Flirtation & Folly

by Elizabeth Rasche

  “Belinda!” Marianne’s shock was too great to say anything further.

  Belinda looked flattered by her reaction and rushed into her sister’s arms. “You have guessed my news!” she cried gleefully. “You are right, Marianne. Mr Nabbles and I are engaged.”

  Mr Nabbles gave a bow, tucking his sizeable stomach with surprising grace. He might be one of the newer rich, but he did have polish.

  “Engaged!” Marianne’s wide eyes went from one to the other.

  Her sister clapped in delight. “Oh, you did not guess! How funny. ’Tis true, Marianne. How pleased Mama will be!” She tilted her head at her intended and tittered. “Now, Nabbles, do go in and tell Lady Sweetser. I must have a nice long talk with my sister.”

  Mr Nabbles bowed again and murmured something complimentary before he shuffled off beyond the park gates. Belinda watched him go and then beamed at Marianne. “There! I have done it. I shall be well and properly married—and better, I shall be well and properly rich. Are you not proud of me, Marianne?”

  “I thought you had gone—where have you been all this time?”

  “Nabbles asked me to take an early morning walk with him. Some nonsense about the sunrise and gold and my hair—I cannot remember it, much less repeat it.”

  Marianne wrung her hands. “You—you left so quietly. I feared what had become of you. You did not wake me.”

  “What a wicked sister you must think me! Of course I was quiet.” She tossed her head, the golden curls bouncing in a petulant manner. “Who wants to be awake at such an hour? If Nabbles had got me out for anything less than a proposal, I should have boxed his ears.”

  Marianne could not suppress a groan.

  “You cannot possibly be disappointed, Marianne. Why, Nabbles is so rich! And he has done ever so many favours for the ministry. He says they will likely grant him a title at some point.” Belinda’s smile broadened. “Money can do anything.”

  “It might not get Mr Nabbles a title.”

  “It is a gamble. But even if I am merely Mrs Nabbles, and not Lady Nabbles, I think I shall be well enough pleased. Aunt Harriet says she looked into his affairs, and he is by far the richest of my suitors.”

  It pained Marianne to even approach the subject, but she had to ask. “But Captain Pulteney—ˮ

  Belinda’s laughter rang out in a way that felt like a rebuke. “I told you I was only playing with the captain! Good heavens, you cannot think I would marry a man with only a measly commission supporting him. La, he’s charming, of course, but—ˮ

  “I was convinced you had run away with him! I saw a carriage rolling away, and he was looking for one that would carry a lady, and you were gone all morning—so early, too—and you and he had been hiding away in corners together!”

  “Oh, that.” Belinda had the grace to look a touch embarrassed. “Do not preach, Marianne, but the truth is I did not hide in corners with him because I liked it. At least, not really. I borrowed a little bit of money from him in London, you see, and he was anxious to get it back for a—a particular purpose.”

  Marianne stared. Borrowing money from a gentleman was even worse than borrowing from a tradesman, for people tended to assume the lady provided particular favours in exchange for the use of the money. “Belinda!”

  “I can see it was foolish, now. That’s why I was so eager to pay it back before he said anything to Nabbles. I had no ready money to speak of, so in the end I gave him a bit of my jewellery, and he went and sold it. It is all done now. I do not owe him a penny.” Belinda’s chest puffed out with pride.

  “But you and Lady Lucy seemed always to be fighting over him. Why, even the maids noticed! They said you both wanted him, but that it was all settled he would end up in your arms—ˮ She frowned.

  Belinda merely sniffed at her sister’s confusion. “Perhaps they meant Nabbles, although I do not think Lucy ever cared for him. No, I know!” She giggled. “They must have been talking about Prince!”

  “Prince?”

  “Why, the runt of Sultana’s litter! Lucy thought she could wheedle her mother into giving him to her, but I coaxed and coaxed until Lady Sweetser promised I could have him. Emily said I ought to get her promise in writing.” She laughed.

  Marianne’s heart pounded. The gently swaying boughs of the trees overhanging the road felt unnaturally close and dark, like they were weighing down and pressing in. “I have made such a mistake,” she whispered.

