I would not have believed it possible—but a second miracle occurred this afternoon in regards to Mary. I was playing at spillikins with the children in the nursery, when Mary came in and asked whether she might speak with me. I was surprised, but I said of course—and picked up Susanna so that she would not disturb the pile of jackstraws while her older brothers and sisters kept playing without me.
Mary has in fact been leaving off her glasses these last few days. Her eyes look quite different without them. Actually, her whole face looks different—less priggish and solemn. This afternoon as I walked with her over to the nursery window seat and sat down, she looked … pensive rather than prim or self-righteous, a furrow of thought between her brows.
“I have been thinking,” Mary said, “about your remarks earlier today. You implied that I was lacking in proper sisterly affection because I was not more concerned about Jane and her reasons for coming to London.”
“Well—” I stopped, uncertain of how to reply. It seemed unkind to say that, yes, absolutely, I thought her behaviour smug, sanctimonious, and entirely self-absorbed.
As it happened, though, I did not need to say anything, because Mary went on. “I have come to the conclusion that you were correct,” she said.
Which was miraculous enough in itself, but Mary did not stop there. She said, “The poet Donne teaches us that, ‘No man is an island, entire of itself.’ I have been remiss in neglecting the truth of that useful lesson. I ought to be more concerned about Jane. Do you think I ought to write to her—or perhaps call—and ask whether she and Charles have quarrelled? The poet Donne also has some very instructive remarks on the perfect harmony that ought to exist between a husband and wife. Perhaps I could copy some of them out for Jane. I could even send them to Charles, as well.” Mary looked thoughtful. “Since he is, after all, our brother now that he is wedded to Jane, it would be perfectly proper for us to correspond.”
“No!” I spoke so sharply that Susanna startled in my lap and I had to pat her back to quiet her. “That is, I believe it would be of much greater service to Jane if you—” I wracked my brains, trying to think of some way to prevent Mary’s sending pages of John Donne’s thoughts on marital bliss to Jane’s husband. “If you were to offer to take little Amelia out for walks in the park and that sort of thing,” I finished. “I’m sure Jane must be finding it very wearying to care for Amelia in her condition.”
Mary did not look entirely convinced, but she did agree that she would offer her services to Jane.
It is nearly nine o’clock at night now. I have been waiting all day for word from either Mark or Mr. Dalton as to whether they reached Mark’s lodging house safely yesterday, but I have heard nothing. At least Mark has not come back asking for more money; I suppose I may take that for a good sign.
Mrs. Hurst called on my Aunt Gardiner today.
I must admit it amuses me, rather, that my brother-in-law Charles’s sister now courts my Aunt Gardiner’s acquaintance to such a degree. When Charles first fell in love with Jane, Mrs. Hurst did her level best to prevent his marrying her.
She despised our family—despised my Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in particular for my uncle’s connection to anything so vulgar as a trade, and turned up her nose at his residence in Cheapside.
However, that was before my sister Elizabeth’s marriage introduced my Aunt and Uncle Gardiner to a whole host of the cream of London society. My aunt was an unqualified success—not all of the ton being as empty-headed and vicious as Mrs. Hurst and her set.
Now Mrs. Hurst calls on my aunt regularly in an effort to finagle invitations to the grand parties to which my aunt and uncle are invited.
And I suppose I must qualify that it would amuse me a good deal more if it did not mean that Mrs. Hurst’s company is inflicted on us at least once a week.
Mrs. Hurst is tall and rather stout—though she does her best to rein in her figure with corsets that push her bosom up into an absolutely astonishing shelf. She has reddish-brown hair that is fashionably cut short and frames her face. Her eyes are green and slightly prominent and always remind me of those of a fish.
Though perhaps my perception is skewed by the fact that every time she sees me, Mrs. Hurst informs me in her high, affected voice that I am “letting myself go shockingly” by not taking more care with my dress and appearance; that eighteen is “halfway to being entirely on the shelf”; and that I shall never catch a husband if I do not make more of an effort. As though husbands were strange, wild creatures to be hunted down and scooped up in a net like butterflies or pollywogs.
The last time Mrs. Hurst said that to me, I told her that if I had caught myself a husband like hers, I would certainly throw him back into his native habitat at once.
I am afraid I have not even managed to work up anything in the way of penitence for being so rude, either, since it has so far stopped Mrs. Hurst from speaking to me directly again.
At any rate, when she called at the house today, she was accompanied by Miranda Pettigrew, who seated herself beside me and started to chatter of balls and plays and all the young men with whom she had danced. My Aunt Gardiner and I were alone; Mary had—most inconveniently—actually taken my advice and gone to see Jane.
At least I discovered that I need not listen to anything Miranda said; she scarcely even paused to take a breath, much less to allow me to speak. I was scowling at my embroidery—another of my self-imposed penances has been forcing myself to learn to sew—when suddenly a fragment of one sentence caught my ear.
“Poor, poor Mr. Dalton,” Miranda had said.
My hands jerked and I accidentally rammed the needle into my thumb. Biting back a word that would no doubt have made Mrs. Hurst faint with shock. Whatever else one may say about the aftermath of battle, one picks up any number of interesting invectives from wounded soldiers, such that I now have an entire lifetime’s supply of bad words to draw on.
“Do you mean Mr. Lancelot Dalton?” I asked. “Why do you call him ‘poor’?”
Miranda gave me look of peevish annoyance, which meant that I had probably just given away the fact that I had been utterly inattentive of anything she had been saying. But Mrs. Hurst heard me and answered for her, momentarily forgetting that she is not speaking to me. “Oh, yes, indeed. It is such a sad story. Truly tragic.”
“Tragic,” Miranda echoed. “It is no wonder he is always so solemn and grave, when one thinks of what he has had to endure—” She fished in her reticule for a lace-edged handkerchief and used it to dab carefully at her (completely dry) eyes.
I glanced questioningly at my aunt. I had given her both of Mr. Dalton’s messages—his regrets when he left her dinner party and his message about the boxes for the children’s hospital—but she had not mentioned anything of a tragedy in Mr. Dalton’s past.
Aunt Gardiner’s lips compressed.
My aunt was quite a beauty in her youth, and is very pretty, still, with softly curling dark hair and hazel eyes. At that moment, though, she looked less lovely than simply angry. She said to Mrs. Hurst, her voice short, “One could indeed describe it as a tragedy.”
And then she turned to me, her expression softening slightly. “Lance’s mother was my second cousin. I’ve known him ever since he was a child. Lance and his brother and sister.” She stopped. “His older brother … his brother was a colonel in the army. Percival, his name was.”
Percival. I registered the name and thought—inanely—that Lance in fact had not been joking about his mother’s fondness for Arthurian names. But mostly my throat had gone dry and my whole body tensed in anticipation of what Aunt Gardiner was about to say.
“His regiment was at Waterloo. Percival survived. But he was wounded—badly wounded. And his nerves were … damaged, too.”
Aunt Gardiner swallowed, and I saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. “He … he never recovered. He died. Just six months ago.”
I had always thought it just romantic exaggeration when the authors of gothic romances speak of their heroines’ blood running hot or cold or coming out all over in gooseflesh at the villain’s words. But as Aunt Gardiner spoke, my whole body flashed first hot and then icy cold.
It was—it must have been—Percival, his brother, of whom Mr. Dalton was speaking when he said that he had known someone in similar case to Ben. And I groused and snapped at him and tried my best to throw his offers to help back into his face.
The conversation went on. According to my aunt, the children’s hospital is but one of Mr. Dalton’s many projects. Despite having been ordained, he has no actual parish living of his own, but instead has lived in London since his brother’s death and devotes himself to charity work among the poor of the East End.
Of course he does. I might have known that in addition to having a tragically dead brother, he is also an absolute paragon of Christian charity and—
I had to break off writing just now, as my Aunt Gardiner knocked on the door of the room. She noticed I ate very little at dinner, and wanted to ask whether I was feeling well.
She is very busy just now in packing for the older children, who are going to stay with their grandparents—Aunt Gardiner’s parents—in the country for the next month and a half, beginning tomorrow. And yet Aunt Gardiner still found time to worry over me and come to my room.
I promised her that I was quite well, that I had not even the slightest hint of a fever or a sore throat. But instead of leaving, she studied me even more closely, touching my cheek as though I were one of her own children and peering intently into my eyes.
“I hope that the conversation this morning did not upset you,” she said at last. “My speaking of Lance’s brother and the war, I mean.” She stopped, but when I said nothing in response, she went on, “I know that you must have experienced … that things must have been very bad in Brussels at the time of the battle. And your poor Captain Ayres was killed of course …” Her voice trailed away again, and then she sighed. I suspect the sigh was in response to the look on my face. “I am sorry, my dear. I do not mean to pry. I only meant to say that if you ever wish to speak of … of anything, I am here to listen.”
As well as being lovely, Aunt Gardiner is so truly good and kind. I shut my eyes. Wishing for a disloyal moment that I could have grown up with her for a mother.
I shook my head, though, and said, “Thank you, Aunt. Truly. But I am quite well … that is, I will be quite well.” My throat tightened, making the last words wobble. I said, “What I mean to say is that I do not think that speaking of it would do anything to help.”
Aunt Gardiner studied me another moment, but to my relief, she said nothing more—only kissed my forehead and said, “Goodnight, my dear.”
Looking back to where I left off before my aunt came in, I suppose I ought to finish the account of Mrs. Hurst and Miranda’s visit.
Miranda continued to chatter at me all through the rest of the time they stayed—though this time I could not manage to block it out as I had done before. And short of clapping my hands over my ears or resorting to my store of bad language, I could not think of a way of stopping her, either.
Apparently she has determined that she is going to marry Mr. Dalton, and has plans—chiefly involving new ball gowns and extravagant dinner parties put on by Mrs. Hurst—to make him propose by the New Year.
The worst was that I could recall a time when I thought that way myself; I have hideously clear memories of chattering in exactly that fashion to Georgiana last year.
My patience did finally reach a breaking point. I said, “And how will you like being a clergyman’s wife?”
Of course, I might have known all attempts at sarcasm would be lost on Miranda. She only giggled and tossed her blonde ringlets and said, “Oh, la! I mean to make him give up that nonsense about the church, of course, directly we are engaged. He has his own income, you know. And it is not as though he has his own parish yet, either. I am certain that I can persuade him to take up some more fashionable profession. Such as the army, perhaps.” She giggled again as she leaned forward, putting her plump hand over mine. “Do you not think he would look excessively handsome in a soldier’s coat of red?”
I am writing this curled up on Aunt Gardiner’s drawing room sofa. The mantel clock has just struck five in the morning. I only just returned home—and I am so tired that my eyes feel gritty. But I do not think I could sleep, even so. And I did not want to risk waking Mary by lighting the bedside candle in our room.
Tonight was Georgiana’s Ball.
Poor Aunt Gardiner was too tired to attend after spending another night with a teething Susanna, and Uncle Gardiner chose to stay home with her. But they gave Mary and me the use of the carriage so that we might go; since it was a ball given by our sister-in-law, they were not particular about chaperones.
Madame LeFarge had made a special effort and had Mary’s new rose silk dress finished and delivered this morning. It is lovely. I helped Mary to dress. And I did her hair for her, plaiting strands of pearls into it this time.
Which left me once again with very little time to dress myself, though it scarcely mattered. I chose my white satin with the silver embroidery, and matching silver slippers. I coiled my hair into a loose knot at the nape of my neck.
And wished all the time I was dressing that I might suddenly come down with an actual touch of bubonic plague. Or that my conscience would at least allow me to feign illness for the night.
I like Georgiana. I do. It is just that she is so excessively perfect in every regard. Pretty. Gentle. Well-mannered. Sensible. She is almost my own age exactly and, despite her natural shyness, is now mistress of Darcy House, hosting grand affairs like tonight’s ball.
She also knows far too much about me—such as the reason my engagement to John was broken off. And she was with me last summer in Brussels, during the battle at Waterloo, which means that I cannot see her without inevitably remembering those days in every horrible detail.
At any rate, since I could neither feign nor manufacture genuine illness, Mary and I arrived at Darcy House with a throng of other people and were ushered inside by a pair of footmen in powdered wigs and elegant liveries.
Mary clutched my hand, looking—for her—quite nervous and awed by all the splendour. “Goodness, Kitty,” she whispered. And then said nothing more.
My Aunt and Uncle Gardiner are comfortably well-to-do, and despite the entail on my father’s estate, my parents are by no means poor. Certainly not when compared, say, to the beggars I see freezing on street corners around the city.
But like all of Mr. Darcy’s family, Georgiana and her husband Edward—who is the younger son of an earl—simply live in a different world entirely from ours.
Darcy House is located in the very exclusive Grosvenor Square, built of elegant stone and pillared stucco, and is four storeys tall. The interior is just as elegant and palatial without being in the least ostentatious or overly-lavish. The entrance hall leads into a high-ceilinged saloon with marble fireplaces and a Roman-style frieze around the edge of the ceiling. And the ballroom at the back of the house is vast—large enough for a party of five hundred.
Tonight the room was decorated with hothouse orchids and trailing fronds of ivy, and hundreds of candles blazed in the chandeliers. A quartet of musicians played in a raised alcove at the head of the room.
Georgiana was near the door, and she came to greet us as we entered.
Georgiana has her brother’s dark hair and eyes, but in her the aristocratic Darcy features are softened into refined delicacy. Tonight she was wearing a peach-coloured silk gown with a beaded overdress and a diamond bandeau in her hair.
Her husband Edward is lean and darkly good-looking, with broad shoulders and a soldier’s stance. He was standing nearby—ostensibly talking to some other gentlemen—as Georgiana embraced us. But I could see he was only barely attending to what they said. He could scarcely take his eyes off his wife.
“Kitty—and Mary.” Georgiana kissed both of our cheeks—though I saw her own cheeks colour slightly under her husband’s obviously adoring regard. “I am so glad you could come. And how is Mrs. Gardiner?”
I let Mary answer. And when a gentleman we are slightly acquainted with—Mr. Malcolm Fredericks, the son of one of our father’s boyhood friends—came over and asked me to dance, I for once agreed and made my escape.
Mr. Fredericks is scarcely my idea of a romantic suitor—even if I had been looking for one. He is tall and loose-jointed with a hook nose and very large ears that stick out from his head at nearly right angles. None of which of course is the poor man’s fault. But he also can talk of absolutely nothing but hunting.
Literally nothing. All the while we were dancing, he told me in exhaustive detail exactly how many grouse he succeeded in shooting this past November, how many rabbits and hare and pheasants, and what guns he had used to shoot them all with.
At one point during our dance he said to me—in a daring flight of poetic fancy; and no, I promise I am not fabricating one single part of this account—”Do you know, Miss Bennet, I believe your eyes are the exact colour of those of the stag I shot on my estate in Hampshire last year? A very handsome creature. I had his antlers preserved and mounted on my wall.”
I suppose it served me right for breaking my self-imposed rule against dancing.
Then, as Mr. Fredericks and I danced our way down the line, I suddenly caught sight of Jane.
I had not seen my eldest sister yet that night, though I had looked for her among the crowds. When I spotted her at last from the dance floor, she was sitting down on a gold-brocade upholstered chaise in the corner of the room, looking frighteningly pale, her eyes closed and her hands clasped over her middle.
I cut Mr. Fredericks off in the middle of another description of some small animal’s gory demise with a murmured excuse and crossed swiftly to her.
“Jane!” I sat down on the bench beside her and touched her hand. “Are you ill? Is something wrong?”
Jane opened her eyes and looked at me, blinking. Her gaze was unfocused, and it seemed to take her a half-second to recognise me. “Oh—Kitty. Yes—I mean, no, nothing is wrong. It is just—” She stopped and gasped sharply, bending forward over the swollen curve of her abdomen and breathing hard. “It is just that I seem to be having a stray pain or two. It happens, as the … as the time of confinement draws near. There is no cause for alarm.”
I did not believe her. Jane never wishes to cause a fuss. But she spoke between pauses for breath, and her face was still ashy-pale and sticky with perspiration. The hand I held felt cold and clammy.
“Regardless,” I said, “You ought not to be here. Come, let me help you to your room. Can you stand, do you think? Walk, with my help?”
