Follow My Lead (51 page)

Jack shook his head ruefully. Had he ever been that young and frightened? Waiting in a hall and surprised to learn that young ladies of rank played hide-and-seek with their fathers. Although the pit that existed in his stomach when he had been thirteen and waiting in a Forrester foyer was uncannily similar to the one that rested there now.

He scuffed his toe on the marbled floor, the squeaky sound echoing off the marble tiles. Given the clamor of well-dressed gentlemen—“holding their place in line”—that existed just outside the front door, it was alarmingly quiet in the Forresters’ town house, with only the tick of a grandfather clock to keep him company. He did not expect a reception by any means. He hadn’t written a reply to Lady Forrester’s letter, as they had docked in London before any such note would have arrived. But as that damned grandfather clock ticked on, he did begin to wonder if the supercilious butler had forgotten him.

“Perhaps he stuck his nose too high in the air and it got caught on a cobweb,” Jack mumbled aloud, mollified by the echo that followed.

Jack was just about to try one or the other of the heavy doors that stood on opposite sides of the main hall, when the thudding of adolescent footsteps broke the silence and a gasp floated down from the top of the stairs.

“Jack!”

And before he could formulate a thought, Jackson found himself practically tackled by the young lady as she ran down the stairs and threw herself into his arms.

“Sarah?” he asked, disbelieving. The last time he had seen Sarah Forrester, she had been twelve, and just beginning to gain in height and womanly virtues. But this young lady that wrapped her arms—tightly—around his waist . . .

“La! Do be serious, Jackson! It’s me! Amanda!”

“
Amanda?
” he couldn’t help but cry. Jackson immediately pulled away, and stared down into her face. “But Amanda’s the youngest!”

She laughed at that, which was followed by a decidedly unladylike snort. She covered her mouth quickly.

“My governess keeps telling me I have to
not
laugh if I’m going to laugh like that—but it’s too funny, you thinking I’m Sarah!”

Once given the benefit of a longer look, Jackson recognized the blonde curls down the back and slightly shorter dress style that exemplified youth. And he recognized the dimples that had been ever present on the child Amanda shining forth on the cheeks of the young lady in front of him.

“Well, you’ll have to forgive me, Miss Amanda,” he teased as he gave a smart bow. “The last time I saw you, you barely reached my waist. I didn’t expect anyone quite so tall.”

Amanda immediately hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. “I can’t help it,” she said mournfully. “Mother is afraid I’ll be taller than any gentleman who might wish to dance with me. Miss Pritchett—my governess, you know—has recommended they restrict my food so I stop growing.”

Jack refrained from shaking his head. Talking to females—especially fifteen-year-old ones—was always trickier than one expected.

“Well, I still have some inches on you, so I suspect you should feel safe to keep eating for a few weeks or so.”

Amanda giggled and slowly her shoulders came back up to her full (remarkable) height.

“What brings you to visit?” Amanda asked, as she waved at the butler, who had magically reappeared and seemed to be eyeing Jack’s trunk with distaste. “Take that to one of the guest rooms, please, Dalton,” she instructed before a quizzical look crossed her brow. “Whichever one my mother would say. You are staying, aren’t you?” She turned her gaze to Jackson.

“Your mother wrote me, and asked me to do so,” Jackson replied.

“She did?” she replied, then shook her head, making her curls bounce. “I wonder that she didn’t tell me—but then again, no one tells me anything anymore.”

“Anymore?” he replied as he offered Amanda his arm, which she took with girlish joy. They moved with absolutely no purpose whatsoever to the drawing room.

The first and indeed only thing that he noticed in the drawing room was the overwhelming amount of flower bouquets, of every variety, on every surface.

If Amanda had been wearing mourning clothes, he would have thought Whigby was right and there had been a funeral.

“Ever since
the Event
, everyone gets very quiet when I come into the room. I saw my mother elbow my father in the stomach when they thought I
finally
started talking about something interesting!”

The Event. The importance with which Amanda imbued those words made Jackson pause. Perhaps it was the disappointment Lady Forrester gave vague reference to in her letter.

“And then, when we came to town again,” Amanda continued blithely, “or, more accurately, after everything changed, everyone’s been too busy to think of telling me what on earth is going on!”

Jackson followed Amanda’s conversation as best he could. Again, he could hear the emphasis she gave the words “everything changed.” Talking to teenagers was like learning a new language, and Jack had to be careful to pick up on the cues. Finally, he asked, “So you don’t know why there are a half dozen gentlemen loitering on your doorstep?”