  “Why, what have you done?” Belinda asked, tilting her head.

  “I sent Mr Hearn on a pointless chase. I thought you and Captain Pulteney had run away together, and I sent him to get you back.” Marianne had expected another peal of laughter, but Belinda only looked subdued, intensifying the dread in Marianne’s gut. “What is it?”

  “It is not completely pointless,” Belinda admitted. “You see, the captain wanted his money back so that he could carry out a particular plan. Lucy was so keen on him, and he knew her parents would never approve—ˮ

  “You cannot mean that Lady Lucy is in that carriage?”

  “It would not surprise me.”

  “And you gave him the money to do it! Poor Lady Lucy!” The maid must have lied when she said Lady Lucy was in bed, or else had assumed rather than checked. Marianne’s sympathies seemed stretched too thin in too many directions, and she hardly knew with whom to be angry: Belinda, for carelessly endangering her friend; Lady Lucy, for upsetting her parents and making a foolish match; the captain, for luring Lady Lucy away; or herself, for jumping to conclusions in a hundred ways.

  “She had a right to run off with him if she chooses.” Belinda shrugged.

  “But she will be miserable!”

  “Very likely. But she would be miserable if she lost him, and she has the right to be miserable in her own way.” Belinda threaded Marianne’s arm through hers and began strolling towards the sweeping lawn of Sweetser Park, where the dilapidated folly stuck out in its anachronistic splendour. “Besides, I do not care for how Lady Sweetser has been treating you. She deserves to be set down a peg. I will wager she did not lift a finger when she thought I had run away.”

  Marianne averted her gaze, and Belinda blew out her breath in a huff. “I knew it! So it is only justice, sort of. Besides, if I had told anyone and spoiled the captain’s fun, he would have told everyone I had borrowed money from him. Mr Nabbles is willing to overlook a lot, but he might have balked at that. So you see, I could not tell.”

  At Marianne’s shake of her head, Belinda’s appeal for reassurance turned into a smirk, even as the tips of her ears turned red. “Well, at any rate, Lady Sweetser was right when she said that she needed a companion because Lucy would get married fast. Very fast, indeed!”

  “Such a mess,” Marianne said.

  “Not for me, it is not. I am very well pleased.” Belinda tugged at her arm. “You are always preaching about being responsible, Marianne, but so far as I can tell I’m a thousand times more responsible than you.” Expressing her frustration seemed only to increase it. “You think that because I cannot rattle off the names of all the kings and queens of England, I have no sense whatever. Everyone always thinks I am a useless doll. Do you remember when little Harriet and Matty got the pox? Mama sent me off to Mrs Walters, whether poor Mrs Walters liked it or not, and yet she said you could not be spared. I could have helped, but she sent me away.”

  “But you know nothing about nursing a sick child.”

  “I could have learned. I could have been useful in the sick-room, or distracting the other children outside it.”

  “I have never seen you mind the children for more than an hour without bursting into tears over how incorrigible they are.”

  Belinda scowled. “I would have made a special effort when Matty’s life was at stake. No one gave me a chance.”

  “You forget that if you had stayed, you might have caught the pox yourself. And then your precious beauty would have been at risk.” Now Marianne was the one who brimmed with petulance.

&nbs
p; “A horrid thing to say. Do you think I have no care for my sisters? I have a heart, Marianne, and a mind too. Indeed, most would say I clearly have more of both than you because I am to be married, and you are not.” Having delivered this sting, Belinda seemed satisfied enough to calm down. The agreeable memory of her engagement no doubt helped to settle her nerves. “I obtained this position with Lady Sweetser for you as well, you know.”

  “I owe you that,” Marianne said, doubting all the while that she would hold the position for long.

  “ ’Tis a good place, I daresay. Certainly Emily is wild to have it. I hope you won’t let her grab it from you.” Belinda returned to her favourite subject. “When I am married, I shall have Clem come live with me. I will give her a Season, only I will not preach as Aunt Harriet does. If you would not preach so much, I would invite you, but we would be at daggers in a fortnight.” She laughed.

