Lady Adventuress 02 - The Education of Lord Hartley (22 page)

Fuelled by this undertaking, the marquess cut a veritable dash through town, making an appearance at every notable party, opera and gala. He won and lost fortunes at cards, danced with every incomparable debutante, and gave his heart to none of them.

In fact, his heart was not in it at all. The parties and galas had become one interminable blur and the only steady thing in the world was the sound of her name.

Hart could think if nothing but Maggie, no matter what pretty lady fluttered her fan at him. Of Maggie and of love.

A love which had overturned his heart seemed to have snuck up on him unawares and there was no escaping it. He could admit it to himself now, for whatever good it would do him. In fact, he had loved her for far longer still without even knowing it.

That
was part of the reason he had gone chasing after her with such dogged persistence.

Alone at night, Hart would recall how taken he had been by the artless freshness of her expression that day she had spilled the lemonade. He thought of the sweetness of her eyes, the warmth of her smile, which made her as lovely as a dewy rose.

He remembered how she had looked in the sun at Chenefelt a mere heartbeat before he had kissed her: Maggie had gone through an irrevocable metamorphosis since then. Certainly he felt like a right nodcock for not having seen it sooner.

No doubt, she would soon marry her damned composer. Perhaps it was best that she did. He wished he could believe that.

Now that he had lost her for good, the world felt empty, drained of colour. More bleached than it had ever been.

His sole consolation arrived in the form of a thin letter from Paris, addressed in her familiar hand. Hart reminded himself that she had promised to let him know that she was well. There was nothing more to it than that.

He really ought to have known better than to respond with more than a few brief lines. What good could possibly come from that? And he had always disliked penning long missives.

But write back he did, the words pouring out of him so that there could be no hope of stemming them.

*

Paris had become intolerably quiet with Hartley gone. Maggie was painfully aware of every passing day, every hour, as though someone had hung an ormolu clock just over her shoulder. Even the triumph of Madame Gallois’s dinner gown, which had been praised in several society publications, thereby bringing in a fresh wave of custom, was not so sweet a victory as it should have been.

Surely she had made the right choice in turning down Hart’s offer – and yet why did it leave her feeling so very empty, and so intolerably alone?

All around her, people were living their lives, moving on to new joys, while she stood still, consumed by the overwhelming sense of missing something very vital. The world did not pause to wait for one silly girl, after all, no matter how broken her heart.

Maggie knew that Cecile watched her every day with concerned eyes. She did not like to worry her dearest friend, and yet she found it impossible to return to life in Paris as it had been before Hart had appeared to spirit her home.

Instead, Maggie made every effort to redirect conversation to Cecile’s own unfolding romance. It had not escaped Maggie’s attention that her friend had started taking regular walks with none other than Monsieur Nicolas Alard, Madame Gallois’s solicitor and a very regular visitor to the shop.

His sister must be the most spoilt schoolgirl in Paris, Maggie had joked, with all the gifts her brother was buying her just for an excuse to speak to Cecile.

It could be no coincidence that Cecile’s expression of late had been rather far-away and dreamy, and that she often sang as she worked in the back room.

Perhaps it was the fact that Maggie felt like an outsider, despite the busy shop and her teeming social schedule, that led her to confide some of her story to Sir Lucian. She thought of him as a very trusted friend, and he seemed to sense her inner turmoil though she did her best to keep it hidden. To cheer up her flagging spirits, he made a point of taking her driving whenever his own schedule permitted.

“I must ask your permission to use this remarkable story of yours in my next opera, however!” Sir Lucian laughed when she had told him the whole. “What a remarkable adventure. And the very best of it is that no one shall ever believe that such a thing could be possible in real life.”

Maggie couldn’t help but return his smile. “Then you have my permission. You make it sound a lot more interesting than it is, I assure you.”

“That would be impossible. Next, you will tell me that your friend Cecile, or Madame Finette, if you prefer, is really a princess of the blood.”

“Alas, no. At least, she has never mentioned such a thing – and her temper is too sweet, I think, for a lady of the blood.”

“Very true. Besides, I rather think she has her heart set on that young nephew of Madame Gallois’s – a very fine solicitor, I’m told.”

He waved away Maggie’s undisguised astonishment. “I saw them strolling past the theatre not two days ago. Monsieur was very gallantly holding his umbrella for your friend.”

“Yes, it seems to me that they shall be very happy,” Maggie agreed softy, glad that Cecile, at least, had managed to find love.

“And what of you?” Sir Lucian asked quietly.

“Why, nothing! I assure you, I am perfectly content just as I am. Or are you so eager to be rid of me that you wish to see me married off?” Maggie teased, though she sensed that Sir Lucian saw right through her blasé façade, and was merely too well-bred to say so.

