would be a great singer one day. But then he died suddenly, poor man, and Frances went to live with Lady Lyle for a couple of years even though we offered her a home with us. We heard that someone had agreed to sponsor her and that she was indeed singing. We expected to hear any day that she had become famous, but one day she wrote quite suddenly from Bath to inform us that she had taken a teaching position at Miss Martin’s school there. We have been concerned for her happiness ever since, but when she spent this past Christmas with us in the country, it seemed to us that she was indeed quite contented with her chosen career.”
Lady Lyle? Lucius raised his eyebrows but made no comment.
“She assured me that she was quite happy with what she was doing with her life when I was impertinent enough to ask her why she was not enthralling the world with her singing,” the earl said.
“Both Gertrude and I think of her almost as a daughter,” Mrs. Melford told them. “I was never blessed with children of my own, and Gertrude never did marry. We both fairly dote upon Frances.”
The earl inquired politely about Miss Driscoll, who had not appeared to greet the visitors. She was in bed, her sister explained, quite unable to shake off the chill she had taken during the journey up to town. She suffered from a perennially weak chest, it seemed, and was a source of endless worry to her sister.
“Though one co
nsolation is that at least we have access to the best physicians here in town,” she added.
“She doubtless needs a good tonic,” the earl said. “Something to cheer her up. You must ask your physician to prescribe something suitable, ma’am. I would recommend a course of the waters at Bath, but perhaps you feel that your sister is too weak to make the journey.”
“Indeed I do,” Mrs. Melford said, “though I will keep the recommendation in mind.”
That was the point at which Lucius abandoned common sense and spoke impulsively again without giving himself any chance to think first.
“Perhaps, ma’am,” he suggested, “Miss Driscoll would benefit most from seeing Miss Allard again.”
Mrs. Melford sighed. “I am quite sure you are right, Lord Sinclair,” she said. “How wonderful that would be for both of us. But Gertrude will have to improve considerably in health before we can travel down to see her.”
“I meant, ma’am,” he said, “that perhaps she can come here.”
Now what was he meddling in? his brain asked him. He paid it no heed.
“Oh, but she will be busy with her teaching duties until well on into the summer,” Mrs. Melford said. “I am sure she cannot be spared.”
“Not even for the sake of a beloved aunt?” Lucius asked. “If she knew that Miss Driscoll was in poor health and not making a rapid recovery even though she has been attended by a London physician, surely she would ask to be released from her duties for a week or two on compassionate grounds, and surely Miss Martin would not detain her.”
“Do you think so?” Mrs. Melford looked quite eager at the prospect. “It is kind of you to show such concern, Lord Sinclair. And really I cannot imagine why I did not think of it for myself. A visit from Frances would be just the thing to lift Gertrude’s spirits. Our niece always brings such a draft of fresh air into our lives.”
“Oh,” Amy cried, clasping her hands to her bosom, “I do hope you send for her, Mrs. Melford, and I do hope she comes. Then I will be able to see her again. I will have Luce bring me here. I would like it of all things.”
“And perhaps,” the earl said, chuckling, “she will sing for Miss Driscoll, and I will wangle an invitation to hear her again too. I cannot imagine a better tonic.”
“I shall do it,” Mrs. Melford said with firm decision, clapping her hands together. “I daresay she may not be able to get away in the middle of a school term, but I will not know if I do not ask, will I? I can think of nothing I would like better than to see Frances again, and I am convinced that a visit from her will do Gertrude the world of good.”
“Perhaps, ma’am,” Lucius said, smiling his most charming smile, “you should say in your letter that the idea was all yours.”
“And was it not?” Her eyes twinkled at him.
And what the deuce had that been all about? Lucius wondered during what remained of the visit and after they had taken their leave. Why would he have pounced upon a slim opportunity of enticing Frances to London?
Did he really want to see her again?
But for what purpose? Had she not made herself clear enough the last time he saw her? Had he not suffered enough rejection and humiliation at her hands?
What the deuce was he hoping to accomplish?
Just yesterday he had gone to Berkeley Square to talk marriage settlements with Balderston—and found him from home.
He had not returned this morning.
Would he go back there tomorrow?
Very probably Frances would not even come.
And if she did, so what? She would be coming to see her ailing great-aunt, not him.
But if she did come, he thought, clamping his teeth together as Amy prattled away to their grandfather beside her on the carriage seat and presumably to him too, he would certainly make it a point to see her.
No one had yet written the end beneath their story. It was not finished.
Deuce take it, it was not finished.
Not in his mind, anyway.
That is the trouble with you. You really cannot take no for an answer, can you, Lord Sinclair?
Yes, of course he could. He did it all the time. But how could he accept a no when he had never been quite convinced that she had not desperately wanted to say yes?
Then why the devil had she not?
