Regina Scott (12 page)

“I do believe you think you’ve considered every angle.”

He smiled. “I try, my dear.”

He did. She suddenly knew how Lady Phoebe must feel—her life controlled, her emotions swept aside in the wake of his caring logic.

But she was not Lady Phoebe. Hadn’t he just praised her for that? Perhaps it was time Lord Allyndale learned just how a less-than-ethereal creature took his high-handedness.

“Your plan is
nearly
flawless,” she said and had the satisfaction of seeing the smile fade from his hand some face. “Unfortunately, you have failed to take two issues into consideration.”

“Indeed,” he said, eyes narrowing. “What would those be?”

“First, the joy of finding the
incarnata
is not in the having, my lord. It’s in the search. Though there are markets for rare shells and fishermen always ready to sell what comes up in their nets, my father never
bought one of
his
shells. To him, they were only his shells if he had discovered them.”

He touched the breast of his coat. “So I’d do you a disserve by enlisting others to find the shell for you.”

“Precisely. But I daresay you did it with the best of intentions.”

He inclined his head to acknowledge the truth of the statement. “And the second matter?”

That was an even greater miscalculation, but she couldn’t explain it to him so easily. Some part of her wanted to help him, to ease his concern that someone would take advantage of his sister, perhaps even to prove to him that his sister—and women in general—were not the feckless creatures he persisted in seeing. Yet she knew what her answer must be.

She rose and dipped a curtsey. “The second matter is my willingness to serve as chaperone for Lady Phoebe. The answer is no, my lord. Thank you for your kind words, but I must refuse.”

“W
hat are you thinking?” Algernon demanded when he burst into their sitting room that afternoon, resplendent in an emerald coat and purple plaid trousers. Meredee and Mrs. Price had returned to the inn after her stepmother had finished socializing. Meredee’s righteous indignation over Chase’s plan had kept her back straight and her gaze unswerving as her stepmother flirted with her elderly swains, but even the kind Mr. Cranell noticed the difference in her.

“Miss Meredee has the most fierce look in her eye today,” she heard him whisper to Mrs. Price at one point. “Puts me in mind of an avenging angel. Best to give her a dose from the south well, I think.”

She was rather pleased that she’d kept her gaze from seeking Chase’s for most of the visit. The two times she glanced in his direction, she’d noted that he was regarding her with a frown and a quirk to his
mouth that said he was perplexed. He thought he’d offered her a reasonable bargain. He could not know he’d offered to put her in an impossible position and crushed her hopes in the process.

“My goodness, Algernon,” Mrs. Price cried now, dropping the lace she had been working at the half-moon table while Meredee read aloud. “What’s happened?”

“Meredee’s whistled my prospects down the wind is all,” he declared. But he went so far as to shut the door and approach Meredee with more caution, as if unsure of his reception. “I understand Lord Allyndale offered to have you chaperone his sister and you refused.”

How had he known? He hadn’t been at the spa house, and she hadn’t thought anyone was standing near enough to overhear her conversation with Chase. The only other person who might know was Lady Phoebe, if Chase had confided his plan to her. Meredee’s stomach tightened. Algernon must still be sneaking around to see the girl.

“Well of course she must refuse,” Mrs. Price said with a sniff. “I have far more need of her services than your Lady Phoebe does.”

“But that’s just it, Mother,” Algernon said, running a hand back through his dark hair. “She won’t be my Lady Phoebe unless I can convince her to marry me. And for that I need Meredee’s help.”

“Lady Phoebe seemed inclined to hear your
proposal,” Meredee pointed out, laying a ribbon between the pages to mark her place and closing the book. “My involvement hardly seems necessary.”

“Her brother broods over her,” Algernon protested. “He won’t let her out of his sight. Either that, or Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam guards her steps. But if you agreed to be her chaperone, I might have an opportunity to approach her.”

“And don’t you think that’s why I refused?” Meredee dropped the book on the table with a satisfying thud that made Mrs. Price stiffen in her seat. “How can you ask me to put myself in that position? I told you I would not be involved in your schemes.”

“But that was before Lord Allyndale offered to involve you!”

“It makes no difference,” Meredee insisted. She rose, aware of her stepmother’s gaze on her. “My answer is no, and it shall remain no.”

She thought they might argue with her, but, to her surprise, Mrs. Price insisted that no more be said on the matter. Algernon stormed out. When he returned for the Ordinary, he cast her glowering glances from across the table. At one time, she might have taken the harsh looks more personally. Now she felt a strength, a peace.
Thank You, Lord, for showing me that my choices are right.

Her resolve was tested the very next morning. Meredee had returned from a disappointing hunt on the beach and changed into a pale muslin morning
dress. As if to make amends, Algernon had left her a new paper by Sir Humphrey Davy about the discovery of a new element, chlorine, and she could hardly wait to read it. She managed to convince Mrs. Price to go to the spa with Colonel Williams as escort and curled up in the window seat of the sitting room to read, pot of tea on the table nearby. But she’d only gotten through the first few paragraphs when a maid brought word that she had a caller downstairs.

