A Prior Attachment (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  “Oh, dear, I should return immediately, of course,” she said with reluctance, “but another five or ten minutes would see the completion of this picture, and who knows when I shall have the light precisely the same again. Do you think, Major Barton, you might present my apologies and assure the others I shall be along presently?”

  “There is no need to feel compelled to go racing up there only to participate in a daily ritual,” he replied shortly. “And I wish you would not call me that.”

  He had her attention now. “Not call you what?” she asked, pausing to look at him in puzzlement, her brush suspended in mid-air.

  “Major Barton. I have sold out. I am finished with the army, or rather, the army is finished with me.”

  She took no account of his gruff tones. “What shall I call you, then?” she inquired coolly as she returned her attention to the painting in her lap. “Lord Oliver?”

  “Can you not manage plain Oliver?” he replied, to his own surprise and hers.

  “I fear that if I were to address you simply as Oliver on an acquaintance of less than a fortnight, I should be setting myself up for some deserved censure, so Lord Oliver it must be,” she decided after a tiny pause.

  For a long moment, the rustlings of nature were the only sounds audible as the artist continued her painting and Lord Oliver continued his study of the artist.

  “There!” declared Miss Delevan at last, laying aside her brush and holding her work out at arm’s length while she examined it critically. “I feel that though I have not succeeded perfectly in capturing my impression, any additional touches will serve only to detract from what I have achieved.”

  Wondering what had become of maidenly modesty since the days when his sisters had been taught to deprecate their own work as an inflexible tenet of ladylike decorum, Lord Oliver stretched out a hand for the painting and appraised it thoroughly while the artist busied herself with putting away her equipment.

  “You must know by now that your drafting abilities are far beyond the ordinary run of a young lady’s drawings,” he said at last, glancing over to where she stood observing him quietly. “You have a real sense of the structure and solidity of architectural shapes, and yet the effect on this clear day is a rather romantic airiness.”

  A slow smile spread over her still features and the clear eyes held real warmth. “Thank you,” she said simply as she handed over the box of paints for him to carry in exchange for the damp painting. “Actually, watercolour is not my favourite medium,” she confessed as they started walking slowly back across the lawns. “I really prefer to take my time with oils.”

  As the walls of the hall appeared through the shrubbery, they were engaged in a slightly acrimonious but stimulating debate on the respective attributes of their favourite artists.

  Lord Oliver stopped in his tracks. “Miss Delevan, may I ask you something?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied, and waited.

  “I do not wish to pry into what doesn’t concern me, but did something happen yesterday after that abortive race, something more than Miss Fairmont’s fall?”

  For a moment Lucy was at a complete loss. The interlude of painting had been so satisfying, followed by the stimulation of pitting her wits against a sharp mind, that she had lost sight of the main reason she had decamped on a painting expedition in the first place. “What makes you think something might have happened?” she asked to gain time.

  “Well, your evasiveness would have told me if I had not already noticed a bit of an atmosphere in the saloon just now. Yesterday it was perfectly understandable that we should not remain for tea in the wake of concern for Miss Fairmont’s possible injuries, but today I received the distinct impression that all is not well between the cousins. You need not tell me anything that you would regard as a disloyalty; in fact, tell me to mind my own business if you like.”

  Lucy had been thinking rapidly since the beginning of this speech. In a way, it was a relief to learn the Godwins had not reported the scene that had taken place in the wood. How she would like to believe it was because they had set it down to Coralee’s jealous spite! She might not have learned of the incident herself had she not been waiting in Gemma’s bedchamber for a report of Coralee’s fall when Gemma arrived back at the hall. One look at her friend’s red-rimmed eyes and trembling figure had sent Lucy flying for the bottle of sal volatile, and only the most desperate pleading on Gemma’s part had kept her from summoning her maid at once. It had taken a threat of informing the duchess of her daughter’s condition to induce Gemma to disclose the reasons for her pitiful state. Once started, however, she had even referred tearfully to the hurt she must have inflicted on Lucy’s brother in repayment for his kindness and belief in her. On this head Lucy hoped she had been able to convince the younger girl that John would not despise her forever, but on the other count she had been powerless to offer any consolation that was acceptable to the sufferer. Lucy had not seen the accusation in George’s eyes, had not heard the coldness in his voice, had not witnessed his tender concern for Coralee.