The outskirts of London were not attractive in the best of circumstances. They looked downright ugly in the rain and with a swirling wind blowing rubbish across open spaces and into soggy piles against the curbs next to the pavements.
Frances ached in every limb, having made the journey from Bath all in one day in the dubious comfort and at the very plodding speed of her great-aunts’ carriage, with Thomas up on the box. She had a bit of a headache. She felt slightly damp even though all the windows were firmly shut. She was also chilly.
But really she was not thinking much about either the view beyond the windows or her physical discomforts—or even about being back in London. She was not coming here either to enjoy herself or to mingle with society, after all. No one would even know she had been here.
She was coming because Great-Aunt Gertrude was dying. Not that Great-Aunt Martha had announced the fact in such stark words, it was true, but the conclusion was inescapable. She had begged Frances to come if she possibly could even though she knew it was the middle of a school term. And though she had added that she was sure dear Frances would not be able to get away before the end of term and that she must not distress herself if she really could not, she had sent an inescapable sign that her great-niece’s presence in London was an urgent necessity. Instead of sending the letter by post, she had sent it with Thomas and the ancient private carriage—“for your comfort if you should be able to get away,” she had added in a postscript.
Claudia had granted her leave of absence before Frances had even formed the words to ask for something so inconvenient, assuring her that she would find a temporary replacement to carry on with her teaching duties. Anne had hugged her wordlessly. Susanna had helped pack her bags. Mr. Huckerby had offered to conduct her choir practices while she was gone. Each of her classes urged her to hurry back.
Frances had actually dissolved into tears after sharing the contents of the letter with her friends.
“They are just great-aunts,” she had said. “I have not seen a great deal of them during my life and I write to them only once a month. But now that it seems likely that I may lose one of them, I realize what an anchor they have always been to my existence and how much I rely on their love and support. With my father gone, they are all I have of my very own. And I do love them.”
It was of them she had thought with most distress after Lady Fontbridge had made her threat more than three years ago. It was largely because of them that she had made the promise to leave London and never return. She could not have borne it if they had been told. So much of their world would have been destroyed.
“Of course you do,” Claudia had said briskly. “Stay as long as you need to, Frances. We will all miss you, of course, including the girls, but no one in this life is quite indispensable. It can sometimes be a humbling realization.”
And so here she was, in London again and sick with anxiety. Great-Aunt Gertrude had never enjoyed robust health, and she tended to coddle herself by staying too far away from fresh air and too close to the nearest fire. But Frances had never thought of actually losing her.
When the carriage finally rocked to a halt outside a respectable-looking house on Portman Street, she waited impatiently for Thomas to open the door and set down the steps and then hurried up to the house door, which opened even before she reached it, and into a tiled hall, where she fell into Great-Aunt Martha’s open arms.
“Frances, my love,” her aunt cried, beaming with happiness, “you did come! I hardly dared hope you would be able to get away. And how lovely you look, as usual!”
“Aunt Martha!” Frances hugged her back. “How is Aunt Gertrude?” She was almost afraid to ask. But the first thing she had noti
ced—with enormous relief—was that her great-aunt was not wearing black.
“A little better today despite the damp weather,” Aunt Martha said. “She has even got up from her bed and come down to the sitting room. What a delightful surprise this is going to be for her. I have not breathed a word about your coming. And indeed, I can scarcely believe that you have come only because I asked. I do hope Miss Martin has not dismissed you permanently?”
“She has granted me a leave of absence,” Frances said. “Aunt Gertrude is actually getting better, then? She is not—”
“Oh, my poor love,” Aunt Martha said, taking her arm and leading her in the direction of the staircase. “You did not imagine the worst, did you? She never was dangerously ill, but she has been dragged down by a chill she has been unable to shake off, and she has been in dreadfully low spirits as a result. We both have. It seemed to me—very selfishly, my love—that seeing you would be just the tonic we both needed.”
Great-Aunt Gertrude was not on her deathbed, then? It was the best of good news. At the same time Frances thought ruefully of all the trouble she had put Claudia to by leaving the school so abruptly for a few weeks in the middle of a term—and of all the disruption to her classes and choirs and music pupils.
It was enormously touching, though, to know that her presence meant so much to her aunts. She would never take them for granted again, she vowed. And it really was lovely to see Great-Aunt Martha again. Frances felt a rush of tears to her eyes and blinked them away.
There was great jubilation when she appeared in the sitting room, which was hot and stuffy with a fire roaring in the hearth. Great-Aunt Gertrude sat huddled close to it, a heavy woolen shawl about her shoulders and a lap robe over her knees, but both were cast aside the moment she set eyes upon her great-niece, and she got to her feet with surprising alacrity and came hurrying toward her. They met and hugged tightly in the middle of the room while Great-Aunt Martha fluttered about them, telling excitedly of the secret she had kept to herself for all of four days lest dear Frances not be able to come and Gertrude be plunged into even deeper gloom with disappointment.