I gave Jane my arm and helped her to her feet. But she had barely taken a step forward when she let out another sharp breath, swayed dizzily, and collapsed backwards onto the bench again. “I am sorry,” she managed to gasp out. “I seem to be … feeling a little faint.”
“Just lean back; I will find someone to help,” I told her. I looked quickly around the ballroom. Mary was—to my astonishment—dancing.
I admit that I was torn between satisfaction that she had not yet sprawled headlong across the dance floor and annoyance that she had chosen now to apply my lessons, just when I had need of her. I would have been happy even of Georgiana’s or Edward’s help just then—even if it meant facing the two of them.
But I could not see them at all. More guests had arrived, and the room was growing hot and very loud and crowded. Couples were dancing, society matrons were gossiping on benches, girls were giggling behind their fans.
And then I saw a familiar head of wheat-blond hair and a pair of broad shoulders in a black coat and clergyman’s collar. Mr. Dalton, standing nearby, with his back turned to me.
It seemed a particularly unpleasant joke on the part of Fate that there should be no one else I could turn to for help. Especially after what I learned about him yesterday, I was hard pressed to think of anyone I wanted to accost less. But I patted Jane’s hand, told her that I would be back with help in a moment, and crossed to where Mr. Dalton stood.
“Mr. Dalton?” His brows drew together at the sight of me—probably wondering what fresh insults I had dreamed up to hurl at him—but before he could say anything, I hurried on. “My sister Mrs. Bingley has been taken ill.” I gestured behind me to the chaise where Jane sat. “Do you think you could assist me in helping her to someplace she might lie down?”
As it turned out, I was thankful that I had asked Mr. Dalton’s help, because he responded without hesitation. “Of course.”
He followed me back to Jane, who was once more hunched over, clasping her middle and breathing hard. Mr. Dalton knelt down beside her.
“Mrs. Bingley?”
At the address, Jane opened her eyes. She must have met Mr. Dalton before, because she seemed to recognise him and said, “Oh, Mr … Dalton, was it? I do not think— That is—”
I could see a touch of embarrassed colour creeping into her waxy-pale face; above all else, Jane hates to inconvenience others or to create a spectacle.
Mr. Dalton gave her no time to object, though. “I am going to lift you and carry you out of here. Can you put your arms around my neck, do you think?”
Jane was still flushed. But she must have been feeling truly dreadful, because she complied without further protest, and Mr. Dalton lifted her into his arms. He is very strong. Jane is tall and of course bulky with the child, but he picked her up seemingly without effort and turned to look questioningly at me.
“Where shall I take her?”
I started to shake my head. “I’m not sure. I don’t know this house well—”
Jane interrupted. Her eyes were scrunched shut again, but she said, between ragged breaths, “My room upstairs. Please. I ought to look in on Amelia, and—”
Her words ended in a sharply indrawn breath, so I took her hand again and said, quickly, “Of course. Don’t worry.”
There was a door nearby at the back of the ballroom. I took a chance on opening it and discovered that it led into what looked like the library, lined with tall mahogany shelves of books. From there, I found the doorway back to the main entrance hall and the front stairs, and Mr. Dalton followed, carrying Jane up to the second floor.
Jane had recovered a little by then—enough at least that she could tell us which door was hers. Mr. Dalton carried her in and set her down on the big four-poster bed, and I found and lighted a lamp.
Jane’s bedroom was just as elegant as the rest of the house, with a pretty blue and gold carpet on the floor and pale blue paper on the walls. Through the half-open doorway into the small dressing room next door, I could see two-year-old Amelia, sound asleep in the small wooden bed that must have been set there especially for her. Her thumb was in her mouth, and her golden curls—exactly the shade of Jane’s—were tousled against the pillow.
Jane looked in, too, and relaxed a bit at the sight of her sleeping child. But then she gave another gasp, biting her lip and tensing again.
“Jane?” I perched on the edge of the bed. “Is it another pain?”
Jane could not speak, but nodded her head. When the pain had passed, she managed to gasp, “But I am sure it is not serious—”
I did not let her finish. I may not know a great deal about confinements and childbirth—I was only two when Lydia was born, and Lizzy and Jane never talked to me about their confinements at all—but even I know the dangers to both the child and mother if the baby is born more than a month early—as Jane’s baby would be if it came tonight.
More than likely Jane would die, and the child too.
I went back to Mr. Dalton, who still stood by the doorway. “Please—could you go and fetch Georgiana for me? And ask her whether there is a physician who may be called?”
Mr. Dalton glanced up at Jane, then said, “Certainly—at once,” and went back downstairs, closing Jane’s door behind him. I went back to Jane and helped her out of her evening gown and into a nightdress. Her face was still sticky with perspiration, so I found a linen towel and the carafe of water on the dressing table and wiped her forehead.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait. I did not want to speak much, for fear of waking little Amelia, so I sat beside Jane and held her hand through three more of the pains.
It seemed an eternity, but at last there was a light tap on the door and Georgiana came in, her face pale with concern. She was followed by a tall, bearded man of sixty or so, whom she introduced as Mr. Foster, an eminent physician who had happened to be one of the guests tonight.
Not that—eminent physician or no—Mr. Foster was able to contribute anything terribly useful to the situation. He took Jane’s pulse and said that he could try bleeding her, though he doubted it would do good. He decreed that she must stay absolutely quiet and not on any account get up from the bed—and then hemmed and hawed and went on for some time, saying essentially that either Jane’s birthing pains would stop or they would not, and there was no way of determining beforehand which it would be.
And then he left. Jane’s eyes were shut by then, and she seemed to have fallen into an uneasy doze, so Georgiana and I moved to the far side of the room and spoke in whispers.
“I’ll stay with her,” I said. “If that is all right with you, of course. I can sit in the armchair, so you needn’t give me a bed.”
“Of course it is all right,” Georgiana said. “I’ll see that you have blankets and tea—and anything else you would like.” She looked behind me to where Jane lay, pale and exhausted-looking on the bed. “I expect Jane would rather have you here than anyone else. But call me if there is any sign the baby truly is coming tonight? I wouldn’t know what to do if there was a true emergency, but I was there last Christmas with Elizabeth when baby James was born.”
I said that of course I would call her if need be. And then, with a jolt, I recollected that Mary was downstairs without any idea of what was happening.
“Will you tell Mary for me?” I asked. “Don’t frighten her, though. There is no sense in both of us being alarmed. Just say that Jane is feeling a trifle unwell, and I am staying with her? She can take the carriage home to my aunt and uncle’s by herself.”
Georgiana agreed, and when she had gone out, I settled down into the chair at Jane’s bedside.
I have thought before—last summer in Brussels, for example, when we were waiting to hear whether the battle was lost or won—that the most exquisite torture in the world is a combination of fear and boredom. I was frightened for Jane; worry sat in my stomach like a block of ice, preventing me from dozing off, tired as I was. But there was nothing to do but sit and wait … and wait and wait.
Jane still slept, though she half-woke from time to time with a gasp or a groan, so I knew the pains had not ceased. Downstairs, I could hear the strains of music from the ball. I suppose it must have been an hour or two later that little Amelia abruptly woke up and let out a loud wail of “Mama!”
Jane jolted fully awake, then, and struggled to sit up. But I pushed her back. “No, you are absolutely not to get out of bed. Didn’t you hear what Mr. Foster said about your staying quiet? I’ll see to Amelia.”
I went into the little dressing room. I am usually quite good at calming unhappy children—a small talent, but goodness knows I have had practice between all Aunt Gardiner’s brood. But nothing I tried tonight seemed to work with Amelia. She wanted her mother and no one else. And her small face turned red, her hands bunching into fists and her mouth opening in a bellow of pure two-year-old rage. “Mama! Mama! Maaaamaaaa!”
I finally scooped her up—she was still kicking and shrieking—and carried her over to the bed and let her see Jane. I was afraid to set her down on the mattress beside Jane, for fear she might kick or bounce the bed and do Jane some further injury. So I held her just within reach of her mother, and Jane held Amelia’s hand while I swayed with her back and forth.
And Amelia kept on screaming. More loudly still. Apparently being in reach of her mother while yet not able to actually crawl into Jane’s lap was even worse.
Jane was in little better case; she looked as though she were about to burst into tears. And she kept biting her lip and gasping with fresh pains.
I would have believed the sudden knock on the bedroom door an answer to prayer, if I thought that God or whatever Fates were governing the night owed me any favours.
Still holding Amelia, I crossed and opened it—hoping for Georgiana, who would be able at least to take Amelia into the next room for me. It was Mr. Dalton who stood in the hall, though. He looked slightly startled by the combination of myself—probably looking half-wild—and a screaming, red-faced Amelia. But he recovered himself and said—well, half-shouted, rather, over Amelia’s screams—“Miss Bennet. I came to see whether I might be of any further—”
I did not give him time to finish. “Here.” I dumped Amelia unceremoniously into his arms. “Will you take her into the dressing room, please? I have to see to my sister.”
Which was not precisely kind to Mr. Dalton. But my insides felt all tangled up tight with a fear that refused to be shaken off: that Jane was going to die tonight—and it would be in some way my fault, because I had not been able to make Amelia stop crying.
Mr. Dalton did not—amazingly, really—seem so very much discomposed to find himself in sudden possession of a two-year-old in the throes of a magnificent tantrum. He hefted Amelia easily into his arms—managing to avoid her flailing fists and feet—and carried her into the dressing room, closing the door behind them. Which did at least muffle Amelia’s screams.
I went back to Jane. Mr. Foster had at least told me what signs I ought to watch out for—an increase in the frequency of the pains. A discharge of fluid or blood. I checked Jane, but saw no sign of either of those. So I took her hand and said, “Do you want me to write to Charles for you? I am certain Edward and Georgiana would see the message delivered with all speed—”
“No!” Jane’s face looked waxy pale and beaded with sweat. Her fingers clenched involuntarily around mine. But she said, between pauses for breath, “No, do not trouble yourself. I am certain everything will be perfectly … fine.”
“But Jane, just in case the child is born early, do you not want Charles—”
“I said no, Kitty!” It was the sharpest tone I had ever heard from Jane in my life. I looked at her in astonishment. But since the subject only seemed to be upsetting her more, I said, “Well, close your eyes then and try to relax. Here, if you give me my hand back, I can rub your shoulders for you.”
I tried to study Jane’s face as she exhaled a deep breath and nodded, but I could not guess what the trouble between her and Charles might be. I should have said that it would be impossible to quarrel with either of them, and still more impossible for two such sweet-tempered people to quarrel with each other. Jane turned over onto her side—awkwardly, with the bulk of the child. I rubbed her shoulders and stroked her hair, hoping that the pains might slacken off if I could somehow lull her into sleep.
She did start to relax. I was watching the clock on the mantelpiece—counting off each tick of the second hand that passed. And a full twenty minutes passed without Jane gasping or biting her lip with the onset of a pain. Her eyes began to droop closed, and I started to hum—an old lullaby I can remember Jane herself singing to me when I was small. Our mother was never exactly the sort for singing cradle songs by our bedsides; any lullabies Lydia and I did get were usually courtesy of Lizzy or Jane.
Lavender blue and Rosemary green,
When I am king you shall be queen;
Call up my maids at four o’clock,
Some to the wheel and some to the rock;
Some to make hay and some to shear corn,
And you and I will keep the bed warm.
By the time I had finished the last verse, Jane was truly asleep. And I realised something else: at some point, the muffled sound of Amelia’s screams from the dressing room had stopped. I got up from the bed and tiptoed across the room—expecting to find that Amelia had finally exhausted herself enough to fall back to sleep, as well.
But when I reached the door, I heard a murmur of voices. And opening it, found Mr. Dalton sitting on the floor opposite a slightly wary-looking and tear-streaked Amelia. She had stopped crying, though, her big blue eyes fixated on a small rabbit that Mr. Dalton had made from a folded-up pocket handkerchief.
“Here. You can keep him, if you’d like.” Mr. Dalton held out the rabbit to her, and Amelia immediately snatched it from him, hugged it tightly—then yawned and put her thumb in her mouth.
“Goodness,” I said in an undertone. “You must be a magician, Mr. Dalton. I never thought you would manage to actually make her calm.”
Mr. Dalton gave me a brief, lopsided smile as he rose to his feet. “I admit young Miss Bingley and I got off to a slightly rocky start, but we eventually struck up a truce. I promised to make her a rabbit, and she agreed not to shatter my eardrums.”
I bent and picked up Amelia. She was yawning again and rubbing her eyes, and felt limp and heavy as a bag of sand in my arms—the way children do after they are completely and thoroughly tired out. “All right, sweetheart, into bed with you.” I lowered her into the small cot and pulled the blankets over her.
Amelia gave a slight whimper of protest, but I bent and kissed the top of her head. “I happen to know that that is a very special, magical rabbit that your friend Mr. Dalton was kind enough to make for you,” I told her. I nodded to the handkerchief creature still clutched tight in her arms. “Anyone holding him will have only the very nicest, sweetest of dreams. Will you promise to hold him tightly all night long?”
Amelia’s eyes grew round, and she nodded, hugging the rabbit tighter. “Good, then.” I kissed her again. “Goodnight, Amelia.”
Amelia’s eyelids were already beginning to flicker shut, but she gave me a small murmured, “Night-night.”
I drew Mr. Dalton with me out of the little dressing room. One glance at the bed told me that Jane was still sleeping peacefully, too, so I stepped out into the hall, Mr. Dalton following.
I pushed loosened hair back from my face and said, “Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Truly. I do not know what I should have done if you had not arrived when you did.”
Mr. Dalton shrugged. “It was nothing, Miss Bennet. And really I ought to credit my brother—he was the one who taught me that trick with a handkerchief when we were young.” He gave me another quick smile. “We were trying to find ways of passing the time, because … well, to be honest, we had been confined to our room for a week. Our mother having proved remarkably unenthusiastic over our plan to use her bathtub to house our collection of newts.”
I laughed despite myself. “I collected newts as a child! Except that I stored mine in the kitchen in our biggest soup tureen. And nearly frightened our cook into fits when she tried to use it to make oxtail stew.”
Mr. Dalton laughed, too. And then he sobered and said, “How is your sister? She is no worse, I hope?”
Now that the danger seemed to have passed, a little of the clenched feeling inside me had eased. And yet I felt abruptly almost like indulging in a fit of crying myself. Which was ridiculous.
“I believe my sister is out of danger—for now. It does not seem as though the child will be coming tonight.”
That was when I realised (belatedly) that if it is indelicate to refer to childbirth even amongst family, it is hideously improper to speak of it to a young unmarried man—and a clergyman, at that.
Mr. Dalton at least did not look particularly scandalised. Though I suppose when one considers that on the three occasions we have met, I have insulted him—snapped at him—asked him to carry my hugely pregnant sister—and finally made him a present of an irate and howling child, he must surely by this time have given up on anything like adherence to the conventions from me.
He said, “I am very glad to hear it. But in that case … may I offer to see you home, Miss Bennet? I still have my carriage here.”
I hesitated. It was much later than I had realised; I heard the clock in the downstairs hall chiming half past three in the morning. I had meant to stay with Jane all through the night, but if she was asleep, now, and had no more need of me, it was a tempting offer to be allowed to spend the rest of the night in my own bed at Aunt Gardiner’s.
“Let me speak with Georgiana,” I said at last. “I ought in any case to give her the latest news of Jane.”
I thought Georgiana must still be downstairs; she would have told me if she and Edward had retired for bed. When I reached the downstairs, I saw that the library door was halfway open and that there was a light inside. I tiptoed closer and, looking in, saw Georgiana and Edward sitting together on the rug before the hearth.
Georgiana wore a nightdress and pale green silk dressing gown, and she was sitting with her knees drawn up, leaning back against Edward’s chest. Edward had his arms looped around her waist, and his chin rested on her dark hair.
As I stood frozen in the doorway, Georgiana turned her head to look up at Edward and said something, the words too low for me to hear. Edward brushed the hair back from her forehead with such tenderness in the gesture that I felt a hollow ache spring up under my breastbone.
It is not that I envy Georgiana her husband. I truly do not. Even if he had not been engaged to Georgiana from the time I first met him, I do not think I should have ever fallen in love with Edward Fitzwilliam. It is just—
Never mind. What I wrote before about there being very small, sour comfort in self-pity does not appear to have grown any the less true.
