A Little Thing Called Love (3 page)

“But you have doubts?”

“No one can afford doubts with a man whose purse is as fat as Stowe’s. I want to tap his pocket, Mr. Morris. If not Sumatra, then something else. He needs a nudge, but he says he doesn’t have time for a meeting to discuss the matter.”

“What are you proposing?”

“That we take our interests to him. Dangle them in front of him like bait. He will be at Lord and Lady Nestor’s musicale this evening. You remember Lord Nestor?”

“I do. You went to school with him.”

“Aye, and he has given me invitations for this evening. Put on your dancing shoes, Mr. Morris, we are going out in society. But you’d best be sharp. We’ve wanted Stowe’s backing for a long time. This is your chance to bring him in for us.”

“Mine alone?”

“What do I know of Sumatra? However, do this, and you will have earned you director’s seat. The youngest man ever elected. Go on with you. Be ready. This might be the most important night of your life.”

He was right.

Jennifer Tarleton was attending a musicale that evening. She had told him so in the library.

“I appreciate the opportunity, sir,” Fyclan said, meaning those words.

“See that you make the most of it,” Mr. Tillbury advised.

“Oh, I shall.”

Chapter Four

M
R.
M
ORRIS HAD
been watching her leave.

Elation brought heat to Jenny’s cheeks as she ducked her head, turned the corner, and jigged in triumph right there in the street.

Scurrying behind her, Mandy almost collided with her. “Oh, sorry, Miss.”

“Don’t be sorry, be
happy
,” Jenny answered generously, wanting to share her good mood. “Come, Lorry, let’s hurry before my absence is noticed.”

“That is what I’ve been trying to do, Miss Jenny,” the sometime surly footman muttered, and she just laughed, clutching her book to her chest as the footman used his big body to shield her from gawkers and the rude along the busy street. Mandy had to skip a step to keep up with them.

Fyclan Morris.
What a strange and brash name. Fyclan. She’d never met an Irishman before. Her father would not have approved.

And yet, Fyclan Morris was everything she had hoped to meet in a gentleman and hadn’t yet. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she could fall in love.

Love, yes, just like the poets praised, and Mr. Morris was certainly poem worthy. He was handsome. She liked his strong nose, his almost black eyes, his square jaw.

She liked even more that he had spoken
to
her. Not
about
her. Not
around
her. Not
through
her.

To
her.

And he had behaved as if he didn’t find her bookish tendencies disagreeable. Her mother constantly warned her to not talk about books or art or music.
Listen, Jenny, listen. Use your ears more than your mouth. That is what men appreciate in a woman.

There was great truth in her mother’s advice. Jenny had noted the quieter she was, the more the gentleman did like her, mainly because they had more room to talk about themselves. They liked looking at her but didn’t act as if they wished to know her.

However, Fyclan Morris had asked questions as if her answers interested him. He hadn’t patronized her when she chose Sir David’s book. He’d actually encouraged her to read the text in spite of its being salty—­
oh, she couldn’t wait to discover exactly what he meant
.

He was also the first man of her acquaintance in London not to comment about her height. It was true she wasn’t petite, but she wasn’t taller than her sisters. Her mother, too, had a good height. Still, gentlemen in London seemed to find her five-­foot-­ten unusual, especially those men who were shorter than she.

Mr. Morris might have been a half inch or an inch shorter, and yet, she didn’t believe he’d found her freakish at all.

No, when he looked at her, she felt admired . . . and she could return the appreciation. He was perfectly made, a prime specimen of a gentleman.

“Here we are, Miss Jenny,” Lorry said, directing her down the back alley behind a row of houses. “Hurry now. It is half past one. You may have callers waiting.”

Jenny doubted it. Her observation was that gentlemen of the noble class did not venture out until three. There might be flowers, but no callers.

She understood Lorry’s concern. Of the three of them, his absence might be the most noticed since he served as butler when they had callers and as her father’s valet when needed. All of the other Tarleton servants were female. Their wages were lower, and there was no tax charged on female help.

Jenny set aside thoughts of Mr. Fyclan Morris. She had more important matters to consider, such as sneaking into her house with her precious book. She held her breath as they entered the gate leading to the tiny garden. She dashed across the grass, praying no one saw her, and hurried up the house’s back step.

Mandy went in first. Lorry and Jenny waited, until Mandy said, “It is fine to enter.”

