Before long, Mrs. Briggs joined him in admiring the prospect. Like her younger sister, she was a pretty woman. Were there nothing but beauties born in Bartley Green and environs? “I never tire of the view, my lord.”
“Nor would I, were this my house.”
She settled herself on the window seat. “I’m glad to see Mrs. Wilcott and Miss Sinclair here. It’s been too long.”
“They are agreeable callers to have, ma’am.”
“Allow me to tell you what an honor it is to have you visit us. I must thank Harry and Clara for bringing you.”
Young Mr. Briggs remained sound asleep, with Mrs. Wilcott showing no signs that she wished not to be holding the infant. Indeed, while he watched her, he saw her finger brush lightly over the boy’s cheek. “The honor is mine, I assure you.”
“Thank you, my lord. You’re very kind.”
He said, “You’ve known them a long while, the Sinclair sisters?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Briggs said. “Since we were children. We were great friends and have remained so, though we see each other less often than we would like.”
“You must be pleased to have them back from London.” He was curious about Mrs. Wilcott and that mad, mad dash up the hill that was unlike her. The sparkle in her eye and the wit, yes, the damned wit, of her demands for peace.
“We miss them when they are not here.” She settled her skirts. “I think my brother was in love with all of them at one time or another.”
“Understandable.” Damn Harry Glynn, too.
“Have you met Anne? The duchess, I mean.”
“I have. A most excellent woman.”
“Harry and Anne were friends, but he was always fondest of Lucy. Mrs. Wilcott. To the point, I believe, that he wished to have an understanding.”
“Oh?” Harry Glynn. Yes. That fit with the man’s behavior. And his mother’s.
“She never did cooperate in that. Harry made calves eyes at her with no success.”
Had the proud Mrs. Glynn known more than she let on? Had her son’s desires been the danger to his mother’s expectations? He could not find it in him to fault a youthful Harry Glynn for falling in love with a neighboring beauty, but he could fault Mrs. Glynn for laying blame where it did not properly belong.
“I don’t know if he might have convinced her to agree, but a great uncle of Mama’s became ill, and that was that. Harry was sent to assist him, and from there directly to university.” She nodded and leaned a shoulder toward him. “It was a difficult letter for me to write, telling him that Lucy had married. But he wrote back and said he wished her every happiness, and so, I suppose, all was well. I can’t help wishing she hadn’t disappointed him. I would have liked her as my sister.” She glanced at Emily. “Perhaps another Sinclair.”
Thrale followed her glance. He doubted Miss Sinclair was anything like in love with Glynn.
“I suppose,” she went on, “that it would never have come off. Mama did not feel the Sinclairs were entirely the right sort. She objected to them all, and then—” She winced. “I’ll say nothing of Lucy’s marriage.”
Thrale made no reply.
“We think of youth as a time to make mistakes and recover from them the wiser for our heartbreak, but there are mistakes from which one cannot recover. She married, and then Lord Aldreth fell in love with Mary, and I suppose you know Lucy came home a widow, and not long after that, Aldreth took them all to London. Even Lucy. I thought sure Mrs. Wilcott would return from London in a better situation than the last, swept off her feet by some fancy lord.”
“Not for lack of suitors.”
“Her and Miss Sinclair both. The duchess. Miss Anne Sinclair. To think of Anne, married to a duke!”
“Quite so.” He returned his attention to Mrs. Briggs, glad she spoke so eagerly. Defending Mrs. Wilcott and her sisters at every turn. “Did you meet her husband? Mr. Wilcott?”
Her eyes went wide, and her cheeks turned pink. “I saw him once, when I heard the news and went to The Cooperage convinced I would discover it was not so. But it was. It was, every bit of it. They were already married by special license when I got there.”
“As bad as that.”
She did not answer immediately and, when she did, it was in a low, wondering voice. “For all his brash roughness, he had a kind look about him. I thought… however unsuitable—unthinkable match.” She lowered her voice. “I thought he treated her with great respect, as he must. How could he not when she was so much his superior? The daughter of a gentleman, and him….”
