A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Bridget Barton

  Another combined gasp.

  "Hannah!" Their father was genuinely worried now.

  Hannah took another step forward. "Don't you think we all see the truth? You two laughing in the corner; understanding each other's jokes, sharing secret histories. It's apparent. I shouldn't even have to say this in public—everyone already knows."

  "Hannah, you don't understand," Emelia ventured. She wanted to explain everything, the silly "pact" that had really just been a joke between her and Brody; the conversation they'd just had in the shadow of the fern, her own heart for Montgomery, but there were too many people present to exert that kind of honesty. Hannah, it seemed, didn't share the same qualms. She was now making a full-blown scene, her eyes flashing; her words tumbling over each other.

  "Just because I am younger doesn't mean I'm denser than you, Emelia. I understand more than you know. I understand that a man and a woman can't be friends all this time without falling in love with one another, but I'd be alright with that, really I would, if you hadn't kept it from me." There were tears in her eyes now, and her voice softened. "Emmy, I trusted you. I thought you would always be there for me. I was so, so wrong."

  Then she turned and fled, her hand to her face, her sobs soft and fading out of the door as she made her way home through the darkness. Emelia saw shock on Brody's face. He turned and looked at her, and there was guilt there as well.

  "What did you tell her?" Emelia asked Brody. He just shook his head, and too late Emelia realised that this line of questioning only confirmed to the gathered guests what Hannah had already planted in their minds: that Emelia and Brody had been engaged secretly all this time.

  Emelia turned and looked at Montgomery. He had stood at some point during Hannah's outburst and when she turned he met her gaze with those steady eyes of his. There was no more twinkling in their depths. She couldn't read the vast oceans contained there, but she could only imagine what he thought.

  "I should go," she said softly, the rest of the room blurring around her. Lady Michelle, the guests from town, even her own father faded from view. All that she saw was Montgomery's distant eyes.

  "No," he said quietly. "I should."

  He turned on his heel and was gone.

  Chapter 31

  Montgomery was not a man well-acquainted with feeling like a fool. He would have admitted that to anyone before Hannah Wells' explosion at his brother's house party, but now more than ever he felt the painful self-knowledge and realisation that for him this feeling was altogether new, and therefore even more painful.

  What had he thought, after all? That a few weeks with Emelia would somehow cover over all the years she'd spent with Brody? When Montgomery had first started feeling for the little woman with the dirty blond hair and the deep, dark eyes, he had argued to himself that she would never feel for him as she did for his little brother.

  But then, as the days passed during his rehabilitation, he'd felt those cool hands again and again on his forehead; played countless games in her company, listened to her lovely voice drawing the sickness from him as if by magic, and he'd dared—foolish man that he was—to dream that she might love him.

  Brody knocked on his door as he packed, but Montgomery didn't want to hear his explanations. He could already hear them now.

  "You know, old chap, I didn't realise you would take it so hard. What's the matter, anyway? Do you have a little crush?"

  He didn't have a crush. He was in love with Emelia, and he had nowhere to put that love now that he knew there was no hope. Nowhere, that is, except where he'd always buried his worst pains and trials during his life—his work.

  Yes, medicine would welcome him back with open arms. It would provide a shoulder upon which to cry, but even better than that, it would offer up a vast chasm into which he could pour all his emotion and caring so that there were never any tears—never again.

  He slept through the night, and when he woke early in the morning he found that Brody was still abed. His mother, however, was sitting downstairs in the breakfast room.

  "Montgomery," she said as he walked past the door. "Come in here, please."

  He stepped into the room, hoping his face was as impassive as he wished it to be. "Yes, mother?"

  "Are you just going to go about your day as though the events of last night were nothing? I was there, you know." She shrugged, and in that moment Montgomery saw a bit of Brody in her. "I may be quieter than that Wells girl, but I have just as many opinions on the issue of Emelia and Brody."

  Montgomery put a hand to his head. It was too early in the morning to feel a headache starting.

  "I don't really want to talk about it." He came in and put a hand down so that his fingertips skimmed along the top of the table. "I am glad that I caught you, after all. I think I'm going to go back to London. I'll pack over the next few days and then leave as soon as possible."

  His mother pursed her lips together. "Montgomery, no."

  "You knew this was never going to be a permanent stay," he sighed, feeling suddenly tired again.

  "But now? You aren't going back to London, you're running from here."

