Simply Unforgettable (10 page)

Frances smiled fondly at the thought. All the girls were very precious to her.

But her thoughts were not easily diverted during that long day of travel.

They stopped a few times for changes of horse, and once for almost a full hour to dine, but for the rest of the time they sat together in the carriage, not talking a great deal, their hands clasped, their thighs and arms touching, her head sometimes tipped sideways to rest on his shoulder. Once she dozed off and, when she woke up again, she found that he had laid his cheek against the top of her head and was himself asleep.

Again she felt like weeping. Her chest was tight and sore from the necessity of holding back her tears.

It was sometime after that, when it seemed to her that they must surely not be very far from Bath, that he set one arm right about her shoulders, turned her to him, lifted her chin in the cleft between his thumb and forefinger, and kissed her.

His mouth felt shockingly warm in contrast to the chill of the air. She heard herself utter a low moan, and she wrapped her arm about his neck and kissed him back with all the yearning she felt.

“Frances,” he murmured after a long, long while. “Frances, what the devil am I going to do about you?”

She drew away from him, sat back in her seat, and eyed him warily.

“I think,” he said, “we ought to ask ourselves if it is really necessary to say good-bye to each other when we arrive in Bath.”

His words were so exactly what she had been dreaming of hearing all day that her heart lurched with painful hope.

“I teach school there,” she said. “You have your own life elsewhere.”

“Forget about teaching,” he said. “Come with me instead.” There was a reckless intensity in his eyes.

“Come with you?” She frowned, and her heart raced enough to make her breathless. “Where?”

“Wherever we choose to go,” he said. “The whole world is out there. Come with me.”

She set her shoulders across the corner of the seat, trying to put a little more distance between them, trying to think clearly.

The whole world is out there.

It
was
reckless.

“I do not even know anything about you beyond your name,” she said.

And yet a part of her, that equally reckless part of herself that had waltzed and then lain with him last night, heedless of the consequences, wanted to shout out yes, yes,
yes,
and go off with him wherever he chose to take her—to the ends of the earth if need be. Preferably there, in fact.

“You do not even know my name in its entirety.” He made her a half-bow with a flourish of one hand. “Lucius Marshall, Viscount Sinclair, at your service, Frances. My home is Cleve Abbey in Hampshire, but I spend most of my time in London. Come there with me. I am vastly wealthy. I will clothe you in satin and deck you with jewels. You will never want for anything. You will never need to teach another class in your life.”

Viscount Sinclair
. . . Cleve Abbey . . . London . . . wealth . . . satin and jewels.

She sat staring at him aghast, while her initial euphoria drained away and with it the romantic dream that had fogged her mind since last night—or perhaps even before then.

He was not just an almost anonymous gentleman with whom she could perhaps have disappeared into the obscurity of a happily-ever-after—though even that was a childish and impossible dream. No one was anonymous or even
almost
so. Whoever he had turned out to be, he would have had a family and a history and a life somewhere. He was no fairy-tale prince. And there was no such thing as happily-ever-after.

But the reality was so much worse than anything she could have anticipated or guessed at. He was
Viscount Sinclair
of Cleve Abbey, and he was vastly wealthy . . .

“Viscount Sinclair,” she said.

“But also Lucius Marshall,” he said. “The two persons are one and the same.”

Yes.

And no.

An impossible dream died and she saw him for what he was—an impulsive, reckless aristocrat, who was accustomed to having his own way regardless of cold reality—especially where women were concerned.

But perhaps reality had never been cold for him.

“Forget about having to work,” he urged her. “Come with me to London.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “I enjoy teaching.”

“And perhaps,” he said, “convicts enjoy their prison cells.”

His words angered her and she frowned. She was reminded that this was the same man as the one who had so angered her just two days ago with his arrogant, high-handed behavior.

“I find that comparison insulting,” she said.

But he caught her hands in his and pressed his lips first to one palm and then to the other.

“I absolutely refuse to quarrel with you,” he said. “Come with me. Why should we do what neither of us wishes to do? Why not do what we
want
? I cannot say good-bye to you yet, Frances. And I know you feel as I do.”

“But you
will
be able to say it next week or next month or next year?” she asked him.

