Mr. Malcolm's List (15 page)

Cassie
was finally able to pull Malcolm aside in the Statue Gallery, which was being
used as the refreshment room.
 
He had
waited impatiently for Malcolm to finish dancing, but it seemed his usually
fastidious friend had picked this night to dance with every woman in the
county, and it wasn’t until one of Malcolm’s partners requested refreshment
that Cassie was able to get him alone for any length of time.

“Malcolm,
I must talk to you,” Cassie told his friend.

“You are
talking to me,” Malcolm said.

“No, I
mean a serious conversation.
 
Alone.”

“I’m
sorry, old friend, but this is a ball.
 
No serious conversation is permitted at a ball.
 
If you had wanted serious conversation, you
should have gone to a dinner party, although I rather doubt you’d find any
there, either,” Malcolm said, picking up a glass and turning to leave the room.

“Malcolm,
this is important.
 
Please hear me out.
 
It should only take ten minutes.”

Malcolm
turned to look back at his friend, whose usual easygoing expression had been
replaced with one of resolve.
 
“All
right,” he said.
 
“Let me take this to
Miss Madison and then I will meet you in the library.
 
Although I’d hoped not to return there this
evening.”

Cassie
was sure his friend would relent toward Selina once he heard the entire story,
but Malcolm seemed unmovable in his determination against the girl.

“I do not
understand why you are telling me this, Cassie,” Malcolm said.

“I am
trying to make you understand it is not Selina’s fault, it is Julia’s.
 
Selina was against the charade from the very
start, she didn’t want anything to do with it.
 
Particularly after she met you, she again told Julia she did not want to
become involved in her scheme.
 
I think
it would be obvious to you that Julia is the one who wished to humiliate you,
not Selina.”

“I
understand all that, Cassie, but the fact remains that Selina set out to entrap
me.
 
She used information she had
obtained from you about what I was seeking in a wife to become that woman.
 
I do not even know her true character.”

“That is
not true!
 
She barely paid any attention
to what Julia and I were telling her.
 
I
am sure if she had listened to us, she would have not attracted your notice at
all.”

“So what
you are saying is that she is even smarter than you and Julia.”

“No!
 
That is not what I am saying.
 
That is, she is probably smarter than Julia
and I, but…” Cassie ran a hand through his hair in agitation, knocking the
leaves above his ears askew.
 
“Dash it,
you are twisting what I am saying all around.
 
What I am trying to say is that Selina is the right woman for you,
Malcolm, and if you ruin this opportunity, you will regret it for the rest of
your life.”

“I
appreciate your concern, but nowhere on my now infamous list does it specify
deception, lying, or scheming.
 
I am no
longer interested in Miss Dalton, and can only regret that I ever fell victim
to her little game.”

Malcolm
rose and walked to the door.
 
“Please
excuse me.
 
I promised Miss Madison the
next dance.”

“I hope
you trip and break your bloody stiff neck,” Cassie mumbled.

“I heard
that,” Malcolm called back from just outside the door.

“Good,”
Cassie answered.

Julia and
Mr. Ossory had been waiting impatiently for Cassie to finish with Malcolm.
 
When they saw Malcolm return to the ballroom,
they quickly scurried to the library.

“Well?”
Julia asked upon entering the room.

Cassie
looked up, and Julia’s hopeful air disappeared when she saw his expression.
 
She threw herself rather ungracefully onto a
sofa.
 
“What happened?” she asked.

“He would
not hear a word in Selina’s defense.
 
I
told him the whole story, and now he believes Selina set out to entrap him.”

“He does
not deserve Selina,” Julia said, but then her gaze fell upon Mr. Ossory,
waiting to take Mr. Malcolm’s place, and she quickly decided to herself that
Selina would be better off with Malcolm.

“I do not
understand why Jeremy is behaving so ungraciously,” Mr. Ossory said.

“I was
surprised myself.
 
I’ve never known
Malcolm to be so unfair,” Cassie said.
 
“Although there was that one time in
Eton
,
when we were playing Cricket—”

Julia cut
ruthlessly into Cassie’s reminiscing. “Perhaps he is still hurt,” she
said.
 
“We are probably expecting him to
recover too quickly.
 
