Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind (18 page)

Lucinda gazed at him, wide-eyed. “My friend? You are not in love with me, then?”

“No, my dear, I am not. Did you wish me to be?”

“Yes, of course! Oh, pray, do not misunderstand. It is only that I am most hopelessly in love with him but ever since our engagement, he no longer seems to be in love with me. That is why you need to be in love with me!”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I do misunderstand!”

“It is very simple. Ginny persuaded me that if I acted happy and cheerful, Eustace would remember that he loves me. It hasn’t worked” She looked anxiously at Avery and Ginny seated together across the room. “It was my own idea to look as fetching as possible at the ball and dance with everyone who asks me, even the fat ones” She sighed.

Sir Anthony struggled to maintain his sobriety. “I begin to see your dilemma.”

“Oh, I am so glad! I was afraid no one knew how much I would despise having to do that. And you mustn’t tell me that no fat men will ask me to dance, because I know Jem Feddleswank intends to. He is forever asking me to stand up at the local balls.”

“And you are afraid you will have to do him the honor.”

Lucinda nodded. “It is not so much that he is fat, it is that, well, he creaks”

“He creaks, Miss Barrington?”

“On account of his corset. And he..” She hesitated and leaned so close to Sir Anthony, he thought her mother, seated not three feet away, would be carried off in a fit of apoplexy. He tried not to think about how Ginny was reacting at the moment.

“Miss Barrington, whatever could be so horrible? I trust he does not take liberties..

“Oh, no, nothing like that. It is much worse. He… he sweats”

Sir Anthony could not restrain the fit of laughter that escaped him.

“Miss Barrington, that is a fate to be avoided at all costs. However, I do believe I have a solution to your problem.”

Lucinda clapped her hands. “How wonderful! What is our plan?”

“Avery is meeting me in my room tonight directly after we all retire. You must be there first”

Lucinda frowned. “I will ask my mother. I can’t think she will approve, however. She may even say we must get married.”

Sir Anthony knew a spasm of alarm. “No! We shan’t tell your mother. No one shall know anything about it but Lord Avery. Don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t.” Lucinda looked as if she were about to weep.

“Come, Lucinda, what do you think Avery would do if he thought I were about to ravish you?”

“Is that what you are planning to do? Because I don’t think I would like it much,” she said with a pout. “And I don’t think Lord Avery would like it much either.”

Sir Anthony ground his teeth. “We won’t want him to like it. He will see that you are in danger, remove you from my clutches, and declare his undying love. For you!”

“Yes, oh yes, now I see! It will all be so romantic! He will drag me into his arms”-she cried, her eyes shining-“then, perhaps, throw you out of the window or some such thing. It will be marvelous!”

Sir Anthony didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Sir Anthony didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He was holding a beautiful girl in his arms, who, no matter how lovely, was not the object of his affections but more valuable still in that she was to pave smoother the road to his true love. She was a tantalizing armful, though not precisely tempting when his memories of the more womanly Ginny filled the very same space.

Ginny! He hadn’t expected her to show up for dinner and never had a chance to explain the ruse to her. Just after his conversation with Lucinda, Mrs. Barrington had tired of the mismatched liaisons, he and Lucinda in one corner, Ginny and Avery in the other, and set up a card table where she could keep everyone under her eagle eye. It was an agonizing evening, to say the least. And now he was standing in his bedchamber, his arms full of Lucinda.

She was gazing up at him, her eyes pools of uncertainty. “Are you certain this is how it is done, Sir Anthony? You are holding me so stiffly and not at all close. I don’t know that Lord Avery would find anything exceptionable in it at all”

“My apologies, Miss Barrington.” He shifted her in his arms and attempted to draw her closer without any part of them touching. As he pulled her this way and that, Lucinda gasped but remained impassive in his embrace until finally he had to admit his was an impossible endeavor. There were simply too many parts at too many angles to take all of them into account.

Just when he concluded that touch they must, steps were heard in the hall.

“Oh, do hurry, sir,” Lucinda cried.

