by Ruth Axtell
As soon as Megan entered the store, an awkward silence descended between them. Jessamine pretended to study the display of fabrics and notions.
Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat.
Wondering if he meant to get her attention, she lifted her gaze. A tentative smile hovered around his lips. “You wear spectacles.”
She stared at him. A polite gentleman would not have noticed. “I should think it obvious,” she said between her teeth.
Color suffused his cheeks once more. If she were as outspoken as he, she’d point out how his skin reflected every emotion he felt.
“I—I beg your pardon. It’s just that you weren’t the night I spoke to you. I just find it interesting because . . . because of the fact that I do too.”
Did he think that implied they had anything else in common?
She turned back to the shop window. Unfortunately, it only gave her a reflection of her oval spectacles. She quickly looked down, mortified at her predicament. Why did this gentleman make her feel so gauche and ill-mannered?
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You didn’t.” She kept her gaze fixed on a beaded handbag displayed against a velvet backdrop.
“I find it refreshing to see a young lady wearing spectacles instead of groping about half blind.”
“Is that why you are not wearing yours?” she asked, giving him a pointed look.
He twisted his lips. “Harold does not allow himself to be seen in public with me if I do. That’s why I wasn’t wearing them at the rout, but then I had to put them on to search for Lady Abernathy.”
“I see.” She fought to keep from smiling at his awkward explanation. “Lady Bess is the same with me,” she finally admitted. “She makes it sound like the gravest sin to be seen wearing spectacles in public. I’m only a trifle shortsighted so I don’t really need them unless I want to focus on something particularly.”
“Mine comes from years of too much study, poring over books till the wee hours.”
Jessamine shrugged. “I haven’t any such excuse, although I help my father with his botanical notes and sermon notes and prayers for services.”
His light red eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Are you interested in botany too?”
She turned away from his scrutiny to study the passersby, regretting her words. She did not want him to think they had anything in common. “I like flowers. My father takes it to the scientific level.”
“I should like to meet your father. He sounds a very interesting man.”
“He is a very good man.”
Another silence fell between them. After a moment, Mr. Marfleet cleared his throat. “Miss Phillips speaks very fondly of her brother.”
“Yes,” she answered shortly, dreading to have to discuss Rees with this gentleman. Striving to keep her voice devoid of emotion, she added, “He is her only sibling, so it is natural.”
He gave a wry laugh. “I confess I don’t think I could speak in such glowing terms of Harold, nor he of me—not that we are not fond of each other. We have seen so little of one another since our school days.”
Her gaze returned unwillingly to him as he spoke. “He seems very different from you.”
His lips twisted. “I used to wonder if we were born of the same parents. He was the true Marfleet since he so resembled my father in both looks and temperament. I was the foundling my mother had rescued from the doorstep one wintry morn.”
Her heart caught at the wistful image of a young boy questioning his place in such an august family. “Do you think you could have been a . . . a foundling?”
His blue eyes took on a thoughtful look. “I tried to discover it for years but must confess I never found proof of it. Still, one never knows when a new fact may emerge.”
She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was making fun of her. But his eyes had a perfectly serious cast as he rubbed his chin, as if considering.
“I should think there would have been some clues along the way if you were really not your parents’ offspring.”
“My parents are quite closemouthed about many things, especially anything that hints of scandal. No,” he said, a speculative look in his eyes, “if there were clues, I didn’t find them. Perhaps I was left on the doorstep by a maid who didn’t want to give her baby up to the orphanage, hearing the horrors of that place. And she didn’t want to lose her job—”
“She would hardly be able to keep her condition secret in your household all those months.” As she realized the indecorous topic she was discussing with a young gentleman she scarcely knew, she clamped her lips together and turned away from him. “This is an unseemly subject.”
“You brought it up with your suspicions.”
“I?” She flashed him a look of outrage only to find his eyes filled with amusement. “You were making all that up.”
He tugged on an earlobe, looking sheepish. “I confess, no matter how uncertain my heritage, I’m afraid the proof of it is undeniable. A portrait of my grandfather hangs in the family gallery. I resemble him to a great degree, including my coloring. Thus, despite the more romantic appeal of being a foundling, I am only the ugly younger son of Sir Geoffrey Marfleet.”
“Younger and ruder,” she muttered, looking away again.
“You do seem to bring out the worst in me.”
“Then I would suggest you stay away from me. I do not like to be thought of as detrimental to a person’s conduct,” she ended stiffly. She wished she were better at parrying and thrusting his mockery.
“You are not detrimental. It is I who am at fault. Being away from civilized London society seems to have turned me into a person who cannot keep a proper rein on his tongue. I do beg your pardon once again.”
When she said nothing, he added quietly, “My time in India has also made me more keenly aware of the ridiculous. I don’t say this to boast. I am merely stating a tendency I don’t seem able to control since returning to England. India has made me see things from a different perspective. Manners and behavior I took for granted as the way they are supposed to be appear absurd to me now.”
As he spoke, her irritation diminished, replaced by a grudging fascination for what he said.
“I have lost the ability to behave as I should around young ladies—if ever I had the ability, which my brother is quick to point out I did not.”