“She married against her father’s wishes?”
She lowered her head and her voice. “One hears so many things. Her sisters were devastated, I know that. Anne especially. She took it hard, Lucy marrying like that.”
He made a sound he hoped would be taken for please continue. Was it possible he’d not heard the truth from her? She couldn’t have been with child, could she? With Wilcott agreeing to be the father of another man’s—Jesus. Glynn? Had Devil Wilcott seen her out of a desperate situation?
“She came home a changed woman. Who would not be changed?”
“Indeed.”
“I don’t care how much money he’s said to have given her father—” Mrs. Briggs turned white as ash.
He pulled a figure from the air. “Ten thousand pounds, I heard.”
“Oh, lah, my lord.” Some of her alarm faded. “Forty thousand to pay her father’s debts, though fifty changed hands, is what I heard. That can’t be true. I won’t believe it. Not even of Mr. Sinclair, and I’ll believe a great deal about him. A gentleman wouldn’t sell his daughter to a man like that.”
Thrale stared out the window. If Sinclair were here right now, he’d be sorely tempted to thrash the man and demand answers, he was that angry on Mrs. Wilcott’s behalf.
“Even at seventeen, she was the most beautiful creature you ever saw.”
“That, I believe.” Jack Wilcott had bought a beautiful wife for fifty thousand pounds sterling. The Devil Himself meeting Sinclair, seeing Lucy and falling in love. Wanting to possess the one thing a gentleman could have that he could not. There would have been a compliment, with The Devil telling Sinclair he had a beautiful daughter. Carefully, though. A man of his class had to be careful what he said and how he said it.
Perhaps they’d been at the Crown & Pig. Sinclair standing the great pugilist a drink. The subject of money could have come up. The innkeeper might have refused Sinclair more credit. Perhaps Wilcott had seen Sinclair lose and fail to pay a wager. Sinclair, drunk, half drunk, all drunk, might have blurted out that he’d sell his daughter for fifty thousand.
“She came home,” Mrs. Briggs said, “and all she did was take long walks with that dog of hers and never speak. No one here who knew about her marriage spoke to her, that’s so. Then Lord Aldreth took them all to London.” She lifted her hands and let them fall to her lap. “And now Anne is a Duchess and a mother, and Emily, I daresay, won the hearts of everyone who met her.”
“You are not wrong.”
Glynn called out, “Nan. Nan. Are you done filling Lord Thrale’s head with nonsense over there?”
The baby stirred in Mrs. Wilcott’s arms, awoke, and looked around, and Mrs. Briggs jumped to her feet. Before she left his side, she said in a low voice, “Lucy Sinclair was my dearest friend. Maybe she did disgrace herself, but she hadn’t a mother to guide her, and we all knew her father may not have been the best influence. Think what you will of her or of me for speaking out of turn, but I want nothing but happiness for her. She’s had so little.”
“Whatever my sister is telling you is nonsense, my lord.” Glynn waved a hand.
She curtsied. “Forgive me if I’ve talked your ear off.”
“Not in the least.” He escorted her to her son, now in the arms of his nursemaid. There was a great deal of fussing and cooing.
“My lord,” Briggs said when Thrale had retaken his seat. “My brother here tells me you follow the great sport of pugilism.”
/>
“A fair bit. You?”
“I like to see a battle from time to time, my lord, that’s no lie. Harry here’s a brawler.” Briggs dandled his delighted son on a knee. “Don’t be fooled by his talk of art. There’s no art in him.”
“I don’t brawl.” Glynn fell serious, as befit the subject. “Shall we meet at the Academy then, and see what we shall see? There’s the Thursday exhibitions. We might attend those and have a go in the ring afterward. Bring Niall and Mr. Sinclair along.”
There was no question. No question at all. He was eager to face Glynn. “I consider it a positive engagement.”
“Will you come along, Mrs. Wilcott?” Niall asked.
“Why would she?” Mrs. Briggs said, as astonished as everyone else by the question.
