She didn’t wait for his say so, but returned to her mother’s side, where she was for the moment safe, until her mother deployed her to some other skirmish—that was what Simon would have called the encounters, with his funny military metaphors, wouldn’t he?
Tamsin strove not to give further vent to her feelings.
“Don’t sigh,” Mama warned. “And don’t squint so."
“If I had my spectacles, I wouldn’t need to squint to see who’s next to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her mama muttered. “Who ever heard of a girl wearing spectacles to a ball? Now there’s Viscount Wainwright.”
Tamsin let herself be towed in the direction of the bluff, young puppy of a man who seemed to repeat “I say!” either before or after every word he spoke.
“I say, how do you do, Miss Lesley?” But then the puppy fell silent.
“Miss Lesley,” came a smooth voice at her side. “I wonder if you might do me the honor of a dance, if you have this one free?”
Simon beamed down at her with his never-fading smile.
Tamsin was so startled to see him in the ballroom and so conscious of her mama at her side, that she hardly knew what to say. “Colonel Cathcart. I thought you didn’t dance. Three left feet, you said.”
“Did I?” He looked mildly amused by this admission. “I promise to use only two this evening if you would do me the honor.”
Tamsin stole a glance at her mama, who, for perhaps the first time in Tamsin’s life, had nothing to say. And so she had to answer for herself. “That would be…acceptable.” She settled on a word intended to keep the peace, if peace needed to be made.
“The next set it is.” He bowed rather more beautifully—graceful and masculine at the same time—than she had expected. “I look forward to it.” And then he went away, back to stand silently behind his aunt, the Countess Cathcart.
Her mama, who had held her tongue throughout the awkward exchange, now spoke. “What goes on here?”
“I have no idea,” Tamsin answered honestly.
“It were better if you had nothing at all to do with him, Tamsin. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again—he’s not the sort of man you marry.”
“I know.” He wasn’t the sort of man to marry anyone. “But I hardly knew how to refuse him in public.”
“Just so long as you intend to refuse him in private,” her mother said for her ears only. “Then we’ll have no trouble.”
“No,” Tamsin agreed as the musicians scratched up their bows and Simon began to make his amiable, unhurried way to her side. “No trouble at all.”
“Miss Lesley.” He took her gloved hand within his own, and led her to the floor where the set was forming.
“Colonel Cathcart.” She felt the heat of his fingers through her gloves—she felt the heat of his entire presence all the way from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes. “This was not what we had arranged.”
“Indeed. But I got to thinking.” He moved away to take his place, and she was left in uncomfortable anticipation of just what that might be, because the measure started up and she was obliged to put her mind to the complicated steps of the “Marquess of Wellington” dance.
When they finally chanced to come together for longer than a moment, she asked, “And? What did you think?”
“That I used to like dancing, before I came to dislike it—thought it was all humbug and social pretense, but there is a great deal more to it that that, what? All this getting to hold your hand and…” He trailed off before he added, “And you smell rather like a night garden, Miss T.”
His strangely offhand compliment made her unaccountably pleased. “It’s jasmine.”
“Whatever it is, it’s lovely—heady and oh, makes me think all kinds of things. Which is dangerous for a man with my brain, what?”
“Your brain is just fine, Colonel Cathcart.” They passed away from each again, but his words had insinuated themselves into her mind, until they came together again and she had to ask, “What kinds of things does the jasmine make you think?”
He smiled as they stepped together, face to face. “Of warm summer nights. Not all this ice and cold and mistletoe.”
With her mama’s warning fresh in her ears, Tamsin answered, “Pray let us steer clear of any mistletoe, Colonel.”
“Right ho, Miss T.”
The steps of the dance took her away, rotating around another couple before she could catch a glimpse of his face again—his expression, though he smiled, was too acute for his usual mirth.
“But I was wondering about that fellow,” he began when they came together. “The one who was driving you to make arrangements.” He stepped away to revolve around another lady in turn before he came back to take Tamsin’s hand. “Must be someone god-awful to keep you at it so determinedly.”
His question surprised her entirely—she was both embarrassed and touched by his perceptiveness. But by the time they had danced down the set and could catch their breath, she had her answer. “My cousin Edward, you must mean.”
Simon nodded. “Tell me about him.”
Tamsin could not see the harm in laying out her complaint against Edward—it would serve to remind her of her duty. And the fact that she had scant days left to accomplish the impossible—finding herself a rich, titled husband.
“My cousin is set to inherit my father’s small estate, so my papa naturally wanted him to marry one of his daughters. The miserable man wouldn’t deign to ask for my older sister, Anne, because he didn’t think she was pretty enough. So he asked for me instead. But I won’t accept, for despite his offer, I know he doesn’t even like me,” she finally admitted. “I think he likes disliking me. He’s odious and contrary in that way. He only wants a pretty wife, as if that would reflect better upon him. As if my supposed beauty were his accomplishment.”
“What an idiot,” Simon said succinctly.
His instant condemnation could not but cheer her. “Yes, thank you. He is.”