She lifted her chin. “You don’t treat Miss Phillips with ridicule.”
His reddish eyebrows drew together. “Ridicule? It was not meant so, believe me. It was just . . . just that the situation appeared ridiculous and my tongue ran away with me, taking the matter to its conclusion.”
Jessamine pressed her lips, resolving to say no more to him. His explanation might satisfy—and even move her—but she was not disposed to render herself up to his ridicule another time. She had no interest in garnering the admiration of a vicar. She was grateful for the dinner invitation he had procured for them, but that was all.
“I see I have offended you,” he said gravely when she maintained her silence.
Before she could think of a suitably indifferent reply, Megan exited the shop, her face alight. “I haven’t kept you two waiting too long, have I?” She turned to Jessamine without waiting for a reply. “I found the shade of primrose Lady Bess desired. It matches the sample she gave me perfectly.”
“I’m glad.”
“Shall we continue on our way?” she asked Mr. Marfleet.
“If you are ready,” he answered courteously.
Jessamine searched for the slightest hint of mockery in his look or tone, but his demeanor looked as polite as his words sounded.
She gave a pointed look as if to say, See? You save your mockery for me.
He only lifted a brow in bland inquiry.
They resumed walking, Jessamine positioning herself on the far side of Megan, away from Mr. Marfleet. Let him continue the conversation with her friend, with whom he seemed to manage to control his mocking tendencies.
After bidding farewell
to Miss Phillips and Miss Barry at their brick town house not far from Portland Place, Lancelot decided to return home on foot.
He needed the time a walk would afford to mull over his encounter with the two young ladies. He’d been surprised—pleasantly so—to find them on his street earlier. He’d been going back and forth about having asked his mother to invite them to one of her exclusive dinner parties.
He cared nothing for such things as pedigree and portion, but his parents did. After quizzing him for a good quarter of an hour on the two young ladies, his mother had finally agreed to the invitation. “I suppose I should be thankful you are evincing the slightest interest in any young lady who is of sound mind and limb.” She sighed, picking up her pen. “You are seven-and-twenty and still unmarried. Your brother will no longer have any offspring. What is to become of the estate if you don’t settle down and start a family?”
He turned off the familiar litany he’d heard all during his convalescence, thankful at least that his mother would issue the invitation.
As he walked along Oxford Street, he wasn’t sure whether to be put off or annoyed with Miss Barry. Miss Phillips was a pleasant companion, but there was something about Miss Barry that drew him. Whether it was her flashing green eyes which could as quickly show annoyance as a hint of humor, or whether it was the way she listened to his tale of the doubts of belonging to his family, she evinced empathy and a depth of understanding he had not yet encountered in a young lady of the ton.
But now he doubted his instincts, realizing he was probably reading more into her glances than they conveyed. The likeliest thing was that she despised him for his tendency to ironic humor. He hadn’t meant to tease her and regretted his words.
With a shake of his head, he tried to dismiss their conversation from his mind. He had too many other things to think about to get stirred up over a young lady making her come-out in London.
When he arrived home, he took up the journal he’d kept during his travels in India and went in search of his younger sister.
He went first to the solarium which their parents had built to satisfy his hobby of cultivating plants and hers of painting them.
Delawney sat on a stool before an easel in a narrow aisle hemmed in on either side with lush green foliage. Beside her stood a small table filled with brushes and tablets of watercolors.
“There you are,” was all she said as he walked between the potted plants, the moist air enveloping him.
“I hope I haven’t held you up.”
Instead of replying, she asked, “What do you think?” Moving aside, she held up her brush to allow him to view the watercolor she was working on.
It was a picture of the vine that grew from a pot she had placed beside the easel. Along its stem, a pink flower resembling a morning glory blossomed at intervals.
He’d brought it back from Bengal. “Exquisite,” he said, satisfied that she’d reproduced it accurately. “The colors are perfect.”
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I do.”
She let out a breath. “Good. I just need to put a few finishing touches on it.” She glanced up at him. “How are your notes coming?”
He grimaced. “Slower than your watercolors.”
“It’s because you are spending all your time chasing after Harold, trying in vain to stop him from his certain destruction.”
“Don’t say that!”
She raised an eyebrow at his retort.
“Nothing is ‘certain’ in this life,” he said more gently.
Her lips thinned in an uncompromising line. “You must let Harold squander his life as he wishes. Your preaching to him shan’t change him, you know.”
Lancelot contemplated the soft tones of the watercolor. “I can’t just stand back and see him run headlong to that destruction. It’s time he matured.”
She snorted. “Why should he? Mama turns a blind eye, and Papa thinks that’s the way any gentleman of the ton behaves.”
Lancelot ran a hand through his hair. “Actually, it was Papa who asked me to try and curb his excesses.”
“If he wants you acting as his guardian angel, it’s only to curb his behavior, not to stop it entirely.” She set her brush into the water jar and got up to stretch. “And Mama feels only a tragic sympathy, believing he is only trying to hide the failure of still being childless after so many years of marriage. What a burden,” she said with exaggerated sorrow.
Lancelot fingered the edges of his journal he’d brought with him. “Yes, since my return I feel an ever-increasing pressure to marry and fill the lack.”