“I hear there are lady boxers. Are you one, Mrs. Wilcott?”
“No, Captain. I am not.” She gave her attention to the shoulder of her gown. “I’ll need to wash this out. Mrs. Briggs, do you mind?”
Thrale gave no sign that he understood what was behind Niall’s query of Mrs. Wilcott. He’d been indiscreet, sparring with her in the house. Evidently they had been seen, and now Mrs. Wilcott would pay the price. Women always did.
CHAPTER 19
On the rear terrace, Lucy moved closer to her sister so she could hear what she was saying. Emily leaned against the stone fence that separated the garden from the field. The noise from the guests remained considerable. “It’s all any of the gentlemen can talk about.”
“What?”
Emily shifted so the backs of her elbows were atop the fence. “The fight, of course.”
“You’ll soil your gown, Emily.”
“Pish.” But she straightened. “I shall be glad when this nonsense is over. It’s never been this bad before.”
“I’m sure there are many who agree with you.”
“Mrs. Leverton says she’s complained to the constable about all the men who are here. She says whoever is foolish enough to attend the event will find themselves taken up, and good riddance to them.”
“Does she, now?” That was an alarming thought, that the local officials might do something to prevent the battle.
“Do you suppose we ought to warn Papa?” Emily scanned the company. “Harry, Captain Niall, and Lord Thrale, too. I should hate for anything to happen to them.”
“They rarely arrest the gentlemen.”
Emily returned her attention to her. “But sometimes?”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. Other than their father, none of her family had said a word to her that touched on any subject that involved her marriage. They’d gone three years without once broaching the subject, and here was Emily confronting it headlong.
If it were anyone but one of her sisters, she would refuse to be drawn into such a conversation, but this was Emily. The sister with whom she was closest. Admitting she knew anything at all about the subject sent her pulse racing. “Sometimes. Yes.”
“Will—”
“Emily.” She spoke sharply. Too sharply, she saw. “This is not fit conversation for a young lady.”
“My pardon.” She frowned and then gave a sigh that was pure Emily. Her sister was often frustrated when anyone hinted she might be more circumspect. “I was— We never talk, Lucy. The way we used to, and I miss that. If you’d rather not say anything, I don’t—Why don’t you talk to me anymore?”
She drew her sister into her arms. “Oh, Emily. You haven’t any idea, do you?”
Her sister hugged her hard, and for the first time in years, she wondered if it was possible to repair the break with her sisters. Emily pulled back. “It’s true. I haven’t an idea. I ask you, whose fault is that? I love you. I miss you. I miss us talking. I won’t love you less no matter what you tell me.”
“What do you want to know?”
She lowered her voice. “Were you ever at a battle where spectators were taken up?”
“No. I wasn’t.” She tweaked her sister’s nose. “Don’t look so disappointed.”
“Will the constabulary try to stop the battle, do you think? It can’t be any great secret that something massively big is going to happen here. Do you suppose anyone will be arrested?”
“The chief Constable will certainly be at the battle. As a spectator with money on the line, unless I am much mistaken.” Her sister was so earnest that Lucy found herself fighting a lump in her throat. There had been an ocean between them. Emily was so young yet. She knew so little of men and their ways, the demands they placed on a woman. There was so little she could say that was proper.
“We ought to warn them.”
“I assure you, they are already aware.” She held out her arm. “You are so pretty in your new bonnet.”
She touched her head. “The spoils of Butterfly Hill.”
“Let’s rejoin the party, shall we? Captain Niall and Mr. Glynn are there. With Clara.”
“Harry is mad about this business of fighting, isn’t he?”
“Like many of the men here in Bartley Green.”
“I’ve five pounds to risk.” She folded her arms beneath her bosom. “Upon whom should I put my money?”
Her pulse stuttered. “Do not say such a thing, not even in jest.”
“I wouldn’t be the only woman to risk a little money.”
“You will not be one at all.” She faced her sister and spoke more sternly than she’d intended. “Has not Papa set an example for you on the evils of gambling?”
