A Prior Attachment (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  Lucy and Coralee had divided up the parcels and were watching her anxiously while the other pedestrians split like a river going around an island in its centre. They were beginning to attract attention. One or two men stopped to stare curiously at the pretty girl leaning heavily on a masculine arm.

  “Look, Lucy, you and Miss Fairmont go on to the hotel. It’s only another block. If necessary, I’ll carry Lady Gemma.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” hissed the accident victim in horrified protest. “I’ll be able to walk in a minute. Do go on, girls. We’ll follow directly.”

  “Lady Gemma is right. There’s nothing you can do. We’ll take it very slowly.”

  Reluctantly, Lucy allowed Coralee to pull her forward. Gemma put her injured foot down and cautiously leaned a little weight on it, though John’s arm was still taking the major strain.

  “Shall I carry you? What do you care what a lot of strangers think? It’s only a short distance in any case,” he persisted, eyeing her colourless cheeks with concern.

  “All the more reason to do it myself,” she said between gritted teeth. She did manage the feat with the support of John’s strong right arm. It was uphill all the way and her progress was slow and painful, but she was depending less on the supporting arm when they finally entered the hotel. Still, it was impossible to conceal her relief when at last she subsided into a chair in the room their host had hired for the luncheon.

  “Shall I call for cold cloths for your ankle, Gemma?” asked Lucy, hovering over her friend.

  “It will be fine after a rest. Your brother can tell you that I was walking much better at the end. I do hope lunch is ready. I’m starving.”

  John took the hint and went to see about their order. The York House had upheld its reputation, and they enjoyed a bountiful meal planned around a roasted chicken brought to the table for their host to carve. The girls were especially pleased with some tender early asparagus served with a delicious lemon-flavored sauce. Lucy, eyeing the array of jellies and tarts with which the meal ended, knew that her brother, who preferred fruit and cheese, had tried to cater to what he imagined were feminine tastes.

  The light conversation ranged from details of their shopping experiences to a list of all the places John must see if he were to claim that he had indeed visited Bath. Gemma and Lucy solemnly reminded him that a pilgrimage to Queen’s Square to gaze at Miss Climpton’s Seminary, which had had the privilege of educating them, was an inescapable obligation for a loving brother and friend.

  Coralee was amused. “A shrine, in fact. Do not fail to treat it with proper reverence.”

  John took out a pocketbook and made a note. “Anything else?” he inquired, pencil poised.

  Lucy and Coralee giggled and Gemma smiled, but the dimples were barely visible. He had kept an unobtrusive watch on her throughout the luncheon and was nearly persuaded that her ankle, far from being forgotten as one would expect of a momentary wrenching, was causing her increasing discomfort. Despite earlier claims, her appetite had definitely waned, for she had merely made a pretence of eating. Her hands were frequently in motion, and a look of strain had come into her face. He glanced around the table and concluded that a suggestion of leaving in another five minutes would not be too pointed. Meanwhile, he would send a servant with a message for the coachman.

  The door that opened to admit the servant also admitted Malcolm and George Godwin, very pleased with themselves for arriving in time to share a glass of wine and plan the afternoon’s activities. At that moment John wished them both at Jericho.

  “It is the most perfect summer day imaginable,” said Captain Godwin with enthusiasm. “We thought a walk through the Sydney Gardens would be a pleasant programme for the next hour or so.” He smiled around the table but failed to notice that two of the faces that looked back did not share his enthusiasm. “The owner of a spectacular parasol such as that one —” he nodded toward the pink-and-white-striped confection of ruffles that reposed against a chair — “must wish to parade it before as many of the town’s elegant ladies as possible.” This time the smile was just for Coralee.

  “How did you know it was mine?” she asked, fluttering golden-brown lashes as she opened those beautiful eyes to their widest.

  “Clairvoyance,” he responded promptly, “not to mention an innate fashion sense that tells me that this particular parasol would not compliment Gemma’s yellow gown or Miss Delevan’s blue and white.”