Panicked, he yanked her full against every part he possessed.

“Yes, just like that,” Lucinda said, her voice ecstatic and loud enough to be heard by whomever lurked on the other side of the door.

“Lucinda! What are you doing in there?!” a voice from the hall demanded.

Sir Anthony made a move to bolt the door, but Lucinda was too caught up in her role to realize the voice did not belong to Lord Avery. She flung her arms around his neck causing him to drag her dead weight across the floor. “Save me, save me!” she cried loud enough to wake the household.

He did not make it in time. The door flew open and there stood Ginny, the person dearest to his heart and least welcome in his bedchamber.

“Whatever in the world are you doing?” Ginny winced. It was quite clear what it was they were doing. Hadn’t she found herself in just the same position, in just this same room, in just those same arms? Somehow the recollection only increased her confusion.

“Dancing lessons” Sir Anthony tugged at Lucinda’s hands clasped tight about his neck. “We were attempting to dance, were we not, Miss Barrington?” Lucinda only gazed at him, a look of acute incomprehension on her face. “For the ball.”

“Oh please, Sir Anthony, you don’t truly expect me to believe Lucinda came to you for dancing lessons? I have seen her dance at more than one local assembly, quite creditably I might add, though I have never before witnessed a version of the waltz so warmly performed”

Ginny noted the startled look that leaped into his eyes. Then his face adopted his familiar shuttered look. “It is I who cannot dance, Miss Delacourt. Miss Barrington was good enough to take a moment to show me a step or two”

Ginny stared, bewildered that he could utter such a bald-faced lie. After all, he had waltzed with her in his arms only four nights ago.

“Ginny” He spread his hands in supplication and took a stumbling step toward her, the unyielding Lucinda still clutching him round the neck. “There is more to this than you think. That is, less has happened than you suppose.”

“Exactly what is it I have supposed to have happened?” Ginny never received an answer, for just then a door was heard to open down the hall.

Sir Anthony and Lucinda shot each other an intense look. “Avery!” Sir Anthony said, renewing his efforts to put some distance between himself and Lucinda.

“Eustace!” Lucinda cried, pressing her cheek to Sir Anthony’s and locking her arms behind his neck at the elbows.

Ginny slammed shut the door and went to head off Lord Avery.

“Miss Delacourt,” he said, “what are you doing here? Ah, that is, at this time of night. Thought you were sleeping.”

Miserable, Ginny tried to ignore the sounds of a struggle coming through the door. “Yes, but I woke up. There was a noise, cats fighting, I think.”

Lord Avery was having none of it. “Cats! In Crenshaw’s room?” Then he flung open the door, allowing him a full view of Lucinda and Sir Anthony clutched in each other’s arms.

Ginny followed as Lord Avery charged into the room. “Sir Anthony! I insist you unhand her at once!”

Sir Anthony ignored him and looked imploringly at Ginny instead. “This wasn’t meant to happen. Let me explain!”

“Yes,” Lucinda spoke for the first time, “let him tell you. We are in love!”

“Crenshaw!” Lord Avery shouted. “You weren’t meant to make her fall in love with you!”

“Well, I am,” Lucinda said in a shrill voice, reminiscent of her mother’s, “and he loves me, only he won’t stop trying to get away,” she said, clutching him tighter around the neck.

“Avery, no!” Sir Anthony shouted back. “She loves you! Get on with it, already!”

Lord Avery rallied. “I say, unhand him! I mean, her, unhand her!” He charged up to the pair, his hands clenched in fists. “I can’t account for my actions if you don’t do so this very minute!” He made a manful attempt to punch Sir Anthony, but Lucinda wouldn’t let him have a clear shot.

Ginny began to have the feeling that matters were not what they seemed. She watched in rapt fascination as events continued to unfold.

“Miss Barrington, it’s over,” Sir Anthony hissed, “you must let go!”

“No!” she shouted, stomping her foot and landing it on Sir Anthony’s recently healed ankle. “I shan’t. You must at least hit him first!”

