A Prior Attachment (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  John was in no humour to attempt conversational brilliance either, but when they had circled the floor twice with only three monosyllables from Lucy in response to idle observations on his part, he subjected her to a closer examination. Despite the heat produced by hundreds of candles and dozens of warm bodies revolving about the ballroom, the slight pallor noted by the duchess earlier still prevented his sister from being in her best looks. The simple lines of her gown showed off her magnificent figure and that mauve shade flattered her colouring; her hair was most becomingly arranged and glowed with red lights whenever she passed near the candles; but the grey eyes looked absent and she smiled with effort when he complimented her on her performance in the dance. Brotherly concern prompted his next remark.

  “You are not enjoying yourself tonight. What is wrong, my dear?”

  She did not attempt to deny his observation, but neither was she forthcoming. “It is an inappropriate place to choose to indulge a fit of the dismals, is it not?” She achieved a movement of her lips that might be called a smile. “Never mind, I shall try to do better.”

  “Lucy, what is it? Is there something I can do?” he persisted, unwilling to leave matters as they were if any action on his part could restore her spirits.

  She shook her head. “No, nothing. There isn’t even anything I can do — at least, there is but I am not going to be given the opportunity.”

  As John digested this, a twinkle appeared in his eyes. “In case you are labouring under the impression that you have just explained something to me, let me hasten to disabuse you of that notion. I remain completely in the dark.”

  At that she looked up and gave him a natural smile. “No, I know. The truth is that I’ve done something terrible. But a party is not the time to be making confessions. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”

  “Shall I take you in to supper?” John asked in haste as the music ended.

  “I am promised to Mr. Accrington, a friend of Mr. Godwin’s. Gemma asked us to join them. Why do not you come too?”

  “I’ll try,” he promised as Mr. Accrington came up just then to collect his partner.

  In the end, John found himself engaged with a party of very young men and girls that included Lord Gresham and some of his cronies as well as the younger Biddlesford girl, who was a decided improvement over her sister even if she had little to say for herself. The most vital contribution he made was to exert a restraining influence on some of the choicer spirits in the group to keep the general hilarity from disturbing those around them. He had thus interpreted a message from the duchess’s dark eyes entreating his assistance when she spotted her son’s noisy crowd arriving en masse at the long buffet table in the supper room. Actually there was not an ounce of harm in any of them, and it was a pleasure to witness people diverting themselves happily with no thought to tomorrow’s problems.

  John had ample time to observe that Gemma and Lucy contrived to leave the impression of greatly enjoying the company of their escorts. Like Captain Godwin and Coralee, they were continually surrounded by admirers. Of Lord Oliver he caught no glimpse during the whole time he remained in the supper room. Since he didn’t dance and wasn’t of a gregarious nature, an evening such as this must be decidedly boring for the former soldier. The last time John had seen him was when he had noticed his broad shoulders vanishing into the card room before the second waltz.

  The refreshments were up to the high standard he had come to expect from the duke’s kitchen. The young people devoured ham and cold meats, lobster patties, salads, and ices as if they had been fasting for days, and then went back into the ballroom refreshed and eager to expend more energy on the daring German dance that had taken the country by storm.

  John made one more attempt to secure a dance with Gemma. As she left the supper room on the arm of Mr. Godwin, he planted himself squarely in her path. This graceless manoeuvre was necessitated by her persistent refusal to meet his eyes all evening.

  “I trust you have saved me the second dance I requested early in the evening, Gemma. When is it to be?” A bland smile masked the fact that his assumed confidence was as false as her start of surprise at finding him in front of her.

  “Why, Mr. Delevan — I mean, John,” she amended hastily as his brows rose at this form of address, “how you startled me, popping up like a genie. I am so sorry, but the remaining dances are already promised.” As he continued to look at her gravely, she mounted a feeble defence. “It has been such a busy evening, has it not? The time has simply flown by. Not seeing you in the ballroom earlier, I fancy I must have assumed you had grown tired of dancing and had joined the party in the card room. I am so sorry.”

