A Marriage of Inconvenience (4 page)

“Good evening, Miss Jones,” he said gravely.

She blinked and summoned up a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Lord Selsley. I trust you sustained no injuries from this morning.”

He leaned toward her confidentially. “Quietly. I don’t want word of that incident to get about. I have a reputation as a bruising rider to uphold.”

Now he had her attention. She rounded her eyes at him. “As opposed to a bruised rider?”

Surprised, he laughed aloud. Anna and Lieutenant Arrington did not so much as glance their way, but several nearby heads turned to stare at them, and Miss Jones turned pink as she laughed too, much more quietly than he had.

“What do you think of Gloucestershire, now that you’ve been here a full day?” he asked. He stepped to the side as he questioned her, drawing her with him. She could return to the receiving line if more guests arrived, but, glancing around the room, James thought all the local families Lady Marpool considered of high enough rank to dine at Almont Castle were already there. And Miss Jones needed a little distance from the spectacle of the man she obviously adored fawning over Anna.

“It’s lovely,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be walking out every morning to sketch, and Lady Marpool gave us a tour of the castle today. I’d always thought my aunt’s home quite old and grand, but it’s half the age and perhaps a third the size.”

James noticed that she called it her aunt’s home rather than her own. “Do you not live with your aunt, then?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, looking puzzled by the question. “I’ve lived at Swallowfield for nine years, since my parents died.”

To live at a place for nine years and not consider it one’s home! What a miserable childhood Miss Jones must have had. James was hard put to keep from glaring at every Arrington in the room. “Have you brothers or sisters?” he asked.

“Two younger brothers, both away at school,” she replied. “Owen is to begin at Oxford this autumn. He is to be ordained and have the living of Swallowfield Parish. Rhys is just turned thirteen, and the family thinks the army or navy might suit him.”

He wondered what the Arringtons had in mind for Miss Jones—a life of drudgery as a governess or companion, or perhaps marriage to some curate or gentleman farmer. He hoped it was the latter, and that she would be given a chance to make her own choice. Then she might have a happy, contented life, if not a grand or glamorous one. He wondered briefly why it mattered to him what became of a young lady he had met only that morning. Eleanor would doubtless say that he had a soft heart, that he could never bear to see any creature suffer.

He could not immediately continue the conversation, for dinner was announced. At Almont Castle the older customs were maintained, and the ladies paraded to the dining room ahead of the gentlemen. He meant to try to secure a place near Miss Jones at the table, though. She needed a friend, and James flattered himself that he could at once amuse and distract her, and also lend her a certain cachet by his notice. If he paid attention to Miss Jones, curiosity alone would drive the other single gentlemen of the neighborhood to do the same, and perhaps she would at last get some of the attention her family had neglected to bestow upon her.

Lucy barely knew how she had replied to Lord Selsley in the receiving line, and when she took her place among the procession of ladies bound for the dining room, she hardly noticed her surroundings. How could Sebastian abandon her so? And Miss Wright-Gordon, who had seemed so friendly…but no, Lucy could not in justice condemn her. With her own engagement to Sebastian a secret, she could not fault another lady for seeking to draw his interest.

Perhaps he only admired her to deflect any suspicion of their betrothal. For a moment Lucy took comfort in that thought, but of course it was not so. Sebastian had been unable to take his eyes from Miss Wright-Gordon from the moment she entered the room, Miss Wright-Gordon, who was everything Lucy wasn’t—beautiful and fashionable, sparkling in both her appearance and manner.

“Miss Jones, are you quite well?” Lady Marpool asked as they entered the dining room. “You look pale.”

She blinked and tried to appear more herself, discovering that Aunt Arrington was now studying her, too. “She’s right, Lucy, my dear. If you’re not feeling quite the thing, you ought to go upstairs and rest. No one will miss you, I assure you.”

Lucy knew she only meant to be kind, to assure her no one would think her rude, but there was too much truth in her aunt’s words. Sebastian was too engrossed in Miss Wright-Gordon to notice if she was missing, and she was of no importance to anyone else at the table.

Tempting though it was, she would not flee. She was not ill, and to pretend she was would be cowardly. “No, ma’am,” she said. “I am quite well.”

