by Megan Bryce
George apologized for his brother-in-law’s laughter. “He’s young.”
“Yes. Should we send him out with my maid?”
George and Collin walked home in companionable silence. George, because he had sat next to Miss Blackstock and whispered to her and been whispered at, and he didn’t care what Collin thought. Not at that moment.
Perhaps he never would.
George realized Collin’s silence was not quite as companionable when the young man sighed and said, “Why do you always fall for the most inappropriate woman? It’s as if your heart won’t even wake up to notice unless your father would hate her.”
George blinked and suddenly felt the coolness of the night.
“What’s inappropriate about her?”
“She’s. . .outspoken.”
George nodded. “So are you.”
Collin snorted, then nodded his head in acquiescence. “True. Though not to your father and I suspect the same could not be said for Miss Blackstock.”
George was glad for the darkness. Glad no one could see how he smiled at the thought of Miss Blackstock meeting his father.
“I suspect you are correct.”
“And if that doesn’t carry weight with you, I suspect she would also be outspoken with bishops, arch or otherwise.”
George’s smile grew a little meaner. “She would be quite unimpressed.”
“Think, George, what that would mean for your career. Your future.”
“You mean my father’s hope for my career. This line of reasoning is not going to change my mind about her, you know?”
“I know. Because you’re the lord’s son and you think what you like.”
George grinned, then nodded when Collin said, “She’s a little long in the tooth.”
There was something about the woman that proclaimed she had seen the world. There was a lack of naivete. Of wonder.
As if her innocence had left her long ago.
George shut that thought down quickly.
“She’s not old. She’s just not young. I would guess we are near the same age.”
“Like I said, long in the tooth.”
George said, “Perhaps you should ask her next time you meet just how old she is.”
“It worked for her uncle’s name, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
It had. And neither of them had missed the attention she paid to the question.
Collin said, “There’s something too aggressive about her.”
“I think Miss Blackstock could handle any situation she found herself in. Father would like that.”
“We know nothing about her, George.”
“This is a very bad habit you’re starting, with this name thing. And we have her uncle’s name now. We’ll just learn a little more about Miss Blackstock, won’t we?”
Collin sighed. “Why couldn’t you have fallen in love with the girl who made those hot cross buns?”
George stopped on the pavement. Fallen in love? Had he?
He’d only loved one woman before and the memory now was distorted. Corrupted by everything that had come after.
In love?
No. He didn’t know enough about her. Not yet.
But for the first time, he thought he might be willing to fall again.
George started walking and when he came level with Collin, he patted his friend, brother, and valet on the back.
“I couldn’t ever fall in love with the hot cross bun girl. I don’t want a tubby valet.”
Five
When Honora arrived the next week, there was Mr. St. Clair, alone, in their customary spot.
She sat down next to him without a word, he continuing to read his leaflet with great concentration, and Honora wondered how they could be here, surrounded by people, and yet it was just the two of them.
It had been illuminating to see him interacting last week with his brother-in-law, with someone he was obviously close to and fond of, and when he began to speak softly, she thought he sounded like he was still talking to a friend.
“How do we proceed, Miss Blackstock? I am lost.”
Honora turned her head enough to see that he was still studying his leaflet.
“Perhaps there will be another lecture after this one, Mr. St. Clair. Steam is not likely, but perhaps. . .Egyptian antiquities? I admit I have no real fondness for mummies or the desert or long-dead languages. Still, I had no interest in steam before falling into my current fascination. There’s hope.”
“Is there? Another lecture and another because we did this all wrong?”
She smiled slightly at his profile. “We did, didn’t we? No balls, no dancing, no chaperones.”
“No context. I am supposed to be able to ask delicate questions to your relations and acquaintances, and you are supposed to be able to do the same to mine.”
“I missed my chance. I should have asked your brother-in-law.”
Mr. St. Clair sighed. “I never had the chance. Unless you count the time I physically accosted your uncle.”
Honora blew out a breath before it turned into a much-too-loud laugh.
He said, “Or the time I verbally accosted your aunt. And your maid. And you. Bloody hell, I should just be happy I can sit next to you in a crowded lecture hall.”
He turned his head toward her and he didn’t have to say that he was. Happy to sit here with her, as happy as Honora was to sit here with him.
They sat together, alone in the crowded room, and she said, “I suppose I could bring my uncle to the next lecture.”
George closed his eyes and Honora wanted to laugh again at his pained look.
Before he could agree to such a ridiculous suggestion, she said, “Or I could extend to you his invitation to dinner.”
“His invitation or yours?”
“Both of ours.”
He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow at her.
Honora smiled. “My uncle is a good, kind man. Slow to anger and quick to forgive. Besides, he was hardly awake when you assaulted him. He doesn’t equate you with the gentleman I’ve been. . .”
She stopped and looked down at her lap. Then decided to give him the truth. Because she’d begun this dance half a dozen times before and had never had a truth to give any of them.
“. . .the gentleman I’ve been boring them with for the last few months.”
When she looked back up, he was looking forward and smiling stupidly. He said softly, “You know nothing about me. And I know nothing about you.”