“Now I understand why you went such a long way out of your way to avoid marriage. Must be the same fellow who gave you such a fright of kissing—‘all that slop and press,’ you said.”
Since the memory of what she said coincided with the passionate kissing that had ensued, Tamsin felt her face flame. “Indeed.”
“Well, damn his eyes. Damn him for making you so afraid.”
There was such heat in his voice, she almost put her hand on his arm to reassure him. But she was too conscious of her mama’s all-seeing gaze to forget herself. But some explanation was called for. “I wasn’t afraid of the kissing, really.”
Now that they appeared to be getting to the heart of the matter, why not expose herself? No one but Simon had ever asked. No one as innately kind as Simon might ever understand. “I was more afraid of losing my personal sovereignty to someone else—to any man. All women are afraid of that, I should think.”
“Well, damn my eyes,” he swore with that lovely, kind heat.
“I had so hoped things would be different in London. More progressive. More modern than the benighted country.”
“Somerset, you said?”
“Yes, in Somerset. In the village of Winchett.” She had hoped never to set eyes on the place again. “Where I had an acquaintance—a particular friend of my older sister, Anne, and in the way of small villages, a friend of mine by extension. Arabella was a perfectly lovely girl, the loveliest, kindest creature, just like my sister, who never put a foot wrong. Quiet and kind as the day is long. But she caught the eye of the local squire’s spawn, Arabella did. And they married. But the whole village knows that he treats her worse than he treats his dogs—and he kicks the dogs in public. We all know he knocks her about something awful.”
She closed her eyes, and lowered her voice to impart the dreadful truth on a whisper. “She says that he can only engage in marital relations if he is enraged. That otherwise his…” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, because it was awful, and beca
use there was nothing she could do about it. “It’s terrible, the way he treats her. But what’s more terrible is that the whole of the village, and I daresay the entirely of the shire, knows of his violent tendencies, and still do nothing. And they will do nothing until he kills her, and then they will do nothing more than shake their heads at her funeral, and say behind their hands that they always knew she’d come to a bad end. As if it were all her fault.”
Tamsin gave vent to all the fear and all the worry and all the awful, choking hate. “It is awful. It’s odious. She has no rights to anything—no rights to even complain. The only right she seems to have is to a decent funeral once she’s dead. It’s a wonder she hasn’t taken her own life.”
She drew a deeper breath to keep herself from an unmannerly display of all the emotions she was desperately trying to keep in check. The last notes of the music faded to a close, and they were left standing upon the dance floor as the other couples moved apart and away. But Simon stayed beside her.
“That is awful,” he agreed quietly. “It’s enough, I daresay, to put one right off marriage. Indeed, it might put one right off men forever.”
“Not forever. Not all men.” She tried to lighten the awful seriousness of the moment. “Just the ones who want to marry me.”
“And what do you want, Tamsin?”
It was the second time in about as many days—she had lost count of how long it had been since she had set her plan in motion—that someone had been kind enough and perceptive enough to ask her that question.
And her answer was just the same. “To be a bluestocking, like my aunt Dahlia and other ladies like the famous playwright Joanne Baillie, and read books and write histories and be my own woman.”
“Why should you not be?” He smiled at her in that sunny way of his, as if he could not fathom why it was not the easiest thing to accomplish.
“Because it is not the way of the world.”
“Is it not? It can be,” he insisted. “Come, meet me tomorrow and I will show you how.”
She hesitated—behind Simon’s back, Tamsin could see her mother advancing across the floor, parting the waves of dancers like a ship making for port. “I need to get back to Mama.”
He bowed over her hand and Tamsin felt that simple kiss on her wrist like a benediction. “Please?”
Her resolution began to give way under his determined kindness. “Where?”
“The east side of Berkeley Square, ten o’clock,” he said in a low rush. “I’ll have a carriage. I’ll be looking for you."
Mama was almost upon them.
“Will you come?”
“Yes,” she said, determined to trust him, even if she did not trust herself. “I will.”
“Excellent. And Miss T? Prepare yourself to be surprised.”
Chapter 13
At half-past nine the following morning, Tamsin stepped into the corridor and made her voice as sure and calm as a governess. “I’m headed for Mattigan’s Bookshop, Mama,” she called at the door to her mother’s private sitting room. “Shall I get you the latest copy of the Lady’s Magazine?”
Her mother raised her head from where she lay upon her chaise. “Yes, please. How thoughtful. It is good to see you taking some greater interest in fashion.”
“I’m trying, Mama.” Tamsin hated the small lies more than the larger ones, if only because she disliked so easily giving up her principles to the expediency of convenience.
Mama rose and reached out her hand, bidding Tamsin enter. “You’ll see, my darling,” she assured her. “We’ll come right out of this thing, and then you’ll see. The next few balls, before Christmas—”
“Yes, Mama.”
“I tell you what,” Mama began, and Tamsin could see that her mother was talking herself into some Christmas spirit. “I’ll come with you to Mattigan’s myself. Won’t that be lovely? We’ll have a lovely morning of it together.”
Tamsin hardly knew what to say. “Oh. That would be a treat,” she lied. “I’m almost ready. Just give me a moment to go up and fetch my heavy cloak.”
