The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (65 page)

“Then I will haunt the place every day until you appear,” he promised her, the laughter dancing in his eyes.

She realized with a sense of shock that she was still holding his hand, or he hers. The rain had eased. He refurled his umbrella and placed his hat upon his head.

“Mr Quentin!”

A small dapper man was hailing him from outside the hostelry. Mr Quentin turned and nodded, before bowing to Clarinda.

“I fear I am wanted. Good day, Miss Howitt.”

She returned his bow with a curtsey and a smiling upward glance. “Good day, Mr Quentin.”

“You must take my umbrella, just in case,” he added, as she went to turn away. “I will not need it this morning.”

Clarinda hesitated, but the umbrella would give her a reason to contact him again. She nodded her thanks, her head full of possibilities. She knew her aunt would be beside herself at the delay but even that did not worry her as much as usual. She had the urge to stand and stare after this tall, handsome figure — an urge so strong it was difficult to resist, but resist it she did. Mr Quentin was not for her. He might have been charming and polite, with an air of mystery, but once he saw Lucy he would forget Clarinda entirely.

Men always did.

Clarinda told herself that her sister’s happiness was enough for her, that she didn’t really mind sacrificing herself to ensure Lucy’s future. Lucy would escape Lady March’s household but Clarinda must remain, a hostage to her hypochondriac aunt’s tyranny.

“Even my husband has not heard of some of the things with which Lady March is afflicted,” Etta had informed Clarinda, a sparkle in her dark eyes, “and he is a doctor. It certainly keeps him on his toes.”

“Oh, Etta, you make light of it, but how does he find the patience? She has run through three other doctors, you know.”

“It is not so bad. He says he enjoys the challenge. And the tonic he prescribed has helped, has it not?”

“Yes, it has. My aunt declares it a miracle. I do not think she has had a single bout of
brain fever
since she began taking it.”

Etta had laughed, but there had been a great deal of sympathy in her eyes. “Poor Clarinda, I wish there was some way I could rescue you from this situation. Sometimes I fear it must be like being in gaol!”

Gaols, Clarinda agreed, did not necessarily have barred windows and locked doors. Restraints could just as easily consist of tears and vapours and demands for attention. And Clarinda’s sentence was a lengthy one, for she had long ago come to the conclusion that despite Lady March’s protestations, she would outlive them all.

A rattle of raindrops fell on the pavement around her, bringing her back from her anxieties to the present. It was always raining in Bath. One grew accustomed to it. She unfurled James Quentin’s umbrella. Normally Clarinda would never have forgotten hers, but Lady March had made such a fuss when she discovered her tonic was nearly gone that Clarinda had left the house at a run, and set off for the apothecary as fast as she could manage, Lady March’s threats of dire consequences to her health echoing in her ears.

“I cannot possibly manage without it,” she’d gasped, clutching her shawl across her ample bosom. “I feel palpitations coming on. Do hurry! Oh, my head is beginning to pound.”

With such threats hanging over her, Clarinda had set out on her mission without a thought for the weather. Now she retraced her steps more slowly.

Milsom Street was not directly on her way home, but she turned down it anyway. It contained most of Bath’s more interesting shops and Clarinda found herself dawdling past their windows, casting a wistful eye over the new fashions. Not for herself, of course. She’d long ago accepted such fripperies were not for her. No, she told herself, she was thinking of Lucy.

At nine and twenty, Clarinda had heard herself described as an old maid. Oddly, until now she’d thought herself accepting of the stark truth that she would never have a home and family and husband of her own, but suddenly a sense of rebellion arose in her. She imagined herself in the latest evening gown, dancing lightly in the arms of … of …

Clarinda sighed. This was the fault of the handsome and charming James Quentin. Well, there was no point in wishing herself in love with him, or him with her.

Clarinda turned her back on Milsom Street, and hurried towards home. But no matter how she tried to flatten her spirits there was an anticipation bubbling away inside her, like a child with a promised treat. She found herself quite oblivious to the raindrops and the biting wind.