  Gemma broke in on the captain’s light-hearted nonsense. “I am so sorry, George, the Sydney Gardens must be lovely at this season, but I stupidly twisted my ankle on our way here and I fear I could not quite manage the walk today.”

  “Not even if you were to take my arm and lean on me the whole time?” The captain’s caressing smile was aimed full strength at Gemma now.

  She swallowed once and shook her head. “I am sorry.”

  “Do not be such a baby, Gemma. You managed to walk here on the ankle,” her cousin said impatiently.

  Lucy pushed back her chair. “Gemma, let me see your foot!” Ignoring the surprised looks of the others and Gemma’s protests, she grasped the back of her friend’s chair and wrenched it away from the table unceremoniously, kneeling down beside her.

  “Good Lord, Gemma, why didn’t you say something earlier? This ankle should have been bound the moment we arrived. You must be in agony.”

  John had risen almost as soon as Lucy, and as he stood looking at the puffed-up ankle, his expression was as nearly grim as anyone had ever seen it. Fortunately, the sufferer had surreptitiously untied the strings to her sandal during luncheon, but he was in total agreement with his sister’s diagnosis. Brushing aside Lady Gemma’s embarrassed protests that it could wait until she got home, he was about to ring for a waiter when Malcolm volunteered to go out at once for a bandage. John nodded his thanks. When the waiter came in a moment later to clear the table, he ordered cold cloths and brandy for Lady Gemma and stood over her like an avenging angel until she had swallowed a modest amount of the loathsome stuff from sheer inability to hold out against his determination.

  At this point Lucy took over from her brother, ordering that Gemma be moved to the one upholstered chair in the room and her feet raised to another chair. Bypassing the question of permission, John lifted her and accomplished the transfer expeditiously though not without additional pain to the patient and, therefore, to himself. By this time the cold cloths had arrived. Lucy applied them immediately. It was too late to prevent swelling, of course, but in conjunction with raising the injured foot, now shoeless, they helped to ease the constant discomfort that had turned the past hour into an endurance trial for Gemma.

  When Malcolm returned a few minutes later, Gemma was able to smile at him and thank him for his kindness. Lucy, all business, interrupted to advise her friend to let John wrap the ankle as he was more skilled then most at achieving the desired support with the least discomfort to the patient. Again, John hadn’t waited upon permission. He had already dragged a chair from the table over to the spot and was unrolling the bandage, which he proceeded to wrap most securely and neatly about the injured foot.

  Miss Fairmont and Captain Godwin, after suitable expressions of shocked sympathy, had been relegated to the fringes of the action during this time, in the unenviable position common to witnesses of accidents whose good intentions could find no method of expression.

  Now Coralee spoke solicitously, “Poor Gemma has had a trying time. I should not think it advisable to subject her to the jolting of the carriage until after she has rested. Could we not hire a bedchamber where she may lie down for an hour or two? The rest of us could pass the time walking in the gardens so that she might have complete privacy, unless she should wish Miss Delevan to stay with her.”

  This suggestion did not find favour with Lucy, who had assumed the direction of the affair. Looking at her friend’s downcast eyes and pallor, she gave it as her firm opinion that the sooner Gemma was home, the better it would be. Joh
n, who was speaking with a waiter at the door, looked around and announced that the carriage had arrived. Captain Godwin, acting with the speed of a soldier accustomed to making quick decisions, bent over and picked up his old friend in his arms.

  “I’ll take great care not to jolt your foot,” he promised with a tender smile.

  After a rather searching look at his concerned face, Gemma closed her eyes and relaxed against him. Malcolm Godwin held open the door, and after scooping up all their possessions, the others trailed in procession out to the waiting carriage, where Gemma was established as comfortably as possible. John had lingered inside for a moment to beg the loan of a couple of the hotel’s pillows, which he handed up to his sister to arrange as best she might to cushion the ride for the injured ankle. The carriage door was closed and the driver given the signal to start.