  Knowing that nothing less than a full confession from Coralee could completely eradicate the impression the captain had received, and not being so naive as to cherish the least hope of obtaining such a confession, Lucy had decided there was nothing to be gained by a prolonged discussion. She had supported Gemma’s spirits to the extent she was able, and had spent her best efforts trying to convince her friend that the affair would blow over, that if George loved her, he would not allow anyone to make mischief between them. Her efforts would have been more effective had she been able to convince herself that George Godwin did indeed love his childhood friend, but in this task she had been unsuccessful from the start. She feared Gemma was heading for heartbreak if her heart was set on having the captain. She was gripping her bottom lip in her teeth as she relived the scene with Gemma and at first was not aware that Lord Oliver was speaking again.

  “I did not intend to drive you into the silence forever,” he said with a keen glance from dark eyes. “Shall we go inside?”

  “No, not yet,” she replied, desirous all at once of obtaining a disinterested opinion. “Perhaps I should not be telling you this, but you have already been exposed to the consequences.” Quickly she related the scene as told to her, leaving out only the conversation between John and Gemma on the way back to the house.

  His face revealed nothing of his thoughts, but then it never did, and his first reaction was disappointing to say the least.

  “You are so sure your friend is telling the truth? In the heat of the contest, could she not have shut her ears to a cry from her cousin and been ashamed to admit to it later?”

  “Unthinkable!” declared Lucy. “Apart from the fact that she is incapable of such an act in the first place, that race never meant the snap of her fingers to Gemma; she never doubted she would win it. It was Miss Fairmont who was so keen on proving something.”

  “Your loyalty does you credit, but it really boils down to the unsupported word of one girl against the other, does it not? There is not sufficient evidence to judge of who is telling the truth.”

  “I would agree if it were a hypothetical example with nothing known about the character of either person, but such is not the case, is it?” countered Lucy. “My brother and I believe Gemma, and Gemma herself is convinced that Captain Godwin believes Miss Fairmont’s version of the accident.”

  “And whom does Malcolm Godwin believe? Or Lord Gresham?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Nor really care. Would I be presuming too much if I were to postulate that the reason Lady Gemma appears pale and quiet today and is carefully avoiding her cousin’s company — all of which, by the by, was evident to an unbiased observer within five minutes of setting foot on the premises — is because the opinion of one person — and one person only — is crucial to her happiness?” Lucy was silent, and he said quickly, “Forgive me, it was unfair to expect you to answer that.”

  “No,”
she said with a grudging honesty. “Gemma has not admitted it in so many words, but I have received the strong impression that she is in love with Captain Godwin and that it is no sudden thing.”

  Lord Oliver answered the unspoken question in her searching eyes. “George has never confided the state of his affections to me, but again as an unbiased observer, I would have to say that he seems taken with Miss Fairmont’s charms at the moment.”

  “I have thought so too,” conceded Lucy, “but neither of us is in a position to say that Gemma had not good reason to suppose that his affections were hers before he returned.”

  “But believing this,” he persisted, “and seeing his reaction to Miss Fairmont, would it be impossible to conjecture her being so desirous of regaining his admiration that she might allow herself not to hear her cousin’s call for help in order to win that race?”

  “Totally impossible for someone of Gemma’s makeup,” stated Lucy in flat tones. “It is infinitely more conceivable that Miss Fairmont, upon seeing herself about to lose in a bid for admiration, came up with a scheme to ensure sympathy to herself and opprobrium for her rival.”