  Montgomery didn't answer that. She might be right, but what did it really matter if he was running to or from something? He just wanted to be free of that dark-eyed little woman. "I can't talk about this right now. I'm going on a walk, mother."

  He took to this hills outside, walking in long strides until his illness-weakened sides ached with the exercise. He meant to walk along the lane to town, but after a time he found that he'd looped back along one of the worn paths and was making his way to the bit of creek where he'd once studied the dragonflies. He wasn't surprised, after all the time that he'd spent thinking about her, when he saw Emelia perched on the bridge.

  Her legs were hanging over the side and trailing in the water; her hair was hanging loose and long around her shoulders, and her shoes and stockings were sitting in a pile beside her. He turned to go, but she noticed him and called out, scrambling to her feet and standing barefooted on the bridge. Those Wells girls: barefoot in nature and making scenes at parties—they never were much for decorum.

  He walked down towards her, because as flippant as she was with the rules of society, he knew better than to turn his back on a lady during a chance meeting.

  "Miss Wells."

  "Dr. Shaw." She tucked her bare feet beneath the hem of her dress and laid her hand on the rough wood of the bridge. "I'm glad I caught you."

  "Me too." He cleared his throat, coming to a stop a few feet from her. "I was going to tell you and your father that I was thankful for the hospitality and friendship you showed me over the past few weeks, but my time is long overdue. I'm leaving for London as soon as possible to return to my patients and my duties there."

  He watched her face go from casual worry to genuine concern. "No," she said, then, as though catching herself, "I mean…why?"

  "As I said. I have responsibilities there."

  "Is this about last night?" She took a step forward. "I know that what Hannah said was alarming. We have much to work out, my sister and me, but I don't want you to be frightened away by her behavior. She knows she stepped over a line. If you could have heard my father last night—"

  "I don't think you really want to relive the events of last night," Montgomery said quickly, "so I see no need to speak about the subject."

  "That is gracious of you." Emelia waited for a moment, and Montgomery turned as though to go. "Wait." Her voice was soft, but insistent. "Would you like to know what I was just thinking about on the bridge?"

  Montgomery didn't really want her to put words to it, and as he answered her he heard the edge of bitterness in his own voice. "My brother?"

  "No." She blushed furiously. "Your brother and I—there was a pact of sorts—I'm getting off track. I am in love with someone, but it's not Brody."

  "You certainly leap back quickly from heartbreak." There, he was crossing a line, and he knew it. He could see the look of hurt on her fac
e, and the confusion. He tried to soften his words. "I know that it is hard when something has ended—something that you cared deeply about—but you mustn't mistake your rebounding crush for anything real."

  She pressed her lips together tightly, looking at him in that knowing way of hers. "You are making a lot of assumptions, Dr. Shaw."

  "Actually, your sister's outburst last night made it so that much of the county is now free of that accusation," he responded curtly. "We none of us have to make assumptions now that we are all so equally in possession of the facts."

  "But you don't understand the facts in their entirety." Emelia stepped forward. "What if—what if it wasn't about Brody after all? What if there was someone else I had a 'crush' on, as you so crudely put it?"

  Montgomery felt a flutter in his heart and took a step back involuntarily. He had to put distance between him and this witch of a woman. For, though he knew that her words were born out of affection for his brother that had, for some reason, been denied, he was drawn to her nonetheless. He wasn't willing to play second fiddle to Brody Shaw, though. No, he would be no adequate replacement for a girl who was in love with a charming and bright dandy. It was like wanting the sun and getting stuck with the rain.

  "You don't know what you're saying," he said softly. She was young, so young. She didn't understand yet that some broken hearts never heal. She thought she could start up another romance with him, something that would heal her of her Brody heartache, and then move on when that didn't work out. He knew better. He knew if he let himself love her—really love her—he would never recover. He would never want to recover.

  "I do understand."

  "You are just a girl."

  "I'm not!" There was a note of anger in her voice now. She used his first name, the weight of that move slicing into his heart. "Montgomery, I'm not a child anymore. I know what I want."

  He couldn't. He just couldn't. He put out his arm and held her away from him. "Emelia, you're a beautiful girl, but my line of work and my disposition has a habit of spoiling beautiful things."

  ***

  So he didn't love her after all. She had hoped…Emelia stepped away from Montgomery's touch, watching his hand fall to his side. He wasn't taking her suggestions seriously. He wasn't taking her seriously.

