Simply Unforgettable (18 page)

The door opened and the steps were set down.

Viscount Sinclair sat where he was. So did Frances.

“Some people,” Peters muttered from outside on the pavement, “would like to get to their beds sometime tonight.”

“Damn your impudence!” Viscount Sinclair exploded with what sounded like genuine wrath and was out of the carriage in a flash. “If I choose to keep you up past your bedtime, Peters, you may choose at any time to quit my service and good riddance.”

“Right you are, guv,” the coachman said, sounding quite uncowed. “I'll let you know when that time comes.”

Viscount Sinclair turned to hand Frances down. He led her to the door of the school, which opened as they approached it. Keeble stood peering out like a suspicious parent, a frown on his face.

“Well, Frances,” Viscount Sinclair said, his hands clasped at his back. “It would seem that this is good-bye—again.”

“Yes.” She fought panic.

They gazed at each other for a long moment in the faint light of the lamp burning in the hall. He looked very grim and square-jawed. Then he nodded his head twice, turned abruptly, and strode away back to his carriage.

Frances stepped inside the hall without looking back, and the door closed behind her.

It was over.

Again.

But it was over.

14

It was an enormous relief to Frances to find the school in
darkness apart from the single lamp burning in the hall and a candle at the top of the stairs. She had half expected to find her friends waiting for her in the hallway as they had been when she left for the assembly.

Keeble made some comment to the effect that he had been just about to lock up for the night and go to bed. But instead of laughing at his little joke, as she normally would have done, she dashed past him with no more than a hasty thank-you and good night and hurried upstairs before he could say anything more.

She was almost safely past Miss Martin's sitting room on the way to her own room before the door opened.

“Not now, Claudia,” she said. “I hope I have not kept you up. Good night.”

As soon as she was in her room, she cast herself across the narrow bed, facedown, and covered her head with both arms as if she could thereby shut out everything that threatened her, even thought.

He promised Grandpapa at Christmas that he would take a bride this year, and I suppose she will be Miss Hunt, who has been waiting for him forever.

How foolish—how utterly
ridiculous
of her to have been so upset by those words.

I am not yet betrothed to Portia Hunt.

Not yet.

And between the two—between hearing of his impending engagement and marriage from Amy and his own admission of it in the carriage, she had let him kiss her. She had even kissed him back.

Though a
kiss
was a very mild way of describing their hot embrace.

She half heard the tap on her door and ignored it. But a few moments later she was aware that someone had come into the room and was sitting quietly on the chair beside her bed. Someone touched her arm, rubbed it lightly, patted it.

“I suppose,” Frances said, removing her arms from over her head though she did not turn her face, “if I said I had a wonderful time and am now so tired that I am too weary even to undress for bed, you would not believe me.”

“Not for a single moment,” Claudia said.

“I did not think so.” Frances turned her head without lifting it. Claudia was sitting very upright, her hands folded in her lap, looking her usual composed, rather severe self. “I did have a wonderful time. I danced every set, including one with Mr. Blake and one with Mr. Huckerby's brother-in-law. And then I made an idiot of myself when Viscount Sinclair brought me back here. I allowed him to kiss me in the carriage—indeed I did somewhat more than just allow it. But I already knew that he is about to be betrothed, that soon he will be married.”

Claudia looked at her tight-lipped.

“It was as much my fault as his,” Frances said. “I allowed the kiss. I wanted it. I was eager for it.”

“But you,” Claudia said, “are not about to be betrothed, Frances. And I suppose he initiated the embrace. It
was
his fault.”

Yes, it was. If it was true that Miss Portia Hunt was waiting for him in London, that he was to marry her this year—and it
was
true—then he ought not to have spoken to her as he had in the carriage. And he ought not to have kissed her.

“What is it about me, Claudia?” she asked wearily. “Why do I always attract the wrong men? And why is it that when I do attract the right man I cannot fall in love with him? Is there something wrong with me?”

“Sometimes,” Claudia said, “particularly when I hear you sing, Frances, I understand that you are a deeply passionate woman with a romantic heart. It is a dangerous combination for a woman, all the more so perhaps because women are expected to be nothing else but a bundle of tender sensibilities and there are plenty of men who are quite ready to take advantage of the fact. Life can be a tragic thing for us. It is safer, I have come to believe, for a woman to make a person of herself, to be proud of who or what she is and to grow comfortable with herself, regardless of what others say of her or expect of her—particularly the male world. If she is very fortunate—though admittedly it is rare—a woman can live independently of men and draw contentment from the world she has created for herself.”

She got to her feet and crossed the room to the window, where she stood looking out into darkness, her spine very straight.

“That is what I did three years ago,” Frances said wearily, “when I came here. And I have been happy, Claudia. I thought nothing could shake me from that contentment, until I ran into a snowstorm while I was returning here after Christmas.”

“I suppose,” Claudia said, her voice soft and pensive, “there is no such thing in this life as perfect happiness, Frances. We can only do the best we are able to make our lives tolerable. I sometimes think there must be more to being a woman than this, but
this
is what I have chosen for myself, and I would rather my life as it is than as it might be if I were the possession of some man, or else dependent upon the males of my own family.”

“And when one falls,” Frances said, pulling herself up into a sitting position at the edge of the bed, “one must simply pick oneself up and start all over again. The most simple of adages are often the wisest.”

“Except that in your case,” Claudia said, turning her head and half smiling, “you do not have to start right from the beginning again. Your classes await you tomorrow and your choirs and music pupils—and they all adore you, Frances. And your friends will be waiting eagerly at the breakfast table to hear all about the splendor of an assembly at the Upper Rooms. They so much want and even need to hear that you enjoyed yourself.”