Lorry held the door open for Jenny to rush inside. She breathed easier once she was under her roof. There could now be few questions asked that she couldn’t answer.

“We’d best not test our luck again, Miss,” Lorry informed her. “We made it once, but we were lucky.”

Jenny didn’t answer. Both servants were devoted to her, and she knew when she asked him to do so, Lorry would help her at any time

And she would ask him. She had to return the book and perhaps see Mr. Morris again.

Lorry’s expression said he knew what she was thinking. He went off with a grumble to fulfill his other duties around the house.

Mandy took Jenny’s hat. “Are you wearing the cream dress this evening to the musicale?”

“Yes, and with the blue overdress,” Jenny answered. She preferred simple styles and had managed to wear this cream-­colored cotton dress a number of ways by changing the sashes and using overdresses that she and her sisters had stitched themselves. When one’s father gambled the way hers did, one had to economize. “I will be right up.”

“Yes, Miss,” Mandy said before taking the servants’ stairs to the floor where the family slept.

Carrying her precious book, Jenny walked toward the staircase at the front of the house, the one the family was expected to use. As she approached the sitting room, she heard copious weeping.

The door was closed. She knew before opening it that Serena was the one crying.

Her sister sat on the settee, hunched over as tears flowed. A sympathetic Alice had an arm around her. Her sisters were respectively three and fours years older than she. Consequently, Serena and Alice were very close. This was also their first trip to London, and they had made it clear to Jenny they were very conscious of the fact that only because of her were they here. Worse, they had to share a bedroom because the colonel decreed that Jenny deserved privacy since this trip was all about her success on the marriage market. It would be Jenny who needed the rest after spending her evenings at balls and parties. It was Jenny who got the lovely gowns. And it was Jenny who needed to secure their futures.

Jealousy was an ugly emotion, and over the past four weeks that they’d been in the city, Jenny had felt the sting of her sisters’ too many times for comfort. They were both lovely women . . . but Jenny was the one lauded as the “beauty.”

Seeing the unwelcoming expression on her sisters’ faces, Jenny had an uneasy feeling that she would regret opening the door.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“Serena’s heart has been broken,” Alice answered.

Jenny set aside the book and rushed to kneel on the floor beside Serena. “What happened?”

“The Squire Paulson is refusing to let Evan and me marry,” Serena choked out before breaking down in sobs again.

Alice spoke for her. “Evan was here an hour ago with the news. She has been like this ever since.”

“Where is Mother?” Jenny asked.

“Still in bed with smelling salts. I told her Evan decamped and why. She is furious with the Paulsons.”

Serena raised her head. “They wish Evan to marry his cousin, Rebecca. Her family has property they want, but, Jenny, if you marry someone important, then they will relent. They will let me marry Evan. I
know
they will.”

Jenny rocked back. “Isn’t that shallow of them?” she dared to say.

“Shallow to expect you to be responsible to your family?” Alice snapped. “Be practical, Jenny. You have an opportunity to do something the rest of us can’t. You must rescue the family from father’s vices. He’d promised Wills that he would help him secure an advancement last year, and still nothing has happened.” Wills was her husband of two years. He was a lieutenant in the infantry and eager for promotion, a promotion that he would buy.

“I’m here in London,” Jenny pointed out. “No one has offered. I’m doing what I can. Or would you prefer we set up an auction block on the front step and send me off with the highest bidder?”

“So dramatic,” Alice answered. “Apparently we have an actress in the family.”

“Your patience is impressive,” Jenny coolly shot back.

“
I’m
tired of being patient,” Serena said. “I’m tired of waiting. I am growing old and gray, and no one cares. All Mother and Father think about is
Jenny
and being certain
Jenny
has what will make the right impression. No one ever thinks about me.”

“Or Wills and me,” Alice agreed.

“At least you have Wills,” Serena threw in.

Jenny had heard this complaint from her sisters before. They resented everything done for Jenny that was also not done for them—­and Jenny understood. She would be frustrated as well.

She also hated the pressure of being the one expected to sacrifice for the family.

“Do you believe Evan still has feelings for you?” she asked Serena.

“I know he does. He was downhearted when he delivered the news. His hands were shaking.”

“Then why doesn’t he defy his parents and fight for his love?”

Alice reached over and picked up the book. “Are you reading Shakespeare again?”