He looked sharply up into her face, his eyebrows raised.

“Is that why you hesitate?” he asked. “You think I would make you my mistress?”

She
knew
he would.

“Is it marriage you offer, then?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

He stared at her for what seemed a long while, his expression fathomless.

“In truth,” he said at last, “I do not know what it is I offer, Frances. I just cannot bear to say good-bye, that is all. Come to London with me and I will find you lodgings and a respectable woman to live with you as a companion. We may—”

She closed her eyes briefly and shut out the sound of his voice. It was clear he had not thought this through at all. But of course, he did not need to. He was not the one being asked to throw away all that had given anchor and meaning to life for three years. His own life would remain much the same as usual, she supposed, except that he would have a new mistress—and of course it
was
as a mistress that he wanted her. He had looked somewhat stunned when she had mentioned marriage, as if it were something he had never heard of.

“I will not come with you,” she said.

Even as she spoke the words, though, she knew that she might still have been tempted if it were not for one fact—London was the one place on this earth she could never go back to. She had promised . . .

There was something else too. When he spoke of clothing her in satin and decking her in jewels, he sounded so much like other men she had once encountered that she could not avoid seeing with blinding clarity the sordidness of the future that would be awaiting her if she gave in to this longing to grasp at anything that would save her from having to say good-bye to him.

The thought of never seeing him again was almost unbearable.

He squeezed her hands painfully. “I will remain in Bath with you, then,” he said.

For a moment her heart leaped with gladness at his willingness to be the one making the sacrifice—but only for a moment. It would not work. He was Viscount Sinclair of Cleve Abbey. He was a wealthy, fashionable aristocrat. He lived much of his life in London. What would Bath have to offer him that would keep him there indefinitely? If he stayed, they would be merely postponing the inevitable. Nothing could ever come of any relationship between them. And no relationship satisfying to him could exist between them in Bath. No sexual relationship anyway—and no other type would satisfy him. Good heavens, she was a teacher!

There simply
was
no future for them. Some realities were that stark, and all one could do was accept them.

She shook her head, her eyes on her hands still clasped in his.

“No,” she said. “I would rather you did not stay.”

“Why the devil not!” he exclaimed, his voice louder and more irritable—the voice of a man unaccustomed to being denied what he had set his heart on.

She tried to withdraw her hands, but he held on, squeezing her fingers and hurting them.

“The last couple of days were very pleasant,” she said. “At least, yesterday was. But it is time to get back to normal life, Mr. Marshall—Viscount Sinclair. It is time for both of us. I will never be your mistress and you will never marry me—or I you for that matter. There would be no point, then, in trying to prolong what was merely a pleasant interlude in both our lives.”

“Pleasant,”
he said, sounding more than irritable now. He sounded downright thunderous. “We spent a day in close company with each other and a night in bed together, and it was
pleasant,
Frances?”

“Yes.” She kept her voice steady. “It was. But it was not something that can ever be repeated. It is time to say good-bye.”

He stared at her for a long time before releasing her hands. His eyes had flattened, she noticed, so that she could no longer read any of his thoughts or feelings in them. His expression had changed in other ways too. His mouth had lifted at the corners, but not really in a smile. One eyebrow had risen. He had retreated behind a mask of cynical mockery. It felt as if he had already gone away.

“Well, Miss Allard,” he said, “it seems that I was right about you at the start. It is not often I am rejected by a woman. It is not often my lovemaking is damned with such faint praise as to be called
pleasant
. You have no wish for any continuation of our acquaintance, then? Very well. I shall grant your wish, ma'am.”

In one short speech he had turned into a chilly, haughty aristocrat who bore little resemblance to the Lucius Marshall who had held her and loved her through the night.

She had expressed herself poorly, she realized.

But how else could she have expressed herself when she must have said essentially the same thing? There was no point now in telling him that his lovemaking had been earth-shattering, that her heart was breaking, that she might well mourn his loss for the rest of her life.

None of those things was true anyway in all probability. They were all true today, but tomorrow they would be a little less so and next week less so again. It was in the nature of strong emotion that it faded away over time. Her own previous experience had taught her that.

They sat silently side by side until finally—it seemed like forever, and it seemed far too soon—they were entering the outer limits of the city of Bath.