Meredee squared her shoulders and rose. It was probably Chase come to plead his case. He’d find her made of stronger stuff.

“Show him up,” she ordered.

The maid, a blond girl with a round face and sturdy frame, bobbed a curtsey. “Aye, miss, but it’s not a gentleman. It’s a young lady.”

Lady Phoebe arrived moments later. “Oh, Meredee, you must help me!” She rushed into the room in a flurry of pink and collapsed sobbing in Meredee’s arms.

Meredee struggled to collect her thoughts. What could have happened? Had Algernon pressed his case and been refused by Chase? Or worse, had her stepbrother pressured the girl to elope with him?

“There, there,” she murmured, patting the smooth back of Lady Phoebe’s satin rose short jacket. “Sit down and talk with me. Would you like some tea?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly drink a thing.” Lady
Phoebe hiccoughed back a sob, then she straightened to wipe at her eyes with her gloved fingers.

“Won’t you tell me what’s troubling you?” Meredee murmured, cocking her head to see into the girl’s eyes.

Lady Phoebe took a deep breath as if to steady her self and met her gaze with a look of anguish. “Chase says you no longer wish to be my friend.”

Meredee recoiled, blinking. “What! I assure you your brother is quite mistaken.”

Lady Phoebe brightened immediately, smile blossoming. “Then you will agree to chaperone me?”

So that was the problem. The girl did know her brother’s plan. Meredee raised her head. “No, and I do not see how that has anything to do with my friendship for you.”

Lady Phoebe regarded her intently, her honey-colored curls peeking out from the edge of her crisp white bonnet. “But it has everything to do with our friendship. Is it that you find me unworthy of your brother, then?”

“Lady Phoebe,” Meredee said, putting a hand to a head that was beginning to ache, “my decision has nothing to do with my feelings for you.”

“Then why not agree?” she begged.

“You know very well why I can’t agree. Algernon would expect me to betray your brother’s trust, and I begin to think you would concur.”

“Certainly,” Lady Phoebe said and went so far as to giggle. “Don’t you see? It’s perfect!”

Meredee stared at her, hand falling. “Don’t you see that it’s wrong?”

“No,” the girl said. “What I see is that Chase has left us with no other choice.”

Meredee threw up her hands. “Then speak to him! Tell him how you feel.”

“He has no truck with feelings! With Chase it is all logic and reason.” She said the words as if they tasted bad, face scrunched up and nose wrinkled. Meredee wanted to argue with her, but she’d felt the same way yesterday when Chase had made his very reasonable and completely unsuitable proposal.

Lady Phoebe reached out and took Meredee’s hand. “But you know how important feelings are, don’t you, Meredee?”

Meredee pulled her hand away. Feelings? Feelings did nothing but crowd her, confuse her. Before she knew it, she was pacing around the little room, Lady Phoebe watching her as a gazelle might watch a lion stalk closer. She should probably sit and encourage Lady Phoebe to do the same, but movement eased the tension building inside her. Was that why Algernon kept pacing when he was intent on a discussion?

She had to make Lady Phoebe see reason. Much as Meredee disagreed with Chase at the moment, she knew this reliance on nothing but emotion would only get his sister into trouble. “Sometimes feelings lead
us onto the right course,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t. They must be balanced with other factors—our upbringing, our character, our dreams, our faith.”

Lady Phoebe waved them away with one sweep of her pink-clad arm. “Haven’t you been in love, even once?”

Her throat tightened, as if even her body rebelled against the question. A memory tugged, one she had been avoiding for days. She’d wrapped it more carefully than her father’s shells and put it safely away where it could no longer hurt her. Did she truly want to open it now—in front of Lady Phoebe of all people? But the girl was regarding her with the same intensity her brother so often did, and she felt the same urge to gratify it with the truth.

She sighed. “I thought I might be in love, once. I had a short season when I was seventeen, and there was the most dashing officer—Captain John Metrick of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons.”

Lady Phoebe sighed as if she could imagine him in his dress regimentals, standing tall in his blue coat and yellow cuffs, the white braid broadening his chest. She could not know how his smile brightened his dark eyes, made Meredee’s heart beat faster.

“I was very taken with him,” Meredee told her, “and, I fancy, he with me. We danced at every ball, we talked at every chance. When he held my hand and asked me to wait until he returned from India, I thought my heart might fly to the moon.”

“What happened?” Lady Phoebe begged, sinking onto a chair at last. “Did he prove untrue? Did your father deem him unsuitable? Did he and Algernon duel?”

Meredee shook her head. “Nothing so romantic. He never came back. He was killed at the Battle of Assaye.”

