Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind (19 page)

Drawing up a chair across from her, he sat down and took a deep breath.

Ginny threw up a hand. “Don’t. It’s not necessary. I think I have it all sorted out”

“You do? You mean, you aren’t going to read me a lecture or break bottles over my head?”

“No! I’m not angry. I see what you were trying to do, both you and Lord Avery as well as you and Lucinda. Why two plots on the same night I am at a loss to explain, but with Lucinda, most anything is possible. Perhaps you should fill me in on the details tomorrowone engagement under a cloud of suspicion is quite enough.”

“Yes,” he said, relief washing across his face. “I believe you do understand,” he said very quietly.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. “What do you mean? What do I understand so well?”

“Ginny, don’t you see? The Barringtons insisted Lord Avery marry their daughter when they merely suspected they had been together in her room. I was caught redhanded”

“You mean … you can’t mean they … No! Why should they break off her engagement with Lord Avery only to marry her off to you? As long as she marries one of you, her reputation is in no danger whatsoever!” she cried, as panic started to make its way up her lungs into her throat. “Why shouldn’t it be Lord Avery?”

“Ginny,” he said softly, taking her hands in his, “I hope you are right. I pray that it is so. All we can do is wait and see”

“Wait and see? Wait and see! You would marry Lucinda?”

“No! Not if I could help it. I will do everything in my power to avoid it, if it comes to that. But if Lucinda doesn’t get over her petulance for Sir Avery, if he loses patience with her and sees me as a way out, I might have no choice!”

Ginny was aghast. “What do you mean, no choice? Just say no!” The panic took over and welled up in her eyes and down her cheeks.

“Ginny, there’s still time to avert disaster. The quarantine isn’t over for three whole days. What difference does it make if they insist we are betrothed if we are the only people to hear of it?” He tilted up her chin and brushed at her tears. “Do not despair.”

She nodded and dragged herself to her feet. It was silly to be so distraught over something that hadn’t even happened. Yet Ginny had a foreboding that the Barringtons would insist on marriage between Lucinda and Sir Anthony. She suspected he thought so as well. If word of it got out, it was as good as done. For a man to cry off from an engagement was strictly taboo, even among the less scrupulous.

And Sir Anthony was always polite.

With unseeing eyes and leaden feet she found her way to her room. Somehow she managed to undress and fall into bed.

A few rooms down the hall, Sir Anthony sat at his desk and tried to think. Only a few more days left of this ghastly quarantine. How much more damage could he do in the days remaining? How much damage could he manage to undo?

Laying his head on his arms, he closed his eyes. He awoke to the singing of birds and the sun shining. He groaned. Who gave the day permission to be so bright? His mood did not match the day. There was nothing to look forward to. He could hardly woo Ginny with an engagement to Lucinda hanging over his head. He didn’t know if the Barringtons could be made to understand what had happened, or if it even mattered. Worst of all, that meant no more kissing Ginny. How had he let himself get so out of hand in the first place? Grandmama would comb his hair with a footstool if she knew how he had made such a muddle of things, not to mention precipitating so many acts of impropriety with her grandniece.

As he began to dress, the day did not improve. He wished, for the hundredth time, that he had Conti, his valet, with him. And for the hundred and first time when he nicked himself shaving. And for the hundred and second time when he was barely able to struggle into his jacket, his neck and shoulder muscles sore from his night at the desk. No doubt having a grown woman hanging from his neck like a barnacle off a ship was to blame. Eventually, however, he felt able to face the consequences of his actions and headed downstairs, where he encountered Lucinda about to enter the breakfast room.

“Good morning, Miss Barrington.”

Lucinda tossed her curls and flounced away. Things were looking up.

Following her into the breakfast room, he was almost knocked over by Lord Avery storming out.

“Good morning, Avery.”