“Not that old country cloak,” Mama scolded. “Your new purple Spencer coat looks so well—so stylish.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you think so.” Tamsin attempted to look flattered. “But it is fearful cold out this morning—I popped out into the garden just this minute to gauge the temperature. I shouldn’t want to catch cold at this point in the Season. Better safe than sorry, I think, and find myself in bed with a putrid fever, missing those balls.”
Her mother, who had grown sensitive, as she called it, to extremes of temperature, began to think so, too. “Cold enough for a coat and a cloak?”
“Oh, yes. And my eiderdown muff as well. I know it’s nothing as fashionable as your swansdown, which I did think of borrowing, but after getting so cold at the skating, I’d rather be comfortable and warm than stylish.”
“I tell you what,” Mama began, and Tamsin began to relax. “I have remembered that I must speak to the housekeeper about…the supper for this evening. I particularly want Cook to get us a good haunch of pork. I hope you will forgive me for not accompanying you on this errand, but needs must—”
“Of course, Mama.” Tamsin managed a reluctant smile. “Perhaps another time.”
Tamsin barely saw the carpet under her feet as she hurried down the stairs and out the front door—she could see nothing but her own duplicity. She definitely saw nothing between Hill Street and Berkeley Square. But once she reached the fashionable square, she saw everything—the seemingly enormous number of carriages tooling up the Davies Street side of the square, the curving arabesque of the frost-withered leaf litter crunching under her feet, and the faces of every passerby who must surely see by her own face that she was headed for an illicit rendezvous with a man who would never be her husband.
She heard everything, too—the clattering of the birds in the bare branches of the trees over head, and the chattering of passersby, and the clop, clop, clop of hooves and carriages rumbling by, keeping time with her racing heart.
And then his voice from a carriage pulled alongside. “Miss Lesley,” Simon called her from the darkened interior. The carriage barely slowed as the door opened and the step fell down, and she seized the hand that reached for her and leapt aboard.
Simon efficiently closed the door to plunge them into the strange twilight of the closed interior. After the bright winter sunshine outside, it took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. When she did so, he was smiling down at her.
“Miss T,” he greeted her.
“Simon.” She shook the hand he had extended as if they were out in the square, in public, instead of in a closed carriage, off on an illicit adventure. “This is all very mysterious.
“Excellent. It’s a present, what? For putting up with me. And my failure to help you.”
“That was not a failure on your part,” she assured him. “But what sort of a present?” Gracious, she hoped it wasn’t a Christmas sort of present—she had nothing to offer him in return. She hadn’t even finished making presents for her own family, who would be exchanging small presents at home on Epiphany. “Where are we going?”
“Hampstead.”
He might as well have said John o’ Groats at the far tip of Scotland—the idea of leaving London was so surprising. “But I can’t be gone that long. Mama—”
“A short morning visit to the heath. Or rather a house near the heath—at the home of someone you said you admired and wanted to meet—Joanna Baillie.”
Tamsin’s heart clutched up hard in her chest. “The playwright?” Had she said that? Last night while they were dancing and sharing her secret most fears and desires? “You know her?”
“Neighbor of a sort. Have a little bolt-hole up in Hampstead myself, and one of my neighbors moves in Miss Baillie’s circle—poets and playwrights and the like. Your sort of people.”
He had told her to prepared to be surprised, but she was more than surprised—she was
overcome with gratitude. That he would arrange such a thing for her—
“You really are the most remarkable man.”
He smiled in that sunny, sometimes silly way of his, as if her words were of no particular account. But Tamsin could see the warm spots of pleasure color his cheeks.
Her own face must have been bright with pleasure as well. She could barely contain her enthusiasm—she didn’t want to. “I’ve never been north of the city. I’ve never been anywhere but Winchett village and Mayfair and the road in between.”
He peered behind the shade, and then raised it. “We should be far enough away from the fashionable areas to pass unseen.”
Tamsin couldn’t decide between looking at him, and watching the scenery roll by as they made their slow way up the Hampstead road past Camden Town and Haverstock Hill. Her chest felt too tight, her palms too damp. Was she wearing suitable attire? She hadn’t cared overmuch about her clothing because she knew she had been dressed to blend into Society, and appear much the same as other girls her age. And her one prior outing with bluestockings had been at her aunt’s house, where everything was made easy.
She smoothed the creases out of her countrywoman’s red wool cloak.
“You look charming,” Simon told her. “Just as you ought.”
“Thank you. I know it’s silly to be nervous, but I am. I have always wanted to meet Joanna Baillie and her circle, but now I worry that I am not accomplished enough.”
“You don’t need to be accomplished,” he assured her. “You only need to be yourself."
But was she enough?
The question was taken out of her hands when the coach rolled to a stop at the top of the hill, in front of a tall, neat red brick residence labeled Bolton House.
“You see,” he said. “Nothing too grand. Let me hand you out.” And he did so, opening the door, and taking her hand to help her alight. “Off you go.”
A fresh wave of anxiety took hold of her chest. “Are you not coming, too?”
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