“Oh!” The girl leaped up and wrapped her arms around Meredee once more.

This time Meredee leaned into the hug. The memory hurt, but she was surprised at how the pain had dimmed. She was no longer the green girl in her first London season, dreaming of what might be. No, fearing that pain, she’d pushed all her dreams into the darkness. Perhaps it was time to bring them back into the light.

“I knew you’d understand,” Lady Phoebe said, pulling back. “We none of us know what tomorrow may bring. Look at my father, killed in a hunting accident. Look at Mother, after all her imaginary illnesses, falling prey to a sudden ague. Why, Algernon could be thrown from a horse, drowned in the sea, torn apart by wild dogs in the street!”

Meredee raised a brow.

Lady Phoebe giggled. “Very well, I grant you the last is unlikely. But the fact still stands—while we are forced to remain apart, we are wasting precious time. He loves me, Meredee! You cannot expect me to go about life as if I didn’t know, didn’t care.”

“No, not you,” Meredee said with a reluctant smile. “I can see you were never one to wait. So what do you plan to do about it?”

Lady Phoebe set her hands on her hips, fisting her strawberry-colored muslin skirts. “Encourage him! After his declaration on Saturday, I fully expect a formal proposal within the week.”

“And then what?” Meredee pressed. “Your brother refused him, and you’re not old enough to marry without his permission.”

Lady Phoebe narrowed her eyes. “If Algernon proposes—
when
Algernon proposes—I promise you we will be wed.”

“Not good enough,” Meredee insisted. “I cannot help unless I know all.”

The girl squealed and threw her arms around Meredee. “Oh, I knew it! I knew you’d help us!”

Meredee disengaged and took a step back, face stern. “Do not attempt to flatter your way into my good graces. Tell me what you will do if your brother refuses again.”

“He won’t. Not if you’re on our side.” When Meredee started to protest, she hurried on. “It’s true! He esteems you greatly, Meredee. I’m sure if you were to explain the situation, tell him how much you adore Algernon, Chase would come around.”

Would he? He’d said he admired her yesterday, but that was before she’d refused his carefully laid plans. From the beginning, she’d wanted him to like
her, first for Algernon’s sake and then because she so very much wanted to like him in return. Was their oddly formed friendship strong enough to endure her confession? Her feelings were still in such a jumble that she couldn’t trust them any more than she trusted Lady Phoebe.

The girl took a step closer. “He’s downstairs right now, waiting for me. I doubt he’d leave me alone with anyone but you. That’s how much he trusts you.”

Downstairs. Chase was just downstairs. She could go down, make amends, return that intense glow in his eyes when he gazed at her. But was that all she wanted? Was the sum of her dreams now bound around Lord Allyndale’s regard? Oh, she couldn’t attend to that right now. She needed to focus on Lady Phoebe and Algernon.

“Perhaps we should invite your brother up,” she said to Lady Phoebe. “Tell him the truth.”

“No, no, silly,” Lady Phoebe said with a laugh. “Algernon must propose properly first.” She glanced at Meredee out of the corners of her dark eyes. “But if you were to fetch your stepbrother and give us a few moments alone, I’m sure I could bring him up to scratch.”

Meredee stared at her. All this time, she’d thought Chase was dangerously close to being correct about his sister. But deep thoughts lurked in those wide brown eyes. Was she the only one who’d noticed?

“You do yourself a disservice, Lady Phoebe,” she
said. “You allow your brother to believe you vapid, but you have an intelligence that will not be denied. Why do you hide it?”

Lady Phoebe shrugged. “My mother was one of those vapid females Chase abhors, forever losing her embroidery scissors, unable to remember what she’d ordered for dinner that day. My father’s death upset her greatly, I’m told. I was the last piece of him she’d have. Anything I wanted, I generally got, and the very least tantrum served to turn a no into a swift yes.”

“Small wonder your brother finds it difficult to admire her.”

Lady Phoebe’s hands fisted again. “I adored her. She may not have been brilliant, but she was bright and good and everything warm and loving. Everyone expected me to be just like her. Certainly Chase never saw anything different.”

“You’ve never given him the opportunity,” Meredee said, hurting for them both.

Lady Phoebe shook her head. “Why should I? When I went to London, it became clear to me that many men are just like Chase—expecting all pretty girls to have a warm heart and an empty head.” She laughed, but the sound lacked her usual sparkle. “And I do enjoy being the center of attention, Meredee.”

“I imagine many do,” Meredee acknowledged. “But I also imagine it’s far more satisfying when it’s truly earned.”

Lady Phoebe relaxed her hands as if with effort.
“Perhaps someday I shall earn it for more than a giggle. Until then, I mean to make the most of it. I’ve found the most marvelous man in Algernon. He has a fashion sense few can attain. He actually expects me to have an opinion and takes heed of it. He is clever and funny and kind and so handsome he makes my heart beat faster just looking at him.”