Simply Unforgettable (11 page)

Not that he was making any comparison between Portia and the devil. Good Lord, she would be the quintessentially perfect bride. He could not do better if he hunted the length and breadth of the country for the next five years. He did not have five years, though. He had promised to be married long before this year was out.

He was
almost
looking forward to her arrival in town.

But something else was different about this spring too. He was anxious about his grandfather's health and pounced upon every letter that came from Barclay Court. And one of those letters, delivered a week or so before the Balderstons were expected, brought word that the earl had made arrangements to remove to Bath for a couple of weeks or so in order to take a course of the spa waters. They had always been beneficial to his health in the past, he explained, and he intended to see if they would have a similar effect again. He had taken a house on Brock Street rather than stay at a hotel.

Lady Sinclair, genuinely concerned though she was about her father-in-law's health, could not possibly leave London at that particular moment. Emily was soon to be presented at court and there were a thousand and one details to be attended to before the great day dawned. And Caroline, two years older than Emily, could not leave London, as she was entering her third Season, still unmarried, though it was fully expected that Sir Henry Cobham would come to the point within the month and apply for her hand. Amy was too young to go to Bath alone to care for her grandfather even though she expressed her willingness to do so.

That left Lucius. It was desirable that he stay in town, of course. But he was deeply concerned about his grandfather and felt the need to assure himself firsthand that his health had not seriously deteriorated since Christmas. It would not hurt to be away from London for a week or two, anyway. He would be back by the time the Season swung into full action.

There would be more than enough time to go courting after he returned.

By that time almost three months had passed since Christmas, and he had more or less forgotten about Frances Allard except for the occasional nostalgic memory of their one night together. Even so, he was not quite insensible of the fact that in going to Bath he would also be putting himself in close proximity to her again. He did not dwell upon the thought, though. He was unlikely to see her, and he would certainly not make any active attempt to do so. She was firmly in his past and would remain there. And indeed she had occupied a very tiny corner of his past.

He was somewhat disconcerted, then, when his traveling carriage came within sight of Bath in the valley below the road from London, all white and sparkling in the spring sunshine, by the power of the memories that assaulted him. He remembered so plainly the pain he had suffered the last time he had been on this road—being driven in the opposite direction—that he felt the pang of it even now. He remembered the almost overwhelming urge he had felt to turn back and beg her to come with him—on his knees if necessary.

The very thought that he might have done such an embarrassing and humiliating thing was enough to give him the shudders. He certainly had no wish to set eyes again on the woman who had brought him so abjectly low.

Amy, his youngest sister, was traveling with him. She was at the awkward age of seventeen. She had been released from the schoolroom after Christmas so that she could accompany the rest of the family to London in the early spring, but any excited expectations that fact had aroused in her bosom had soon been dashed. Their mother had been quite firm in her refusal to allow her to make her come-out this year, since it was Emily's turn and Caroline was still unmarried too. Poor Amy had been less than delighted at the prospect of being excluded from almost all the dizzying array of activities that would soon brighten her sisters' days and had jumped at the chance of accompanying her brother to Bath.

Listening to her exclamations of delight at the scene spread before her and pointing out to her some of the more prominent landmarks of Bath diverted Lucius's attention. In fact, her company had enlivened the whole of the journey. He was rather enjoying his close contacts with his family again, if the truth were told, and was beginning to wonder why it had seemed important to him for so long to maintain a distance from them.

It was because he was no longer a thoughtless young man, he supposed. It was because he had finished sowing his wild oats and was beginning to realize the value of love connections.

He pulled a face in the carriage. Could he really have descended to such depths of dullness?

She had never written to him, though he had watched for a letter until well into February.
She
being Frances Allard. He was suddenly thinking about her again—quite unwillingly.

There was little possibility of seeing her, though, even accidentally. She lived at the school across the river, all the way down by Sydney Gardens, and would be busy with her teaching duties. He would be staying on upper-class Brock Street and would be mingling with other genteel guests and residents of the city. Their paths were very unlikely to cross.

He stopped thinking about her altogether after their arrival on Brock Street in order to focus the whole of his attention on his grandfather. He was looking frail, but he was his usual cheerful self and insisted that the Bath air and the Bath waters had already done him some good. He sat listening with twinkling eyes to Amy's enthusiastic account of their journey and the amusing anecdote she told of stopping at one posting inn and being mistaken for Lucius's wife. She had been addressed as
my lady
.