“Nothing? Then you must be very unobservant because I know quite a bit about you.”
His smile grew. “You’re right, Miss Blackstock. It’s not nothing.”
Honora flew around their Manchester home, making sure everything was perfect for Mr. St. Clair.
Every pillow in its place. Every table setting just so.
She did not dare step foot in the kitchen, just in case her presence burned the meat or scalded the soup, and instead kept sending her aunt in to make sure everything looked good.
They’d spent days agonizing over what to serve for dinner.
“Something simple?” her aunt had asked.
“No. He’s somebody. Somebody’s son.”
“He’s a vicar. A bachelor vicar. I expect meat and potatoes and bread, and he’ll be happy.”
Honora made a face. “He’s nothing like Mr. Moffat. He won’t be impressed by country fare, nor worried at all about whether his wife can cook. Do you think our cook could make turtle soup?”
Aunt Gertrude choked. “No. Not even if we could afford it.”
Honora blew out a breath and tried to remember back to a different lifetime. She muttered to herself, “What would Father have served to a dignitary?” and Aunt Gertrude had nearly fallen out of her chair in shock at the mention of the man.
They’d finally settled on oxtail soup, roasted hare, stewed cardoons, pigeon compote, kidney beans, lamb’s tongue with spinach, and almond cake.
A beautiful dinner, Honora
told herself over and over again, trying to calm her abnormally nervous stomach while her maid curled her hair.
The girl looped and tugged and smoothed, and completely ignored the ornament Honora had told her to use.
“You’re forgetting something.”
“Please don’t make me put it in your hair, miss. Look, I brought some baby’s breath. It’ll look lovely draped down your neck.”
Honora said, “The twig,” and her stomach settled.
Mr. St. Clair arrived right on time with his brother-in-law and when Honora introduced her uncle, she laughed.
“We really have gone about this in completely the wrong way.”
Her uncle said, “The world is changing and quickly. My niece tells me all about steam and I am appalled at the speed of this new world.”
“You’re not appalled at what that speed brings, though. Oranges are his favorite treat.”
Mr. St. Clair said, “Cigars are mine.”
Uncle Hubert perked up. “Oh, do you smoke. . .”
And off they went into the land of ghastly manly pleasure, whence no woman could possibly want to follow.
Aunt Gertrude said, “They’ll be awhile, I think. Do you smoke, Mr. Clarke?”
“Not at all. I can’t stand what it does to a good coat.”
Aunt Gertrude nodded. “Oh, I agree. Though hopefully, you like oranges?”
Mr. Clarke professed he did and they chatted about fruit while Honora wished she’d listened about having an even number of guests.
She’d fallen down in her duty as a hostess, purposefully– after all, who would they have invited?
And if they’d been familiar with any other families in Manchester, why would she want another female around her Mr. St. Clair?
Honora paused and looked at her Mr. St. Clair.
Hers. Hers?
Mr. Clarke caught her staring at his brother-in-law. “Forgive me, Miss Blackstock. I’m sure I can think of something more scintillating to talk about than fruit.”
“Enjoy your conversation. Your turn will come soon enough when Mr. St. Clair and I bore everyone silly with our talk of water and coal and trains and ships.”
Mr. Clarke and Aunt Gertrude closed their eyes in supplication but Mr. St. Clair heard her. He turned his head enough to meet her eyes and a slight smile hovered at the corners of his lips.
Honora’s uncle continued to wax lovingly about cigars, and Mr. St. Clair continued to smile, and Honora tried to pay attention to her aunt and Mr. Clarke as they turned the conversation to London.
There was no agreement here. Mr. Clarke had loved every bit of it and her aunt felt the opposite.
“Now, York,” she said, “is the finest city in all of England. A wall that surrounds and a minster that watches over. Have you been?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never been able to talk St. Clair into sightseeing at Brighton or Bath. Do you think I’d have better luck with York, Miss Blackstock?”
“Perhaps. Would he be tempted by ancient Roman artifacts? A ruined abbey? Richard III?”
As she listed all of York’s ancient wonders, Mr. Clarke’s shoulders slumped and when she finished he said, “No. Unless there is loud machinery and unpardonable speed, he won’t care at all.”
Aunt Gertrude shook her head. “What a shame. It’s a lovely place. I hope we can return one day.”
When she met Honora’s shuttered eyes, she amended, “For a visit. I wouldn’t mind taking a stroll atop the wall one more time.”
Mr. St. Clair and Uncle Hubert had wandered over during the discussion and Uncle Hubert laid his hand gently on his wife’s arm.
“It must be the memories and not the place, my dear. What could be so special about a wall?”
Honora looked away from their secret smiles. Away from all that they’d left behind in York.
People and places they’d never see again.
Memories.
The future.
Mr. St. Clair touched her elbow. “And do you feel the same about York, Miss Blackstock? I confess my one visit did not impress me.”
“You’ve been to York?”
“A pilgrimage of sorts. My father wanted me to see the minster. And the ruined abbey. But I was young, and well, disagreeable, so perhaps that colored my visit.”
