Love & Folly (21 page)

Jean and Owen had contrived one brief conversation alone since her return. He was pleased that
the poem had reached his friend, grateful to her. She did not have the courage to tell him she had not placed
the manuscript in his friend's hands.

When she told him of the peril she and Jean had stood in, Owen was inclined to regard her as a
heroine. She knew she was indulging vanity to bask in his admiration--if she was a heroine, so was
Maggie--but she couldn't help herself. His praise bathed her in a warm glow. She longed to pour out her feelings to
him, to reach a real understanding, but there was no opportunity.

Clanross was taking a great interest in Owen's catalogue these days. He left the two, of them
together in the bookroom only when Maggie, Elizabeth, or Miss Bluestone was there.

Nor could Jean and Owen walk the grounds without company. Mostly their companion was
Maggie. Jean didn't have the heart to rebuff Maggie whilst her sister looked so dispirited.

After the ride to the pavilion, however, Jean felt real concern that Maggie's injury had addled her
wits. So great was her concern that she spoke almost absently when Owen asked if she thought he should
read the georgics to everyone that evening. Maggie and Johnny had been thick as thieves. Surely Maggie
would be glad to see Johnny at the birthday dinner.

Jean waited until her sister had had time for a good rest, then entered the bedchamber. The
drapes were drawn and the light dim.

"Maggie..."

"What is it?"

"I want to talk."

Maggie stirred on the pillows. "All right."

Jean pulled a chair to the head of the bed. "You've always liked Johnny Dyott. I thought you'd be
glad to hear he was coming. What's wrong?"

Maggie flung her arm over her eyes.

"Tell me, Mag."

"He won't speak to me. Whenever he saw me after the riot, he called me Lady Margaret: He
despises me." She began to weep.

Alarmed, Jean rose and bent over her. "Johnny was a little angry with us, of course, but I'm sure
he likes you very much." That she had forfeited Johnny's esteem she knew well enough. She remembered
his questions in the hackney.

"We were friends before," Maggie sobbed. "He confided in me. I love him and now it's all
ruined."

"I didn't know," Jean said slowly.

"Know what?" Maggie choked on a sob.

"That your feelings were engaged."

Maggie only cried harder.

"I really didn't," Jean insisted, alarmed. "I'm sorry, Mag, but why didn't you tell me?"

Maggie was heard to mutter that it wasn't romantical.

"Like Owen, do you mean?"

Maggie gave an assenting sniff. "But I love Johnny. I want to marry him."

Jean had been leaning over her sister. Now she sat down hard on the chair. Though her love for
Owen was a rare, crystalline blossom, the idea of marriage to him had scarcely crossed her mind. Marriage
was some thing that would happen in the dim future. She would marry Owen, of course. When he was
famous like Byron and ready to settle down. Settle down. The phrase weighed on her mind like lead. "Are
you sure?"

Maggie gulped and nodded. "I'll never love another man as I love Johnny. I'm... I was
comfortable with him."

Jean blinked. Comfortable? What did comfort have to do with the course of true love? "I wish
you'd told me," she repeated.

Maggie hiccoughed. "I wanted to be sure. I thought we would go on as we were for ever. Now
everything's spoilt. He'll be polite."

"Oh, Mag, I'm sorry." Jean felt helpless to console Maggie and curiously distant from her. How
could her twin, her lifelong confidante, have conceived so strange an idea of love?

They had discussed the subject at length, and Maggie had always agreed with Jean's opinions.
They had admired the same fictional heroes and the same love songs. Of course, Maggie was not poetic.
Jean had assimilated that difference long ago. Maggie was down-to-earth, practical. But love. Surely one
could not be practical about love.

Yet Maggie said she loved Johnny, and her grief was a powerful argument that she spoke the
truth.

"Tell me what I can do to help," Jean said humbly.

Maggie rose on one elbow. "Release me from my promise."

"About Owen's poem?" Jean licked dry lips. "I can't."

"I have to tell Johnny the truth."

"But don't you see, Johnny is Owen's enemy. He'd betray Owen."

"He would not." Maggie glowered.

"I don't mean he'd lay an information. Nothing like that. But he'd feel obliged to tell Clanross.
Clanross is his employer. And Clanross would send Owen away. I couldn't bear it, Maggie." Tears blurred
Jean's vision. "I couldn't."