“Very well,” Lady Marpool said. “But do retire early if you are at all tired. You are not used to travel, after all.”

By then the gentlemen had arrived. Lord Almont and Lady Marpool took the places of honor at either end of the table. Portia and Aunt Arrington sat on either side of the marquess, and Lady Marpool was obliged to invite the highest-ranking gentleman among the guests—who happened to be the kilted Scottish earl—to take the place of honor at her right.

The remainder of the company was left to politely maneuver for a place beside a pleasing partner or within easy reach of a favored dish among the dizzying array laid out for them on the great table. There were some thirty diners in all, and Lucy, who had never dined with more than ten, was at a loss as to where she ought to sit. She wanted to remain unobtrusive, and above all she wanted to avoid Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon.

She cast her gaze around the rapidly filling table. Unluckily, Miss Wright-Gordon was the first person to catch her eye. With a sunny smile, she indicated the empty chair on her left. Sebastian, of course, already sat to her right. Her expression could not have been more friendly, but it felt like a dagger through Lucy’s heart. Yet what was she to do? It would be rude to refuse an invitation so kindly meant, and Lucy had spent her life learning to be polite and to hide her true feelings. She took a reluctant step forward.

“Miss Jones!” She turned and saw Lord Selsley smiling at her, just as friendly as his sister and infinitely more welcome. “I would be honored if you sat here,” he said, drawing out the chair between his place and his uncle’s.

Surely Miss Wright-Gordon would not think her rude for accepting her brother’s invitation instead of her own. Lucy took the offered chair, not without a moment’s wonder that she, Lucy Jones, who had just last month considered it a great honor to dine with the vicar and the squire, now sat between an earl and a viscount at table in a marquess’s castle. As the meal began, the earl served her asparagus and the viscount made sure she had generous portions of fricasseed chicken and macaroni pie.

While Lady Marpool and Lord Dunmalcolm began a stilted conversation about the weather and the prospects for a fair harvest, Lucy and Lord Selsley ate in silence for a moment. For her part, Lucy could think of nothing to say, and try as she might she couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to the far end of the table, where Sebastian talked steadily to an admiring Miss Wright-Gordon.

“It won’t last,” Lord Selsley said softly.

Irrelevantly, she decided she liked his voice. It was low-pitched, and somehow she felt it in her spine. “Sir?” she asked, confused.

He canted his head toward the other end of the table. “Your cousin and my sister,” he said, still in a murmur. “These sudden enchantments tend to wilt as quickly as they sprout.”

In her shock at his candor, she almost said,
I hope you’re right,
but she caught herself just in time. Instead, she grasped for a neutral reply. “Your sister is very charming.”

“Oh, she is,” Lord Selsley agreed. “And your cousin is tall and handsome. Ten to one there’s no more to it than that, and they’ll be bored with each other within a week.”

This was not at all proper dinner conversation. “It’s hardly my concern whether they are or not,” she said, as firmly as she could manage.

“I’d find that easier to believe if you didn’t persist in staring at them.”

Now she stared at
him.
“I beg your pardon.”

“Forgive me,” he said. “I know I’m overstepping the mark, but in my experience, it’s always better to appear to ignore such a situation than to draw attention to oneself by taking too much notice of it.”

Was she truly so very transparent? She blushed and stared down at her plate in confusion, pushing at her asparagus with her fork.

“Do not refine upon it, Miss Jones,” he said kindly. “Truly, I’m certain no one other than myself has noticed yet. Everyone else is too busy with their own concerns, their own conversations. But
I
was paying attention to
you.
”

Somehow his words made her face feel even hotter, and she looked up at him again. He truly had remarkable eyes, such a deep clear blue, and striking coloring, with those dark eyes and black hair against fair skin. “Thank you for your good advice, Lord Selsley,” she said.

“You’re quite welcome. Now, shall we embark upon a proper dinner conversation?” He grinned.

The expression was infectious, and she felt a small laugh bubble up in response despite her anxiety about Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon. “Certainly.”

“Very well, then. Ask me a proper question.”