*

Maggie placed her quill in the inkwell, and leaned back in her chair to read over the letter again before sealing it and sending it over to England.

What was she doing, she wondered? She had been so determined to keep a cool distance from Hart, to make sure he felt no more obligation towards her.

But here she was, writing to him, and longing most achingly for his reply. As promised, she had written him a brief note to assure him of her well-being. Yet she had not expected that he should write her back, and that she would find herself half-way through a letter of her own without a second thought.

It was as though writing to him was the most natural thing in the world. As though, despite the fact that he was back in far-away London, with the English channel and a mountain of unspoken things between them, she couldn’t seem to let him go.

She awaited his letters with an unholy impatience.

The very last he had written her had been signed:
Believe me ever yrs, my dear Maggie.
It had set her mind racing with just that single line. Her thoughts had been on it all week.

What did he mean, if anything? He wasn’t really hers, she reminded herself sternly. He never had been, and now there was more distance between them than ever before.

And yet she could feel all the love she held for him blooming within her, unfurling amidst her heartbreak like a rose in winter.

Maggie had always been a very devoted writer of letters. She had often written to her brother when he went up to Cambridge, and she frequently corresponded with her younger cousins. Yet she had never before ventured to be so dreadfully fast as to write to Hart – and now she suspected herself unable to stop.

Despite all the varied letters she had written in her life, she could never have previously guessed the true intimacy born of the written word. She had always thought him abrupt, but Hart proved excellent writer: his discourse was witty and entirely delightful to read. Through his letters, Maggie discovered a side of him that she had never seen before, or perhaps one that she had never been permitted to see.

It was from his words that she began to feel that she
truly
knew him, as she knew no one else in the whole world. In turn, she felt as if her very soul was revealed on the page with every word she wrote him.

She found herself confiding in him the secrets of her heart, her unspoken longings and also the silly everyday things that had caught her notice.

With every line she wrote, Maggie remembered the treasured intimacy of his touch: a physical counterpoint to his beautiful words.

How ironic that she should long for him more than anything in the world, when it was she who had turned down his offer of marriage.

She had just time enough to address the letter when Cecile entered the room, raising an eyebrow to find Maggie at her pen again.

“You seem greatly affected – I hope it is not bad news?”

Maggie glanced down at Hart’s epistle as she threw some sand to dry the ink where she had carefully written out his address. “Not bad. I wish you wouldn’t worry so. I’m certain that I am now quite recovered of any feelings for Lord Hartley. My decision was necessary and it simply took me some time to come back to my senses.” She tried her best to put on a brave face for Cecile, to cover her unconvincing attempt at dissembling, though she suspected that her oldest friend was not fooled for a moment.

“It is my experience that whenever a lady claims herself utterly recovered from love, it is the surest sign that she is not.”

Maggie pulled a face.

Cecile’s expression remained faintly amused. “If I did not know that you are writing Lord Hartley, I should suspect you of secretly working on a novel,” she said wryly. “You certainly spend enough time at the escritoire.”

Maggie shrugged wearily, though her aunt would have given her a sharp telling-off for such an ungenteel mannerism. “Very well, you have made clear your point. It is the only way I feel connected to him – though I am aware that it is neither right nor proper of me to wish for the connection.”

“I think that, in matters of the heart, there is often no space to worry about ‘right’ or ‘proper’. But never mind that now, they have delivered the journals.
Le Beau Monde
and
La Belle Assemblée
are here – though
Ladies Museum
is late again. A shame. I should quite like a look at their events for the coming month. It might help us to foresee new orders.”

“How clever! And a little nefarious,” Maggie smiled. “May I see the
Beau Monde
?”

“Certainly.”

Maggie took the journal from her friend, but found that she had no interest in fashion plates and scandals as she scanned the pages for one familiar name. She had fallen into the habit of looking for mentions of him, to find what he was doing and assure herself that he was perfectly content – happy, even, without her.

She usually devoured the journals from cover to cover in the hopes of catching just one more stolen glimpse of him, but today she felt too impatient to read the whole as she scanned the pages.

Maggie didn’t have long to look, for it seemed that Hart had decided to attend every prestigious event in town, and the journals had noticed. Mentions of him were almost was as frequent as pieces about Princess Charlotte’s new husband, Maggie realised with a mixture of amusement and anguish.

“I think I know exactly the cause of your malady,” Cecile told Maggie primly. “You are suffering from a bout of disquietudes, and it’s really not surprising in the least.”

“You sound like my aunt.”

“If by that you mean that I have hit the target perfectly…”

“I do not! It has just been very dismal and rainy. You know how I hate grey weather.”

Maggie and Cecile sat in the Tuileries, taking advantage of the sun that had come out at last. Despite trying her best, Maggie could not seem to find any joy in the flowers or the sunshine, or in any of the gaieties of Paris that had set her heart soaring just over a month before. She would much rather have been at home or in the shop, sewing, but Cecile had insisted that she take an airing in the gardens.