  “Clementina is too young yet,” Marianne said.

  “Oh, no. She will have her own room in our house in town, and I will give the most splendid balls. She shall like it enormously.”

  “I did not mean that she would not like it,” Marianne said. “I meant—ˮ

  But Belinda carried on, describing the wonders that awaited herself (and incidentally, Clementina), and Marianne decided that given Clem’s shyness, a little more society and excitement might do her good.

  “Shall you also invite the little ones?” Marianne asked, carefully guiding her steps away from Sweetser Park.

  “Lord, no! Do you think I want strawberry handprints on everything in sight? No, Mama can keep them very well. Perhaps when they are a great deal older, if they are very, very good and I am very, very bored, I may take them for a Season. But Clem will suit me admirably. She is such a quiet creature.” Belinda glanced down the dusty road. “This is not the way to the house, Marianne. I must go in. I have been tramping about all morning, and I am exhausted.”

  Her chatter had not showed any sign of fatigue, but Marianne obediently turned them about. “I will go with you to the gates, but I cannot go into the house.” It seemed a shame to dampen Belinda’s happy day, but she supposed there was no help for it. “I spoke to Mr Lowes at the inn, and I do not think Lady Sweetser would want me to return to Sweetser Park.”

  Belinda was now the one shocked. “You spoke to him?”

  “He is dying, and I had to deliver a message.”

  “But how will you be Lady Sweetser’s companion now? And where shall you go?” Belinda’s breath shot out in a huff. “I do believe I am the most practical person in the world compared to you, Marianne! Imagine throwing away all your chances just to have a look at a sick man!”

  Any lingering hopes Marianne might have had about saving her position dwindled to nothing. Belinda knew Lady Sweetser well, and if she thought there would be no forgiveness or compromise, she was probably right. Even if there had been, Miss Stokes was on hand to console and advise Lady Sweetser—to set aside the old companion and welcome herself into the role. Marianne explained what had happened at the inn to Belinda, but Belinda did not appear mollified by it.

  “Against the doctor’s orders! And it turned out to be all false, you know, except the part about my getting married.” The reminder of her marriage seemed to console her, for the tension around her eyes eased. “I shall tell her, Marianne. I suppose it is left to me to inform her about Lucy as well. La! All the trouble always falls on me. I am sorry for you about the position, though. You know Emily will swoop in and take your place.”

  It would have hurt more if Marianne was not harbouring another hope for her future. Perhaps the Irish countryside was different from England’s. Perhaps any dull country life would be bearable with a man she loved beside her. If Mr Hearn had half the feeling for her that she possessed for him—

  Marianne barely acknowledged her sister’s goodbye, already musing over possibilities, swinging like a pendulum between sweet hopes of romance and a sour reckoning with the rectory. The only thing that revived her from her reverie was the appearance of the man she awaited: Mr Hearn, atop a horse that seemed all too grateful for a slow walk to cool the sweat from its flesh.

  Mr Hearn’s swarthy face had lines of exhaustion stretching out in a hundred directions like a child’s scribbles. “I did not find your sister, Miss Mowbrey,” he said as he brought his horse to a stop.

  “It was Lady Lucy in the carriage, was it?”

  He nodded, seeming relieved that she already knew something about it. Dismounting, he asked, “Did you find your sister, then?”

  “She went on an early walk with Mr Nabbles. They are engaged now.” Her eyes followed the movement of his hand as he wiped sweat from his brow. She felt vulnerable, to be so interested in a gentleman who had done so much for her already. Perhaps he was sick of the sight of her. Perhaps he hated her for delaying his talk with Mr Lowes. “What happened with Lady Lucy?”

  “I caught up with Captain Pulteney and Lady Lucy relatively quickly. I think they expected to be free of pursuit for some hours yet.”

  No doubt. If Belinda had slept in as usual, no one would have thought anything of Lady Lucy and Belinda being abed until late morning, and then it would have taken hours to realise Lady Lucy had not simply been on a walk somewhere. Marianne’s solicitude for her sister and Belinda’s unnatural rising had thrown pursuit hours ahead.