  Of course not—she had been so silly; so ridiculously short sighted, to think that a man like Dr. Montgomery Shaw would ever think of her as a viable help meet in life. And now he was leaving. After all of Brody's ridiculous efforts, he was returning wifeless to London.

  She could see him now, spinning in those glamorous circles on the arms of beautiful women, saving lives and then reaping the romantic benefits. He said the bit about spoiling beautiful things because he wanted to protect her feelings, that much was evident. But Emelia knew the truth.

  She knew that he would find some stunning heiress back in London, some woman who was as strong and mature as she was beautiful, and he would settle with her in the kind of bliss that Emelia desired. He didn't understand—no more than Hannah had. The silly marriage pact felt so harmless at the time, but she could see at last what carelessness she and Brody had wrought.

  "You don't believe me," she said quietly.

  "I believe you," he answered, stepping away from her as she had from him. There was something cool and distant in his voice now.

  Right. He believed her; he just didn't return her affection. "When are you leaving?" she asked, the words coming out of her as if another person entirely were speaking them. They sounded cold and hollow in her own ears.

  "Within the next few days. I have some business to handle in the village; some matters to settle with the doctor there. I missed out on the last parts of the epidemic, but I want to speak with him about some issues of cleanliness I noticed while I was working there. I think that some of the disaster is propagated by the clinic itself—they need to boil more water, purify the bandages, etc."

  She nodded. Her throat felt dry. "Perhaps I can help them."

  "Perhaps." He didn't sound doubtful, exactly, just disinterested. He was distancing himself already.

  "Maybe you will stop by our house before you go? Perhaps you will bid us goodbye?"

  He looked at her with serious, unreadable gaze. When she saw those eyes, she didn't just see the doctor standing in front of her now: she saw the man in the clinic bending over patients and ordering about staff to help as many as possible; she saw the tired man falling asleep by Aggie's bedside; she saw the enthusiastic scientist letting a dragonfly live another day; she saw the sickbed pallor and the way he'd smiled when he'd finally awoken and found her near at hand. All these memories crashed on her like an interminable weight now. She wanted to escape it all, but she couldn't—she just couldn't.

  He shook his head. "I don't think it will be necessary to visit your family home. You will pass on the news of my going, I hope, and my fondest regards to your father and your sister?"

  She nodded, hating herself for nodding. Why was she going along with this? Why wasn't she fighting to keep him here by her side? Because he so clearly wanted to be rid of her, that was why.

  "I will give them your regards. Goodbye, Dr. Shaw."

  "Goodbye, Miss Wells."

  He turned and strode back up the hill, the tremor of illness all but gone from his stride. He was recovered, and he needed her no longer. Emelia stayed behind on the bridge for some time after Montgomery disappeared over the hill.

  Like the little stream running beneath her feet, she realised she was no longer of interest to the tall, handsome doctor who'd come home from the city. Whatever interest she might have once seen in his eyes was gone. And she had only herself—her silly, joking, marriage-pact-making self—to blame.

  Chapter 32

  Emelia walked back towards the house with her heart beating dully in her chest. At the edge of the property, she caught sight of Hannah ahead in the garden, sitting in the wooden swing with a book in her hand. Emelia saw her little sister's head raise, look her direction for a long minute, and then Hannah rose from the swing and disappeared into the house.

  They hadn't spoken since last night's outburst. Emelia wasn't exactly ready to talk—not when she had been as wounded by Hannah's outburst and assumptions as Hannah had been by her supposed connection to Brody.

  She turned from the trail leading back to the big house and walked instead along the valley past the gamekeeper's house and up towards the outdoor cooking shed. The shed was only used in the summer when the heat from the kitchen would negatively affect the rest of the house, and it had been cool as of late so Emelia didn't really expect to see anyone inside. However, as she walked past the door, she caught sight of a bit of movement and heard what sounded like a whimper.

  She stopped, and knocked on the door. The sound stopped at once, but Emelia wasn't convinced. She pushed the door own and peered into the gloom. There, leaning against one of the preparations in the far part of the room, was one of the newest kitchen maids—it took Emelia a moment to even recall her name—cradling her left hand in her right.

  "Lily, is it?" Emelia said softly, cocking her head and examining the girl's hand. There was something not quite right about it, but she couldn't tell exactly what it was from this distance. "What's the matter?"

  Girl was an absolute mess of tears and distress now, and she took a few steps away from Emelia while stammering all over her words. "I'm…I'm sorry, Miss. I just needed a moment. I keep trying to get it out but…I'm so clumsy."