Lucius took Amy for a short walk to see the Royal Crescent at the other end of Brock Street after tea while their grandfather rested. He listened with amused indulgence while she exclaimed with delight and declared that the Crescent was the most magnificent architectural sight she had ever seen.

But later that same evening after dinner while his grandfather sat reading by the fire and Amy was seated at a small escritoire writing a letter to their mother and sisters, Lucius stood looking out the window of the sitting room at the stately architecture of the circular street known as the Circus not many yards distant. He found himself thinking that in all probability, if she was still at Miss Martin's school, Frances was no more than a mile or so away. The thought annoyed him—not so much that she was only a mile or so distant, but that he was thinking about it at all. And about
her
.

He turned firmly away from the window.

“Feeling maudlin, Lucius?” his grandfather asked, lowering his book to his lap.

“Me, sir?” Lucius rested a hand lightly on Amy's shoulder as she wrote. “Not at all. I am delighted to be here with you. I was glad to see you eat a good dinner and come to spend an hour with Amy and me in here.”

“I thought,” his grandfather said, regarding him with twinkling eyes from beneath his bushy white eyebrows, “that perhaps you were pining for the sight of a certain pair of fine eyes.”

So brown they were almost black. Wide, expressive eyes that could spark with anger or dance with merriment or deepen with passion.

“Pining, sir?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Me?”

“You are talking of Miss Hunt, Grandpapa, are you not?” Amy said while she dipped her quill pen in the silver ink holder. “She has the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Some people might call them fine, but
I
prefer eyes that can laugh even if they are the most nondescript shade of gray. And Miss Hunt never laughs—it is undignified and unladylike to do so, I daresay. I
do
hope Luce does not marry her.”

“I daresay Lucius will make the right choice when the time comes,” their grandfather said. “But it would be strange indeed if he did not admire Miss Hunt's blue eyes and blond hair and flawless complexion, Amy. And she
is
a refined lady. I would be proud to call her granddaughter.”

Lucius squeezed his sister's shoulder and took the chair on the other side of the hearth. His grandfather was quite right. Portia was a beauty. She was also elegant and refined and perfect. Rumor had it—in other words, his mother had informed him—that she had turned down numerous eligible suitors during the past few years.

She was waiting for him.

He concentrated his mind upon her considerable charms and felt the noose tighten about his neck again.

8

The following day was cold and blustery and not conducive to
any prolonged outing, but the day after that was one of those perfect spring days that entice people to step outdoors to take the air and remind them that summer is coming in the not too distant future. The sun beamed down from a cloudless sky, the air was fresh and really quite warm, and there was the merest of gentle breezes.

After an early morning visit to the Pump Room to drink the waters and a rest afterward at home with the morning papers, the Earl of Edgecombe was quite ready for an afternoon airing with his grandchildren on the Royal Crescent. Fashionable people strolled there each day, weather permitting, to exchange any gossip that had accumulated since the morning, to see and to be seen. It served much the same function as Hyde Park in London at the fashionable hour, though admittedly on a smaller scale.

Strolling along the cobbled street of the widely curving Crescent and then down into the meadow below was not exactly vigorous exercise, and Lucius missed his clubs and activities and acquaintances in London, but really he was quite resigned to spending a week or so here with just a few early morning rides up into the hills as an outlet for his excess energy. It was good to see his grandfather in good spirits and slightly better health than he had enjoyed at Christmas. And Amy, now leaning upon Lucius's arm, positively sparkled with enjoyment at the change of scene, free as she was of the stricter social restrictions that London had imposed upon a young lady who was not yet out.

They were in conversation with Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford when Lucius, half bored but politely smiling, looked up toward the Crescent and became idly aware of a crocodile of schoolgirls, all uniformly clad in dark blue, making its way along Brock Street, presumably having just admired the architecture of the Circus and coming to do the same for its companion piece, the Royal Crescent. A lady, probably a teacher, marched along at its head, setting a brisk pace and looking rather like a duck cleaving the waters for its two straight lines of ducklings following along behind.

. . . probably a teacher.

He squinted his eyes in order to look more closely at the woman. But the group was still too far away for him to clearly distinguish the features of any of its members. Besides, it would be just too much of a coincidence . . .

“And Mr. Reynolds has agreed to take a house there for the summer,” Mrs. Reynolds was saying. “Our dear Betsy will be with us, of course. A month by the sea in July will be just the thing for all of us.”

“Sea bathing is said to be excellent for the health, ma'am,” the earl said.