  The brittle tone and meaningless social smile that accompanied this lie would have confirmed his fears that his beloved was intentionally avoiding him, if confirmation had been wanting. There was nothing to do but accept his dismissal with what grace he could muster.

  “I am more than sorry to be deprived of the great pleasure of waltzing with you,” he said quietly, taking some small measure of comfort from the brief flicker of what he was going to call shame that appeared in her eyes as he bowed.

  He turned aside and his glance met that of his hostess, whose expression revealed that she had witnessed her daughter’s rejection of him and was both surprised and disturbed. He managed a reassuring smile for her before taking himself off to the card room, feeling he had contributed his full share to the success of Miss Fairmont’s ball.

  Breakfast was poorly attended the morning after the ball. With the exception of Lucy, all the ladies elected to remain in their rooms to recruit their strength. The duke was in his usual place and facetiously congratulated the Delevans on their stamina. What conversation there was centred naturally on last night’s successful event. His guests were quite sincere in offering their thanks for the splendid entertainment provided, and their host was quite honestly gratified to accept it.

  When his sister had finished her second cup of coffee, John suggested a walk in the gardens, to which she readily acquiesced.

  They strolled in companionable silence for a few moments while he tried to make an assessment of her mood. It was evident that she had taken pains with her appearance this morning. She was wearing a crisp dress of a cheery deep pink and her abundant chestnut locks were neatly confined by a ribbon of the same colour. He suspected that in any lighter colour she would look a trifle washed out, and now that they were alone, the unhappy look was back in her eyes as she wandered aimlessly among the rose bushes.

  “Isn’t it time you opened the budget and told me what’s wrong, dear?” he asked, plunging right to the heart of the matter. “Last night you said you had done something terrible, which I confess has had me in a puzzle because you don’t do terrible things as a rule. Are you certain you are not merely feeling mopish over some trifling misunderstanding?”

  “It isn’t a trifle, John, and there was no misunderstanding. I called Lord Oliver a coward, and now he won’t even speak to me — at least, he bowed and said good evening, but he didn’t even look at me. He never came near me all evening, so how could I apologize? I cannot write him a note; it would not be at all the thing, would it? So what am I to do?”

  Beyond a slight widening of his eyes, her brother remained his placid self during this impassioned outpouring, but she had succeeded in surprising him. Somehow he had not connected a man with her unhappiness, and if he had suspected such a thing, Lord Oliver would have been his last choice. She was standing before him with her hands gripped together, gazing up at him imploringly. To gain time while he gathered his wits about him, he took her arm and led her to a wrought-iron bench, pushing her gently down onto it when she simply stood there.

  “Don’t you think you had best tell me the circumstances under which you called Lord Oliver a coward?” he asked when he had seated himself beside her.

  About to launch into her tale, Lucy was brought up short by the recollection that she and Lord Oliver had been discussing John’s fe
elings for Gemma at the time. Her brother had never given her any hints on this subject, and she could not bring herself to broach it. She was scrambling around in her brain trying to decide how to avoid mentioning John when he reminded her, “I can’t help if I don’t know the whole story, love.”

  “I … we were talking about someone flirting with Coralee Fairmont, and Lord Oliver said it meant nothing, that everyone flirted with her.” She paused and John waited patiently. “I reminded him that he didn’t flirt with her, and he said that was different.”

  John nodded encouragingly when she looked at him.

  “I asked why it was different for him and he became angry. At first he didn’t say anything, just looked thunderous, but I persisted, and he said, all soft and menacing with that black scowl of his, that he was in a different category, that like hunchbacks and idiots, he was out of the competition.”