  “You are very severe. You must dislike Miss Fairmont very much.”

  Lucy sent him an icy glare. “You are quite mistaken, sir. It is no more necessary for me to dislike Miss Fairmont to speculate upon her motives than it is for you to dislike Gemma to put forth your conjectures. For one thing, if Gemma had succumbed to such an ignoble urge, she would be sure to be found out when Miss Fairmont had her say, while Miss Fairmont, with all the advantages of being the accuser, had little to lose, since the race was already lost and Gemma could never prove her innocence.”

  “It seems we are at point non plus, and tea awaits. I am willing to admit that I like Lady Gemma,” he advanced in a provocative vein. “Are you equally willing to claim that you do not dislike Miss Fairmont?”

  “I do not dislike Miss Fairmont,” stated Lucy, disliking her antagonist’s vaunted impartiality very much indeed but striving for a cool exterior that would defeat his penetrating glance. “I am willing to allow her every virtue not incompatible with an extraordinary degree of beauty.”

  “Ah? And what might be the virtues that are incompatible with great beauty?” he inquired with real interest.

  “Humility, for one,” she shot back. “The inclination to share the stage with others upon occasion, for another. A generous spirit and an acceptance of the fact that beauty does not automatically entitle one to first choice of all life’s prizes.”

  He digested this for a moment, then asked slyly, “Is truthfulness incompatible with beauty?”

  “Theoretically speaking, no — practically speaking, upon occasion,” intoned Lucy, refusing to be backed into any corner of his devising.

  “We have reached an impasse,” pronounced Lord Oliver solemnly. “Shall we join the others?”

  Lucy demurred on the reasonable grounds that she must first put away her painting gear and wash her hands, but she was ruthlessly overruled when she attempted to part from Lord Oliver at the top of the stairs. He handed the paint box to a footman, possessed himself of the painting, which he said would provide a welcome diversion, and firmly steered her toward the saloon, grimy hands and all, despite her frantic protests that she had absolutely no intention of submitting her amateur effort for universal judgment.

  “Why this sudden excess of maidenly modesty?” he wondered aloud. “You had no scruples about letting me examine your work a few moments ago.”

  “That was different!”

  “How so? Was my judgment likely to be kinder?”

  “No, of course not,” she protested, feeling out of her depth, “but you were standing right there, and there was only one of you. It was different!”

  Lord Oliver, seeing the agitation in those generally calm eyes, took pity on her embarrassment to the extent that he halted outside the drawing room for a moment. Carefully shifting the now dry painting to a position under his stiff left arm, he took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. Intense dark grey eyes never left her startled light ones as he pressed a deliberate kiss on the backs of slim, paint-streaked fingers, nor when he lifted his mouth an inch to say softly:

  “Trust me that our entrance with your painting will be the tonic that will lift this dreadful gathering out of the doldrums.”

  Before Lucy’s dazed intelligence could summon up a reply, he had pressed another brief kiss on her fingers and ushered her through the door.

  In the blue saloon, matters proceeded exactly as Lord Oliver intended. He apologized for their tardiness, explained to the audience at large that he had taken it upon himself to insist that Miss Delevan stay to finish a painting he knew would give them all pleasure and had further overridden the natural modesty of the young lady to bring it along for their enjoyment. He produced the watercolour sketch with a flourish and led the ensuing chorus of praise, sparking a discussion of landscape painting in general.

  A bemused Lucy sought a seat beside her school friend and endeavoured to efface herself within the shortest possible time. Very little of what was said in praise of her painting actually registered in her mind, and she could only trust that her own murmured responses were not total gibberish and expressed a proper appreciation for the compliments paid her work. The one fact that was impressed upon her, thanks to a speaking look from Lord Oliver, was that Miss Fairmont’s voice was most often and most flatteringly raised on behalf of the painting. His slightly elevated eyebrow seemed to say, “So much for beauty’s being unwilling to share the stage.”