Maggie flopped back on the pillow. "It doesn't matter. Johnny won't want to speak to me
privately in any case."

Jean could think of no reply. And no solution. if only she could have a long talk with Owen alone,
if he knew of Maggie's feelings, surely he would agree that she should tell... No. It was too much to
ask.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "It's not fair."

Maggie did not reply.

The days before Jean and Maggie's eighteenth birthday tried Elizabeth's patience, never her strong
suit,
à la outrance
.

Maggie languished. She moped and complained of the headache until Elizabeth, genuinely
alarmed, sent for the apothecary and Charles Wharton of Hazeldell in sequence. The apothecary prescribed
rest and laudanum. Charles prescribed exercise and fortifying broths.

Charles was a childhood friend and the surgeon who had saved Tom's life three years before.
Elizabeth had a great regard for his medical opinion. He did not think Maggie was of a consumptive habit,
which relieved Elizabeth's mind. Nevertheless Maggie kept to her couch.

Jean was by turns sullen and overexcited. Her desire for private meetings with Owen Davies
shone out clear as day. Even with Tom's aid, Elizabeth was hard put to keep track of Jean.

Above all, the weather and the lengthening daylight frustrated Elizabeth's astronomical
observations. That fact alone would have left her restive. It did not help that Tom was palpably tiptoeing
about her sensibilities.

She was glad her husband was home, touched by his pleasure in his sons, and grateful that he was
willing to watch over Owen Davies, but she wished he would come out forthrightly with whatever was on
his mind.

Finally she took the bit in her teeth and confronted him. They had just come from a lively
afternoon session with the babies. Tom followed her into her dressing room and watched as she brushed her
hair, preparatory to putting it up for dinner. He liked her hair, which was plain chestnut. Glossy as
chestnuts, he said. He had been retailing some minor accomplishment of the Honourable Richard. She
interrupted him ruthlessly.

"Dickon is clearly destined for great things. What is on your mind, Tom?"

His brows shot up. "The state of the nation?"

"Try again."

"Maggie's megrims."

She shook her head.

"You're a hard woman to please."

Elizabeth smiled. She had always liked his sparring style. "If you don't tell me what's troubling
you, Tom, I shall imagine horrors." She stroked the brush through her hair and the air crackled.
Electrical.

"Horrors?"

"You've sunk your fortune in shares of a steam-driven railroad and the engineer has gone
bankrupt."

His grey eyes gleamed with amusement.

"You plan to leave me for Lady Holland."

"Guess again."

Elizabeth set down the brush. "I knew how it would be. You've taken up hot-air-balloon
navigation and mean to cross the Channel in a wicker basket."

Tom laughed aloud. He was notoriously prone to motion sickness and would be the last man on
earth to take up hot-air ballooning.

"I wish my face were not an open book," he said ruefully, when his mirth subsided. "I've done an
unforgivable thing, Elizabeth."

"Yes?"

"I've invited Richard Falk to bring his family to Brecon for the month of August. Well, from the
end of July."

Elizabeth digested that. "Perfidy."

He was shamefaced but still amused. "I know very well you'll be wanting to work at the
telescope, my dear. It's an unconscionable imposition. Fortunately, Richard has not yet accepted. His affairs
are still unsettled."

"It might do," Elizabeth mused.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I meant to invite Willoughby and Bella." Watching in her pier glass, she saw him grimace. He
did not like Willoughby Conway-Gore who, until the birth of their sons, had been his heir. Elizabeth was
mildly fond of Willoughby's wife, but a month of Willoughby would have been more than enough for her,
too.

"Why invite anyone at all?"

"I shall need reinforcements, you see, if the king goes through with his foolish divorce and you're
compelled to sit in the Lords nonstop. I like Colonel Falk. He's a sensible man and I think he has a kindness
for Jean and Maggie."

"Whew."

She cocked her head inquiringly.

"Not every one takes to Richard. He's an acquired taste."

"I daresay. However, he strikes me as quick-witted and commonsensical. You'll allow that anyone
dealing with Owen and my sisters ought to display both qualities."

"Indeed."

"I don't know Mrs. Falk, of course."

"Emily Falk is an agreeable woman."