I am sure that
tomorrow he will be more approachable.
 
Once he has had time to think over what Cassie told him, he is sure to
realize he is being unjust.”

Mrs.
Dalton was at that very moment telling Selina something similar.
 
“My dear, things are bound to look better in
the morning.
 
From what you tell me, Mr.
Malcolm has been grievously ill-used by those he thought he could trust.
 
I am not referring to you, Selina,” Mrs.
Dalton hurried to say, when Selina looked as if she were about to protest.
 
“I am referring to Lord Cassidy and Miss
Thistlewaite.
 
It cannot be a pleasant
thing to discover that guests in your own home have been plotting and scheming
behind your back.
 
I am sure that once
Mr. Malcolm recovers from his initial shock, he will soften towards you.”

“Do you
think so, Mama?
 
Because I don’t think I
could stand it if he looked at me again the way he did tonight.
 
Like I was some kind of vermin he’d turned up
beneath a rock.”

“I am
sure you exaggerate.
 
But, even so, I do
believe he will look at you differently in the morning.”

But in
the morning Malcolm was nowhere to be found.
 
Selina reasoned he would sleep late after the late night he’d kept but
as she was unable to sleep herself, she was down early for breakfast.
 
She was soon joined by Julia, Henry, Cassie
and Mrs. Dalton, all of whom were all very hungry or extremely slow
eaters.
 
They all dawdled at their
breakfast until the clock struck eleven, and there was still no sign of
Malcolm.

Malcolm
finally made an appearance at luncheon, but he seemed more effectively masked
than he had been the previous evening.
 
His expression was completely unreadable.
 
He was polite to Selina and the other guests,
but Selina’s heart sank to hear herself being addressed again as “Miss Dalton.”

She
decided it would be best if she left Hadley Hall.
 
It was clear that Malcolm had ceased to care
for her.
 
His expression now was so
completely different from the look of joy and delight on his face when he had
been in her company prior to last night’s debacle, that it was more than
obvious any tender feelings he’d once entertained for her were gone.

“Mr.
Malcolm, I would like to thank you and Lady Kilbourne for your kind
hospitality, but I think it is time that my parents and I took our leave.
 
We will be returning to
Sussex
in the morning,” Selina said.
 
She was
surprised to see her mother shaking her head vigorously.

“I am
sorry, Selina, I know we’d spoken of leaving, but I feel that I cannot leave
yet.
 
I woke up this morning with a
tickle in my throat.
 
I think I may be
coming down with a cold.”
 
Ignoring her
daughter’s look of shocked dismay, Mrs. Dalton turned to Mr. Malcolm.
 
“I am afraid, sir, that we must trespass on
your hospitality a little longer.”

“It is no
problem at all, madam.
 
Please stay as
long as you would like.
 
It makes no
difference to me,” Malcolm said politely enough, but his words stung Selina,
who felt he was making plain his total indifference to her.

“Well, in
that case, Mama, I may return with the Thistlewaites to town.
 
I am sure they are eager to return home.
 
Is it all right, ma’am, if I stay with you
another week?” Selina asked Mrs. Thistlewaite.

“Why, of
course—” Mrs. Thistlewaite was saying, only to be interrupted by her
daughter.

“I am
sorry, Selina, but Mama and I are not ready to return just yet.
 
I find it so relaxing here in the
country.
 
I hate to return to the hustle
and bustle of town.”

Selina
glared in frustration at her friend, thinking she had been overly hasty in granting
her forgiveness last night.
 
“Well.
 
It seems that I will be staying a little
longer at Hadley Hall after all,” Selina said.

“I hope
you enjoy the remainder of your stay,” Malcolm said, although he had to know
full well that Selina would not enjoy a single minute of it when he looked at
her as if she were a stranger, and an unpleasant one at that.

“I think
it is splendid that you are staying on, my dear,” Lady Kilbourne said, and she
at least sounded sincere.
 
Selina turned
to smile at her and was surprised to find Lady Kilbourne was regarding her with
all the warmth that her son lacked.

Thirteen

Selina
went to the library after luncheon, feeling that if she had to stay in this
cursed house for a while longer she would spend the time reading in her
room.
 