Whatever Edward said in response made Georgiana smile and tilt her head up so that she could touch her lips to Edward’s. And then she caught sight of me in the doorway and scrambled to her feet, her cheeks flushing. “Kitty! I am sorry.” She cast a conscious look at Edward. “We did not want to go to sleep—because of Jane—and I did not hear you come down, and—” She stopped and took a breath. “How is Jane? Is there any change?”
I told them that Jane had fallen asleep and seemed to be out of danger. Edward said that he would go and tell his coachman to go to bed—he had asked him to stay awake in case there was need to send for a midwife. And I told Georgiana that Mr. Dalton had offered to drive me home. “If you do not mind my leaving you with Jane, of course,” I added.
“Of course not! You are by all means free to go—you must be exhausted,” Georgiana said. “Though come to that, Edward could drive you home.”
“No! I mean, no, that’s quite all right. Mr. Dalton said it was on his way in any case.” As a matter of fact, he had said no such thing, but he had offered to drive me back home to Gracechurch Street. And it did not seem as though heaping one more inconvenience on Mr. Dalton—after the debt I owed him already—could possibly make much difference.
Not when I would marginally prefer to chew broken glass than endure a carriage ride alone with Georgiana’s husband. Recalling all the while that the last time I had any sort of conversation with him, he was telling Georgiana to escort me to my room as though I were a child in disgrace—which to be fair to Edward, I suppose I more or less was.
“That is all right then,” Georgiana said, sounding relieved. And then she seemed to hesitate, biting her lip. “Kitty, there is—there is something I feel I ought to speak to you about,” she said at last.
“Oh?”
And then Georgiana’s next words struck me like a blow to the stomach. “I wanted to give you warning that Lord Henry Carmichael is here in town for the winter.”
I gaped at her, trying to get my breath back. It felt like some sort of dark magic, as though I had conjured up her words just by force of the memory I had been recalling.
Georgiana leaned forward, putting a hand on my arm and said, “I am so sorry! I would not have brought it up. Especially now, when you must be so worried about Jane. But he was here—actually at the house—tonight. Not that I invited him, of course,” she added swiftly. “He came with a party of friends who were invited. But I wanted to give you warning, in case you happen to run across him. If he was here tonight, there is surely a chance that he may be at some other gathering you attend.”
I finally managed to draw a full breath. And when I could trust my voice enough to speak I said, “Thank you. But I do not think I need worry. He did not remember or recognise me last summer in Brussels. There is surely even less chance of his recalling our … acquaintance now.”
Which is perfectly true. And besides, London is a vast city. I managed to avoid meeting with Lord Carmichael at last night’s ball; if Georgiana had not told me, I should never have known he was there at all. There is surely little chance of my meeting with him, even if he is in town.
I was too tired this morning to write down the rest of the story—the account of my carriage ride back to Cheapside with Mr. Dalton.
No, that is a lie. I was tired. But it was more that I did not want to write it down. All the more reason, I suppose, why I should force myself to do so.
After I had taken leave of Georgiana, I found Mr. Dalton waiting outside with his carriage, which was a curricle drawn by a pair of perfectly matched sandy bay horses. Miranda Pettigrew cannot have been lying about his having his own private income.
He handed me up into the carriage first, then swung himself into the driver’s seat. We started off, rolling down the quiet, darkened street. But he must have caught me staring at the team of bays—because he glanced sideways at me, smiled, and said, “Would you like to take the reins for a while, Miss Bennet?”
I had not thought I was being as obvious as that. But I love horses. When I was small, I used to run away from lessons with our governess every chance I got and slip away to the home farm on my father’s estate. Once when I was eight or nine and had been scolded for something—I cannot even remember for what now—I determined to run away entirely and go to live in the stables. When I was not back by nightfall, there was a tremendous hunt. Eventually one of my father’s stablehands found me curled up asleep in the hay inside the stall belonging to my father’s big gelding Blackie. Everyone said it was a miracle I had not been trampled—but that had simply never occurred to me. Blackie and I had a sympathetic understanding, as far as I was concerned.
At any rate, it has been ages since I was able to ride or drive. I struggled—very briefly, I admit—with temptation and then said, “I should love to. Thank you.”
We changed places, and I took up the reins. It was perfectly glorious! I loved my father’s horses, but they were plodding, gentle old geldings. Nothing like Mr. Dalton’s team. His bays are light and fast and seemed to respond instantly to my slightest tug on the reins.
We were flying along—too fast, I suppose, but the streets were almost entirely empty of traffic—when I happened to glance sideways at Mr. Dalton. And found him watching me, with the strangest expression on his face. Part smile, part something I could not identify—and had as it turned out, no chance to do so. At that moment, the very instant when my attention was momentarily turned, a stray dog came bounding out of the mouth of an alley we were passing by, yapping and snarling about the horses’ heels.
The horses reared back, whinnying—and then bolted, bucking and lunging forward so violently that I lost hold of the reins—and was nearly thrown out of the curricle altogether. I ought to have been terrified, but in the moment, there simply was not time. I clutched at the side of the seat, fully expecting that in another heartbeat the panicked horses would succeed in overturning the carriage entirely, and Mr. Dalton and I would both be killed.
And then I saw Mr. Dalton struggle to his feet against the curricle’s pitch and sway, brace his hands on the dashboard—and vault forwards onto the nearest horse’s back.
At first the animal continued to buck and plunge, trying to throw him off. But he clung on, holding to the bay’s bridle, and at length the horse quieted, slowed, and finally stopped, sides heaving. I suppose the horses’ initial panic must have worn off, because the other bay allowed itself to be dragged to a halt, as well.
Mr. Dalton slid down from the horse’s back and stood, talking to the bay in a low, soothing voice as he held tight to its bridle, forcing it into stillness.
But the second bay—the one Mr. Dalton had not ridden—was still stepping nervously and tossing its head. At any moment it might bolt again, and make the other horse panic, as well.
I slid down from the driver’s seat and cautiously moved towards it. The animal’s muscles were still trembling and its ears were flat back. It flinched when I touched its muzzle, whinnying again.
“Good boy.” I spoke softly—as I would have to baby Susanna. “Did the big nasty dog frighten you, my love? It’s all right. It’s gone now.”
The horse exhaled a gusty breath—and then it lowered its head, nuzzling my fingers. “Good boy,” I said again. I slid my hand up to rub the bay’s neck in slow circles. And then looked up to see Mr. Dalton staring at me across the other bay’s head.
We were passing through a street of mostly warehouses and factories, and the only light came from the carriage lamps. They cast only a small, flickering glow. But it was light enough for me to see that Mr. Dalton’s lips had compressed into a thin line and that a muscle was ticking at the side of his jaw.
“Are you out of your mind?” He did at least manage to keep his voice low, for the benefit of the still-frightened horses. But I could see that it took considerable effort. “Did it occur to you that getting down from the carriage to approach a panicked horse might be an excellent way to get yourself killed?”
As I say, I had had no time to feel frightened during the actual danger. But by then reaction had set in, leaving me feeling clammy-skinned and slightly queasy. “It occurred to me,” I hissed back, managing likewise to keep my voice to a near-whisper, “that you could only try to calm one horse at a time, and that if this one bolted again while you were settling his fellow, you would be trampled to death. Besides all of which,” I added, glaring at him, “I scarcely think that anyone who attempts a stunt as insane as your leap from the carriage just now is qualified to speak to anyone else about being out of her mind!”
Mr. Dalton only stared at me with another of those unreadable expressions. Though in this case, I assumed he was probably asking himself why he had bothered to halt the horses and so stop me from being thrown out of the carriage and killed.
I forced myself to draw another steadying breath—because he had more or less saved my life, after all, and just for once, I was determined not to be left with my skin crawling with mortification every time I recalled what I had said to the man.
I exhaled and said, in quieter tones, “What I meant to say was, Thank you. That was an incredibly brave if completely foolhardy thing to do.”
Which still did not come out as precisely conciliatory. I was beginning to wonder whether I had been placed under some sort of malicious spell—like the princess in the fairy tale whose lips dripped with slugs and spiders every time she opened her mouth to talk. Except in my case, it was insults that seemed to fly out of their own accord whenever I opened my mouth—or at least, whenever I was speaking to Mr. Dalton.
But then Mr. Dalton’s lips started to twitch at the edges, and he laughed, extending his hand. “Miss Bennet, may I propose we declare a pax?”
Which meant ‘peace’—I do have enough Latin to know that much.
His horse had truly calmed now and was thoughtfully lipping the collar of Mr. Dalton’s coat—and my bay stood quiet, as well. I smiled and accepted the hand he offered. “Pax,” I agreed.
We shook, Mr. Dalton checked the horses’ bridles to make sure that nothing had come loose during the adventure, and then we returned to our seats in the curricle.
We did not speak as we drove through the city streets towards Gracechurch Street. It was so strange as to seem almost unreal—at one moment I was confidently expecting to die, the next we were rolling onwards, past farmers’ carts of eggs and cheeses and vegetable marrows already on their way to the early-morning markets.
But at last I said, “Mr. Dalton, may I ask you a question? You are a clergyman, are you not?”
He glanced at me sideways, his brows slightly quirked up. “Is that your question? Because I believe I can confidently answer yes.”
“Very well, I suppose I ought to have said, May I ask you two questions?” My smile faded, though, as I looked down at my hands. “What I wish to know is how are you a clergyman? I mean—” I realised how nonsensical the question sounded, so I rushed on, “I mean how do you believe enough to be a … a man of God and make the church your profession? We were nearly killed just now—and my sister could easily have died tonight, and her baby too. I suppose you could say that she did not die, and we were not killed. But horrible things do happen—everywhere, every day.” I have seen them myself. Though I did not add that part aloud. “So how is it that God—who is supposed to be loving and forgiving and all those other things that clerics always mention in their Sunday sermons—lets them?”
I noticed as I finished speaking that we were in Gracechurch Street and outside my aunt and uncle’s house; Mr. Dalton had drawn the curricle to a halt. He did not answer my question at once, only sat, looking out over the row of sleeping houses before us. A few had lights already glowing in the basement windows—the servants already up and about their chores for the day.
Finally he said, “I do not know. I could quote the Bible for you—tell you that God never promises that we will not be forced to walk through the fiery furnace. Only that if we have faith, we will not be burned. But the plain truth is that I do not know.”
There was an odd note in his voice, I thought. Weariness or bitterness or both. The light from the nearby windows gilded his hair and deepened the shadows about the corners of his mouth.
I had not really intended to go on; I am not exactly in the habit of debating theology. But somehow the darkness and the night stillness loosened something in my chest, and I heard myself ask the real question I had been worrying over. The question that had been bumping and scraping about inside me ever since I had left Jane’s bedside—and discovered from Georgiana that Lord Henry is in London.
“Do you think, then … do you think that God torments and takes our loved ones from us because He intends that we are to be punished?”
“No.” Mr. Dalton shook his head.
“You sound very certain.”
He was silent a moment, looking down at the reins lying slack in his hands. Then he looked up at me and said, “I have to be.”
It is strange. I had been plagued all night—well, ever since John died, really—by the feeling that it was my fault that John was killed at Waterloo. My punishment, for not having appreciated him enough while he was alive. But as Mr. Dalton spoke, at least for that moment, I stopped thinking of that.
Mr. Dalton had spoken with certainty, yes— but his voice was once again edged with that note of bitterness. And his eyes … his eyes were so bleak, dark and shadowed. In that moment, all I could think of was wishing that I could somehow take that look away.
“Oh. Well, thank you,” I said.
Mr. Dalton raised his brows. “For what? I do not think I can possibly have been much help.” He gave me a brief twist of a smile. “I suppose I had better practise my answers to such questions if I am ever to have a parish of my own.”
“True. But at least you did not tell me glibly that the Lord moves in mysterious ways. If you had done that, I would have been forced to hit you with something large and heavy—which would have broken our agreement of pax.”
He laughed at that—and some of the bleakness did lift from his expression. And then—
This is the part I have been dreading having to write down. But very well. Another discovery I have made is that unpleasant tasks never grow any the more palatable for having been put off.
We were both laughing. And then suddenly our eyes met, we both went still—and I was struck all at once by the wish that I could close the remaining distance between us and touch my lips to his, run my fingers through his wheat-blond hair.
I scrambled down from the carriage seat without waiting for him to assist me. I was grateful for the darkness which—I sincerely hoped—hid the scalding blush I could feel climbing up into my cheeks. “Thank you again for your help tonight,” I said. “And for driving me home. But I had better let you get out of this cold night air before you catch your death of cold.”
I am not entirely sure what Mr. Dalton replied; I am not even entirely sure that I waited for him to reply before I ran up the steps to my aunt and uncle’s front door.
Lancelot Dalton was very kind tonight. He is … he is indeed not at all like what my first impression of him was. But that insane wish to kiss him … it must have been the continued ache of loneliness from seeing Edward and Georgiana so happy in each other.
At least I hope it was only that. Otherwise I am going to be thoroughly depressed by my lack of progress in altering myself from the girl I was last Christmastime.
It occurred to me after Mr. Dalton had driven off that I never asked him about Mark—whether he had succeeded in seeing Mark safely back to his rooms. But I suppose he must have done, or he would have mentioned something. And Mark will turn up again when he next finds himself in need of money; he always does.
I might have known better than to write something like, I am hardly likely to run across Lord Henry Carmichael. It seems to be the rough equivalent of sending an engraved invitation directly to Fate, saying, Do please feel compelled to prove me wrong.
I had better start at the beginning.
The older children are gone, now, to their grandparents’, which means that there is only Susanna for me to care for. I was upstairs in the nursery this morning, feeding her rice porridge, when Rose came to say that Mr. Williams was waiting in the morning room, and what ought she to tell him?
I told her that I would go down to him, though I was perfectly sure that it was not I whom Mr. Williams wished to see.
Mr. Williams actually looked relieved, though, when I came into the room. I suppose I cannot entirely blame him for feeling a certain trepidation at the prospect of seeing Mary again.
“I am sorry that my sister is not here to see you,” I told him after we had exchanged the customary greetings. “She has gone to call on our sister Jane, who is also in town for the winter.”
Mary really was gone to see Jane again—to make sure she is truly recovered from the fright of the night before last—which spared me the awkwardness of having to tell Mr. Williams that even if she had been home, Mary would in all likelihood still have refused to see him.
Mr. Williams cleared his throat. Then he said, “Miss Bennet, I wonder if you would … if you would be so good as to give this to your sister?” He held out a paper-wrapped parcel. “It is a book that she expressed an interest in reading, and I went out and bought … that is, I happened to come across a copy of it yesterday, and thought that perhaps she might accept the loan.”
He spoke slowly, with a slight hesitation to the words, and his face looked rather as though he were facing a firing squad.
I said, “Of course, Mr. Williams. I will be happy to. Mary … very much enjoyed the flowers that you sent her.”
It was not entirely a lie; Mary at least could not bring herself to throw the roses away.
She gave them back to Aunt Gardiner, with the stipulation that our aunt put them somewhere Mary need never look at them.
Mr. Williams smiled—I have scarcely ever seen him smile before, but he has one of the nicest smiles I have ever seen. There is a shy sweetness in his expression that is very appealing. And some of his awkwardness of manner fell away as he rubbed a hand through his untidy black hair. “I’m absolutely hopeless at all this, I’m afraid,” he said. “I sent the flowers because … well, that’s what you’re suppose to give a girl, is it not? Or so everyone says. But on reflection, it occurred to me that your sister would likely much prefer a book.”
I was encouraged—truly encouraged. Rhys Williams seems not only to admire Mary, but to understand her, as well. After he had taken his leave and departed, I considered and planned my strategy for presenting his gift to Mary.
All of which effort turned out to be absolutely pointless in the end, when late in the afternoon, Mary came barrelling in through the front door as though her hair were on fire and bolted up the stairs to our room.
I thought something must be wrong—perhaps Jane’s baby was going to arrive too early after all. So I ran up the stairs after her. Only to find her snatching dress after dress out of the wardrobe, holding each up to herself in front of the mirror, and then casting each one aside.