  CHAPTER 12

  As anyone who knew her could have predicted, the next few days proved exceedingly difficult for Lady Gemma, but perhaps even more so for her family, whose combined efforts to see that she did not delay her recovery by imprudent behaviour were scarcely appreciated by the recipient and were disregarded whenever possible — that is to say, whenever the eye of authority was temporarily removed. One of her active nature would always chafe at any physical restriction, and for the next four days it was impossible to fit a shoe on her swollen foot. Of necessity she was confined to a sofa, but she refused to be confined to her room. After breakfast in her bedchamber, she was carried to her mother’s sitting room by her brother or one of the footmen, and there she remained for much of the day, sewing with the women or reading when the rest of the feminine population was elsewhere. A tray was brought into the room at lunchtime, and she was carried to the blue saloon at teatime. To her fell the task of writing the invitations for the waltzing ball, but she was glad of any task that would shorten the hours of confinement.

  Not that she remained as confined as the doctor ordered by any means. On the third day after the accident she appeared in the small dining parlour for lunch, having hopped from the sitting room with the assistance of a nervous footman.

  “Hallo, everyone,” said a breathless but triumphant Lady Gemma as she thankfully dropped onto the chair Mr. Delevan jumped up to pull out for her. “I hope we are having something nice for lunch. I’m starving.”

  She turned to thank her escort, ignoring the looks of consternation that had spread over the faces of most of those gathered around the table, but now a chorus of protest arose.

  “Dearest, you should not!”

  The duchess’s soft expostulation was nearly drowned out by her niece, who warned, “You are likely to get a permanently thick ankle.”

  “Most unwise of you, niece,” pronounced Lady Sophronia.

  The reluctant invalid assumed a meekly penitent air that fooled no one, and proceeded to consume her usual sustaining meal in company. When her father granted Mr. Delevan permission to carry her back to the room she was beginning to regard as her prison, she ventured no more than a token protest, but the trek was accomplished in mutinous silence on the lady’s part and patient resignation on the gentleman’s. This was possible because he well knew that Gemma’s forgiving nature would make any slight forfeiture of her regard merely temporary. In this instance, he was rapidly reinstated into her good graces by being the prime mover in a plan to establish her under the trees in a shaded part of the garden the next day. Any change of scene was welcome, of course, but one of the first things he had noted about the duke’s daughter was her preference for the outdoors.

  Visitors proved to be the salvation of that trying period when Gemma was confined to a couch. Mrs. Biddleford and her two eldest daughters called to commiserate with Gemma on the fourth day after the Bath trip, to find her comfortably established on a day bed that had been moved into a shady area near the rose garden. Only Lucy, sketchbook in hand, was keeping her company at the time, but the advent of callers brought the other ladies outside and kept Stansmere and his minions busy carrying extra chairs to the garden. Eventually the Godwin brothers arrived, accompanied by Lady Godwin, and the result was a sizable al fresco party that doubtless increased the work of the servants threefold.

  John, noting the smiling face of a very junior housemaid enlisted to fetch and carry during the impromptu party, wondered if anyone else realized, as he had recently, the extent to which Gemma was held in affection by the staff employed in her father’s house. Ever since she had been carried into the house with her bandaged foot dangling over his arms and her brown eyes dulled by the pain she refused to acknowledge verbally, the footmen and maids had fallen all over themselves to offer her assistance, and the chef had been sending up special treats to tempt an appetite that never needed tempting. John had been in the duchess’s sitting room on two occasions in the past two days when a maid had popped her head in to see if there was something she might do for the young mistress. Watching her now as she smiled and chatted with the Misses Biddleford — pleasant enough girls, though one had an irritating laugh — he marvelled that she should remain so unconscious of that quality that drew people to her. It was one of her strongest attractions, at least for him, though certainly not the only one.

  Lady Gemma gave a little bounce in her chaise and winced as her untimely enthusiasm resulted in a twinge in the ankle. The smile was back in a second, but Captain Godwin leaned forward solicitously.

  “Did that hurt very much? Shall I call for some extra cushions to elevate the foot?”