That way she would be sure to
avoid her host.
 
She was disconcerted to
find that he had come to the library as well.

“Oh,
excuse me,” she said, upon finding him ensconced in a high back chair by the
empty grate.
 
She turned to leave but he
stopped her.

“There is
no need to leave.
 
I assume you came to
the library for something,” he said, rising from his chair.

She
stopped at the threshold.
 
“I came for a
book, but I can come back later.”

“There is
no need to come back later.
 
You are
welcome to retrieve your book.”

Selina
walked to the bookshelves, but found it very difficult to focus on the titles.

“So you
enjoy reading, Miss Dalton?” Malcolm asked.

She
turned away from the books to look at him.
 
“I have told you previously that I enjoy reading, if you recall.”

“Ah,
yes.
 
I do recall that you said once that
you enjoyed reading, but I have found that sometimes people will say things
they do not really mean.”

“I am not
in the habit of doing so,” Selina said.
 
When he merely looked at her sardonically, she remembered that she had
not told the truth about Gertie, and turned back to the bookshelf, blindly
pulling a book from the shelves.
 
She
quickly turned to leave the room, but Malcolm stopped her by grabbing her
wrist, turning it so that he could read the title of the book in her hand.

“Poetry,
Miss Dalton?
 
A romantic, are you?
 
I would have judged you a pragmatist,”
Malcolm said, still holding her wrist tightly.

Selina
wrenched herself away from him.
 
“I am
sure from now on I will be.
 
I have
recently learned that it is a mistake to hold romantic illusions.
 
Reality has the habit of intruding, and it
can be quite painful.”

“I
suppose by reality you mean truth.
 
It is
difficult to hold on to our romantic illusions in the face of bitter truth, is
it not?”

“Or in
the face of what other people perceive the truth to be.”

Malcolm
merely smiled, and Selina was disappointed that the intensity had disappeared
from his eyes, his face assuming the polite mask it had worn all
afternoon.
 
“You are very clever, I will
give you that much,” he said.

“Do you
think so?” Selina asked.
 
“I think I have
been very stupid.”

“Bravo,”
Malcolm said, clapping lightly.
 
“You are
playing the part of wounded lover very well indeed.
 
Almost as well as your prior role.”

Selina
wanted to retort, but she found that her chest was very tight, and if she spoke
she thought she might start weeping, which she refused to do in front of
Malcolm.
 
So she merely walked out of the
room, leaving him standing there, alone.

By dinner
that evening, Selina had decided the best thing to do would be to avoid
exchanging any dialogue at all with Malcolm.
 
Since he appeared to be ignoring her as well, this was not a difficult
task.

The rest
of the party tried to carry on as if there was nothing unusual occurring, Lady
Kilbourne and Mrs. Dalton especially making valiant efforts to carry the
conversation, but it was obvious that there was a pall over the evening.
 
Lady Kilbourne, Mrs. Thistlewaite, and Mr.
and Mrs. Dalton played a desultory game of whist after dinner, but Mrs. Dalton
was barely aware of what cards she was holding.
 
Cassie, Julia, and Henry Ossory sat in one corner of the drawing room
watching Selina pretend to read her book, while Malcolm wrote letters.

“We must
do something,” Julia whispered to her two cohorts.

“I think
that is how this whole mess began,” Cassie said.
 
“By you doing something.”

Julia
started to respond but intercepted a warning glance from Mr. Ossory and so
nobly decided to overlook her cousin’s remark.
 
“Henry, what if you were to pay attention to Selina?
 
I think Malcolm was jealous of you before, it
may work again.”
 
At some point during
the events of the past two days, Julia and Henry had begun calling each other
by their Christian names.

“I am not
sure that would be a good idea,” Henry demurred.

“Why
didn’t you ask
me
to spark Selina?” Cassie asked.
 
“I’d be happy to.”

“Don’t be
absurd.
 
We are trying to make Malcolm
jealous, not nauseous,” Julia said dismissively, before turning to Henry
again.
 
“You would only have to
pretend.
 
And it should not be such a far
stretch for you; you admitted that you admire her.”

Henry
couldn’t explain why, but for some reason Julia’s request made him angry.
 