She took a bite of chicken to buy time to compose herself. Lord Selsley was correct, of course. If she allowed herself to show any outward sign of jealousy or anxiety, she would only make herself an object of at best pity and at worst ridicule. Her position was secure. As a man of honor, Sebastian would not break his engagement to her. Of course, she did not want a reluctant bridegroom, always longing for another…but she pushed the unwelcome thought away. If Lord Selsley was right about the other, too, Sebastian’s infatuation with his sister would be merely transient, soon forgotten. It would not matter once Lucy and Sebastian were married, as long as she was sensible and did not make herself pathetic now.

Lord Selsley waited expectantly as she chewed and swallowed. What should she ask him? What would be a proper question, something that would open a suitably diverting conversation? “I understand your father was in India,” she said at last, remembering Lady Marpool’s statement that the Selsley fortune reeked of curry. “Have you ever been there, sir?”

“I have not,” he said. “My father returned to England before he married my mother, and he never went back. I have many of the treasures he brought home with him, though. When you come to Orchard Park, please remind me, and I’ll show them to you.” He smiled, a flicker of inward amusement. “The ones that are fit for public viewing, that is.”

Lord Selsley certainly had a knack for putting her to the blush. She couldn’t help wondering what was so very naughty about the treasures that
weren’t
suitable for display. “Thank you,” she said. “I shall look forward to seeing them.”

He took command from there, describing his father’s paintings and statues. He compared the Indian and English styles of portraiture, then smoothly drew the conversation to her own drawing and painting. She could not help but warm to the topic, and she found it easier to forget Sebastian and Miss Wright-Gordon than she would’ve dreamed possible half an hour before.

Lord Dunmalcolm spoke kindly to her, as well. When she made a diffident comment on his attire, it was enough to launch him into a series of tales of his family’s history, its great deeds under various Scottish kings. Lucy listened, amused by Lady Marpool’s visible discomfiture, though that lady affected total absorption in her left-hand neighbor’s conversation.

Soon enough the time came to leave the gentlemen to their port, and Lucy and the other ladies followed Lady Marpool from the room. As they entered the drawing room, Lucy again wondered how best to position herself. Mrs. Cathcart and her daughter had seemed friendly and unpretentious. She looked around, but before she could find them, Miss Wright-Gordon was by her side, laying her hand on Lucy’s arm.

“Do come sit by my side, Miss Jones. We’ve hardly had a chance to speak.”

Lucy forced a smile and allowed herself to be led to a low sofa along one wall. What choice did she have, after all? She could hardly tell Miss Wright-Gordon that she had no wish to speak to any lady so determined to flirt with her betrothed. If only Aunt Arrington hadn’t sworn her and Sebastian to secrecy!

“If I may ask, how did my brother happen to fall from his horse this morning?” Miss Wright-Gordon asked, perfectly oblivious to Lucy’s turmoil. “After we left you, we talked of other things, and I forgot to ask him.”

“I’m afraid that was my fault,” Lucy said, relieved she hadn’t mentioned Sebastian. “I had been sitting on the stone wall, sketching, and the wind caught my cloak just as Lord Selsley was setting his mare to jump the fence, and she refused.”

“I’d hardly call that your fault, simply a strange series of chances. In any case, no harm was done.”

“You and your brother are both very fine riders.” Lucy was determined to at least make an effort to be civil.

“Thank you very much. I’m not sure I should pass the compliment along to James, though. He’s terribly vain of his horsemanship.”

Somehow Lucy was not surprised. Lord Selsley did not strike her as a humble man.

Of course she would never say such a thing, but something of it must have showed in her expression, for Miss Wright-Gordon gave her a conspiratorial smile. “You noticed, didn’t you? I’m afraid vanity is a failing of my family’s. James and my cousin Alec—that’s Major Gordon, of the Sixteenth—are vain of their horsemanship. My aunt and uncle are vain of our family. If I had a guinea for every time my aunt reminded us that we are descended from kings—the old Stuart kings, and it’s a very distant connection, nothing worth making a fuss over, I assure you—I’d be richer than Lord Almont.”

Despite herself, Lucy smiled. Miss Wright-Gordon was difficult to loathe. “And you, Miss Wright-Gordon,” she asked daringly, “are you vain?”