  “Of course not, George. It was nothing but a momentary twinge from moving too quickly. I am fine really.”

  “You must take great care not to aggravate the injury as it heals. We cannot have you sitting among the dowagers at the waltzing ball.”

  Nothing disturbed the calm friendliness of John’s expression, but his face was not in accord with his thoughts at that moment. The injury to Lady Gemma had produced an increase in attentiveness on the part of her old friend that was causing her silent suitor no little trepidation.

  From the beginning of their acquaintance, John had known that his must be a game of waiting if there was to be any chance at all for him to win her affections. Lady Gemma believed herself in love with Captain Godwin and was set on opposing her father’s plans for her future. On the point of retiring from the fray, John had taken heart from the captain’s correct and charming manner on greeting the girl who had been faithfully awaiting his return for two years. He was convinced no man in love could have suppressed all sign of tenderness, of desire, at the moment of meeting that shyly revealing glance. The presence of Miss Fairmont, with her provocative beauty and dedicated coquetry, had nourished his hopes of seeing the old attachment wither away painlessly. The incident after the horse race, though unpalatable and regrettable, might have served to hasten the process. But perhaps he had indulged optimism too far.

  Miss Fairmont’s narrow-eyed glance at her cousin and Captain Godwin indulging in a brief tête-à-tête confirmed his own impression that there had been a shift in the balance of the captain’s attentions. He was ever the consummate ladies’ man, John acknowledged with some rancour, skilled in leaving each female with the notion that she was especially attractive to him. Coralee Fairmont with her inviting ways had been the prime beneficiary of this talented performance up to now, but the emphasis had shifted to Gemma Monteith these last few days. Captain Godwin brought her little gifts of fruit and flowers daily and the latest novels from the lending libraries in Bath to help her while away the tedium of her incarceration. And there was no denying that Lady Gemma was blooming under the influence of his attentions. This much was plain for anyone to see.

  What was less clear was the reason for the shift in the captain’s favours. Had his infatuation with Miss Fairmont run its course in such a short span? Had Lady Gemma’s accident and subsequent stoic bearing shown him suddenly where his true affection lay? Was he just being kind in trying to cheer up an old friend, or was he perhaps trying to make Miss Fairmont jealous by his attention
s to her cousin? The imputation of this last unworthy motive to the captain gave John no satisfaction, but though he struggled with his own demon of jealousy, he couldn’t entirely dismiss it, for he did not believe that Captain Godwin was in love with Gemma now, whatever might have been his feeling for her in the past. His interest in Miss Fairmont, though disguised at present, was intense and had not waned. He did nothing so crude or obvious as to ignore her; he simply refrained from competing for her favours while she perfected her flirtatious technique on his brother Malcolm or John himself. John had found that the method that served him best in his own tightrope walk was to go along with Miss Fairmont’s flirting in the playful manner of an adult indulging a precocious child. Malcolm Godwin, though an obvious admirer of the fair Coralee, was of a retiring nature and seemed more comfortable in the company of Lady Gemma, a preference that he was demonstrating at the moment, much to the chagrin of one of the Biddlesford girls, the one with the cackling laugh.

  The whole complexity of relationships between the sexes being played out here at Monteith Hall this summer would, he imagined, be fraught with piquancy for an emotionally distant onlooker such as the absent Major Barton, but he was too deeply involved himself to appreciate the evolving pattern or derive any true enjoyment from the pulsing of its separate strands, unless the strand that was Lady Gemma should pulse unhesitatingly in his direction. It had been clear from the start that his knowledge of her prior attachment prevented him from taking the initiative in his own quest, but there was nothing to gainsay his seeking to consolidate his present position whenever opportunity offered. If he were restricted to the blunt sword of an insidious accretion of platonic feelings… Well, even blunt swords were formidable weapons if used forcefully, and platonic feelings had been known on occasion to convert to something warmer.

  Consequently, John was not slow to act when a situation conducive to such consolidation presented itself the next day.