However, he reluctantly agreed to try, and
approached Selina where she sat on the sofa, asking loudly enough for Malcolm
to overhear if she would like to take a walk in the gardens.
 
He looked over at Julia for approval and
wondered why, when he had only done as he was told, his reward was a fierce
glare.

Since
Henry was looking at Julia he missed Malcolm’s reaction to his request.
 
Selina did not.
 
She saw Malcolm look up from his writing with
a slight frown, before looking down again when he noticed Selina watching him.

“I would
be happy to walk with you, Henry,” Selina replied, in the same loud tone that
Henry had used to make the request.

She was
surprised when Henry looked somewhat disappointed at her acceptance, and then
noticed him watching Julia, who also looked disappointed.
 
“Perhaps Julia would like to come as well,”
Selina said, in a quieter tone of voice.

Both
Henry and Julia brightened at the suggestion but Julia politely refused, and
Henry and Selina set off on their walk.

There was
a strained silence between them at first, the only sound the gravel crunching
under their feet.
 
Selina finally broke
the silence to ask, “I thought we were friends, Henry.”

“What?
 
Of course we are friends,” Henry said.
 
“It’s just—”

“It’s
just now that Malcolm is no longer interested in me you’re afraid I may expect
you to fulfill your aunt’s expectation that we marry, is that it?”

“Well,
yes, and I would not have minded a bit a week ago, but now…”

“Now you
find yourself attracted to Julia?” Selina offered when Henry seemed unable to
complete his sentence.

“No, not
at all!” Henry said.
 
“Well, perhaps just
a little, but that is not to say that I will marry her.
 
Although I am not saying I would not marry
her.”

Selina
laughed.
 
“Well, as long as you are clear
on the subject.”

Henry
smiled ruefully.
 
“I sound like an idiot,
don’t I?
 
I really don’t understand it
myself.
 
I didn’t even like Julia a week
ago.”
 
He sounded genuinely confused, and
Selina laughed again.

“I think
that her association with you is bringing her better qualities to the fore,” she
told him.

“I hope
so.
 
I must say, I was completely
appalled by her behavior last night.
 
But
I believe she sincerely regrets it.”

“I
agree.
 
And I cannot blame her too much,
because it has revealed Malcolm’s true character to me.
 
I now think that Julia may have been more
correct in her reading of his character than I was.”

Henry
shook his head.
 
“I do not believe so,
Selina.
 
Julia’s actions were prompted by
selfishness and pride.
 
She never truly
permitted herself to know Malcolm.
 
I
think you did know the real Malcolm.
 
And
I think his behavior now is in reaction to the tremendous wound he received.”

“Yes, the
wound to his pride,” Selina said.

“Perhaps
his pride was wounded, but I think that it goes deeper than that.
 
He was prepared to marry you, Selina.
 
That must illustrate the depth of his
attachment to you.”

Selina
sighed.
 
“I thought so, at first, but the
way he looks at me, the way he speaks to me!”

“It has
only been one day.
 
Give him time,
Selina.”

“I don’t
really have a choice, do I?
 
My mother
and Julia have hampered my efforts to leave.”

“They are
only looking out for your best interests.”

“And is
that why you’re out walking with me, as well?” Selina asked.

“Well,
Julia thought it may make Malcolm jealous if I showed you some attention.
 
But I am very pleased to walk with you.”

“But
you’d rather be walking with Julia.”
 
Selina stopped him when he would have protested.
 
“It is perfectly all right.
 
I must admit if I had my choice I would
prefer to be walking with Malcolm.
 
If he
did not despise me, that is.”

“If it’s
any consolation, Cassie was very willing to walk out with you, but Julia did
not feel that would have the desired effect.”

“Not to
mention that my toes would be in danger the entire time.”

Selina
and Henry returned to the drawing room in obvious high spirits.
 
This had the unusual effect of depressing at
least two members of the party.
 
It
caused Mrs. Dalton, however, to begin looking Mr. Ossory over more carefully.
 
Selina saw the direction of her mother’s gaze
and realized she needed to speak with her.
 
She did not want her mother thinking if Malcolm did not come up to
scratch Mr. Ossory would provide a replacement son-in-law.