A week later James Quentin stood before the looking glass, straightening his sleeves with sharp tugs and smoothing the creaseless cut of his waistcoat. He felt like a hunter pursuing his quarry, but he had learned over the years that he must be a patient hunter, if he were to succeed.

He must watch and learn and listen; he must blend into life in Bath until he was all but invisible.

This morning he was going to the Pump Room, with the added frisson of possibly seeing Miss Howitt there. He felt a lightening of his spirits as he remembered her face, blue eyes shyly peeping at him beneath the wreckage of her bonnet, and the sweet curl of her lips. She was his ideal woman, petite and pretty and intelligent. If only he wasn’t here in Bath with an ulterior motive, he might consider getting to know her better. He had been alone too long and Miss Howitt was extremely tempting.

“What are these Bath waters like?” he demanded of his manservant, Dunn.

“Very nasty, I believe, sir.”

“But beneficial?”

“So the inhabitants of Bath would have us believe, sir.”

James would have made a visit to the Pump Room a week earlier — indeed he’d planned to do so the day after meeting Miss Howitt outside his hostelry — but he’d been forced to travel out of Bath on urgent business. His late brother had left his affairs in a damnable mess. If he’d known how bad things were he would have come home earlier rather than spending his time with the occupying forces in France, after Waterloo. But he admitted he’d been reluctant to step into his elder brother’s shoes — it had never been his ambition to do so — but then he had never expected his brother to die so young in a foolish attempt at a fence that was too high.

James gave his coat another tug. “Very well, I am as ready as I will ever be. Do I take the carriage?”

His manservant allowed himself a small smile. “I believe the established modes of travel in Bath are chair or perambulation.”

“And which do you suggest in the circumstances?”

“I think you should walk, My Lord.”

James raised a dark brow at his manservant. “I think I prefer ‘sir’ just for now. I do not feel like a lord.”

“Very well, sir.”

James went to the door, but paused with his hand on the latch. “Do you think we will find her in Bath? Is she here somewhere?”

“Yes, sir, I am certain of it.”

James nodded, his mouth losing its good humour, his eyes bleak.

“Then if she is here I will find her. I fear I cannot rest, Dunn, until I do.”

Clarinda tried not to fidget. Lady March was leaning heavily on her arm, as if her legs could barely hold her up, and yet when Clarinda suggested they return home the elderly lady had given her a glare that could have curdled cream.

“I am certain the waters will do me good.”

“Oh yes, Clarinda, we must stay!” Lucy piped up. “I see Isabella over there.”

“Quiet, miss,” Lady March said, sharply for one in such a weakened state, “no one asked you.”

Lucy bit her lip, but her sparkling eyes were unrepentant. She was a girl with spirit, and it would take more than her aunt’s crotchets to depress her. She fluttered through life expecting only the best to happen. Clarinda was older and wiser, but it was her dearest wish to see that, for Lucy, all her dreams came true.

Now, with a smile to her sister and her scowling aunt, Lucy hurried across the room to her bosom bow. Clarinda watched her go, aware that most of the gentlemen in the Pump Room were doing the same. Lucy was wearing one of her newer gowns, a pretty muslin with a flounced skirt, her hair was simply dressed, but the sheer simplicity of the young woman’s attire only made one more aware of her beauty.

We were right to come to Bath, Clarinda told herself. Despite what she herself had to endure in payment for their food and lodging, Lucy was far better off here than she would have been, destitute, at home in the country. Here she had a chance to shine.

After their parents had died — victims of a fire that had also rendered their home a blackened ruin — they had been alone and in debt. So when their father’s elder sister, Lady March, heard of the death of her profligate brother and his wife, and wrote offering them a home, Clarinda had jumped at the chance. She had not realized then that taking up that offer would mean a lifetime sentence for herself as unofficial nurse to Lady March’s imaginary illnesses, but even if she had … Well, there was no other option if Lucy was to take her rightful place in the world.

“Lucy is looking very fine.”

With a smile Clarinda turned to find her friend Etta, the doctor’s wife, at her side. “She is, isn’t she?”

“And you are no slouch in that department yourself, my dear,” Etta added, her dark eyes searching Clarinda’s face with sharpened curiosity. “What has happened to give you that sparkle?”