I blinked. Even with the addition of the new clothes I insisted she buy, Mary has never given me the impression that she cares terribly about her wardrobe. “Is something wrong?” I asked. “Has something happened to Jane?”
“What?” Mary looked up, startled, in the act of holding up her new scarlet walking dress with the black braid on the shoulders and hem. “No, nothing—and Jane is perfectly well. It is just that I will be late if I do not dress quickly, that is all.” She started to struggle with the buttons on the plain morning gown she had worn to visit Jane. “Help me, will you Kitty? And may I borrow your white wool pelisse with the red embroidery? It will look all right with this gown, don’t you think?”
“I … yes, of course, if you like.” I stared at her, tempted to ask whether she were some strange impostor who had replaced my sister. But I looked down at the book from Mr. Williams—which I had carried upstairs with me—and said, instead, “Mary, I want to talk to you.”
Mary had managed the buttons on her own after all and had already tugged the scarlet gown over her head; her voice came out muffled by layers of cloth. “All right. But only if you come along and talk as we go. I must leave at once.”
I glanced down at my own dress, which was an old one of yellow printed muslin. With a jammy hand-print from Susanna on the skirt. “Where are we going?”
Mary’s head emerged, slightly red-faced, through the neck of the gown. “To Hyde Park. Miss Pettigrew invited me to go walking there at five o’clock with a party of her friends.”
I ought to have been suspicious from that point onwards, of course. Ordinarily, Mary has even less patience for Miranda Pettigrew than I have. But coming on the heels of her actually dancing at Georgiana’s party—and now appearing to care about clothes—I was more pleased than otherwise. Mary must be coming out of her shell, I thought. Perhaps it would not be so difficult to persuade her to forgive Mr. Williams after all.
Mary caught up her gloves and bonnet and then whirled out the door. So I snatched up my cloak—having leant the pelisse to Mary—and said that I would come, as well.
The hour between five and six in Hyde Park is of course the hour for the swells of fashionable society to see each other and be seen promenading on the park’s tree-lined paths. Even during the winter, with the air frigid and the trees mere bare grey skeletons against a steely grey sky, the park was terribly crowded. As Mary and I made our way to the path that runs along the bank of the Serpentine river—the location Miranda had given Mary as a meeting place—we were ogled by several promenading dandies who wore the latest fashions in skin-tight breeches and elaborate cravats. And we were nearly run over by all the expensive carriages—ladies in high-perch phaetons, young men racing one another in their sporting curricles.
I had no chance at all of bringing up the subject of Mr. Williams. Not until we were midway along the path and a momentary break in the traffic gave me the chance to say, “Mary, Mr. Williams called at the house for you this morning. He had a gift for you.”
“Oh?”
Mary seemed scarcely to be attending; her eyes were scanning the path up ahead.
“Yes,” I persisted. “He very much hoped that you would forgive him for his clumsiness the other night.”
“Oh?” Mary said again. And then, with a little more attention, she added, giving a careless wave of her hand, “I mean, yes, certainly I forgive him. It scarcely matters now.”
I stopped walking, staring at her. That had been far easier than I had dared let myself even hope. “You forgive him? Then you will see him again if he calls at the house?” I asked.
“See him?” It was Mary’s turn to stop and stare. Which she did—wrinkling her nose. “No, indeed. It would be unfair of me to give him false hopes that our acquaintance might in time deepen into something more. Which is impossible, now—since I have discovered the true meaning of attachment and esteem.”
I blinked at her again, working out the full import of her words. “Do you mean to say that there is some other man you admire? Who is he? And where on earth did you meet him?”
Mary giggled—actually giggled. And I continued to stare, thinking that it really was as though she had been replaced by someone alike in appearance but entirely unfamiliar in all other regards. “We met at Georgiana’s Christmas party, of course,” she said. “We danced two dances together.”
“Two dances. And already you believe yourself in love?”
Mary looked peevish at my tone—which made her appear a good deal more like herself. “Do not the poets speak of love blooming in the space of a single glance across a crowded room? And Shakespeare himself asked the question, Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? And besides,” Mary added, “many engagements are begun without any more acquaintance between the parties than a dance or two.”
Which is perfectly true. I think I may have danced three or four times—at two separate assemblies—with John before he proposed.
I drew in a breath, telling myself that this might be all to the good. I was sorry for Mr. Williams, of course. But it would make my resolution to see Mary wedded a good deal easier if she had found someone for herself—and if he actually returned her feelings.
“What is the fortunate gentleman’s name?” I asked, just as Mary drew in a sharp breath at sight of something up ahead.
“There he is!” She lifted a hand and waved at a group of ladies and gentlemen moving towards us along the path. And I saw him—and recognised him—at the identical moment that Mary declared in fondly smug tones, “Lord Henry Carmichael.”
I registered—distantly—that Miranda was part of the group. Dressed in a frilly pink pelisse and a bonnet trimmed with ostrich plumes.
I scarcely saw her, though. The entire world seemed to have ground to a halt—to borrow again from the vocabulary of gothic heroines—and my heart thudded, sickeningly loud in my ears. “That is the man you are in love with? Lord”—I had to force my stiff lips to shape the name—“Carmichael?”
Mary frowned again. “It ought to be ‘with whom you are in love’, Kitty.”
That made me choke on a laugh. A more than slightly hysterical laugh. If I had suspected Fate of unpleasant tricks before, this, surely, was its most spectacular joke yet. My sister Mary has fallen in love with Lord Henry Carmichael. The very last man in England I would like to meet with ever again.
Mary looked at me in some alarm. “Are you quite well, Kitty?”
I stared at Lord Henry up ahead; the group was close enough now that I could see him clearly. He was dressed in riding breeches and an immaculately cut superfine coat—and he looked exactly the same as he had last year. Fair haired and blue eyed and … it is hard to put it into words. Glossily handsome is the nearest I can come. Sleek and smooth and very, very fully aware of his own physical beauty and charm.
He was saying something to the girl beside him—a brunette-haired girl I did not recognise—and she was positively shrieking with laughter; I could hear her from where I stood.
“I— As a matter of fact, I believe I may be taking a … a cold.” I changed my hysterical laughter into a cough. Which was likely as unconvincing as Mary’s snores, but I did not give her the chance to protest or consider my claim. “You go on and … and join the others. But I think I had better make my way home.”
And then I whirled around and fairly ran from the park.
Mary has not yet returned, and I have spent all the time in waiting for her trying to imagine whether her infatuation can possibly survive an acquaintance of more than two dances. One would not think so—if one looked in the dictionary for a definition of the word ‘shallow’, I am convinced that a likeness of Lord Henry would accompany the entry. Not to mention the word ‘vain’.
Of course, I suppose I could equally say that I was no better than he, when we met a year ago last Christmas at Pemberley.
But I think I must be worrying for nothing. However infatuated Mary may be, the Lord Henry Carmichael I knew would not have troubled himself to open his pocket watch to read Mary the time of day.
Here is my own dictionary illustration of Lord Henry—to appear opposite a word that on second thought seems to sum him up even better than shallow or vain.
I went to Darcy House to see Jane this morning. I had not seen her since the night of the ball. But I had Mary’s report that though Jane was still by physician’s orders confined to her bed, she seemed quite well. So I was not unduly worried—not until, that is, I knocked at the door. An extremely correct-looking butler answered, but Georgiana darted past him and practically dragged me inside.
“Kitty! I am so glad you have come.”
I felt a lump of ice congeal instantly in my stomach. “What is it? Is Jane—” Despite the butler’s presence, I was too frightened to bother with delicacy. “Is the baby coming early after all?”
Georgiana shook her head. “No, no. Nothing like that. I am sorry to have frightened you. It is just—” She bit her lip as I exhaled a gusty breath of relief and fumbled to untie my bonnet strings. “Here. Give your cloak and hat to Maxwell and come into my sitting room. We can speak there.”
Georgiana’s sitting room looks exactly as she does herself—beautiful and refined and polished. The chairs and tables and the little gilt desk in one corner were all constructed with slender, delicate lines; and the curtains, walls, and carpet were a soothing blend of pale blues and greens.
To look at Georgiana as she perched on the satin-upholstered sofa, it seemed impossible that just this past summer she was with me on the streets of Brussels, both of us sweat-stained and almost as filthy as the wounded soldiers themselves.
She rang the bell and asked the maid who answered to bring tea. And I asked, “Is Edward not at home?”
Georgiana shook her head. “No, he is at the War Office. He was offered a position there after he resigned his commission in the army, you know. That is why we are in London.”
I did not know, as a matter of fact. I felt a twinge of guilt that I had not bothered to ask. I said, “He is recovered, though, from … from last summer?”
Edward lost his sight due to a severe blow to the head during the battle at Waterloo, but then against all odds he regained it.
Georgiana nodded. “He still gets headaches occasionally, but they are much less severe and less frequent than they were. He has not had any at all for … it must be two months now.”
A small, private smile flickered about the corners of Georgiana’s mouth as she spoke. I doubt she was even aware of it. But she cannot speak Edward’s name and not be suffused with a glow of happiness.
I ought to write out I will not envy Georgiana a hundred times in this journal. The way my mother used to make me do when I had pulled Mary’s hair or stolen jam tarts from the kitchen.
I am glad of Georgiana’s happiness. She truly deserves every good thing in life.
The maid came in at that point with the tea things, and we were both silent while she set the tray on a table by Georgiana. At last when she had left the room, Georgiana said, “You know of course that I am happy to have Jane staying here with us for as long as she likes. I know she worries that she and Amelia are an inconvenience. But they are not—not at all. Even with Jane in bed, I love having Amelia running about, and besides, everyone from Maxwell to the scullery maids is absolutely entranced with her. I thought the discussion over who was to entertain her this morning would positively come to blows. But—” Georgiana stopped, her voice trailing off.
“You wonder what Jane is doing here in London?” I asked.
“Yes! I cannot understand why she would have undertaken to travel at all, with the birth of the child so near. And every time I mention Charles—”
“She gives her best impression of an especially uncommunicative oyster,” I finished for her.
Georgiana gave an involuntary gurgle of laughter, but she quickly sobered as she said, “Yes, exactly. I cannot get her to tell me what is the trouble—not that I have tried very hard. I did not feel it was right to press her, especially in her current state. I was hoping she might have confided in you?”
“No. She has said nothing at all to me, either,” I said.
Georgiana was occupied with pouring out the tea. I got up and wandered over to the room’s big bow window, looking out over the street below.
Georgiana was still speaking. “I have known Charles very nearly all of my life. He and my brother are such friends. I cannot imagine what can have caused a rift between him and Jane. He is so very—”
But the rest of what she said washed passed my ears as meaningless noise. Because at that moment, someone dumped a bucket of cold water down the back of my neck.
Well, not literally speaking, of course. But that was how it felt. As I stood at the window, I heard the rattle of carriage wheels coming very fast. And then a barouche came rolling into view. A very elegant barouche—far more expensively appointed than Mr. Dalton’s curricle. It had Lord Henry Carmichael’s family crest of arms emblazoned in gold and red on the doors. As quickly as the coach passed, I recognised it at once.
I ought to; I spent an embarrassing amount of time last Christmas sketching that same family crest and writing things like ‘Lady Henry Carmichael’ in the margins of all the novels I was reading.
But that was not what made me freeze, feeling all over again as though my insides had been scooped out and replaced with blocks of ice.
The barouche was—naturally enough—being driven by Lord Henry himself. He had a little page boy—a tiger, men like Lord Henry call them—in the back, hanging on for dear life. And in the seat beside Lord Henry was my sister Mary.
She looked absolutely terrified. But with a rigid smile, as though she had pasted an expression of delight onto her face and was holding it there through sheer force of will. I saw her mouth a stiff-lipped response to something Lord Henry must have said. Lord Henry laughed. And then the barouche rattled past the window and was gone, rolling away towards Regent’s Park.
I forced myself to draw first one breath, then another. Not that it made me feel very much better, but I was able to keep my voice steady as I turned back to Georgiana and said, “Will you take me upstairs? I will speak to Jane and make her tell me what the trouble is.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened slightly at my tone. I suppose with reason; if my voice was steady, it had also come out rather clashing and grim.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I promise not to take Jane by the shoulders and shake her and demand that she tell me what has gone wrong between her and Charles. But it occurs to me that it is silly to sit here speculating and theorising when we might know the truth simply by asking Jane herself.”
In fact, that had been Mary’s original idea. Which would no doubt have made her gloat excessively if she had been here to hear me say it.
I found Jane in bed, reading to little Amelia. Amelia was sitting curled up beside her mother, her thumb in her mouth, as she listened to the story—which seemed to be about a squirrel. But she readily agreed to Georgiana’s suggestion that she come to the kitchen and see what could be found in the way of leftover treacle tart.
That left me alone with Jane. I waited until the door had closed behind them, then sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “Jane, what is the matter between you and Charles?”
Jane’s jaw dropped open slightly, her cornflower blue eyes registering shock. I had been rather more blunt than I had intended, but I suppose I was feeling rather grimly determined to help one of my sisters, at least. If it could not be Mary, I would at least be of service to Jane. Whether she especially wished for my help or no.
I did gentle my tone as I added, “Please, Jane. I know I am not Lizzy, for you to confide in. But please, will you not tell me what has happened to upset you so? Plainly you are unhappy—enough to put both your own and your child’s life and health at risk. Will you not at least let me see if I can try to help? Is it Charles? Has he done something—” I struggled to find a tactful way of asking whether he had taken to drink or fathered an illegitimate child. Neither of which seemed likely, but I could not think what else could have caused such obvious trouble. “Something wrong?” I finished at last.
Jane continued to stare at me for a long moment. And then, quite suddenly, tears brimmed over in her eyes. “No—Charles has done nothing. Nothing at all. It is I.” Her voice broke on a sob. “I have done something terrible. So terrible I do not know whether Charles can forgive me.”
It was my turn to look completely blank with shock. Jane has always been so absolutely without fault. I cannot recall her ever having been so much as scolded, much less punished, when we were small. The rest of us might quarrel and get into mischief, but never Jane.
And if Jane were about to tell me that she was the one who had taken to drink—or that the baby due next month was not actually Charles’s—I was fully prepared to lose my faith in the human race entirely.
Jane was still crying, though, so I leaned forward to hug her and said, “Jane—don’t cry. Please. It cannot be good for you—or for the baby, either. And whatever the trouble is, it cannot be so very dreadful as all that. Tell me, and we will think what can be done.”
Jane choked on another sob but at last grew a little calmer. “I am sorry, Kitty. I would have told you before, only I was so … so ashamed.” She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and swallowed. “It was a few weeks ago. Charles’s sister and her husband were staying with us.”
“Caroline, do you mean?”
Caroline Bingley, the younger of Charles’s two sisters, married Edward’s older brother last year.
Jane shook her head. “No, Louisa.”
Louisa is Mrs. Hurst. Which means, I suppose, that Mrs. Hurst must have come direct from Jane and Charles to London and her mission to launch Miranda Pettigrew.
Jane drew a shaky breath and went on. “While Louisa and Mr. Hurst were staying with us, we went to a dinner party at Lord Brompton’s. He has the estate next to ours. It was a very large party—there must have been sixty guests there in all. And as it turned out, Louisa was previously acquainted with some of the other ladies present. She … when we ladies had left the gentlemen in the dining room to enjoy their port, Louisa … she proposed that we play at cards to pass the time.”
Jane stopped and swallowed again. “I … I do not care much for cards, as you know. I have never been at all good at those sorts of games. But Louisa pressed me very much to join in and promised me that she would help me. She said that she would sit by me and be my partner. That I need only follow her lead. And I thought”—Jane’s voice shook—“I did not wish to seem discourteous, when Louisa had been so kind and had offered to go to so much trouble for me. So I— what did you say, Kitty?”
“Nothing.” I was beginning to suspect in which direction Jane’s story was heading. And I would be—to borrow one of the soldiers’ expressions I learned in Brussels—a bachelor’s daughter if I believed there was anything remotely kind about Mrs. Hurst’s offer of help. “Go on,” I told Jane.
Jane scrubbed at her eyes again with the handkerchief. “I agreed to play. I thought that the stakes Louisa and her friends were playing for would not be very high—a few shillings, at most. But as it turned out”—her voice caught—“as it turned out, the stakes were very high indeed. Shockingly so. And I did not know what to do. Louisa tried to help me with my hands. But I was … I did not think I was playing so very stupidly. And yet I must have been, because somehow I lost hand after hand.”