  Her voice had risen in pitch with the telling, and now she raised questioning eyes to John, whose lips had tightened, but he maintained a waiting silence. Lucy continued with a rush, “I was so stunned, appalled that he could feel that way, and then I became angry too, angrier than I can ever remember being. I … I told him he acted as if the bullet had hit his brain, not his arm. But … but that wasn’t the really terrible thing.” A film of tears shimmered in her eyes, and John took her hand in a comforting clasp. “I reminded him that he had another arm and said I thought self-pity was cowardly.”

  When she did not go on after a moment or so, John prompted gently, “What did Lord Oliver reply to this accusation?”

  “He didn’t say anything. I did not give him a chance to reply. I ran into the house.”

  “How disconcertingly feminine of you, my dear,” murmured her brother. Had it not been for Lucy’s very real distress, he’d have laughed outright at a vision of Oliver Barton of the acidulous tongue being left with no object upon which to vent his fury. He stared frowningly at their clasped hands. There could be but one explanation for such torment, of course, but he’d been too wrapped up in his own delicate affair to notice that his little sister was falling in love with the misanthropic major.

  “What should I do, John? Should I write him a note of apology?” Lucy ventured in a timid voice, breaking into his thoughts.

  He fixed her with a penetrating stare. “You are in love with Lord Oliver, are you not?”

  “Yes, but that is beside the point.”

  “I beg to differ with you. It is very much to the point. Does he return your regard?”

  “Of course not! It would be a dreadful mésalliance. Why, his family is almost as old as the Monteiths, and I … we are —” She broke off as it struck her of a sudden that John’s birth was as far removed from Gemma’s as hers was from Lord Oliver’s.

  “We are very newly arrived?” he finished for her. “Encroaching perhaps, to dream of allying ourselves with the nobility? That would matter to some, but I have not found Major Barton to be at all high in the instep. I don’t think the question of pedigree is one with which he would concern himself if he were in love.”

  “Well, he isn’t in love,” she enunciated flatly.

  John could not add to her sufferings by agreeing that he had seen no sign of a developing tendre on Lord Oliver’s part. He had taken Lucy’s hand upon his knee and now he sat there in musing silence playing idly with her fingers while he sought to recall the most recent occasions on which he had met Lord Oliver. They had not been frequent of late. The man had been occupied with the series of hot baths and had not called at the hall in some time. He and Gresham had ridden with the men from the manor on occasion, but he could not recall the last time he had seen Barton here, apart from last night, of course. Or, wait, had it not been the day Lucy had gone off painting and Lord Oliver had escorted her back for tea? They had been quite late, he remembered, and Lucy had been a bit dishevelled in appearance. He had noted in passing that the generally taciturn major had been quite garrulous that day, taking charge of the limping conversation. It had been immediately afterward that they had heard of his treatment, and until last night he had kept away from the hall.

  A thought struck him and he raised his head. “When came you to have this unfortunate conversation with Lord Oliver?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Was Lord Oliver here yesterday? I did not see him.”

  “Why, yes, he came with Captain Godwin. Did you not have tea with them?” Lucy was looking puzzled.

  John’s eyes were veiled by half-closed lids. “I had no tea at all yesterday. There were things I wished to see to before the dance.”

  Lucy did not pursue the subject. “Would it be improper of me to send him a written apology?”

  “Do you wish to apologize for what you said?” queried her brother, regarding her curiously.

  “Of course I do! I had no right to say such a terrible thing to him.”

  “Apart from breaking the rules of civility, was it the truth, or perhaps I should say did you believe what you said at the time?”

  “Yes, I did. Don’t you think self-pity is cowardly?”

  “Yes,” replied John, smiling gently at her, “but I can understand his feeling that he has no right to offer marriage in his circumstances. A man has his pride, my dear.”

  “But to renounce marriage for such a nonsensical pride is stupid,” cried Lucy, aghast at such a display of masculine idiocy. “The arm would not matter in the least to a woman who loved him.”