“I have five pounds saved. I may spend it as I like.”
“How will you wager?” Panic threatened. “Whom will you approach with your wager? Some Flash man on the street? A stranger? You cannot. You cannot!”
“You’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“No.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll ask Harry.”
“Most certainly you shall not.”
“Then Bracebridge, when he arrives.”
“You won’t. I forbid it.” Anne would have stopped this with but a look, but she hadn’t that talent of their elder sister’s, either.
Emily took her arm in hers, the very picture of docility. Lucy instantly mistrusted the change. “As you say, there is Clara. We must say good afternoon to her.”
She did not move. “Emily, you mustn’t. Have nothing to do with this.”
Her sister rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Very well. I shan’t. Whatever it is you think I will do that I ought not do.”
“You don’t fool me. Not for a moment. I’ll talk to Aldreth. I’ll tell him to forbid you.”
“You would.” She linked arms with Lucy again, and they strolled arm-in-arm along the perimeter of the terrace. Many of the leading residents of Bartley Green were here.
Lucy nodded to their right. “Tell me which gentlemen you admire.”
“Captain Niall is handsome and amusing.”
This was not an answer that she cared for. “He is.”
“You’ve nothing to worry about. I do not like him as he wishes me to. Nor do I like the way he speaks to you. Or looks at you. You ought to marry Harry.”
She stopped walking, but Emily didn’t, and so Lucy was pulled along. “What?”
“He fancies you.”
“Can you imagine what his mother would say of that?”
Emily laughed evilly. “Yes. Yes. You should marry Harry. Please. It would serve her right.”
“Mrs. Glynn for a mother-in-law? I shudder.” She stopped and lowered her voice. “Now, darling Emily, since we are telling each other secrets, are you in love with anyone?”
“No.” An emphatic answer.
“Not at all?”
“No. What about you?”
She shook her head, and she saw a cloud pass over her sister’s face. That was unmistakable heartbreak. “There is someone, I see it in your eyes.”
“It does not signify.”
“You used to tell me whenever you fell in love.” She took Emily’s arm again. So many men had loved her. Heavens, the duk
e himself had planned to marry Emily before events left him with no choice but to wed Anne. “Is it Lord Thrale? I know he admires you.”
She made a face. The sun came out long enough that both of them adjusted their hats. “If I had any sense, I’d fall madly in love with him. But then I admire any man Anne admires.”
They’d been walking the main gravel path, working their way toward Harry Glynn and his sister, but now Lucy took Emily to a portion of the garden where they could speak in privacy. Emily and Thrale would be an excellent match. He deserved a woman as noble and strong-hearted as Emily. And Emily deserved an honorable man. “Why aren’t you in love with Lord Thrale?”
“Don’t ask after the state of my heart. It will not make either of us happy.” Emily had grown up a great deal. Almost twenty and no longer a girl. When had that happened?
“Who would not love you?”
She let out a dramatic sigh. “Perhaps I will fall in love with Lord Thrale. He is handsome.”
“Indeed so.”
“He is too severe for me.” Emily shook her head. “Now that I can marry whom I prefer rather than the man most able to save Papa and us from ruin, I intend to be particular.” She referred, of course, to her debut in London. Yes, Aldreth had been behind that season, for Lord knows their father would never have thought of it, but all three of them, Anne, Lucy, and Emily, had been vitally aware that one of them must make a marriage. There had been no other hope for a reversal of their father’s increasing losses.
“Marry after your heart, Emily.”
Emily plucked a marigold from the landscape that formed the borders of the path here, and tucked it behind Lucy’s ear. “Yellow looks so well on you.”
“Thank you.”
She broke off another bloom. “I wish it looked half so well on me.” She tugged a petal from the flower and let it drop. “He loves me not.” Another petal floated to the ground. “He loves me.”
“Who, Emily?” Her sister was not a girl anymore.
“He loves me not. He loves me.”
Lucy counted petals as quickly as she could. “Superstition. A flower cannot predict the state of a man’s heart.”
A Notorious Ruin Page 15