Mrs. Reynolds uttered what sounded like a genteel shriek. “Sea
bathing,
my lord?” she cried. “Oh, never say so. One cannot imagine anything more shocking to tender sensibilities. I shall be very careful not to allow Betsy within half a mile of any bathing machines.”

“But I could not agree with you more, Lord Edgecombe,” Mrs. Abbotsford said. “When we spent a few days at Lyme Regis two summers ago, both Rose and Algernon—my daughter and my son, you will understand—bathed in the sea, and they were never more healthy than they were for the rest of that holiday. The ladies were kept quite separate from the gentlemen, Barbara, and so there was no impropriety.”

Lucius exchanged an amused smirk with his grandfather.

“Now before I forget, Lord Edgecombe,” Mrs. Reynolds said, “I must beg you . . .”

The crocodile had reached the corner of Brock Street and the Crescent, and the teacher stopped it in order to point out the wide sweep of magnificent architecture before their eyes. One slim arm pointed. One slender hand gesticulated.

She had her back to Lucius. Over a fawn-colored dress she wore a short brown spencer. Her bonnet too was brown. It was impossible from where he stood to see either her face or her hair.

But his mouth nevertheless turned suddenly dry.

He was in no doubt at all of her identity.

Coincidences, it seemed, did happen.

“And you will come too, I trust, Lord Sinclair?” Mrs. Reynolds was saying.

“Oh, do say yes. Do say yes, Luce,” Amy said, squeezing his arm and gazing up at him imploringly. “Then I can go too.”

“I beg your pardon?” He started and looked from one to the other of the ladies, with blank eyes. What the devil were they talking about? “I do beg your pardon, ma'am. I fear I was wool-gathering.”

“Lord Edgecombe has graciously agreed to attend my little soiree tomorrow evening,” Mrs. Reynolds explained. “It will be nothing to compare with the London squeezes to which you are accustomed, of course, but the company will be genteel, and there will be musical entertainment of a superior quality in the drawing room, and there will be a card room for those who do not appreciate music—Mr. Reynolds always insists upon it. I do hope you will agree to join us and bring Miss Amy Marshall with you.”

“I should be honored, ma'am,” Lucius said, making her a bow. “So, it would seem, will Amy.”

Good Lord! A soiree. In Bath. What was life coming to?

His sister was almost jumping up and down with excitement at his side. A soiree in Bath might not rate highly on most people's social calendar—and it would surely rate at the very bottom of his—but it was vastly enticing to a girl who was excluded from almost all the social events that her mother and sisters were preparing to attend in London all spring.

He might have smiled down at her with fond amusement if at least half of his attention had not been directed elsewhere—and if his heart had not started to pound in his chest just as if someone had taken a hammer to it.

Damnation, but he had not wanted this to happen. He had not wanted to set eyes on her again. He gazed upward again, nevertheless, for one more glance at the woman who had sent him away three months ago with the proverbial flea in his ear and had then proceeded to set up shop in his memory and refuse to go away for a good long while afterward.

The well-disciplined double line of girls was making its way along the Crescent and stopping again at the halfway point. Again the teacher spoke, facing the buildings and describing bold half circles with both arms as she explained something to her apparently attentive class.

She had not once turned to face the meadow. But she did not need to do so. Lucius
knew
. Some things did not need the full evidence of one's eyes.

“
Two
titled gentlemen among your guests,” Mrs. Abbotsford was saying. “You will be the envy of every hostess in Bath, Barbara, and your party will be assured of success. Not that it would not have been anyway, of course.”

“I quite agree with you, ma'am,” the earl said. “Mrs. Reynolds already has a reputation as an excellent hostess. I always look forward to receiving one of her invitations whenever I am in Bath.”

The teacher turned around. So did all her girls, and she proceeded to indicate with a wide sweep of her arm the splendid view down over the city and across to the hills beyond.

Frances!

He was still too far away to see her face clearly, but he was quite close enough to know that it was filled with warm animation. She was absorbed in her task of instructing the group of girls, and she was enjoying herself.

She was not, he noticed, looking either haggard or heartbroken.

Devil take it, had he expected that she would—no doubt as a result of having pined away over him to a shadow of her former self?

She was also, it seemed, quite unself-conscious about the presence of other persons in the vicinity. She did not glance at any of the fashionable people strolling on the Crescent or in the meadow below it. Even so, after one long look, Lucius tipped the brim of his hat lower, as if to ward off the bright rays of the sun and half turned as if to admire the view behind him.

“Bath never ceases to astonish me with its loveliness,” he said stupidly.

Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford, both of whom were residents of the city, were quite happy to take up the theme with voluble enthusiasm, and Amy told them how very much she had enjoyed shopping on Milsom Street the afternoon before, when her brother had bought her the bonnet she was now wearing.

The two ladies admired it with effusive compliments.

When Lucius next turned his head to look, the schoolgirls had completed their walk about the Crescent and were making their brisk way down the hill past the Marlborough Buildings.

Goddamn it, he thought profanely, had he actually been
hiding
from her? From a mere schoolteacher, who had wanted to boil him in oil one day, who had slept with him the next, and who had passed judgment on his lovemaking the day after that by calling it
pleasant
before saying a very firm and final good-bye to him?

Had he really been hiding behind his hat like a groveling coward?

He felt decidedly shaken, if the truth were known. He wondered what would have happened if he had been standing up on the street rather than down here in the meadow and they had come face-to-face. He wondered if he would have stuttered and stammered and otherwise made a prize ass of himself or if he would have gazed coolly at her, raised his eyebrows, and pretended to search for her name in his memory.

Lord, he
hoped
it would have been the latter.

And then, as the girls disappeared into Marlborough Lane, he found himself wondering how she would have behaved. Would she have blushed and lost her composure? Would
she
have raised
her
eyebrows and pretended to have half forgotten him?

Damnation! Perhaps she
had
forgotten him.

It was a very good thing they had not come face-to-face. His self-esteem might well have suffered a blow from which it would never recover. His grandfather and Amy and these two ladies would have witnessed his humiliation. So would the crocodile of schoolgirls, their eyes avidly drinking in the scene so that they could titter and giggle over it in their dormitory for the next week or month or so.

There would have been nothing left for him to do but find a gun somewhere and blow his brains out.

He felt suddenly irritated again and intensely annoyed with Miss Frances Allard, almost as if she
had
seen him and had
not
recognized him.

Perhaps, he thought, gritting his teeth, she had been brought into his life by a malevolent fate in order to keep him humble—this schoolteacher who had preferred her teaching job to him.

Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford were taking their leave. Lucius touched the brim of his hat to them and looked closely at his grandfather.

“I think that is definitely enough for one afternoon, sir,” he said. “It is time to go home for tea.”

“Perhaps Amy would like to stay out longer,” the earl suggested.

But Amy smiled cheerfully at him and took one of his arms while her other was still linked through Lucius's.

“I am very happy to go home for tea with you, Grandpapa,” she said. “It has been a wonderfully exciting afternoon, has it not? We must have spoken with a dozen people or more. And we have been invited to a
soiree
tomorrow evening. I will have much to say when I write to Mama and Caroline and Emily tonight. I do not know
what
I am going to wear.”

“I believe,” Lucius said with an exaggerated sigh, “I can predict another shopping expedition to Milsom Street tomorrow.”

“You may purchase a ready-made gown with my purse, child,” the earl said. “And all the trimmings to go with it. But do trust to Lucius's good taste when you make your choices. It is impeccable.”

As they walked, Lucius found himself grappling with a memory of Frances Allard sealing the edges of a beef pie with the pad of her thumb, pricking the lid so that the steam would not blow it off, and then bending over the hot oven to set it inside.

Why he should still feel rather like the beef filling lying beneath the unpricked lid in the middle of the hot oven was a mystery to him—not to mention a severe annoyance.

Why had she chosen today of all days to bring a class up onto the Crescent?

Or, perhaps more to the point, why the devil had he chosen today of all days to stroll there with his grandfather and sister?

It felt damnably unmanly to have had his composure shaken by a one-night lover three months after the event.

“Oh, Luce,” Amy said, squeezing his arm, “is not Bath a wonderful place to be?”

 

“It is absolutely not fair,” Susanna Osbourne declared, “that I spent only an hour outside playing games with the junior girls and have acquired lobster cheeks and a cherry nose and freckles to boot while Frances spent a whole afternoon walking with the middle class and looks bronze and beautiful. It is not even summer yet.”

“Bronze is not considered any more becoming for a lady than lobster,” Miss Martin said, looking up from the tatting with which she kept her hands busy. “You teach the girls that they must guard their complexions against the sunlight at all costs, do you not, Susanna? I have no sympathy, then, if you were too busy having fun with your class to guard your own—and I could see whenever I glanced out the window at you that you
were
having fun. You were actually participating in the games yourself. As for Frances—well, she is the exception to all rules as far as looks and complexions are concerned. It is her Italian heritage. We poor English mortals must simply endure the unfairness of it.”