  “Have you ever seen such authority and strength in a female’s painting before, George?” Coralee demanded of the gentleman sitting next to her on the sofa. “I vow I would not dare to show my own poor efforts in company with Miss Delevan’s.”

  “To be sure, Miss Delevan’s work is most accomplished,” replied Captain Godwin, bestowing his warm smile on the embarrassed Lucy for a moment before turning to Coralee to protest, “but you’ve absolutely no call to diminish your own considerable talent. Recollect that I was privileged to see those charming flower sketches you did last week. They showed great flair, did they not, Gemma?”

  “What? Oh, yes, Coralee is quite clever at … sketching.”

  From behind the screen of her long lashes, Lucy’s eyes clouded with compassion as she observed that Gemma’s stony composure was betrayed in part by the white knuckled grip of her fingers on the teacup she raised to her lips. She had avoided looking directly at her cousin for as long as Lucy had been in the room, but she had not been able to prevent a quick glance at Captain Godwin as his dark head bent attentively toward Coralee’s gold curls.

  With the infusion of new life into the tea party, Lord Oliver gradually made his way to a seat near Lady Gemma, whom he succeeded in engaging in quiet conversation for the remaining quarter-hour that the gentlemen from the manor spent at the hall. Good manners alone enabled the dark-haired girl to conceal her initial surprise at being thus distinguished by a man who, in the course of a dozen or so meetings, had displayed no interest whatever in singling out any of the young ladies for his passing attention.

  After the departure of the guests, the party broke up, with the members of the household going their separate ways until just before dinner. Lucy was even more relieved than Gemma to be able to escape to solitude and time for private reflection, for she had been woefully conscious that, with her paint-stained hands and wind-ruffled hair, she had been a scruffy object unfit for her hostess’s drawing room. Despite the acknowledged necessity for a thorough wash, she dawdled over her toilette, her languid movements at great variance with the seething ferment in her mind.

  The subject of her disordered thoughts was the inexplicable behaviour of one large, formerly aloof, and generally cold gentleman of recent acquaintance. Staring down at her knuckles, immersed in soapy water, she conceded that his bullying tactics designed to hustle her into the tea party, though startling at the time, were compatible with his natur
e as revealed up to that point. But whatever had possessed him to kiss her hand in such a … such an intimate fashion? Her cheeks grew hot at the mere recollection of those unreadable dark eyes that had held hers captive while his warm mouth caressed her fingers. Heaven only knew to what extent she might have betrayed herself at the time!

  Her fingers stilled their movements in the water and she stared, appalled, at her flushed reflection in the mirror over the washbasin. He would have attributed any reaction to shocked surprise, of course, which it was! Hastily she withdrew her hands and used the water as much to cool down her cheeks as to wash them.

  His action toward herself had not been the entire sum of his uncharacteristic behaviour either. After seemingly taking Coralee’s part — or at least refusing to accept that Gemma must have told the truth — he had deliberately sought out the latter and devoted himself to her entertainment for the duration of the visit. Was he trying to decide whether she was, in fact, guilty as charged by her cousin? Did it even matter to him beyond an intellectual exercise? Lucy had been furious at his treating the story as such before they joined the others, but at least that was more consistent with the image of aloofness he had projected up to this point. His determination to relieve the tension in the saloon and the successful carrying out of his hastily improvised plan to achieve this end spoke to his quick-thinking mind but was diametrically opposed to his previous behaviour.

  Lucy was jerked out of a fascinating speculation about Lord Oliver’s future conduct toward the inhabitants of the hall by the arrival of a note from her hostess requesting the favour of a short interview before Lucy went down to dinner. A glance at the clock jolted her into action, and by scrambling into her clothes and doing no more to her hair than confining it with a ribbon after a quick brushing, she was able to present herself at the duchess’s door ten minutes before the dinner bell.