Jane exhaled a shaky breath. “I should have said before that Charles had given me an early Christmas present. A … a diamond necklace that had belonged to his mother. Louisa told me that it had been their mother’s most prized piece of jewellery. And that she herself had always admired it very much.”
“Did she indeed,” I muttered under my breath.
“Oh yes.” Jane was entirely oblivious of the sarcasm in my tone. “I was wearing it that night. And when … when I had lost more money than I could possibly repay, even if I used the whole of my dress allowance from Charles, Mrs. Bessworth—she is a particular friend of Louisa’s, and had won more hands than anyone else—she said that she would accept my necklace in lieu of payment.” Jane’s lips trembled and her voice broke again. “I said that I could not possibly give her the necklace—that I would give her some of my other jewellery instead. But she was—” Jane hesitated, two bright spots of colour appearing on her pale cheeks. “She was very unpleasant, in fact. She threatened to cause a scene if I did not hand over the necklace then and there. To storm back into the dining room and tell Charles in front of all the other men that his wife had tried to shirk the debt she had earned in playing at cards.”
Jane stopped again, and her hands twisted themselves together on the coverlet. “I did not know what to do. I could not let her embarrass Charles in that way. And I had truly earned the debt, by playing so poorly. I handed over the necklace to her. I told Charles that I had taken it off because the clasp had come loose. And luckily he did not ask to actually see it.” Jane closed her eyes, and two tears rolled down over her cheeks. “It was the first time I had ever lied to him—and yet how could I tell him the truth, that I had been so careless with his gift?” She looked up at me again, her eyes still swimming. “Louisa was so kind—she offered to speak with Mrs. Bessworth on my behalf. To ask whether there was not some other form of payment that Mrs. Bessworth might accept. But she came back to me with the news that it was no use, that Mrs. Bessworth absolutely refused to return the necklace, and that she had indeed quitted the neighbourhood altogether and travelled to London. So I came here as well, hoping that I might find her and beg her to reconsider. Otherwise”—Jane’s voice cracked again—“I do not know how I am ever to face Charles again.”
I could not manage to keep silent any longer. “That nasty, two-faced, vicious, deceitful, lying, cheating, despicable shrew!” I burst out.
Jane looked entirely shocked. “Kitty! I admit Mrs. Bessworth was not kind, but—”
“Not Mrs. Bessworth. I am speaking of Louisa Hurst.”
Jane’s look of shock deepened. “How can you say such a thing? Louisa—”
“Orchestrated the whole thing!” I interrupted again. “I would wager anything you like that she and her dear friend Mrs. Bessworth worked out the whole plot in advance. I have no doubt that Mrs. Bessworth cheated at the card game from start to finish—that was why she managed to win so many hands.”
“But why … why would she do such a thing?”
“For the express purpose of winning your necklace, of course. You said yourself that Mrs. Hurst admired it. I am certain she bribed or bullied her friend into the scheme of winning it away from you. In fact, I doubt whether the necklace remained in Mrs. Bessworth’s possession more than the single night. You may be certain that it is Mrs. Hurst who has it now. She managed to gain possession of the necklace that she no doubt resented Charles’s giving to you. And—as I am sure she was very well aware—she succeeded in driving a wedge between you and Charles, as well. She never wanted him to marry you.”
Jane’s eyes were round with shock, and her face had gone pale. “Oh, no, Kitty. I am certain that you are mistaken. Louisa is my friend. She could not possibly—”
I will not bother to write out Jane’s defence of Louisa Hurst; it was bad enough listening to it once from Jane’s lips. But it was at that point that I began to regret my promise to Georgiana that I would not take Jane by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled.
Jane, in fact, is not actually stupid. It is only that she is so genuinely sweet and good-tempered herself than she cannot imagine anyone else having less than benevolent motives.
It was clearly a pointless effort to try to convince her of Louisa Hurst’s duplicity, so I said instead, “Well, I am going to help you get the necklace back, I promise you—whoever is presently in possession of it. Now try to rest—and try not to worry any more, for the baby’s sake, if nothing else.” I bent and kissed Jane’s cheek. “I have seen the way Charles looks at you when he thinks no one else is watching. He would not trade you for fifty diamond necklaces worn by a hundred of his most august ancestors.”
Which is entirely true. Despite Jane’s fears, I am not at all worried about what Charles would say if he learned the truth. But it is intolerable to think that Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Bessworth should be allowed to get away without punishment for the grief they have caused to Jane.
I almost ran back downstairs, intending to recount to Georgiana what I had learned—and then came to an abrupt halt outside her sitting room door when I heard voices coming from inside: Georgiana’s and Edward’s.
I raised my hand, intending to knock, but froze when I heard Edward—his voice sounding quite shaken—say, “Please, love, tell me what it is I have done to upset you so!”
“What have you done?” Georgiana’s voice sounded thick and clogged with tears. “To have accepted a diplomatic assignment in France—one that will keep you away for an entire year—”
“Georgiana!” There was the sound of rapid footsteps, and I imagined Edward’s crossing the room to her. “First of all, I did not accept the assignment. I said that of course I must talk it over with you before giving any answer. And second—”
“Oh, but what does that matter?” Georgiana interrupted him before he could finish, her voice still on the edge of crying. “Of course I will say you ought to accept the assignment. I have to. There is surely no one at the War Office who can carry it out so well as you. And what right have I to selfishly want to keep you here at home with me when you may influence the future politics of Europe?”
“Well, as to that”—there was the hint of a smile in Edward’s voice now—“I believe you flatter me over-much. But you did not let me finish. I was about to say that in the second place, it never occurred to me that if I were to accept the assignment in France, you would not accompany me.”
There was a moment’s silence, as though Georgiana could not entirely believe what she heard, and then she said, “You want me to go to France with you?”
There was another silence, longer this time, and then Edward’s voice, sounding husky said, “Can you honestly think that I would consent—for any reason—to be parted from you for an entire year?”
“But Edward, I thought—that is, most men would forbid their wives to travel long distances in my condition.”
“Have I that authority, to forbid you from doing things?” I could hear a smile in Edward’s voice again. “How strange. Nearly six months of marriage, and I had not realised. I shall have to—”
“Of course you have not!” Georgiana sounded as though she were smiling now, as well.
“In seriousness, though, love,” Edward said. “You must know that I would die sooner than risk anything happening to you—or the child. So if you think there is the slightest danger—”
“I am certain there is not. I feel quite well, as I keep telling you. And the journey across the Channel is not overly strenuous. Other increasing women than I have made the trip in perfect safety.”
“It is still a great deal I am asking of you, though.” Edward’s voice was sober. “To travel so far, away from Pemberley, away from friends and family—”
“I will not be away from family. The three of us together—you and me and our baby, whoever he or she turns out to be—that is my family. Wherever we can be together will always be home.”
Edward said something in reply, too low for me to make out the words. And I realised—very belatedly—that I ought not to have overheard any of the above exchange at all. It sounds the feeblest of excuses, I know—but I had been so riveted by the conversation that it honestly had not occurred to me until that moment that I was eavesdropping shamelessly.
I backed hastily away from the door and went to sit in the drawing room, which was where Georgiana found me some little time later.
“Is Edward gone back to the War Office?” I asked as she came into the room. “I overheard what you and he were saying in your sitting room,” I added. I may be a shameless if inadvertent eavesdropper, but at least I was determined not to be dishonest about it. “I did not mean to, but … please let me offer you congratulations. I am so very happy for you both. Though of course I am sorry if you did not mean to tell anyone about it yet.”
“Thank you.” Georgiana coloured slightly, but smiled. “And it does not matter. The news is nothing you would not have found out eventually. It is only that it is very early days yet, and I had thought to wait a little before telling everyone.” She placed a hand on her stomach.
“When is the baby due to arrive?”
“Early summer—late May or early June.”
“And when do you travel to France?”
“Not until March. Travel will be easier, come springtime.” Georgiana set that aside and asked, “But now, please, tell me. Were you able to learn anything from Jane?”
“Are you sure that you ought to be worrying over such matters? In your condition—”
“Oh, not you, as well!” Georgiana exclaimed. “I assure you that I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading Edward that just because I am increasing does not mean that I require to be treated like an invalid. Of course I want to hear about Jane. What did she tell you?”
I recounted to her the whole of what Jane had told me of Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Bessworth—and she responded with an indignation almost equal to my own. For all she is so kind and good-tempered herself, Georgiana does not, I am thankful to say, have Jane’s perpetually sunshine-and-roses-laced view of human nature.
“Those harridans!” Georgiana burst out when I had done. “I knew Louisa was spiteful—she has always had a poisonous disposition. And of course she has never forgiven Charles for defying her wishes and marrying Jane. But I did not think she would have gone so far as this. Have you thought what is to be done?”
I shook my head. “No. That is the difficulty. I do not know what may be done to set matters right. We may suspect—so strongly that it is tantamount to knowing—that Louisa Hurst and her friend colluded on a scheme to win Jane’s necklace away. But we have nothing at all in the way of proof. There is no way of proving so long after the fact that Mrs. Bessworth cheated at that card game in order to win. And without that—well, Jane did accrue the debt, and she did willingly hand the necklace over as payment. Those facts will be difficult to get around. It is not as though we can simply march up to Mrs. Hurst and demand that she give the necklace back. We have no proof, either, that Mrs. Bessworth in fact handed over the necklace to her.”
“We will think of something,” Georgiana said. “We have to. And you must promise to let me be involved in any scheme you do come up with. Promise,” she added, frowning fiercely. “I am determined that I shall have a part in righting the wrong they have done to Jane.”
“I promise.” I held up my hands in a show of defeat. “Even if the best plan I can come up with involves donning black mask and breeches and playing the role of highway robber to steal the necklace back from Mrs. Hurst—I promise that I will allow you to assume the part of my partner in crime.”
Georgiana laughed at that. And then she squeezed my hand. “I have missed you, Kitty. I hope you will come and see me again soon.”
I had not fully realised it until now, but I have missed Georgiana very much as well.
Aunt Gardiner came into my room today. Well, Mary’s and mine, of course. Though it does not feel that way at the moment. Despite our sharing the same bedchamber, I have scarcely seen Mary at all these last two days. She is gone all day and has come in late in the evening, too.
Aunt Gardiner was carrying baby Susanna when she entered the room. With the older children gone away on their visit, there is only Susanna left to care for, and the house feels unnaturally quiet. My aunt set Susanna down on the rug—where she immediately used her funny, lopsided crawl to make straight for one of Mary’s slippers that she had left lying half under her bed.
That is another change in Mary’s behaviour. Before this, she would sooner have appeared in her petticoat at a public dinner than be so untidy.
“No, Susanna!” My aunt deftly extricated the slipper from Susanna’s chubby fingers, substituted a wooden teething ring, and then said, “Kitty, I wish to talk with you about Mary. I am worried about her.”
I had been amusing myself—or trying to—with sketching when Aunt Gardiner knocked. Having the older boys and girls gone also leaves me with an uncomfortable amount of time on my hands.
I set my pencil down, feeling my stomach lurch. “Are you?”
Aunt Gardiner nodded. “Yes. I know you have been helping her—giving her dancing lessons and help with dressing and arranging her hair and all that sort of thing. For which I was delighted,” Aunt Gardiner hastily added. “Truly, Kitty, it is not that I think you have done anything wrong. Quite the reverse. But just this morning—”
Aunt Gardiner broke off momentarily to retrieve the teething ring for Susanna. Susanna had hurled it under the bed. And then commenced shrieking angrily when it was discourteous enough not to return to her at once.
“Just this morning,” Aunt Gardiner went on, “I received a letter by the first post from an old friend of mine. Felicity Chargroves. Felicity was at a masquerade ball last night. And she was astonished to see Mary there. Apparently in company with a group of young people all—nominally, at least—chaperoned by Mrs. Hurst. However”—a line of worry appeared between Aunt Gardiner’s brows—“what Felicity wrote to tell me was that she was surprised very much by Mary’s behaviour. Apparently, Mary danced no fewer than three dances—in a row—with the same young man. And one of them was a waltz.”
“Did she”—I had to swallow before I could make myself ask the question—“did she know this young man’s name?”
“Yes, I believe she said—” Aunt Gardiner took a folded letter from her reticule and glanced through it. “She said that the man’s name was Lord Henry Carmichael.”
I had been expecting it, of course. But I still felt more sick than ever at having my suspicions confirmed.
“Apparently, this Lord Henry has a less than savoury reputation,” Aunt Gardiner went on. “And Felicity wondered very much that Mrs. Hurst should allow Mary to make such a spectacle of herself with him.”
What is more the wonder is that Mrs. Hurst is not trying to fling Miranda Pettigrew at Lord Henry’s head instead. Mr. Dalton must be wealthy indeed if he rates higher in Mrs. Hurst’s and Miranda’s eyes than the younger son of a duke.
None of which, of course, affects the situation with Mary. All those rules that I used to think were so silly—they are society’s rules, like it or no. And behaving as she apparently has—dancing more than two dances with the same gentleman … and especially dancing anything so near-scandalous as a waltz—is more than halfway towards getting herself branded with the reputation of being ‘fast’.
Not to mention her having gone driving alone with Lord Henry in his private carriage the other day.
I shut my eyes and rubbed my forehead. If anyone had told me three weeks ago that my sister Mary would be in danger of earning a reputation as a forward chit, I should have responded with shrieks of laughter.
“I will speak to Mary, of course,” Aunt Gardiner went on. “But I feel as though I must tread very carefully. I should not wish … that is”—Aunt Gardiner smiled just a little—“this is the first sign Mary has shown of possessing anything like the temperament and interests of a typical young girl. Despite the danger to her reputation, I confess that I do not wish to quash this sudden change in her entirely. Only perhaps”—the smile faded—“to change the direction of her interests. If half of the rumours that Felicity recounted about Lord Henry are true …” Her voice trailed off as she glanced down again at the letter in her lap.
My memory obligingly presented me with an image of Henry Carmichael’s sleekly handsome face leaning towards me, close enough that the warmth of his breath tickled my cheek. I snapped the thought off. “This is so unlike Mary,” I said. “That she should be taken in by a man like that—”
Aunt Gardiner shook her head, though. “No. I confess that I am not especially surprised.” She sighed. “You must have observed for yourself that Mary—for all her learned studies and her wish at all times to appear intelligent and scholarly—has no actual common sense whatever.” Aunt Gardiner smiled a little again. “You, Kitty, have far more real sense and good judgement than Mary.”
If only she knew. Fortunately, though, Susanna interrupted at that moment with another outraged squawk—having lost her teething ring under the bed again—and I was able to bend down and avoid my aunt’s gaze under the cover of retrieving it for her.
Aunt Gardiner went on, “Mary is not actually especially clever. And she has no solid experience whatever in forming judgements of other people’s characters. Besides which, this is the first time that a dashing young man has ever shown the slightest degree of interest in her.”
Which of course invites the question of why Lord Henry should have shown such an interest in Mary. To be sure, he was happy enough to conduct a flirtation with me last year. But we were in Derbyshire, where he was staying with his elderly aunt, and there was very little else for him in the way of amusement. This is London—where he might take his choice from scores of girls who are both handsomer and richer than Mary is. And more accommodating of what Mrs. Hurst would probably coyly term ‘a gentleman’s needs’, as well.
At least I sincerely hope that there are girls more accommodating than Mary. The thought that she may have actually …
This is preposterous; I am sitting here and trying to think of a way to phrase this delicately. In my own private journal!
Very well. To be blunt, the sudden fear that Mary might actually have allowed Lord Henry to persuade her into becoming his mistress struck me cold.
“What is to be done?” I said.
“I had hoped that I might ask you to accompany Mary to some other balls and assemblies—to give her an alternative venue for meeting young men more suitable than Lord Henry. There is to be a charity gala at Vauxhall Gardens on Monday—and I have persuaded your uncle to buy us all tickets. Will you come—and persuade Mary to give up any other plans she may have made and come along?”
I nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Good.” Aunt Gardiner smiled again. “I will be happy to see you going out and taking some entertainment, as well. I have been worried about you, my dear. You are looking so pale, and you have scarcely left your room these last few days.”