Elizabeth turned and faced him directly. "Will she require to be entertained? I do mean to work
at the telescope. I'm sure Colonel Falk will find ways to amuse himself, but a lady who feels her hostess is
slighting her can be dispiriting company."

Tom smiled. "That's the last word I'd use to describe Emily. And she doats on children. She has
five of her own to occupy her, if our sons and our sisters lose their charm."

"Lord, chaos in the nursery."

"Her Sally is a trifle younger than the boys, and Harry, I think, a year older, so there are only two
young Falks still in the nursery. Tommy, my godson, is six or seven. Amy is just Georgy's age, and the
eldest, Emily's son, is twelve."

Elizabeth brooded. "If I were to put Jean and Maggie in charge of the older children..."

Tom shot her a mock salute. "Napoleonic, Elizabeth."

She sighed. "Napoleon met his Waterloo. The girls would probably balk at so obvious a diversion.
However, I shall write Mrs. Falk at once and second your invitation."

He came to her, took her face in both hands and kissed her soundly. "I wish I might witness your
every skirmish."

Her spirits fell. "I wish you might, too. There is an eclipse of the sun I particularly wished to
observe in your company."

He took her hand in his own. "I give you my oath, queen or no queen, divorce or no divorce, I
shall be with you for the eclipse of the sun."

Elizabeth pressed his hand to her cheek. "I'll hold you to your promise, sir."

* * * *

Johnny reached Brecon the day before the twins' birthday dinner. During the coach ride he had
rehearsed several eloquent speeches designed to restore him to Maggie's confidence. When he arrived at
Brecon late in the afternoon, however, he found that Maggie was abed with the headache and did not plan
to show herself that evening.

That was a facer.

The company at Brecon had swelled, and the dinner that evening stretched interminably,
probably owing to the presence of the Whartons and the Conway-Gores. Mrs. Conway-Gore was witty and
handsome enough to distract any man from his mutton, but her husband, a Conway cousin, struck Johnny
as a coxcomb.

A waspish exquisite in very high shirt points and very tight knee breeches, Willoughby
Conway-Gore soon drove the gentlemen from their port. They rejoined the ladies to discover Lady Clanross riffling
through the stack of musick on the pianoforte. She was bent, it seemed, on an evening of song.

Bella Conway-Gore had a clear, well-trained soprano and an obliging temper. She sang three of
the new Italian airs, then volunteered to play for the others. Charles Wharton and Lady Clanross persuaded
Owen Davies to join them and the four singers were soon delighting the company with their harmonies.
Owen had a true Welsh tenor and he exercised it to much applause.

Johnny no longer saw Davies as a rival, but he could not help wishing the Muses' darling would
strangle in his artfully negligent neckcloth. No such happy chance occurred.

Clanross listened with evident enjoyment. Once Johnny swallowed his chagrin, he might have,
too, for the singers' voices blended well and he liked musick. Unfortunately, he had chosen to sit beside
Mrs. Wharton, and she kept up a gentle babble of inanity that made concentration difficult. He was obliged
to lend her at least half an ear.

Though it was hard to believe, Mrs. Wharton was Witty Willoughby's sister. She was a pretty
woman with the remains of what must have been remarkable beauty overlaid with plumpness. She was
clearly enciente as well. Had she said anything sensible Johnny would have given her his attention, but she
was as near to being witless as made no difference. She had two clever children and a clever husband and
she told Johnny all about their cleverness, illustrating her tiny points with endless anecdote.

Trying to look interested, Johnny let his mind wander to the twins. Jean was listening to the
singers--or possibly just to the leading tenor--with rapt attention. She had avoided speaking to Johnny at
dinner, though she sat on his left. He supposed she had not yet forgiven him for the cross-examination he
subjected her to in the hackney.

Had Maggie forgiven him? Her absence was not a propitious omen. His spirits sank as the singers'
voices rose.

How could he assure her, without offending her loyalty, that he knew her sister had led her into
the escapade in London? Maggie was by nature sweet, biddable, trusting. If only she would place her trust
in him, he would wear it like a favour.

That was a good phrase. He tasted it. Perhaps he was not a wild Welsh poet, but he
could
turn a phrase. But what good would his eloquence do him if Maggie would not listen?