“Oh, them.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “They’re
always
there. You would think they would take the hint, but panting after Sarah is something of a badge of honor, I gather.”

“Panting after Sarah?”

“Mama likes to think I don’t know of course, but Bridget constantly grumbles about how Sarah’s swains have made it so she can’t even get in our front door, and they should be shot as trespassers. But then Mama says ‘what a thing to say!’ and Lady Phillippa says ‘it would certainly make the papers,’ but she says it like making the papers is a
good
thing.” Amanda paused long enough to ring for tea, frown quickly, and then smile again. “But maybe it is a good thing, because Bridget has
never
been mentioned, and I don’t think she likes it. But enough about all that, I want to hear about you! You’re so tan—were you in the West Indies? The East Indies?” She practically tore his arm off she clutched him so tightly in her excitement. “Did you meet with any pirates?!”

Before Jack could answer—or even realize that Amanda had stopped her monologue and begun asking questions—a commotion could be heard in the hall they had just vacated for the comfort of the drawing room.

It was the sound of a half dozen lovesick swains making their unhappiness known as feminine voices uttered sweet regrets . . . followed by a quick slam of the door.

“I’m telling you, we should shoot them.” An acidic young lady’s voice pierced the drawing room door.

“Oh, Bridget, it’s sweet,” came another voice, this one lighter, more relaxed.

“Besides, Viscount Threshing is out there. Terribly bad form to shoot a viscount,” came another female voice, this one soft and yet authoritative.

“Well, I cannot help but be glad that the afternoon is over—driving in the park is meant to be relaxing!” This voice he knew, Jack thought with a smile. It was undeniably Lady Forrester’s. He and Amanda made a move to the door, edging it open wider, to peer out into the hall.

There he was met with the sight of four colorful peacocks, doffing hats and gloves and spencers and packages to a number of mute ladies maids, in a mad whirl of movement and color that blinded the audience to little else.

But as the layers were shed, and four ladies emerged, their conversation did not stop, and Jack found his eye drawn automatically to the form of the golden blonde in a light blue dress.

She was stunning, elegant . . . but cool. Frighteningly so, as if the world were on her string and she hadn’t decided yet whether or not to cut it.

“That’s Lady Phillippa Worth,” Amanda whispered in his ear. “Everyone says she’s the queen of society, but I don’t think the actual queen would like to hear them say that.”

Ah, that must mean that the grumbling brunette in green was Bridget (indeed, he would have recognized Bridget’s freckles anywhere—as he did her dark curls, which matched Amanda’s lighter ones), and the tall blonde in the smart violet was Sarah.

Even though they stood in full view at the drawing room door, they had yet to be noticed. The women were too invested in their own conversation. It allowed Jackson the opportunity to observe his fill.

He paid particular attention to the one in violet. Her face had turned out very angular, and she was quite polished. Funny, he never thought of Sarah as city polished. Strangely, Sarah didn’t seem to be suffering from an extreme disappointment. Stranger still, she was the only one who did not remove her spencer and hat—in fact, she waved the footman away when he came to take them from her.

Surely he would have contemplated further—surely he would have figured it out . . . but at that moment, the lady in blue turned and Jackson saw her full face. And he lost his breath. She had a face made for whimsy, for mischief. But it had been schooled—or perhaps tricked, with rouge or powder or other women’s secrets—into an expression of haughty superiority.

But . . . there was something familiar about those green eyes. . .

“Really, Bridget,” the one in blue—Lady Phillippa—said, as she turned to admire herself in one of the foyer’s mirrors, “you shoot one of those gentlemen, you could very well be shooting your future husband, and then where would you be?”

That face full of freckles came up, a hot anger burning across her cheeks.

“I’ll never marry a man who mooned after you, thank you very much.”

A pretty pout crossed the taller girl’s reflection. “You may not have that choice,” she said sweetly. Too sweetly. Jackson couldn’t help but feel a little for Bridget as she huffed past the other women and stomped up the stairs.

But then . . . why would Bridget be so rude to a guest? And why would Lady Phillippa retaliate so?

“Well, I should be going!” said the lady in violet—obviously not Sarah, if she was leaving—as she took a few of the parcels out of the pile that had amassed in the hall. Hers, presumably. “I will be seeing you at the Langstons’ card party this evening, yes?”

“Will Sir Langston let us play Vinght-Un, not just boring old whist?” the blue-clad Lady Phillippa asked to her reflection in the mirror.