Frances smiled wanly. “I will not disappoint them,” she said. “And then I will be ready to administer a French oral examination to the middle class, and to smile and praise my music pupils so that they will be inspired to reach greater heights. I will not let you down, Claudia.”

“I am absolutely certain you will not,” Claudia said. “We all learn to bury a broken heart beneath layers of dignity, Frances. You have done it for more than three years, and you will do it again. Good night.”

After she had gone, Frances heard the echo of Claudia's words and frowned at the closed door—
We all learn to bury a broken heart . . .

Had Claudia ever done that?

Had she?

I am not yet betrothed to Portia Hunt.

Not yet. But you soon will be.

She got wearily to her feet and began to undress.

 

Although the Earl of Edgecombe rose early the following morning for his usual visit to the Pump Room to drink the waters, it was obvious to Lucius that he was weary from his exertions of the night before. He was certainly in no state to travel all the way to London. Yet he still insisted that when his grandchildren returned there, he would go with them rather than go home to Barclay Court. He wanted to see his friend Godsworthy again. He wanted to witness the progress of the courtship between Lucius and Portia Hunt—though he did not mention her by name.

He wanted, Lucius knew, though he did not say as much, to be part of the excitement that would surround their betrothal and planned wedding.

Lucius was desperate to leave Bath even though only London and Portia and marriage awaited him. He had behaved badly after the assembly—and even during it, by Jove. He had gone out of his way to remind her of the first time they had danced together and to arouse her out of her controlled enjoyment of the evening. And then, in the carriage, when as her escort he was supposed to be protecting her from harm . . .

Well, he had been unable to deny himself the indulgence of that one last kiss. That was the trouble with him—he was not accustomed to exercising self-control, to
thinking
before he acted. Heaven knew where that embrace would have led if she had not put a firm stop to it.

And yet the very fact that she was always so sensible and controlled when he
knew
that passion throbbed just behind the facade and occasionally burst through for tantalizingly brief moments—that very fact irritated him almost beyond endurance.

They did not leave Bath the day after the assembly, then. Neither did they leave the next day since Amy, who had gone shopping with Mrs. Abbotsford and her daughter the day before, had been invited to join them and young Algernon Abbotsford on an excursion to some village not far from Bristol and begged permission to be allowed to go with such tragic certainty that she would be denied the treat that Lucius could not resist giving in to her.

One day longer was neither here nor there, he supposed.

His grandfather too went off to visit a friend during the afternoon, leaving Lucius with altogether too much time on his hands and too many unwelcome thoughts to weigh on his mind.

Dash it all,
when
had the promise he had made his grandfather come to be seen as a definite commitment to marry Portia Hunt? Had he ever stated aloud to anyone that she was going to be the one? But then, if not Portia, who? He
had
committed himself to choosing a bride—an
eligible
bride.

There could be no less appealing prospect.

The perfect and perfectly eligible bride!

The word
perfect
and all its derivatives should be stricken from the English language together with the word
pleasant
. The world would be a better place without them.

He sat with a book and brooded and fumed and schemed and despaired and cursed his lot in life for a whole hour before snapping the book shut—he had not read a single page—and striding out of the sitting room. He set out on a brisk walk down into the center of the city, along by the river, over the Pulteney Bridge, and along Great Pulteney Street. By the time he reached the end of it, he had stopped even pretending to himself that he had come walking for the benefit of his health, that his direction had been random, but that since he had come this way he might as well take a solitary turn about Sydney Gardens.

He was not a man much given to aimless or solitary walking. He favored far more vigorous exercise for his health. Besides, it was not a day that invited a pleasure stroll. It was gray and blustery and chilly. He might have spared a pitying thought for Amy, who had set out on the excursion with such exuberant hopes, except that he was quite sure the presence of young Algernon in the party would render her totally oblivious to inclement weather.

No, he was not out for a pleasure stroll. Here he was turning onto Sutton Street instead of crossing the road to Sydney Gardens, eyeing the school on the corner with Daniel Street, and remembering that it was Saturday and there would be no classes today—a fact that did not necessarily mean that she would be free, of course. It was a boarding school. Someone had to look after the girls and entertain them even at the weekends.

What the
devil
was he doing here?

He stood for a moment frowning at the front door, wondering if it would be more cowardly to knock or to turn tail and flee. He was not by nature a ditherer—or a coward. Or a thinker, for that matter.

He stepped up to the door, raised the brass door knocker, and let it fall against the door.

All of two minutes must have passed without any response, leading Lucius to the conclusion that the porter did not actually live in the hall, within one foot of the front door, but only occupied it when he was expecting someone. But it was he who eventually opened the door and peered out. His expression immediately turned both sour and suspicious.

“Ask Miss Allard if she will grant me a few minutes of her time,” Lucius said briskly, stepping over the threshold without an invitation.

“She is giving a lesson in the music room,” the porter told him.

“And?” Lucius raised his eyebrows.

The man turned and walked away, his boot heels squeaking on the hard floor.

“You had better go and wait in there,” he said ungraciously, nodding his head in the direction of the visitors' sitting room.

When he was alone inside the room, Lucius stood at the window looking out on the meadows beyond Daniel Street and wishing he were anywhere else on earth but where he actually was. He was not in the habit of pursuing unwilling females, especially when the world was so full of willing ones. But it was too late to run away now.

He could hear the distant sounds of girlish laughter and a pianoforte playing—and then not playing. Across the meadow a group of girls, presumably from the school, was playing some organized game. The teacher supervising them looked like the auburn-haired one—Miss Osbourne. He had not noticed them when he arrived—which said something about his preoccupation. They were probably all shrieking their heads off.

When the door opened behind him, he half expected to turn and see Miss Martin again. But it was Frances herself, looking white to the very lips, who stepped inside. She closed the door behind her back.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was actually shaking, but whether from shock or anger or some other emotion it was hard to say.