Ginny was unclear as to whom Lucinda was addressing with her last request. It would seem Sir Anthony and Lord Avery were equally nonplussed as no punches were thrown. Instead, Sir Anthony clutched his hair in both hands, Lord Avery sank to the floor, and Ginny began to laugh.

Lucinda, crestfallen and bewildered, asked, “But what about going through the window? You said..” She was stopped from saying more by Sir Anthony’s finger on her lips.

“Go through the window?” a voice behind Ginny bellowed. “Were you planning, I say, were you planning to elope or just run away together?”

G’Papa!” Lucinda cried, allowing her arms to slide from Sir Anthony’s neck to her side where they drooped like petals on a wilted flower.

“Lucinda!” Mrs. Barrington cried.

Sir Anthony groaned, and from Lord Avery’s spot on the floor came the sound of weeping.

“Come with me this instant, young lady!” Mrs Barrington snapped. She stalked over to Lucinda and, taking her firmly by the hand, drew her out of the room. “You too, Miss Delacourt!” she said with a snap of her fingers.

Ginny felt it best to comply and followed the other women down the hall, Mrs. Barrington ranting all the way to Lucinda’s room.

“I declare, if I knew we were housing two such serpents in our midst, I would have sent them packing as soon as I clapped eyes on them, pox or no pox!”

Lucinda was hustled into her room, changed into her night rail, and tucked into bed, all without a word in her own defense. Ginny had often thought of Lucinda as witless, but she never seemed more so than she did now, lying in her bed like an expressionless doll.

Mrs. Barrington tucked the covers around her daughter, then blew out the candle. “We will discuss this further in the morning!” she said, then marched Ginny out the door and into the hall.

“Go straight to your room and be sure to lock your door!”

“Yes, Mrs. Barrington. But if I could only make a suggestion…”

“In the morning!” Mrs. Barrington shouted, then stomped down the hall to her own room, slamming the door behind her.

Now that all the shouting had stopped, things seemed very quiet. Too quiet. Sir Anthony’s door lay between Lucinda’s and her own, and she doubted she could pass by unnoticed. She knew Sir Anthony had much to say to her, and she wanted to hear it, every word. She wasn’t sure how to feel about what had just transpired, but clearly things were not as they had appeared when she first walked into his room, and she knew she would not sleep until she had heard the whole truth. She also knew Mrs. Barrington most likely had her ear pressed up to her bedroom door.

She would have to walk by as quietly as possible and hope he had the sense to wait until morning for explanations. This proved to be a dangerous course of action. The arm that snaked out behind Sir Anthony’s door and wrapped itself around her waist came as a profound shock, and she very nearly gave a shriek. Deciding she was safer from Mrs. Barrington’s wrath, at this point, to capitulate, Ginny allowed herself to be pulled across the threshold.

While being clasped in Sir Anthony’s arms and soundly kissed, it occurred to Ginny that she was wrong about oh so many things. She had thought she knew him so well, could interpret every look, every action, every mask he chose to wear, but she was finding it harder and harder to predict what he would do. She found she rather liked it. She was wrong too about herself. Four days ago she had reason to hope he loved her. Forty minutes ago she was convinced he wanted none but Lucinda. Most of all, only four seconds ago she had truly believed that she would have resisted such an assault.

Instead, she melted with a fervent heat, and there was a singing deep within her that filled her with wonderment. There came sensations, even sounds, she barely recognized as belonging to her and only gradually did she realize that the rustling and murmuring were coming from elsewhere.

“The Barringtons,” she murmured against Sir Anthony’s lips. “They must have heard me come in here”

“No, it is I,” Lord Avery said from his corner on the floor.

Ginny gasped and pushed Sir Anthony away. “What is he doing here? What were you thinking?!”

“Oh, him! I forgot he was here. You! Out!” he said, helping Lord Avery off the floor and out the door. “And you, my dear Miss Delacourt,” he said, indicating a chair, “must sit.”