Delawney picked up the brush and swished it in a watercolor to dab on a spot. “They have given up on me—besides which, a child of mine couldn’t inherit.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Any progress on that front? Mama hinted that you’d met someone the other night.”
Lancelot stared at his sister, feeling like a cobra caught by a snake charmer’s flute.
4
A spurt of annoyance rose in Lancelot’s chest at his mother’s indiscretion. “Don’t tell me you are going to join Mama and Papa in their campaign.”
Delawney chuckled. “If it means they leave me in peace, I shall do so wholeheartedly.”
His sister was an attractive woman, especially when she smiled. Her hair was a tawny shade like their mother’s, but she kept it carelessly pulled back in a knot, sometimes with only a pencil holding it up. She wore a faded muslin gown with a ruffled white kerchief along its neckline. A wide white apron splotched with watercolors covered most of her gown. Her fingers, nicely shaped, were stained brown and gray from the amalgamation of colors.
“What is it?”
He shook his head, realizing he’d been staring. “Nothing. I still fail to understand your refusal to go out into society at all.”
“If you don’t understand it, then it is useless to try to explain.”
“Just because I have little use for ton parties does not mean I renounce society completely. Our Lord commands us to take the message of salvation to everyone. How are we to do that if we shut ourselves from the world?”
She had no reply to that. His heart went out to her. She was not yet five-and-twenty, but it was doubtful she would ever marry. Instead of a young lady’s usual pursuits of parties, shopping, and outings, she devoted herself to her gardens and watercolors of every specimen she discovered, which at present included the ones he had brought back from India. She had eagerly assented to his plan to put everything into a folio to be published.
“Which plant should I attempt next?”
Seeing she wanted the subject changed, he opened his notebook, leafing through it to the page he desired. “I thought perhaps this one the natives call ‘tulsi.’” He walked over to the plant he referred to. It had grown to a few feet high and was now sprouting small pink flowers. “It’s very aromatic, and they use it in both cooking and religious ceremonies. It’s similar in coloring to the morning glory you just finished.”
She touched one of the spindly clusters of tiny whitish-pink flowers gracing a stalk. “Very well. I shall begin it as soon as I’m satisfied with the other.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
He smiled at her, and she returned his smile. Sometimes it felt as if she was the only one in the family he had anything in common with. “I shall be in my room endeavoring to do some more work on my notes, before the lecture at the Royal Society.”
“Don’t let me keep you.”
Accepting the dismissal, he bowed and left her, glad that everything was right between them.
“A pity there was no time for new gowns,” Lady Bess said with a sigh. Jessamine had lost count of how many times Lady Bess had emitted an audible sigh in the stuffy hackney they had been obliged to hire for the drive to the Marfleet residence.
Across the shabby coach, Lady Bess eyed Megan and Jessamine through her quizzing glass in the fading light. “You do look very pretty, I’m sure. There
is nothing like youth, which no gown or adornment can improve or take away from.” She sighed again, as if remembering her own vanished girlhood.
“The sea green suits your dark hair and green eyes,” she said to Jessamine, “and the pink your complexion and gray eyes,” she said with an approving nod at Megan.
They murmured their thanks to their hostess, even though she’d already given them the same compliment upon first seeing them this evening.
“The important thing is that Mr. Marfleet will find you charming,” Lady Bess said for the dozenth time. “I have been asking around about him, and he seems the opposite of his rakish brother. He’s had the best of education—Harrow, Eton, then Cambridge to take orders, as a younger son, naturally, and one who didn’t seem suited for the military.”
She paused, her lips making a small moue of distaste. “I did hear that it was while at Cambridge that he came under the influence of one of that Clapham Sect with all their evangelical zeal. The next thing, he tells his poor parents he is becoming a missionary and heading off to Calcutta or some such place.” She shuddered. “It’s a wonder—a miracle—he didn’t perish. Most do, you know. And some take their poor wives, who don’t last long.”
Jessamine couldn’t help smiling, contrasting Lady Bess’s account with Mr. Marfleet’s.
“Lady Villington-Rhodes—she’s cousin to Lady Marfleet—says the family didn’t expect him to survive the fever he succumbed to. He was all winter recovering on their estate in Hampshire. Did he look ill?”
“Yes,” said Jessamine at the same time Megan said, “No.”
Lady Bess looked from one to the other and smiled. “Ah, I see how it is. Well, at least you shan’t have to fight about him. Let us hope his mother seats you beside him, Megan. Perhaps there will be another young gentleman there for you, Jessamine. I won’t be satisfied till you both end the season with a betrothal.”
Giving them no chance to respond, Lady Bess pushed down the carriage window. “Good, we are almost there. It’s a pretty street, one I rarely travel since it is not a main thoroughfare.” She sat back against the squabs. “I wonder what the older brother is worth? I must inquire. A pity he’s married. As for your Mr. Marfleet, I was informed he has no living at present since he was in India. I should think his father would be able to find him a competence on one of his own estates. Likely they are all filled.” She shook her head, setting the lacy trim around her cap atremble. “I do hope his evangelical zeal has dimmed.”