“You see?” he said, his voice so normal that her heart lurched again. “I told you I would deliver you safely to your school.”

“And so you did.” She smiled brightly, though he did not turn his head to see. “Thank you. I appreciate your coming out of your way more than I can tell you.”

“Miss Martin will be relieved to find that she is not to be one teacher short for tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes, indeed.” She was still smiling. “This evening is going to be a very busy one, with classes to prepare for tomorrow and everyone clamoring to share their Christmas stories with me.”

“And you will be happy to be back at work.” It was not really a question.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” she assured him. “Holidays are always welcome and always pleasant, but I enjoy teaching, and I have good friends at the school.”

“Friends are always important,” he said.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” she agreed brightly.

And so their last few minutes together were frittered away in bright, stilted, meaningless chatter as they avoided touching or looking into each other's eyes.

The carriage turned onto Sydney Place and passed Sydney Gardens before turning onto Sutton Street and then onto Daniel Street, where Peters drew it in ahead of another carriage, which was disgorging a few passengers, including a young girl, and a mound of baggage outside the two tall, stately houses that together comprised Miss Martin's school.

“Hannah Swan,” Frances murmured. “One of the junior girls.” As if he might be interested.

He reached into one of his pockets and drew out a visiting card. He folded it in two, pressed it into her palm, closed her fingers about it, and raised her hand to his lips.

“You may prefer it if I remain in here unseen,” he said. “This is good-bye after all, then, Frances. But if you should have need of me, you will find me at the address in London written on that card. I will come immediately.”

Her eyes had been fixed on the button that held his greatcoat closed at the neck. But now she raised them to gaze into his—hard, intense hazel eyes. There was no mistaking his meaning, of course. His jaw too looked hard and very square.

“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said.

By that time Peters had the door open and was setting down the steps.

“If they had any more baggage in that there coach,” he said conversationally, jerking his head in its direction, “the springs would be dragging on the road. You are staying in there, are you, then, guv? Too lazy to stretch your legs? Right you are, then. Give me your hand, miss, and mind this puddle.”

She turned quickly and descended hastily to the pavement. Within a moment she was swallowed up in the bustle surrounding the other carriage as baggage was lifted down from the roof and sorted and carried inside.

She put her head down and hurried past without a backward glance.

7

Although there was a great deal of commotion in the hallway
inside the school doors with Hannah Swan standing there and both her parents taking their farewell of her and admonishing her with all sorts of last-minute advice, Mr. Keeble, the elderly porter, found time to greet Frances with a bow and wink at her and inform her in a quiet aside that
some
teachers would go to any lengths to avoid returning to school one moment sooner than they must. And Claudia Martin patted her on the arm, welcomed her back, told her she was glad to see her safe, and promised that they would talk later.

But she was not to avoid a more effusive welcome, Frances found. Even before she reached the head of the stairs she met two more junior girls on their way down to claim Hannah, and they chattered and giggled at her for a whole minute without stopping, telling her something about Christmas that she could scarcely comprehend. And no sooner had she arrived upstairs in her room, shut the door behind her, undone the ribbons of her bonnet with her left hand and tossed it onto the bed, and blown out air from her puffed cheeks than the door burst open again after the merest tap of a knock and Susanna Osbourne came hurrying in to catch up Frances in an exuberant hug.

“Oh, you wretch!” she cried. “You have given Anne and me two sleepless nights, and even Miss Martin was worried, though she would insist that you are far too sensible to have risked putting yourself in any danger. We pictured you frozen into an icicle in some snowbank. It is
such
a relief to see you back safe.”

Susanna was the youngest of the four resident teachers at the school. Small, auburn-haired, green-eyed, exquisitely pretty, and vivacious, she looked far too young to be a teacher—and in truth she was still only a
junior
teacher, promoted two years before after six years as a pupil at Miss Martin's school. But despite her small stature and youthful looks, she had succeeded at the difficult task of winning the respect and obedience of girls who had once been her fellow pupils.

Frances hugged her in return and laughed. But before she could say anything, she was caught up in another hug by Anne Jewell, one of the other teachers.