She was—again fortunately—distracted once more by Susanna, who at that moment wriggled out from under Mary’s bed, absolutely covered in the contents of a pot of rouge which Mary appeared to have hidden there. Aunt Gardiner laughed, gave a martyred sigh when she contemplated how much of the rouge had been smeared through Susanna’s hair—then scooped Susanna up and carried her off. Holding her carefully at arm’s length.
Which left me with only my own wholly unpleasant thoughts for company.
Despite what Aunt Gardiner said about my having done nothing wrong, I cannot help feeling that all of this is my fault. If I had not formed my resolution about finding Mary a husband, none of her improper association with Lord Henry would ever have occurred.
To which there is the added fact that I have been more or less hiding in this room for the last two days, ever since I saw Mary and Lord Henry out driving.
I did not want to run the risk of seeing them again. Or being forced to face the truth: that there is in fact far more I can do—or rather must do—in the way of protecting Mary.
I will say for Mary that when she undertakes to do something, she does it thoroughly. Even when that same something involves completely losing her head and abandoning every principle she has previously lived by.
I woke this morning at the crack of dawn to find Mary already up and dressed, tiptoeing about the room in her riding habit. That sight was enough to jolt me from groggy half-awareness to full consciousness. Mary does not own a riding habit. Or at least she has not up until now. This new one was nothing of the clothes I had helped her pick out; she must have picked out the fabrics and ordered it made entirely by herself.
She did not do a bad job with her selection, precisely. Save for a rather incredible amount of gaudy gold braid on the jacket and fringe on the shoulders a la Hussar, the new riding habit was smart enough. The close-fitting coat and skirt were both made of emerald green cloth, and were matched by the hat Mary wore: a tall-crowned affair in the military Shako style, trimmed with curling ostrich plumes.
It was just that the whole effect was so utterly unlike Mary’s usual style of dress that it made me sit up in bed, wondering whether I was having some sort of bizarre dream.
Mary was startled enough to drop the pair of gloves she had been drawing on. “Oh. Good morning, Kitty,” she said. “I did not mean to wake you.”
What she really meant was that she had hoped to sneak out of the room without waking me. However else she may have changed, Mary is still absolutely no good at dissembling. She looked like a small child caught with her fingers in the jam pot: half guiltily conscious, half brazenly defiant.
I pushed the tangled hair out of my eyes and said, “Good morning. Where are you off to so early?”
“Out riding. In the park.”
“I can see that,” I said patiently. “With whom are you going riding?”
I was hoping she would give me a ready, benign answer. I would even have welcomed the news that her engagement was with Miranda Pettigrew.
But Mary, avoiding my eyes, concentrated very hard on buttoning up her gloves as she said, “Oh, just a … a friend.”
Have I mentioned that Mary’s efforts at prevarication would not deceive a child? Her cheeks had reddened, and her voice had a strained quality—and altogether she might as well have held up a sign reading, I am about to do something of which you will not approve.
I sighed—and tried to pull my sleep-bleary thoughts into order. I should have preferred to at least have had a cup of tea before facing this talk with Mary. Actually, if I am honest, I should have preferred to put off having the talk indefinitely. But since it had to be done, I might as well get it over and done with.
“And does this ‘friend’ happen to bear the name Lord Henry Carmichael?”
Mary jerked, setting the ostrich plumes on her hat bobbing alarmingly, and then lifted her chin and looked at me with a mixture of guilt and defiance. “I did not say that! Why should you suppose that?”
“Because you have apparently spent the last week making a spectacle of yourself all over London with that same Lord Henry!” I drew in my breath and tried to temper my tone. “I am sorry, Mary. I do not mean to speak harshly. I am concerned for you, that is all. Have you not reflected that conducting yourself as you have done these last days—going for rides alone in Lord Henry’s carriage … dancing so many times with him at a public assembly—do you not see that such behaviour exposes you to gossip and scandal of the most unwelcome kind?”
I might as well not have bothered with trying to win Mary over by my kind and reasonable tone. She drew herself up, white dots of temper appearing at the corners of her nostrils, and demanded, “Have you been spying on me, Kitty?”
I let out a breath of exasperation. “No, of course not. But your behaviour—”
“My behaviour contains nothing with which I need reproach myself!” Mary flashed back. “I have held to my own standards of decorum and modesty in every regard. Henry is to me, as Lord Byron so aptly phrases it, ‘the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.’ You may be certain that I am not in the slightest degree concerned about the opinions of narrow-minded and vicious gossips. And if I am not troubled, then I see no reason for you to be, either.”
Only Mary could manage to be both sloppily romantic and insufferably pompous in very nearly the same breath.
I was tempted to quote Mary’s own words back at her—her declaration when Lydia ran away with Mr. Wickham, that a woman’s reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful. But I could not manage it. I did—I do—have a certain degree of sympathy for Mary’s point of view.
It is stupidly, preposterously unfair that a gentleman may keep half a dozen mistresses and visit every house of ill repute in London, and yet remain in the eyes of the world a respectable gentleman still. And let an unmarried lady so much as kiss a man to whom she is not at the very least engaged—or dance more than two dances with him in a row—and she is well on her way to having her reputation ruined forever.
But there was still the matter of Mary’s choice in the object of her affections. I forced back my impatience and began again, trying an alternate line of approach. “Mary, I know— That is, I am sure that Lord Henry must be very charming. But his reputation … he is rumoured to have conducted himself in a manner less than respectable in the past.”
And that is saying quite a bit, that Lord Henry’s conduct has been—even for a gentleman of high station—scandalous enough to earn him a degree of censure in the eyes of London society.
Mary only sniffed, bright spots of temper burning on her cheekbones. “Lord Henry is a gentleman! With a gentleman’s pure heart and noble disposition. I know that he may have been wild in his youth—there are no secrets between us—but all that is behind him. He has thoroughly repented of his past ways and now seeks to conduct himself only in a manner that will prove him worthy of my regard!”
I stared at Mary. Does it say something terrible about my own character that I did not for a moment actually believe Lord Henry Carmichael sincere in his repentance for past sins?
Before I could formulate any sort of response, Mary added, in haughty tones, “And I shall not stay here and listen to another word against him!” and flounced out the door.
Which leaves me forced to fall back on my second plan. The plan I suppose I always knew I would come to in the end.
It is past three o’clock in the morning; I know because I have just heard the downstairs clock chime. Mary is curled up in her own bed, peacefully asleep on the other side of the room from me. And I have lighted the candle beside my bed and started writing in this book—because anything is better than lying in the dark and staring up at the canopy above my bed. As I have been for the past seemingly endless hours.
Tonight was the night of our excursion to Vauxhall Gardens. And since I managed—at least slightly—to progress on both the fronts of detaching Mary from Lord Henry and retrieving Jane’s necklace from Mrs. Hurst, the evening ought to be counted a success.
Even if my hands are still shaking almost too much to write. Looking at this page, anyone judging my handwriting would think that it was I instead of Lord Henry Carmichael who had been intoxicated tonight.
But I do not seem to be telling this at all coherently. To begin properly, then:
I had never been to Vauxhall Gardens before and did not know what to expect. But it is a pretty place—the trees are all strung with hundreds of coloured lanterns, and the various paths and walkways are lighted with chains of tiny white lamps that glow like stars. If I were in a more romantic mood, I might say that it looks almost like a fairyland. However, since I am emphatically not in such a mood, I will only write that the effect is very pretty indeed.
In the centre of a grove of trees is the grand Rotunda, ringed by colonnades sheltering the various private supper boxes.
The event tonight was a masquerade ball, intended to raise funds for an East End charity called the Good Christian Military Widow’s Friend—which is an unwieldy name to write out, much less say, but it does have a worthy goal. The purpose of the charity is to support the widows and children of soldiers killed in the war—many of whom have no appreciable source of income with their husbands and fathers gone. Guests could pay to reserve one of the supper boxes, and the resulting moneys would go to the Military Widow’s Friend.
My aunt and uncle had themselves reserved such a box—where I would have been perfectly content to remain the entire evening. But my aunt insisted that we all go to the Rotunda and dance.
Aunt Gardiner had settled baby Susanna for the night before we departed, and she had left Rose with instructions to listen for the baby in case she cried. I know it was hard for her to leave Susanna even so. But I think that my aunt was also rather delighted to have an evening’s entertainment away from home and in such an elegant place as Vauxhall. Aunt Gardiner was dressed for the masquerade in a pink Domino that she must have worn in her youth. And she had managed to persuade my uncle to don the costume of a Crusader knight, which cannot have been easy, despite Uncle Gardiner’s good temper and the fact that he plainly adores her.
At any rate, I did not wish to spoil their evening. Besides which, I could see that Mary was itching to join in the dancing—and the entire purpose of my having come along was so that I might discreetly keep an eye on her. So we all proceeded to the central Rotunda.
The Rotunda was absolutely ablaze with lights. Hundreds of wax candles in the chandeliers over the dance floor showed the guests spinning through dance after dance.
There were costumes of every sort, from gypsies to monks to dashing cavaliers, and from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Egyptian maidens. An orchestra played from a balustraded gallery, and the noise—combined with the sounds of scores of raised voices—was nearly deafening, making it impossible to converse. Almost as soon as we entered, Mary and my aunt and uncle and I were all separated by the crowds, and it was all I could do just to keep Mary in my sight.
I saw my Aunt Gardiner present to Mary a gentleman—I suppose a young man of my aunt’s acquaintance—dressed as Robin Hood, the upper half of his face hidden by a black satin mask. The young man bowed and extended his hand, apparently asking Mary to dance. Mary accepted, and they moved onto the dance floor. Though I saw that even as she danced down the line of other couples, Mary’s head kept turning, scanning the crowded room as if she were looking for someone.
Several costumed men approached and asked me to dance. And Uncle Gardiner found me, as well, and asked whether I was not enjoying myself, and would I like him to escort me back to our supper box? But I refused all the dance offers—and told my uncle I was quite well, and that he ought to go and dance with my aunt.
“Miss Kitty Bennet! That is you, is it not?” The voice at my side made me turn to find Louisa Hurst standing beside me. Despite her mask, I had no more difficulty in recognising her than apparently she had me. She was dressed in a violently pink and blue shepherdess’s costume that did nothing to flatter her plump form. Her prominent eyes studied me from behind her half-mask and she pursed her lips. “I declare, you are turned into an utter wallflower since first we met in Hertfordshire.” She let out a high, trilling laugh that scraped my ears even above the noise of the crowd. “Miss Kitty Bennet, the belle of the Hertfordshire militia, refusing to dance at a masquerade ball. I declare, I should never have believed it, had I not seen it with my own eyes.”
John was a captain in the Hertfordshire militia—before he joined the regular army. I clenched my teeth. And then I realised that Mrs. Hurst was wearing Jane’s diamond necklace.
Well, a diamond necklace, at any rate. I could not of course be certain that it was Jane’s. But it was of old-fashioned design, the diamonds worked into a central pendant that had been crafted in the shape of a bow. And it was made with far more delicacy and good taste than anything I should have credited Mrs. Hurst with ordering for herself.
I opened my mouth. And at that moment, I caught sight of Mary slipping out of the Rotunda with a young man dressed in the costume of a Spanish matador. His back was to me, and I saw only the familiar set of his shoulders and the back of a head of fair hair. But I had a sinking feeling that I knew exactly who he must be.
I ground my teeth. But I still had no practical ideas for how to go about forcing Mrs. Hurst to give the necklace back to Jane. And standing there and allowing myself to trade polite insults with her would accomplish nothing.
I murmured an excuse, turned, and pushed my way through the crowds to follow after Mary.
For a moment after I had exited the Rotunda, I thought I had lost her in the crowds of revellers milling about between the supper boxes. There was to be a fireworks display in an hour, and already the masquerade-goers were organising themselves so as to procure the best places on the main lawn from which to watch. And then I saw them: the gold epaulettes of the Spanish bullfighter, and Mary’s purple silk costume of a Turkish sultana, weaving their way towards the shadowy grove of trees that lines the Lover’s Walk.
I was alarmed—truly alarmed. The Lover’s Walk at Vauxhall Gardens is rather like the London debutante’s equivalent of the bogeyman stories used to frighten children. Everyone has heard whispered tales of girls whose virtue was irretrievably ruined in the private glades of the Lovers’ Walk. Even if only half of the stories bear any resemblance to truth, the Lover’s Walk is still no very respectable place to be. And Mary was about to enter it with Lord Henry Carmichael.
I stood frozen while my mind spun uselessly through various possibilities for action. I might be standing there still—except that someone crashed into me from behind. A grey-haired, billowy, grandmotherly-looking woman wearing—rather improbably—the costume of Helen of Troy.
I clutched her arm. “Oh—do you think you might help me?” I spoke in a breathless rush, letting a quaver—not entirely a false one—creep into my voice. “I am sent after that girl over there—the one wearing the purple Turkish costume.” I pointed to Mary. “Her aunt asked me to give her the message that her sister is ill and requires that she return at once to their supper tent. Please, do you think you might pass the message on for me?”
Fortunately the grandmotherly woman did not pause to ask why I did not simply carry the message the remaining fifty feet and tell Mary myself. I have noticed before that if one speaks very quickly and urgently, people seldom do question the logic of what you say.
The elderly Helen of Troy patted my hand and told me kindly that of course she would do as I asked. She waddled off in Mary’s direction, and I ducked behind one of the statues that dotted the lawn. Peering out from behind Adonis’s marble elbow, I saw Helen of Troy deliver the message. Mary frowned, said something to Lord Henry, and then sped off in the direction of the supper boxes.
Lord Henry looked after her a moment, shrugged—and sauntered into the entrance to the Lover’s Walk on his own. I stared after him. I had thought only to separate him from Kitty, but now I had before me the chance to do what I had resolved on before—speak to Lord Henry alone.
I still had to force my feet to move, following him across the lawn and into the shadows of the tree-lined path. It was much darker there, the lanterns in the trees being placed at farther intervals. And quite cold, as well—which I suppose accounted for the path being almost deserted. Far more lovers probably take advantage of the place during the spring and summer months.
Tonight, I surprised a Lady MacBeth locked in a passionate embrace with a man wearing the hunchback and neck ruff of a Richard III. But apart from them, I met no one as I sped along the paths, searching for Lord Henry.
I found him at last in a small clearing which had been made about a marble statue of— Actually, I have no idea of whom the marble carving was supposed to be a representation. Some male worthy or other. My heart was beating hard as I approached a bench on the opposite side of the glade—where despite the darkness, I could see a man in matador’s knee breeches and spangled coat sprawled back, his legs stretched out before him.
I had a momentary qualm—thinking that I was going to feel an utter fool if the man proved not to be Lord Henry after all. But it was he; he had taken off his mask, and as I approached, I recognised him at once: the charmingly tousled blond hair, the boyishly handsome features which—though I had never noticed it before—concealed the weak line of his jaw.
He was alone, at least. That had been my other fear, that he might have entered the Lover’s Walk for the purpose of some other assignation. And he was also extremely drunk. His head wove and his eyes struggled to focus themselves as he looked up at me, frowning as though he were trying to decide whether I were real or some hallucination.
“Hallo,” he said at last. Slurred, rather; his words were even more indistinguishable than Ben’s at his most inebriated. “Won’t you join me?” He spread out his arms in invitation. Then took another swallow from the engraved silver flask he held. He tried to wink and—not quite being able to manage the effort—ended by blinking both eyes. “Plenty of room here for two.”
“No.” Coming face to face with one’s own past is seldom precisely pleasant. I surely have learned that lesson well enough in these last months. But coming face to face with this particular slice of my past was proving especially disagreeable—since I was forced to wonder how on earth I could ever have been idiot enough to be taken in by the man before me now—to have been infatuated enough that I had actually hoped to marry him.
Though I could at least console myself with the fact that I had not succeeded in marrying him. If I had, I would surely have even more reason to repent of my idiocy than I do now.
My voice was still short, though, as I snapped, “I have come to tell you to keep away from my sister.”
Lord Henry blinked slowly at me, his head still weaving slightly from side to side. “Afraid I don’t quite follow you, m’dear,” he said at last. “What’s your sister”—the s’s in that sentence nearly undid him— “Whatsh your shister got to do with me?”