  John looked into honest grey eyes and nodded. “He may come to realize that one day. We must hope for it for his sake. Meanwhile, I should not write to him just yet. No doubt he will be calling with the Godwins in a day or two and you will have an opportunity to make your apology in person.”

  Although Lucy meekly accepted her brother’s advice, John was proved quite wrong in his prediction. Lord Oliver did not accompany the Godwins when they arrived for tea that afternoon, and when he did call three days later, he was alone and came for the sole purpose of taking his leave of the Monteith ménage.

  The Godwin brothers found the young ladies sitting rather listlessly on the terrace when they arrived, victims of a post-party decline in spirits. Actually, it would better serve the cause of strict accuracy to state that two of the young ladies were victims of this malaise. Miss Fairmont had been in tearing spirits, but her attempts to generate a post-party discussion had met with discouraging resistance in the form of polite monosyllables from Lucy and stubborn silence from her cousin, who was uncharacteristically engrossed in a piece of needlework. Coralee greeted the gentlemen with pleasure not unmixed with relief.

  The eager light in Lucy’s eyes when Stansmere had announced the callers faded as the two men came forward. It was a case of self-discipline rather than inclination that prompted her participation in the conversation that ensued, and she greeted the appearance of her brother and Lord Gresham with heartfelt relief, grateful to be able to fade into the background. Though she did not volunteer any observations unsought, she was aware of the ebb and flow of talk and the shifting and reforming of conversational groups as the minutes passed. The senior members of the family drifted out for tea, which necessarily altered the emphasis but did not reverse some disturbing trends she had noticed.

  The main target of Captain Godwin’s charming attentions was Miss Fairmont. There was nothing particularly surprising about this. Except for a few days when Gemma was indisposed with her sprained ankle, he had always gravitated toward Coralee within the bounds of conduct acceptable in a gentleman paying calls. In fact, after what had passed between the two yesterday, Lucy would not have been astonished to hear an announcement of a betrothal. Captain Godwin could not be considered a splendid match for the well-connected young heiress, but somehow it had always seemed to Lucy inconceivable that Coralee should fail to get her own way in anything upon which she had set her heart.

  The really disturbing observation she had made in the past hour concerned her dear friend Gemma, a girl whom Lucy had hitherto conside
red incapable of the provocative kind of behaviour that was so typical of Coralee. Today, Gemma was conducting a flirtation in her cousin’s style with the basically inarticulate but very willing Malcolm Godwin in full view of everyone. If that had not been sufficient to attract censorious attention, she was also subjecting Lucy’s much-loved brother to a cavalier off-handedness that made her old friend long to box her ears. From her vantage point, Lucy had noted the initial surprise and dismay on the gentle features of her hostess before that lady’s habitual vagueness of expression was assumed to shield her from prying eyes.

  His daughter’s outrageous behaviour had not been lost on the duke either. Only an obstinate refusal to meet his glance could have enabled Gemma to remain oblivious of her father’s glowering disapproval. Even the essentially self-engrossed Coralee was conscious of a change in her cousin, and Lucy intercepted several speculative glances the blonde cast in her direction. As for John, his loving sister was proud of his cool grace and impeccable manners in such trying circumstances, but her heart ached for his pain. Her own nerves were at screaming pitch by the time the Godwins took their leave, and she took advantage of the stir of farewells to escape to her own room.

  Gemma was not so quick off the mark as Lucy, but knowing it was incumbent on her to put some distance between herself and her parents, she evaded them with a practiced manoeuvre and headed for her bedchamber by a circuitous route. She was more than a little astonished on opening her door to find her cousin installed in a round boudoir chair facing the door. She remained standing with one hand on the latch and no expression whatsoever on her face as she gazed at her unexpected caller.

  After enduring several seconds of that unnerving scrutiny, Coralee said pettishly, “Aren’t you going to close the door?”

  “That depends. What do you want?”

  “Merely to know what game you think you’re playing, putting on that ridiculous exhibition with Malcolm Godwin.”