“I assured Susanna, just as Claudia did, that you are far too sensible to have left your great-aunts' house in such inclement weather,” she said. “I am glad we were both right, Frances. Though of course I
did
worry.”

Anne was loved by staff and pupils alike. Fair-haired, blue-eyed, and lovely, she was also even-tempered, approachable, and sympathetic to even the lowliest, least intelligent and well-favored pupils—especially to them, in fact. If she had favorites, they tended to be among the charity girls, who made up half the school's population. But there were always those few girls of more elevated social status who lost no opportunity to remark upon the fact that Miss Jewell—with a significant emphasis on the
Miss
—had a young son living with her at the school.

Even Frances and Susanna did not know the full story behind David Jewell's existence, though Claudia Martin doubtless did. They were firm friends, all four of them, but even friends were entitled to some secrets. And as for David, he had a nursemaid all to himself as well as several unofficial teachers and was adored by the girls and spoiled by the staff. He was a sweet child nonetheless, and he had great artistic talent and potential, according to Mr. Upton, the art master.

“Well,” Frances said, “I am quite safe, as you see, though I am two days late and dread to think how much work will be facing me for the rest of today. I did, of course, remain with my great-aunts until early this morning and so you need not have worried at all. They sent me back here in their own carriage.”

And friends were sometimes entitled to lie to one another.

She could not
bear
to tell the truth. She could not bear the look of sympathy she knew she would see in their eyes when she came to the end of her story.

“Work or no work,” Anne said firmly, “you are going to have tea with us, Frances, and relax after what I am sure has been a trying day. I do not suppose the roads were at their best, and you would have had nothing but your own company to distract your mind from a contemplation of them. But no matter. You are safe now, and Claudia has ordered tea to be served in her sitting room in ten minutes' time. Susanna and I have decided to be utterly selfless and not fight you for the chair by the fire.”

They both laughed, and Frances smiled brightly.

“I will certainly not argue that point,” she said. “And tea will be very welcome. Give me ten minutes to comb my hair and wash my hands and face?”

Anne opened the door.

“All the girls have now arrived,” she said. “Hannah Swan was last, as usual. Matron has them all firmly under her wing. So we can
relax
for a whole
hour
.”

“We want to hear everything about your Christmas,” Susanna said. “Every last detail. Including a description of every gentleman you met.”

“No, only the handsome ones, Susanna,” Anne said. “And the unmarried ones. We are not interested in the others.”

“Ah. In that case an hour may be just long enough—if I talk fast,” Frances said.

They went on their way, laughing merrily.

Frances sat down abruptly on the bed. Her legs would not have supported her if they had stayed one minute longer, she was sure. She shut her eyes tightly. She felt very close to hysteria, though she knew she had far too much pride to give in to it. What she wanted to do more than anything else on this earth was burrow beneath the covers of the bed and lie there, curled into a ball, for the rest of her life.

If she were to look out through her window, she knew, the street below would be empty.

He was gone.

Forever.

By her own choosing.

He would have taken her with him. Or he would have stayed in Bath.

She clenched both fists in her lap and fought panic, the foolish urge to rush back downstairs and outside in the hope of somehow catching up to his carriage before it disappeared forever.

It was hopeless—
hopeless
. He was not only Lucius Marshall, gentleman. He was also Viscount Sinclair. He lived most of the time in London. She could never return there, and she could never move in high circles again—even if he had ever asked her to. He would not have done so, of course. He would have made her his mistress for a while, until he tired of her. And that would have happened. What had been between them during the past couple of days was no grand romance, after all.

She was in no doubt that she had done the right thing.

But doing the right thing had never seemed bleaker.

This is good-bye after all, then, Frances.

She swallowed once, and then again.

And then she heard the echo of his final words.

But if you should have need of me, you will find me at the address in London written on that card. I will come immediately.

She opened her eyes, realizing that her right hand was still clenched about the card he had placed there. She opened her hand and looked down at it, still folded in two, the partially opened sides facing away from her.

It was over. They had said good-bye. He would come again with assistance if she should need it—if she discovered that she was with child, that was.

But it was over.

Very deliberately she folded the card once more, tore it across and across again, and as many more times as she could before dropping the pieces into the back of the fireplace. She recognized the rashness of what she did. But she had sent him away. She could never now appeal to him for aid.