I drew a breath. I had wanted to find Lord Henry alone. What I had not accounted for in my plans was that he might be too addled by drink to take in anything of what I said. “My sister is Miss Mary Bennet. I want you to stop paying her attentions—stop dancing with her, stop seeing her altogether, in fact.”
Lord Henry gazed blearily up at me, and then he shook his head. “Can’t do that, I’m afraid, old thing. There’s the bet, you see. Got to win the bet.” He leaned forward and spoke confidentially. “Can’t let old Squiffy—the Earl of Southampton, you know—get the best of me.”
“Bet?” I repeated, frowning. It seemed as though he really was too intoxicated to make any kind of sense. “What bet?”
“A wager, you see.” He tapped the side of his nose and looked cunning—or as cunning as a man is capable of looking when his eyes are refusing to focus in the same direction at once. “Something entirely new. My own idea, actually.” The word came out more like, ackshully. “Wagering on horses—that’s been done to death. And so’s betting on bear baiting, cock fighting, boxing matches—it’s all been done. No, my idea’s entirely new. Each of us picks a girl who’s an absolute pillar of virtue. The sort of blue stocking who won’t let a man so much as kiss her hand.” He took another pull on the silver flask, belched, and then wiped his mouth on the spangled cuff of his matador’s coat. “First one to make a conquest of his girl wins.”
I stared at him. Feeling as though—
Actually, I am drawing a complete blank on finding any comparisons to describe what I felt. I am perfectly certain that my mouth dropped open. And my voice, when I finally found it, emerged sounding high and squeezed-off. “You mean to tell me that you are attempting to seduce my sister as part of a bet? A wager with your disgusting friends to see who can compromise a respectable girl’s honour first?”
Lord Henry blinked at me, looking entirely taken aback by my furious tone. He had apparently reached the stage of drunkenness where he was unable to see anything but the perfect reasonableness of his own plans and ideas. “Yes, what about it? She seemed perfect, to me.” He tipped his head back and laughed. “Lord, what a born ape-leader. The sort of girl who probably wears a—”
But no. I am not going to write down any more of what he said about Mary. Suffice it to say that his remarks were largely devoted to speculation about Mary’s undergarments and whether they came equipped with locks and keys.
And then he broke off in mid-sentence, frowning up at me in perplexity. “Hallo,” he said. “I know you, don’t I? We have met before.”
Apparently even Mary’s last name—and my saying that I was her sister—had not made him recall the Kitty Bennet he met last year in Derbyshire. Why should it? After all, perhaps I had only been the object of some similar wager.
I had not thought that the recollection of my acquaintance with Lord Henry Carmichael could possibly grow any more mortifying, but my cheeks burned at that thought. It was cold comfort to reflect that if his attentions to me had been part of a bet, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had probably caused him to lose the wager by sending me away.
I leaned forward and spoke between clenched teeth. “Yes, we have met. This past summer, in Belgium.” Which was true enough. That was the meeting at which I realised the humiliating truth that he had no recollection of either my face or my name. “And if you do not leave my sister alone—in fact, if you do not call off this revolting wager entirely—I will go to your Aunt Maude and tell her that we were in fact secretly married in Belgium. And that you cruelly abandoned me during the battle to flee back to England.”
Lord Henry’s eyes snapped open at that. His aunt Maude is the elderly relation whom he was visiting when we met in Derbyshire. The extremely wealthy elderly relation, in whose good graces he must stay if he wants to inherit her fortune. Which he does want to—very much indeed—since if rumour is correct, he has almost entirely run through the whole of his own.
“But we never … that is, we were not …”
“No, we did not and were not,” I snapped. “But your aunt does not know that. And as respectable a lady as she is, I do not think she would be at all pleased with you if I went to her with the claim of being your cruelly abandoned bride.”
Lord Henry goggled at me—his eyes glassy and rather like those of a fish. But my threat did appear to have sobered him somewhat. He drew himself up and attempted an air of bravado. “But you would have no proof for such a claim. No papers—”
“Our marriage papers were sadly lost during the chaos following the battle. And the church in which we were married was burned to the ground by those French devils, Napoleon’s soldiers.” I opened my eyes very wide in an exaggerated look of innocence. “The countryside was in such an uproar—what with the French army fleeing, and the allied forces moving in pursuit.” Which was also entirely true. “And of course I suffered the most terrible privations and difficulties in returning home to England.”
“You would not dare—” Lord Henry began.
I interrupted him again. “Oh, but I would. In fact, if you continue to argue, I may also decide to add a child to my story.” I heaved a sigh and looked suitably sorrowful, touching one hand to my heart. “A baby boy, who tragically died at birth—due of course to all those privations and difficulties I suffered thanks to your abandonment.”
I was leaning far enough forward that even in the darkness I could see the look of real fear dawn in his eyes. I have never met his Aunt Maude. But I had heard a great deal about her last year—largely from Lord Henry himself. She is crabbed and irascible and extremely religious. According to Lord Henry, she insists on her entire household, servants included, assembling every morning and kneeling in her drawing room, where she leads everyone in morning prayers. Let her hear any hint of my story, and any hopes Lord Henry had of inheriting her fortune might very well indeed vanish like wood smoke.
Then I saw something shift in his gaze—as he evidently determined to change his tactics and try charm instead of bluster. “Come now, Miss … Bennet, I suppose it must be?” He gave me a frank, charming smile. “You do not really wish to cause me such difficulties. You know”—the quality of his voice changed, becoming low and intimate-sounding—“you know, you are a very pretty girl. Far prettier than your sister, in fact.”
I had failed to consider that in leaning so far in towards him, I had also placed myself squarely within his reach. As he spoke, his hand came out to grasp my wrist—and before I could jerk away, he had tugged me down onto the bench beside him. He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around me, his brandy-scented breath hot on my neck and face.
“Get away from me!” I shoved at him. But even intoxicated, he was far stronger than I was, and he only laughed.
“A girl of spirit. I like that. I am sure we can come to some sort of understanding between us.” His lips brushed the skin just below my ear.
It is strange. Last year, I would have thrilled at his touch. Tonight, the hot, wet brush of his lips made me feel as though I had been coated from head to toe in pond slime. Bile rose in my throat, and I struck out at him. To be honest, it was luck more than skill that made my clenched hand connect with his nose. But the blow was at least hard enough to snap his head back.
Not hard enough, however, to make him loosen his hold on me. His eyes narrowed, his handsome face darkening and turning positively ugly with anger. “Why you little—”
This is the part that makes my hands shake to write. Which I suppose would be obvious to anyone reading this; my writing seems to have grown even more illegible.
I think—at least I hope—that I would have been able to defend myself in some fashion and get away. But the true fact is that I do not know what the end result of the encounter might have been—if, in the middle of speaking, Lord Henry had not abruptly flown backwards through the air, spun, and then landed with a thump, flat on his back in the middle of the decorative border around the marble statue.
At least that was how it appeared to my dazed eyes; it was a moment before my mind could process the truth of what in fact had happened. Which was that a man had appeared out of the shade of the trees that ringed the grove, seized Lord Henry by the back of his collar, yanked him away from me, spun him around, and gave him a punch in the jaw that sent him flying backwards a good three or four feet.
Lord Henry struggled to rise. But the second man planted a foot on his chest, pinning him to the ground, and said—in dangerously pleasant tones, “I believe the young lady asked you to keep away from her.”
I recognised his voice and felt the blood in my veins turn cold—even before he turned to me and said, “Miss Bennet, are you all right?”
It was Lancelot Dalton. Naturally. Evidently I was being allowed to extract the maximum degree of mortification from this episode.
I swallowed. I discovered that I was shaking from head to foot, and I had to clench my teeth again—this time to keep them from chattering. But I managed to nod and say, “Yes. Fine.”
“Good.” Mr. Dalton turned his attention back to Lord Henry, removing his foot from the latter’s chest. “Get up and go. Before I change my mind about allowing you to walk out of here under your own power.”
Lord Henry looked calculating for a brief moment—as though he were gauging his odds of winning against Mr. Dalton in a fight. But he evidently decided that those odds were by no means in his favour, for he scrambled ungracefully up from the grass, swayed, and then lurched off into the trees.
Mr. Dalton started to offer me his hand, changed his mind, and instead dropped down to sit beside me on the stone bench. Thankfully for me; I was still shivering and was not at all sure that I could manage to walk without tripping over my own feet.
We were both silent a moment, and then: “How did you come to be here?” I asked. It still seemed beyond belief that he should have appeared on the scene at the precise moment I had need of aid.
Mr. Dalton was staring at the space in the surrounding trees where Lord Henry had vanished, and I could see that the line of his jaw had tightened. He exhaled, though, and said, “Your aunt could not find you or your sister and became alarmed. She sent me out to look for you. I saw you entering the Lover’s Walk and was … concerned. I followed after you.”
So it had not been only chance that had caused him to appear from nowhere as he had. And I suppose I might have expected that he would be a supporter of this charity, on account of the military connection.
Still, I felt my cheeks heat up with another burning flush. “I do not—” I began hotly.
I snapped my mouth closed. Managing to bite back the words that sprang first to my lips—that I did not require to be watched and minded like a six-year-old child in need of a nursemaid.
It is perfectly remarkable how Lancelot Dalton seems to call out all my least admirable instincts. The truth was that I was angry. But not with him. I was far angrier with myself, for … Well, for a whole host of reasons, really. But chief among them was the fact that I had been careless enough to place myself in a position to require rescuing. As though I were a six-year-old child. Or one of those brainless heroines in a gothic romance who skips blithely off into the abandoned wing of the haunted mansion without an apparent second thought.
I forced myself to draw a long, slow breath, and then I said, “Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Truly. If you had not intervened when you did, matters might have grown very unpleasant indeed.”
Mr. Dalton turned to look at me. I thought there was a momentary crinkle of amusement about his eyes. As though he knew what I had been about to say and why. When he spoke, though, his voice was grave enough. “Lord Henry Carmichael is not a man whom I would willingly allow to be alone with any woman I cared about.”
I felt another burning wave of mortification spread over me. Mr. Dalton had said when we first met that he knew me by reputation. Did he know that Lord Henry Carmichael was in fact the man with whom I had come close to disgracing myself? Likely he did. In which case he probably believed that I had deliberately come here to meet Lord Henry for a lovers’ assignation.
I said, “You must not think—that is, I did not follow Lord Henry because I—” I took another breath and began again. I am not even sure why I cared so much what Mr. Dalton thought of me. Only that it seemed intolerable that he should think me such a fool as to be still infatuated with Lord Henry after all this time.
“Lord Henry Carmichael has been paying attentions to my sister Mary,” I said. “He is … as you say, he is not at all the sort of man one would choose for one’s sister. I followed him in here only because I wished the chance of warning him away from her.”
“Yes, I know. I—” Mr. Dalton cleared his throat. “I apologise for eavesdropping. But when I arrived you were in the midst of, ah, explaining your position to Lord Henry. And since you appeared to have matters very well in hand, I did not wish to interrupt.”
And I had thought myself mortified before. Mr. Dalton had in fact heard me threatening to tell Lord Henry’s aunt the barefaced lie that I had married him in secret and had his child.
But then I caught sight of his hand. He wore no gloves, and the knuckles were both puffy and split open, bleeding—I suppose from when he had punched Lord Henry in the jaw. “You’ve hurt yourself!” I said. “Here.” I dug in my reticule for a handkerchief. “You had better let me tie that up for you.”
Mr. Dalton flinched when I tried to take his hand, and I looked up, startled. “I’m sorry—did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s not that. I just … pray, do not trouble yourself, Miss Bennet. I promise you, I have had injuries far worse than this one.”
“And I have dealt with far worse. Stop that,” I added, as he made to pull his hand away. “You are going to drip blood on your coat.”
He held still as I dabbed the blood away with the edge of my handkerchief, and I added, “I did not know clergyman were allowed to engage in fisticuffs.”
“Yes, well. I believe there are special dispensations when dealing with drunken little swine.” There was an edge of grim amusement in Mr. Dalton’s tone. “Or at least there ought to be. Perhaps on second thought my bishop would not entirely approve.”
“Well, your secret is safe with me.” I started to wrap the handkerchief about Mr. Dalton’s hand. “You are at perfect liberty to say that you got these scraped up knuckles by running into a tree. But in return—” I stopped, glancing up at him. “In return, could I trouble you to say nothing of what you overheard tonight? Not even to my uncle and aunt, if they should ask? It’s not for my own sake,” I added quickly. “It’s for Mary. I do not want to take the risk of her hearing anything of what happened here tonight.”
Mr. Dalton’s brows lifted. “You do not mean to tell your sister of Lord Henry’s … wager?”
He really had heard the whole of the conversation. “No—never.” I had known that from the moment Lord Henry mentioned the bet to me. “Mary—” I exhaled, trying to think how best to explain. “She seems frightfully conceited, always, and proud of her own accomplishments, but I think that really, deep-down, she is not sure of herself at all. There are five of us sisters—and she has always been the plain one, the one who was never asked to dance at assemblies, the sister on whom gentlemen never came to call. And now … now a gentleman she admires has finally taken an interest in her. For the first time in her life, really. If she were to find out that his interest was only on account of a wager he had made with friends—”
As I spoke, I could feel renewed anger at Lord Henry bubbling up inside me. I could not tell Mary the truth. However exasperating Mary can be, she does not deserve that sort of humiliation. No one does.
Before Mr. Dalton could answer, we were interrupted by a thin, harried-looking woman who came along the path. She peered at us short-sightedly from under a snowy-white mob cap. “I am looking for my niece. I do not suppose you have seen her? She is wearing the costume of—”
The woman broke off abruptly, squinting at Mr. Dalton more closely. “Well!” She huffed a deeply affronted breath, her long nose fairly quivering with indignation. “I certainly never thought to find a Church of England clergyman here, disporting himself in the Lover’s Walk. You, sir, ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
She flounced off down the path. Mr. Dalton’s and my eyes met—and in the same instant, we both of us started to laugh. I could not help it; the sudden descent of the situation from the frightening to the ridiculous was simply too much.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped at last. “I ought to have defended your reputation. Though do you think she would have been less or more offended to know that you were only here to knock another gentleman down?”
Mr. Dalton said, “More—I rather think more.”
We both laughed again. And then … then, quite suddenly, our eyes caught once again, and this time held.
It was like that moment outside my aunt and uncle’s, in his carriage. Only worse. I felt as though all the air had suddenly been driven from my lungs—and yet I did not especially want to move or to breathe. Time seemed to me to slow, and at the same time, everything seemed unnaturally loud and clear. The beating of my own heart in my ears. The sound of the wind in the trees all around us. The distant sound of explosions; without my realising it, the fireworks demonstration must have already begun.
The explosions spangling the sky above the tree line patched the lean, hard lines of Mr. Dalton’s face with coloured light and shadow. My skin felt too tight, tingling with awareness of him. I was still holding his hand in both of mine, and I could feel the warmth of his skin even through my gloves.
It was not that I wished again that I might move closer still and touch him, trace the planes of his cheekbones and the curve of his mouth with my fingertips. Or better yet, that he would miraculously draw me into his arms and kiss me.
Very well, it was not only that. But truly, it was more that I had, for a few moments while I was speaking of Mary, felt that I was not entirely alone. That I might share the burden of worry with Mr. Dalton, and that he would understand.
Hastily, I edged backwards on the bench, dropped my gaze, and finished knotting the handkerchief about his knuckles. “Well—I ought to get back to my uncle and aunt,” I said. “They must be growing truly alarmed for me by this time. And you must be growing quite bored with hearing of our family matters.”
Mr. Dalton looked down at his own hand and cleared his throat. “Miss Bennet.” He spoke gravely, but there was light enough for me to see the smile just curving the edges of his mouth. “I would describe my encounters with you as many things—but certainly never boring.”
I laughed at that, despite myself. And then I scrambled up off the bench, so quickly that I almost tripped over my own feet.
Something was stirring inside me—a half-pleasurable, half-painful ache about my heart that I had never thought I would feel again.
That I do not want to feel ever again.
I think perhaps I ought to go back and read over the beginning entries in this diary—to remind myself of all the reasons that even Miranda Pettigrew would make a better clergyman’s wife than I.