“Disagreeable, Mr. St. Clair? I can hardly believe it of you.”
Aunt Gertrude tsked. “Letitia!”
But Mr. St. Clair looked at the decoration in her hair and then down into her eyes and even her aunt could see that he did not look at all disagreeable now.
Aunt Gertrude found something on the other side of the room for Mr. Clarke to look at posthaste and Mr. St. Clair murmured, “I’d have been truly worried if there were spring flowers in your hair and not a twig.”
“No flowers for you, Mr. St. Clair. I fear you have always been privy to my true disposition and there is no use hiding it now. I am but an open book.”
“Now that, I doubt. But you may try and prove it by telling me what you thought of York. You did not look as misty-eyed as your aunt and uncle during the discussion.”
Honora inhaled a deep breath, then lied. “We lived there only for a short time. Right after my mother died. I hardly remember it.”
“You are quite nomadic, Miss Blackstock. York, London, Manchester.”
Bath, Edinburgh, Wales. It was easier to list the places they hadn’t lived.
She said, “When one loses something important, Mr. St. Clair, one will search the world for its replacement. Or, at least the entirety of the British Isles.”
“Yes,” he said, and his own loss was in his voice.
She knew he’d lost his mother, too. And was happy to let him think that’s what she was speaking of.
He took her hand. “Have you found it yet?”
She looked down at his gloved hand cupping hers. She didn’t dare look up; knew she couldn’t keep her thoughts off her face as she whispered, “Have you?”
The gentlemen were pressed to come to dinner again the next week and neither one of them was reluctant to accept.
Collin waited until they were nearly home before offering his opinion. “I will not squirrel you away from her machinations just yet.”
George could still feel her hand in his, could still see the twig in her hair, could still smell her scent.
He said, “Good. You would have a rough go of it.”
“I could always write to your father.”
George grunted.
“But it does seem mutual, this complete loss of reason, so. . .I’ll hold off on that.”
George murmured, “Excellent.”
He was nervous as a school boy the day of the next lecture. Collin helped him into his coat and said, “Shall I come with you?”
“No.”
“But who will keep you in line?” he asked, making George wonder how out of line Miss Blackstock would let him get.
Wondering if he should make her bring her maid inside today because the thought of sitting next to her without any kind of chaperone suddenly seemed ill-advised.
But then, she was right there next to him. And he couldn’t remember why he wanted a chaperone. He couldn’t remember anything except his own name.
He didn’t even notice the silence until she said, “Well, this is awkward.”
He jerked. “It is? I was simply enjoying your company.”
Her voice was quiet and warm when she replied, “Mr. St. Clair, you are simply ruining your reputation. I expect gruffness and irritability and a sour bite to all your declarations.”
He said, “I detest how much I enjoy your company, Miss Blackstock. Is that better?”
“Yes. Quite perfect. And interestingly enough, exactly how I feel about the situation.”
But it was a step too far, this mutual declaration and he adjusted his seat.
“Nothing may come of this. I want to warn you.”
She nodded, still without looking at him. “I don’t mind walking down this path with
you a little further.”
He smiled. “That is exactly what I am proposing.”
“I will warn you, Mr. St. Clair. Something may come of it.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes, something might. And since there is no one else to ask, I’ll have to be gauche and direct.”
“Oh, dear. However will I survive.”
“About Mr. Moffat.”
“Oh. . . Dear.”
She opened the leaflet that had been sitting on her lap and began to read. Or at least pretend to.
“A broken engagement, Miss Blackstock, is noteworthy.”
She nodded her head once, sharply. She chewed on her top lip for a brief moment and then said briskly, “The truth is, Mr. St. Clair, that I didn’t like who I had to be when I was with him. And I didn’t realize until too late that perhaps I could simply be myself. I don’t blame him for calling it off. He thought he was marrying a woman sweet and kind.”
“I met her.”
She smiled, then stopped. “Do you miss her?”
“. . .I didn’t know her well enough to miss her. And I doubt I would have noticed her at all if I had not met you first.”
She finally turned her head to face him and he said, “I’m confusing myself. I know it was you, always.”
She sounded infinitely sad as she said, “No. This is me.”
“Miss Twiggy.”
“Yes.” She smiled tightly and leaned closer, staring into him with wide eyes and whispering, “There was no impropriety on either of our parts. I actually think. . . I think it was quite brave of him. He did something that I was unwilling do and it would have been much easier if I had been the one to call it off. He sacrificed his honor and saved us both from a very unhappy future.”
“He was a scoundrel for calling it off. Not brave at all. And I would thank him heartily if I could.”
He turned forward and didn’t look at her again. Couldn’t look at her again.
But when she sat back in her seat, he said conversationally, “Would you care to take a stroll with me after the lecture? With your maid, of course.”
“I would love it.”
Miss Blackstock opened her umbrella, hoping to protect herself from the Manchester drizzle. Her maid trailed a few feet behind them, and George wondered just how a tiny mouse of a woman was supposed to keep her mistress safe from any man who didn’t want to be a gentleman.