Jenny grabbed the borrowed book back from her. “No, but I will tell you that if this was one of Shakespeare’s plays, Evan wouldn’t make excuses for his parents. He would sweep Serena into his arms and elope.”

Both sisters stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses.

Alice spoke first. “Or, Serena, you and Evan can act out the last scene of
Romeo and Juliette
and drink poison or stab yourselves to death.”

“Or we could have asps bite us like the ending of
Antony and
Cleopatra
,” Serena suggested bitterly.

Jenny made an impatient sound and rose to her feet, holding Sir David’s book close as she did. “Fine. What do I know?” She started for the door but then whirled around. “If Evan were worthy of you, he’d stand up to his parents for you.” She believed this with all her heart.

Serena jumped to her feet, her color high. “Listen to you—­someone who has
never
been in love. But what do you care?
You
won’t have children. The good doctor. Higley warns us that childbirth could kill you. Does it matter whom you marry? Mr. Higley even told Mother you could die at any moment anyway.”

The words were ugly.

For a second, they hovered in the air between the sisters, then Serena’s face crumpled. “I didn’t mean that to sound so cruel, Jenny,” she said.

Jenny held up a hand to stave her off, stunned by Serena’s words. “You only spoke the truth.”

“Jenny, please, Serena didn’t mean—­” Alice started, but Jenny interrupted her.

“
I know
what she meant.” Jenny released her breath. She wanted to pretend it didn’t matter. It did.

Jenny looked down at the book she held. “You married for love, Alice. You want to marry for love, Serena. Why is it you believe I should marry to settle Father’s finances? Is it because my health makes me dispensable?” she asked, as they remained silent. “Are you just being practical?”

She turned, planning to leave the room with her head high. Let her sisters stew in their own consciences.

However, before she could make her exit, the door flew open, and her father came striding into the room, his hat set forward on his wig at a cocky angle. He took her by both arms and swung her around. “
Jenny
, my girl, have I news.”

He was a tall man with a strong nose and booming voice that had once commanded men. He still wore his uniform although he was fully retired.

“I want you to look lively tonight,” he said. “Stowe is about to come up to scratch. He’s been asking questions about how much I’d be willing to take for your hand. And”—­he paused for effect, his blue eyes aglow with excitement—­“they
say
he made a
wager
in the betting book at Brooks’s that one Miss Jennifer Tarleton would soon become a
marchioness
.” He ended his statement with a triumphant clap of his hand, then looked around expectantly, as if believing she should be excited as well.

And he was disappointed.

“What?” he asked. “Are you not happy, Jenny? What of you other girls? Did you hear what I said? Stowe will come up to scratch.”

In response, Serena burst into tears all over again and collapsed upon the settee.

Alice spoke for them. “Yes, we are happy.” She did not even glance at Jenny. Perhaps after the scene a moment ago, she was too embarrassed.

Their father turned to Jenny. “And what of you? You did it, girl.
You did it.
We are in the money now.”

As he crowed, the image of Mr. Fyclan Morris’s handsome face rose in her mind, and the image turned to dust. Her stomach twisted painfully.

“Jenny?” her father said. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine,” she managed to say, unnerved by how upset she was to hear Stowe would make an offer. Hours ago, she would have been relieved. After all, this is why they’d come to London—­

“What is that you are carrying?” the colonel said, obviously annoyed that his news was not being met by rejoicing. “A book? Another book, Jenny? No wonder you are upset. Reading isn’t good for a woman’s mind. Let me have that.”

Before she realized what he was about, he snatched the book out of her hands. He flipped the pages, holding it out of her reach.

“I
borrowed
that book, Father,” she said. “It isn’t mine. I need to take care of it.”

“Where did you find it?”

“I told you I borrowed it.”

“From whom?”

Jenny thought fast. “Mrs. Rockwell, our neighbor.”

He hummed his thoughts. “Mrs. Rockwell is reading about Ceylon? Interesting.” He closed the book.

“May I have it back?”

A cunning look stole over his face, a look that never boded well for Jenny. “Why, yes, daughter, you may . . . once you have landed the Marquess of Stowe. I don’t want anything to distract you until you have taken care of your family. Right, girls?”

Her sisters didn’t respond, but their silence didn’t bother the colonel. He waved the precious book at Jenny before charging up the front-­hall stairs, a self-­satisfied whistle on his lips.