“Nothing. I am the same as always.” And yet Clarinda felt herself blushing, as if Etta knew she had spent the past week dreaming of James Quentin’s warm smile and longing for him to make a reappearance. She’d even gone so far as to send a note to the Good King, when she returned his umbrella, but their servant informed her on his return that Mr Quentin had gone out of Bath on business for a week. The disappointment she felt had been ridiculously excessive, but the week was up and this morning she was hoping to see him in the Pump Room.

“Well, I think you are looking very well, Clarinda.”

Etta was a woman her own age, but sometimes her manner seemed to belong to someone much older. Although Etta said little of her past, Clarinda suspected that her life had not been easy before she married her beloved Dr Moorcroft.

“I know several gentlemen who would be pleased to offer for you, if you were to give them the slightest encouragement,” Etta went on, and then laughed at Clarinda’s shocked expression. “Did you truly not realize that? But then you are always thinking of Lucy’s future and not your own. Clarinda, Lucy would not want you to martyr yourself for her sake.”

“I want her to have the life she deserves. You make me sound like one of those saints with arrows stuck in them and a pious expression. I assure you I am not a martyr, and my life is very comfortable with Aunt March. She cannot help having a taste for the more bizarre forms of illness.”

Etta gave her a look that meant she didn’t believe a word of it.

But Clarinda’s attention was elsewhere. In the entrance to the Pump Room stood a familiar handsome figure. Mr Quentin! She gave a little gasp.

For a moment she was quite dizzy with the confusing rush of emotions sweeping through her: relief and agitation; excitement and impatience; happiness and melancholy. There was no time to examine and understand each of them.

“Good Gad!” Lady March lifted her quizzing glass and ogled the crowd waiting to enter the room. “Who is that intriguingly handsome gentleman, Clarinda?”

Clarinda was not at all surprised that her aunt had noticed him. “I believe he is called James Quentin—” she began, and his name on her lips made them tingle.

“Quentin, Quentin? Never heard of him,” Lady March replied loudly. “I am most impressed with his wheeled chair. I wonder whether I can have one made?”

Clarinda, bewildered, looked again at the group by the entrance and understood that her aunt wasn’t referring to James Quentin after all. She was more interested in a large figure in a chair with wheels, a man with a sun-browned face and a shock of grey hair who was glowering at the occupants of the Pump Room from beneath his thick, black eyebrows.

“I must speak with him,” said Lady March, and made a beeline towards the man in the chair, her steps strong and sure, with no signs of her previous tottering weakness.

“Oh dear,” Clarinda murmured, turning to Etta. To her surprise her friend’s face was quite drained of colour. “Are you feeling faint?” she said, reaching to support her. “Etta, what is it?”

But Etta shook her head. “I must go,” she murmured, and with that she turned and hurried through the crowded room.

Clarinda stared after her, bewildered. If she had not known better, she would have thought Etta was running away from something. Or someone.

Alone now, Clarinda hesitated. She could join any number of groups in the room, where there were acquaintances who would welcome her and chat politely about the weather and her aunt’s health. But suddenly everyone but James Quentin seemed boring and insipid. She turned towards him, and felt a sharp stab of disappointment to see that Mrs Russo — with her five unmarried daughters — had already captured him.

She wavered. It was not in her nature to be forward, to push in, but suddenly she found herself moving towards Mr Quentin with a new determination, and with each step her determination grew.

James was wondering how on earth he could escape the middle-aged woman in her hideous turban and her packet of simpering daughters. At one point he was on the verge of breaking free but she caught hold of his arm and held on to him with strong fingers.

“Mr Quentin?”

The voice was sweet and melodious. He turned, joy in his heart, and saw that it was indeed Miss Clarinda Howitt, rescuer of gentlemen’s hats. She was smiling up at him, a sparkle in her serious blue eyes.

“Miss Howitt,” he said, with every evidence of a long acquaintance, “how marvellous to see you again. You must tell me how your aunt is. Let us go and find some tea, and then we can chat. Do excuse me, Mrs Russo. Eh, Miss Russo and … eh, all the rest of your family.”