“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said softly before turning determinedly to the washstand and pouring cold water into the bowl.

Ten minutes, Anne and Susanna had said. She would look presentable by the time she arrived in Claudia Martin's sitting room. And she would be smiling.

And she would be armed to the teeth with amusing anecdotes about Christmas.

No one was going to know the truth.

No one was even going to suspect.

 

Lucius spent the following week at Cleve Abbey and then removed to London even earlier than he had planned, too restless to remain alone in the country with his own thoughts—or, more to the point, with his own emotions.

The latter consisted predominantly of anger, which manifested itself in irritability. Being the rejected rather than the rejecter was a new experience for him in his dealings with women. It was also, he supposed, a humbling experience and therefore good for the soul. But the soul be damned! The very idea that anything good might come of his experience only added to his ill humor.

What could be good about losing a bedfellow one had only just begun to enjoy?

That Frances Allard had been quite right in ending their budding affair did nothing to alleviate his irritability either. When he had made his offer to take her to London with him, he had not stopped to consider in what capacity he would take her there. But it could not have been as a wife, could it? Devil take it, he had just promised to wed an eligible bride before the summer was out, and he did not imagine that either his grandfather or his mother would consider a schoolteacher from Bath in any way eligible.

He had always been impulsive, even reckless. But this time part of him realized that if she had taken him up on any of his suggestions, he would have found himself in an awkward position indeed. He had not only promised his grandfather, he had also pledged himself to turn over a new leaf, to become a responsible, respectable man, perish the thought. He was going to court a wife during the spring, not indulge his fancy with a new mistress.

And that was what Frances would have been if she had come with him. There was no point in denying it. He could not have kept her long. Part of turning over a new leaf involved committing himself to one woman for the rest of his life—the woman he would marry.

It was time to say good-bye, Frances had told him. They had enjoyed a pleasant day or two together, but it was time to get back to normal life.

Pleasant!

That particular choice of word still rankled for a while even after he had arrived in London and immersed himself in the familiar daily round of his clubs and other typically masculine pursuits with his numerous friends and acquaintances.

His lovemaking had been
pleasant
. It was almost enough to make a man weep and tear his hair and lose all confidence in himself as a lover.

She had done him a favor by saying no. She really had.

Which fact made ill humor cling to him like an unwanted headache.

But it was not in his nature to brood indefinitely. And there was plenty to occupy his mind, in addition to the familiar pleasures of town life.

There was the fact that he was now living at Marshall House on Cavendish Square, for example, and that soon his mother and sisters were there too. There was all the novelty of being part of a family again for an extended period of time and being involved in all their hopes and fears and anxieties over the coming Season—in which he was pledged to play an active role this year. Emily was to make her come-out and needed to be properly outfitted for it and her presentation to the queen. And he needed to court a bride.

And there was the fact that Portia Hunt was expected to arrive in town immediately after Easter. His mother reminded him—as if he could have forgotten—at breakfast one morning after reading a letter from Lady Balderston.

“I will write back to her this morning,” his mother informed him, “and tell her that you are already in town too, Lucius, and living at Marshall House this year and planning to escort your sisters to a number of
ton
events.”

In effect, his mother would be announcing to Portia's mama that he was poised to take a bride at last. Why would someone of Viscount Sinclair's reputation be planning to attend balls and routs and Venetian breakfasts and such like events, after all, if he were not seriously in search of a leg shackle?

The Balderstons and Portia—as well as the Marquess of Godsworthy, her grandfather—would come to London, then, fully expecting that a betrothal was imminent. Lucius did not doubt it. It was how society worked. A great deal could be said and arranged—especially by women—without a direct word ever being spoken. The direct word would come from him when he finally made his call on Balderston to discuss marriage settlements and then made his formal offer to Portia herself.

The mere thought of what awaited him was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.

However, he might be pleasantly surprised when he saw Portia again. It struck him that it must be two years or so since he had actually held any sort of conversation with her. Perhaps seeing her again would help him focus his mind on duty and the inevitable future. After all, a man must eventually marry. And if he must, and if the time happened to be now, he might as well marry someone eminently eligible and someone he had known most of his life. Better the devil you know . . .