Lord Avery looked him up and down. “The moment I am able I will send for my seconds. They will be calling on you here, so do not think to escape”

This was not a good sign. Sir Anthony inclined his head but was too puzzled to make a reply. As he pushed open the breakfast-room door, he noted that Lucinda and Ginny were seated on the farthest ends of the table from each other. He nodded politely to each and took a seat next to Mrs. Barrington, who pressed a well-used handkerchief to her nose and rushed from the room.

“Well, I am not in good odor today, am I?” Sir Anthony poured himself a cup of coffee and looked around the table.

“It is a sad state of affairs, a sad state of affairs, indeed,” the squire said with a tragic smile. “It seems we could all do with some cheering up. Miss Delacourt?”

“Yes?” Ginny gave the squire a bright smile. Sir Anthony thought it a trifle too bright.

“Would you like to go for a stroll through my rose garden? Perhaps you could advise me on some additions I wish to make. I believe your Grandaunt Regina has some varieties that would look well, oh, very well indeed, with those I have already”

This time Sir Anthony thought Ginny’s smile looked painted on. “Of course, squire. Only, do you think it wise? Your wife has me convinced my eyes should fall from my head if exposed to the sun during the quarantine.”

“We shall just have to take the risk, then, shan’t we?” the squire replied.

Sir Anthony watched Ginny leave on the squire’s arm, his heart aching.

“You will have to learn to get over her when we are married,” Lucinda said.

Sir Anthony choked on his coffee. “I’m sorry?”

“I could not like it if you were to be in love with her when we are married, that is all.”

Sir Anthony bit his tongue and counted to ten. He certainly hadn’t expected Lucinda to be the one to broach the subject of marriage. “Is this your parents’ idea, or have you decided this on your own?” He scrubbed at the coffee stain spreading over his neckcloth. Conti … one hundred and three.

“Mama and Papa and I have been discussing it all morning. Seeing as Eustace and I are no longer engaged, they think it would be a good idea if I married you. After all, it is your fault everything went wrong! Eustace didn’t declare his love, he didn’t hit you or even throw you out of the window. And you said he would!”

Sir Anthony choked again. It was worse than he feared. Two Barringtons were a respectable challenge, but the three aligned together were nearly insurmountable. “But you love Avery! Why would you cry off?”

“I do love him, but this is all so much more romantic, don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see.”

“Well, it hardly matters now because my parents insist that since you besmirched me, you must marry me”

Sir Anthony choked, coughed, and choked again. “Besmirched? Lucinda! Didn’t you tell your parents the truth?”

“But of course! I told them you were making love to me in your room and Eustace didn’t try to stop you!”

Sir Anthony put down his cup and resolved never to drink coffee again. “Lucinda, you know that isn’t true. I was not making love to you, and Avery did try to save you” There was something wrong about that statement, but he would have to consider just what at a later time. “Lastly, you don’t want to marry me”

“But he didn’t try hard enough,” Lucinda whined, her nose in the air. “I might as well marry you as anyone else if Eustace won’t have me. You’re rich, titled, and handsome. And besides, if we are already engaged I won’t have to dance with sweaty, creaky old Jem Feddleswank at my ball”

“No, of course not,” Sir Anthony murmured, looking down to note the coffee spreading along his snowwhite cravat onto his shirt. “Excuse me, I think I have had too much to drink.”

“I do hope you will take better care of your clothes when we are married!” Lucinda snipped.

“Miss Barrington, you leave me with very little to say.” With that, he fled the vicinity and retreated to his room to lick his wounds and plot his escape.

66It is a lovely, yes, a lovely day for a walk in the garden, is it not, Miss Delacourt?” The squire squeezed Ginny’s hand where it lay on his arm. He chuckled. “In spite of all the romantic turmoil, eh, what?”

Ginny stifled her annoyance. The squire could not possibly know how her own heart roiled. “So there is to be no wedding between your daughter and Lord Avery. I shall always consider it a sad misfortune, as they seem very fond of one another.”

Squire Barrington sighed and sighed again. “Lucinda assures me it is as she wishes. I don’t know when it happened, but it seems she has developed quite a tendre, quite a tendre indeed, for Sir Anthony. Of course, he is not the catch Lord Avery was, but here now, you would not tell him I said so, would you?”