  “Lady Lucy would not listen to reason?” Marianne guessed.

  “Once I overcame my surprise that it was she and not Miss Belinda, I tried to make her see her own folly. But I could not claim any authority from her parents, and she is of age. I could not force her to come away. If it is any consolation, there is no fear the captain will treat her as he did Lady Angela. After that scandal, he knows Lady Lucy is as good a match as he can expect.”

  “True. Her father will bluster, but he will no doubt provide for them,” Marianne said. Something in Mr Hearn’s face suggested further trouble, however. “What is it, then? There is something else.”

  He sighed. “As I was passing through the village on my way here, the doctor flagged me down. Mr Lowes is dead.”

  Marianne could not say she was surprised, but she was saddened. “I am so sorry. You might have had one more chance to speak with him, if not for me.”

  “I do not think it would have made any difference. I could not convince him I was truly sorry for the past.” He gazed into the distance. “The doctor was a witness to Mr Lowes’s last will, made a few days ago. Hearn Hall is to be made into an orphanage.”

  “An orphanage!” Marianne could not understand it.

  “Lowes was an orphan, you know. I do not think he was ever much for charity, but in his last days he must have decided that turning my family home into a home for portionless children would vindicate him and punish me. I could never buy it from any inheritor, this way. The doctor seems to think I could contest the will, that Lowes might not have been of sound mind—or, at least, that as the will was made so late, it could be argued so with a good lawyer.”

  “He seemed sound enough,” Marianne said slowly.

  “I think he was, too. But the opportunity is there,” Mr Hearn said. He brushed at the sticky coating of dust on his coat, but it only settled deeper into the fabric.

  Marianne looked up into his dark eyes, suddenly understanding something Mr Lowes had said. After I die, you will know whether Hearn was truly sorry for tormenting an orphan boy or whether it was all talk. “You will not contest the will,” she said with confidence.

  Amusement flitted over his face. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because you no longer wish to be a farmer. You wanted Hearn Hall to honour your family. Preventing an orphanage will hardly clear your family’s name.” She paused. “Besides, you really are sorry for how you treated an orphan. I think Lowes knew that, in the end.” She smiled at him. “I vouched for you, you know.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “Yes. I told him you were sorry. It was hard for him to believe me, but I think
he mostly did, in the end.”

  “Lady Sweetser will not be pleased that you were exposed to the fever.” Inexplicably, he took her hand. Marianne could not have said why it felt so natural, but it did.

  “Belinda has gone to make my apologies, but I think probably I will be companion at Sweetser Park no longer.”

  His hand tightened around hers. “Then might you consider another future?” he asked, his voice hoarse, and Marianne’s heart leapt in answer. “Would you abandon all hope of London? I know how much it meant to you.”

  There were still giddy visions of routs and dances floating in her head, but they felt filmy and insubstantial, like dreams faintly remembered. Other visions felt more solid. Marianne and Martha, laughing in heedless disregard of the other customers at Gunter’s. Talking with Mr Hearn under coils of fairy gauze at her ball. Her aunt Harriet, awkwardly patting her head. These were the moments that felt powerful and real enough to live on—the happiness fierce enough to be treasured, despite not winning the approval of an audience.

  “I think I wanted what I had read and imagined so badly, I did not think beyond appearances, in myself or in anyone else. I overlooked what was real, even when it felt magical, just because it did not look the way I expected. The London I dreamed of never existed, and even if it did, I do not think it could make me as happy as—ˮ The smile on her face must have told him how she felt about him, even if her words did not. His thumb stroked over the back of her glove, and his face took on that gentle dreaminess she had come to associate with Ireland, but really meant a tenderness of his own.

  “Then will you be my wife, Marianne? I cannot promise any fairy balls, but in India there is a magic all its own.”

  “India?” She drew in a sharp breath. It was not to be a dull country life after all, but something new and exotic. Laughter bubbled up in her. “I think I could bear any place with you, but I might like India even without you.”

  She could understand it, now. Hearn Hall was the last tie broken to his life here—aside from her. It was natural for him to return to the place he felt useful and alive. She squeezed his hand back. “Let us try it, together.”