I do not want to write this. I have kept studiously away from this diary for the last four days in hopes that I could avoid writing this. But recounting the truth—I suppose that is true penance, the one in comparison to which all my other attempts at penance pale.
Besides, I woke up cold and sweating from the old nightmare a short while ago, and there is no chance of my falling back to sleep. Mary of course is sound asleep in the other bed.
Lord Henry has not in fact made any move to contact her at all since the night of our excursion to Vauxhall—so I think I may cautiously hope that I did succeed in frightening him away. And today I saw Mary reading the book Mr. Williams had brought for her—which I had left on her bedside table, since I never did have the opportunity to give it to her.
Of course, I am also not entirely sure that she knew from whom the book had come.
But I am stalling. Chiefly because even thinking of the words I have to write seems to bring a nasty taste into my mouth. Like cold ashes and the dregs of bitter wine.
However.
A year ago, I was engaged to John—Captain John Ayres. John was …
This is even worse than I had expected. I cannot tell how to describe John. He was quiet. Not stunningly handsome, but pleasant faced. Strong. Rather shy. Kind.
But none of that seems at all to bring John to life on this page—to put it that way, he sounds merely stolid and dull.
And of course the horrible truth is that I thought him rather stolid and dull, a year ago. That is one of the questions that I have lain awake asking myself: what would I think of John if I could meet him now? And what would he think of me? Would we still have absolutely nothing in common?
At any rate, we were engaged. My mother was continually pressing me to find a husband, and John was by far the nicest of the men who offered me marriage. I did not love him. But then I did not really know him at all; we met a few times, danced together at public assemblies, and were engaged. And then John’s regiment was posted to foreign service on the Continent, and the entire rest of our engagement was conducted by letters.
And John—I know he believed that he loved me. His letters to me—they were not full of lyrical, poetic declarations of love, but they were very … sweet. In a quiet way. I have them still, in the very bottom of my trunk. It seems like a betrayal to throw them away or burn them. And yet neither can I stand to look at them.
But John did not really know me at all, either. He cannot have done. He would surely never have wished to marry me if he had.
We had been engaged for some months when I travelled to Pemberley last Christmas to spend the holidays with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy and Georgiana. And I—
This really is even worse than I thought it would be—and that is saying a great deal. It is perfectly remarkable how one can despise one’s actions—and yet still wish somehow to paint oneself in a more favourable light. Like a tactful portrait artist smoothing out his rich patroness’s wrinkles and warts.
But the whole purpose of this penance is to write out the truth. All of it—warts and all.
While I was at Pemberley, I met Lord Henry Carmichael. He was handsome, of course—dazzlingly so. And charming. And wealthy. And I wanted— It was not only that I was infatuated with him, though I suppose I certainly was that. But I wanted to change my life—to achieve a dazzling match as my sisters Jane and Lizzy had.
John was good and kind, but he was also a younger son, without fortune or property. And I could see myself, twenty years from now, if I married him—becoming exactly like my mother. Constantly scheming and pushing to get my fortune-less daughters married off.
And then … while I was at Pemberley, I saw, too, how happy Elizabeth and her Mr. Darcy are. And Edward and Georgiana—Edward was spending the holiday at Pemberley, too, though they were only engaged, not yet married. I could see in both of them—both couples, I mean—that same almost visible glow of happiness and warmth and mutual understanding. They knew one another completely and yet were still so very much in love. And at heart, I knew that I would never, ever share that sort of union with John. No matter how basically good he was, or how kind.
I grew up knowing quite well that my parents had absolutely no real understanding of each other. No common ground or respect—and after many years of such a marriage, very little in the way of affection, either. And at night, when I was lying alone in bed, the fear would seem to spring out and fairly stare me in the face that that was one more way in which I might become like my mother if I married John.
Did I ever believe I might find true love and happiness with Lord Henry? Knowing of him what I do now, that seems positively farcical. But I suppose for a little while at least I hoped that I might.
At any rate, I was …
Very well. If I am going to force myself to write this all out, I shall at least get it over with in as few words as possible—without any further attempts at explanation or excuses.
I was infatuated enough to conduct a shameless flirtation with Lord Henry. I danced with him, rode in his carriage—and at the Pemberley Christmas Ball, I slipped off alone with him and allowed him to kiss me.
Georgiana and Edward found us. I was sent home in disgrace, though Georgiana promised that she would not tell anyone of what had happened, so long as I ended my engagement to John.
I did at least have honour enough to see quite well that I must do that. That I at the very least owed John honesty. I wrote to John and told him the whole truth and broke off our betrothal. And yet I still did not see—or did not wish to see—Lord Henry for what he truly was. All that winter, I thought and planned and schemed for how I might see him again. I was so certain that if he could only see me—if he could only be reminded of how very well we were suited to each other, he might offer marriage to me after all.
I heard that he was gone to Brussels, so I formed a scheme in which Georgiana and I would go, as well. War had broken out again—Napoleon having escaped from exile. But I did not even think of that—except as a minor, passing inconvenience. My only thoughts were of somehow meeting with Lord Henry again.
Which I did. At a ball in Ostend. And that was when I discovered that he did not remember me in the slightest. All the time I had spent pining for him, dreaming of him … and he had absolutely no recollection of either my face or my name.
And that—that same night—was when I met John again, as well. He was … he was so kind. So absolutely the opposite of Lord Henry Carmichael in every regard. He did not reproach me in the slightest. He seemed to think only of my happiness—of trying to mend the casual hurt Lord Henry had done me.
And I still could not love him. I wanted to. I wanted to so, so much that it was an almost physical ache inside my chest. But I did not. John was a good friend—but that was all he could ever be to me. Our temperaments were still completely ill-suited to be anything more.
But then the night before the battle—at Quatre Bras, where our troops met Napoleon’s for the first time, on the day before their final battle at Waterloo—John asked me whether there was not yet a chance that matters might be mended between us.
I could not tell him no—how could I? He was hours away from marching off to war. I told him that of course there was yet a chance. That I would wait for him to come back to me. And he looked so happy. He kissed my cheek before bidding me good-bye to join his regiment.
After the battle, Georgiana and I went out into the streets to tend the wounded. There were so many of them—scores of men and boys, all of them bloodied and wounded, many dying. That is what I dream of—what I dreamt of tonight, and every night that one of the nightmares comes.
I am back on the streets of Brussels. Trying not to gag at the stench of blood and putrefying flesh as I crouch beside soldier after soldier, binding up wounds. Holding flasks of water or a few precious sips of brandy to each man’s lips. And then … in the dream, it is always the same. I crouch down next to a man huddled in a doorway, his face hidden from me. I take hold of his shoulder, thinking to rouse him. But then his head flops limply on his shoulder and I realise that he is already past all help. And that I know him—that his face is John’s.
Of course, that was the real fear that haunted me all the time I was indeed treating the wounded men—that among the dead and dying, I would find John. But it is only in my imagination that it keeps happening that way, again and again. In real life—
In real life John was killed. But miles away from me, on the field of battle. I never got to see his face or tend to his wounds at all.
Mr. Dalton called at the house today. Not to see me. He came to speak with my aunt about another charity fete—this one organised by themselves, to benefit the children’s hospital my aunt supports. This was the first I had heard of the event, but it appears to have been in the planning stages for some time, for it takes place in just four days’ time.
Mr. Dalton was accompanied by a girl—a very pretty girl perhaps a year or two older than I am, whom he introduced as his sister, Miss Gwenevere Dalton. She is as pretty as Mr. Dalton is handsome, even though she is nothing like Mr. Dalton at all to look at: small and dark where Mr. Dalton is tall and fair. She still wears mourning colours, of course, for her brother. Half mourning, since his death was six months ago. But beneath the pale lavender coloured roses on her bonnet, her face was vivid and vivacious, with lively-looking dark eyes and a slightly pointed chin.
Save for greeting me politely, Mr. Dalton spoke very little to me. Not that I expected or wished him to.
No, that is not true. As long as I am holding myself to a policy of strict honesty with others, I suppose that ought to include a ban on lying to myself, as well.
A part of me did wish that I could have spoken with Mr. Dalton more. I had not seen or spoken to him since the night of the masquerade at Vauxhall.
However. He and Aunt Gardiner were occupied in discussing details of the fete, so it fell to me to speak with his sister. I liked her at once, very much. I was also entertaining baby Susanna, and Miss Dalton crouched down and made silly faces at her and laughed delightedly when Susanna chuckled and reached out her chubby arms to be picked up. And when Susanna was unmannerly enough to slightly dampen Miss Dalton’s (very expensive-looking) grey satin walking dress, Miss Dalton only laughed and said, “Never mind. It’s supposed to be good luck, didn’t you know?” and kissed Susanna’s rosy little cheeks.
She told me about the fete—which she has been involved in planning, as well. It is to take place at the hospital, so that those who come may see the children whom they are supporting. And so that the children—those able to leave their beds, at least—may also take part in the festivities. There are to be games and prizes to be won and dancing—and of course sweets and presents for the children.
“I had wanted to have a fortune-telling booth, as well,” Miss Dalton said with a sigh. “You know—have someone dress up in a gypsy’s costume and offer to read tea leaves and tell people’s futures if they crossed her palm with silver. It would be a perfect scheme for raising extra money, I think. But I cannot find anyone to play the part of the gypsy.”
It is odd—for the last days, ever since encountering Mrs. Hurst at Vauxhall, I have been wracking my brains in an effort to think of some way of forcing her to give Jane’s necklace back to her. And I have come up with absolutely nothing in the way of feasible ideas. But as soon as Miss Dalton uttered those words, an entire plan sprung into my mind. Complete in every detail.
Almost before I knew the words had left my mouth, I heard myself say, “I will do it.”
Miss Dalton blinked at me in surprise. “That is very obliging of you, Miss Bennet.” She looked at me curiously. “But may I ask why—”
I wavered momentarily. But it seemed as though my scheme might be more likely to succeed if I committed as few sins as possible in the planning of it. Besides, I truly did not wish to lie to Miss Dalton; I liked her too much for that.
I drew in a breath. Telling myself that the worst Miss Dalton could do was be shocked and refuse my offer.
I said—
No, on second thought, I will not write down my entire scheme for the undoing of Louisa Hurst. If it succeeds, I will write down a full account. But in case it is a spectacular failure, I will at least spare myself the necessity of ripping these pages out of the diary and burning them.
Speaking quickly, I related to Miss Dalton the whole history of Jane’s necklace and the wager made over the card game. And then I moved on to outline the plan that had just come into my head.
I was fully prepared for Miss Dalton to in fact be utterly shocked and refuse to let me come anywhere near the fete. But when I had done, she clapped her hands, her dark eyes crinkled up at the corners with mirth. “Oh, famous!” She put her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress a laugh—but one escaped anyway. “You will be doing me—and the children’s hospital—a very kind service, Miss Bennet. But I confess that I would have let you take the role of gypsy for the sake of this scheme alone.” Then she stopped laughing and said, “I knew I should like you, from everything Lance has told me.”
That made me stop short. But before I had time—or for that matter the nerve—to ask what precisely her brother had said about me, we were interrupted. Aunt Gardiner and Mr. Dalton had evidently finished their conversation, and Mr. Dalton had stood up to take his leave.
Miss Dalton squeezed my hand as she bid me good-bye and said, still looking as though she wanted to laugh, “I shall look forward to seeing you Wednesday, then, Miss Bennet. It was a great pleasure to meet you.”
My aunt, in bidding Mr. Dalton good-bye, said, “Do give my regards to your mother, Lance. And apologise to her that I have not yet gone to see her since she has been in town.”
The words seemed—to my ears, at least, and I assume Aunt Gardiner’s as well—harmless enough. But both Mr. Dalton and his sister went still.
And then Miss Dalton rushed to fill the moment of strained silence that had descended, saying swiftly, “Of course I will tell Mama. She … she goes out very seldom these days. But if you were to call at the house she might—” She gave her brother a quick, anxious-looking glance before returning her gaze to Aunt Gardiner. “That is, I am sure she would be delighted to see you, if she is at home.”
Aunt Gardiner was too polite to mention the contradiction—that if their mother seldom went out, then calling at her residence could hardly fail to find her at home. She only repeated her good wishes, and the Daltons took their leave.
I asked Aunt Gardiner when they had gone whether she knew what the trouble had been about, but she only shook her head and frowned. “No, I’ve no idea. I had heard that their mother took Percival’s death very hard indeed. He was always the favourite son, I remember, when he was a boy. I suppose perhaps she is still too much taken by her grief to pay or receive calls.”
Rose came up to find me this morning—wide eyed and fairly breathless with awe at having so august a personage in the house—to say that Lord Henry Carmichael was downstairs in the drawing room and asking to speak with me.
I went down at once, fuming—a fresh volley of threats and imprecations and general insults ready on my tongue. Because I assumed that he had asked to see Miss Bennet—meaning Mary—and that Rose had made a mistake in thinking he had asked for me.
As well as needing practice in how to answer the door, she also sometimes forgets the distinction between ‘Miss Bennet’ and ‘Miss Kitty Bennet’.
But I had entered the drawing room and got no further than saying, in an icy tone, “Lord Henry, my sister is not at home—” when he held up a hand to stop me.
“I know your cursed sister is not at home! I’ve been waiting on the cursed street outside in my carriage for nearly two cursed hours waiting for her to leave, so that I might come in and speak with you!”
My eyes widened in surprise—and I looked at him more closely. Noticing for the first time that he seemed to be in an advanced state of vexation. He was sober, for once. Or mostly so. But his face was flushed and his fair hair was rumpled, as though he had been tugging his hands through it.
I raised my eyebrows, keeping well back from him. He seemed, from his lack of consciousness, to recall the basics of our conversation, but to have no memory of his drunken attempts at softening my opinion of him. But neither did I wish to come within his grasp again.
“I was under the impression that I had made my position perfectly clear. I wish you to stop seeing my sister. If you do not—”
“I am trying to stop seeing your sister!” Lord Henry burst out. He let out an explosive breath of air, running both hands through his hair again. “Miss Bennet, I have done exactly as you asked. I have called off the bet. I have made no efforts whatever to contact your sister. The trouble is that she has no wish to stop seeing me. She comes jumping out at me from behind trees when I go riding in the park. She darts out at me from doorways when I am walking to my club. I declare that it is getting so that I would not be at all surprised to find her nestling in the soap dish the next time I take a bath!”
He sounded so thoroughly exasperated that I very nearly laughed. But in truth, it was no laughing matter—not at all. No respectable lady ventures to walk down St. James’s Street—which I assume is where Lord Henry’s club is located; most fashionable gentlemen’s clubs are. But—or so I have heard—a great number of less-than-respectable ladies do frequently walk there.
If Mary persisted in her doggedly determined pursuit, she might very easily come to harm at the hands of a man who mistook her for one of those latter kind. And it would be entirely Lord Henry’s fault.
All at once I was angry—boilingly so. “Well, and did it never occur to you before you made your disgusting little wager that it might have less-than-desirable consequences?” I clenched my hands. “You cannot simply go through life toying with … with other people’s affections. Treating other people’s lives as though they were mere playing pieces in a game designed solely for your own private amusement!”
Lord Henry looked at me. And then abruptly, he frowned. “Wait a moment. I know you, do I not?”
I forced myself to draw a ragged breath. “We have had this conversation before. I told you. We met in Ostend last summer.”
Lord Henry frowned, shaking his head in apparent puzzlement. “No, that’s not it.” He looked at me again, brow still furrowed in an effort of recollection. “I should have sworn—”
Of course this was the very last path down which I wanted his memory to wander. Besides which, my throat was feeling uncomfortably tight, and I knew that I should never, ever forgive myself if I were to burst into tears in front of Lord Henry, of all men.
“Just get out,” I snapped. “I will deal with my sister. You keep away from her. Because if you do not, my original … warning still stands. I will go to your aunt, and you will abruptly find yourself in possession of a slighted and abandoned wife and a dead baby son.”
That was an hour ago. My hands have finally stopped shaking enough to allow me to write all this down, but I still have no idea exactly how I am to go about persuading Mary into giving up Lord Henry. And yet at the same time sparing her a humiliation from which she might never recover.