“Of course not,” Ginny said. Besides, she didn’t in the least agree. “Then it is all settled,” she said in a dull voice. “Lucinda is to marry Sir Anthony?”

The squire paused to admire a rose before answering. “Well, there has been no formal offer, but we expect nothing less, nothing less, found as they were together in his room. My Lucinda is a vastly pretty girl, oh, vastly pretty. Still, I am not so sure what it is that inspires gentleman to exhibit such wanton conduct in her presence” He leaned close to whisper in Ginny’s ear. “Beauty is not everything, and my Lucinda is sadly lacking in other minor areas”

Ginny cast about for an appropriate reply and, finding none, hid her confusion in the petals of the nearest rose. She certainly was mellowing. There was a time when she would have told the squire precisely what she thought of his rag-mannered daughter and her latest engagement.

“You do not recognize that rose?” the squire asked. “It is a very rare one indeed. Only your guardian, the dowager duchess, and I possess such a rose in all, yes, all the county. I endured great pains to secure that, I tell you”

Ginny wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the details. In fact, the subject of roses was one she did her best to avoid with the squire. The conversation seemed always to make its way to a request for clippings from her Grandaunt’s precious collection, something she would never allow. Ginny endeavored to say as little as possible when they happened upon a newly dug bed of rich brown earth crying out to be filled with roses. Grandaunt’s roses.

“Well, whatever do we have here?” the squire bellowed. “My gardener has been hard, yes, hard at work, it seems. Is it not splendid?”

Ginny gazed at the dirt at her feet. “Marvelous” Flowers were glorious, but digging in the soil with her bare hands was not. Nevertheless, the new bed was significant. Undoubtedly the squire was about to renew his request for specimens. The knot of misery that had been forming in her stomach since the previous night tightened with a painful jerk.

“Miss Delacourt..” the squire began, but Ginny would not allow him to continue.

“Why, Squire Barrington, is that not a Rosa Gallica Agatha just the other side of that arch? It is one of my favorites. They say that Josephine Bonaparte had one in her garden”

“Well, I daresay she did,” the squire blustered in confusion. “She had one of everything. A sad waste when her collection was destroyed, a sad waste indeed.” The squire mourned, allowing himself to be pulled along the path to the Gallica rosebush.

Ginny refrained from mentioning the fact that Grandaunt Regina disdained such a common rose and refused to have one in her garden. It was enough she had turned the squire’s thoughts to coveting Josephine’s roses rather than those at Dunsmere. It was a pity the man spent so much time lusting after what he did not have instead of appreciating the truly impressive collection he had already acquired.

It was shocking to walk under the archway groaning under the weight of a vigorous climbing rose only to emerge into a peaceful little courtyard alive with the sounds of bees humming, water rippling, and Mrs. Barrington’s secauters clicking away with frightening regularity. At her feet lay a pile of luscious pink blooms at their peak of glory.

“My precious life, what are you doing?” the squire wailed.

Mrs. Barrington turned unseeing eyes upon him. “I am pruning the roses, my husband,” she said. The insatiable clicking resumed.

“But, my love, why? Why?” The squire remained rooted to the spot.

“Perhaps she is not feeling quite the thing,” Ginny suggested. In fact, she looked a bit mad, chopping away at the perfect roses with such calm fortitude.

It was when the newly formed buds began to fall to the blade that the squire was spurred into action, running across the courtyard through the man-made pond to the other side, where he gripped his wife’s wrists against further violence to his roses.

“It is all your doing!” Mrs. Barrington struggled for control of the secauters, bursting into tears when her husband won the battle. “All you care for are your roses, and look what it has gained you! Lucinda is to marry a mere baronet instead of an earl, and we are shut up in the house for days on end because you insisted on picking up your fellow rose lover!” She cast a venomous glance on Ginny. “And someone,” she screamed, “someone continues to make themselves free in our home in the middle of the night! Have you nothing to say for yourself, sir?”