“You still think of him,” Cecile said gently, though she knew the answer.

“Always.” Maggie smiled.

“That is hardly surprising, from how often you write him.”

“It wouldn’t do any good
not
to write. I do not think this is the sort of ache from which one ever recovers. I am certain – for there can be no doubt – that without him I shall spend all my life lost and unhappy. I just can’t seem to love wisely, can I?”

“Pah! And who does, pray? No one, my dear Maggie. No one in the history of the world has ever loved wisely. Love and wisdom are doomed to remain perfect strangers.”

Maggie considered this. It seemed to ring true enough. And yet Cecile’s own young man was not any trouble at all.
Cecile
seemed able to love very wisely indeed.

But then, what was so very wrong with Maggie that she could not let go of one impossible love?

Their copy of the
Ladies Museum
had come that morning, and in it the opening of an exhibition at the British Museum, with the marquess in attendance. Maggie opened the magazine idly, leaning back on the bench a little. The writer had not been able to resist slipping in the news that there was a very public courtship between the marquess and Lady Alice Howard, adding that certain other announcements could be expected
any day now
.

Maggie had not had to guess what the writer had meant by
that
.

It was exactly then that she realised just how terrible a mistake she had made. She had loved him, and she had let him go without so much as a fight. She had been too frightened of risking
her
heart to even find out what lay in
his
.

She loved him now more than ever, and it would kill her to see him wed to another. But what good were epiphanies come too late?

Maggie supposed that the damned Lady Alice must be a complete out-and-outer, an incomparable. Who was she to rush back to England and demand Hart’s love when he had found so much more worthy a female on whom to bestow his affection? And hadn’t Maggie
wanted
him to find someone he could love?

Did he love Lady Alice? There was really only one way to be certain. This time, she would have to ask him directly, to hell with propriety.

If there was one thing she had learned during her sojourn in Paris, it was that no good ever came of sitting around and waiting for matters to resolve themselves. She had already made enough mistakes letting fear rule her.

It was unconscionable to corner a gentleman and demand answers, but she knew that, if she did not, she would always wonder. And she could not live with herself then.

“Cecile, I have been the most unforgivably foolish coward,” she whispered as she read the snippet again.

“Whatever do you mean?” Cecile asked in confusion, leaning over to peer at the article.

Maggie looked up at Cecile, waiting for her to read the piece and watching her expression change.

Cecile bit her lip. One look at Maggie’s face seemed to tell her everything she needed to know. She nodded in understanding.

“When do you mean to go?”

“Tonight! I must write Frederick and leave tonight.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes. I see now that, more than anything, I was afraid, even as I told myself I was being brave. I was afraid that I would disappoint him, that he could not really love me – afraid of getting the one thing I’d always wanted. Now it is time that I really
was
brave, even if it means having my heart broken. This entire situation has been ludicrous to the extreme, and now I must play it out to the end, whatever end that may be. I must speak with him and reveal to him the truth of my heart. Then, let things fall as they may.”

“I’m glad.” Cecile smiled at her, relief visible on her face.

“Will you help me pack a valise? I think I shall need to pick a wardrobe especially designed to bolster my bravery.”

“Of course. Such a fiercely lovely wardrobe as Boudicca herself would have admired.”

Later that night, Maggie was on her way, and early on morning of the second day, she arrived in Dover.

*

Frederick had been watching Hart’s peculiar mood with a great deal of concern. From what he could see, it did not seem to improve any unless Hart was scribbling mysterious letters in his study. He wondered what it was that had truly happened in Paris to set Hart’s back up as much as it had done.

He had been comforted to learn that Maggie was under the chaperonage of Hart’s eminently respectable and esteemed aunt. Even their father had accepted the arrangement as the best possible solution. After all, the old earl had said drinking his third sherry, did not the beloved Princess Charlotte fly to Connaught House just three years previously, in a haze of the same youthful rebellion that would fizzle out in Maggie before long? And the people still adored
her
, so perhaps Maggie would not do much worse.

“It might even give the girl some dammed polish,” Lord Chenefelt had concluded, with a sigh, before passing on his thanks to Lord Hartley for attending to the matter.

Hart had firmly refused to go to the country and Frederick had not stayed long himself. He found that the house had grown astonishingly quiet in Maggie’s absence. He had not realised how much he had relied on his sister’s company to make it tolerable.

Now that there was no such company to be had in all of England, he felt it keenly.

Try as he might, he could not get Hart to drop even a word of whatever had occurred in Paris. He would get a strange, bleak look in his eye before assuring Frederick of Maggie’s good health and social triumphs and immediately changing the subject.

This in itself was significant. Frederick was determined to learn even some hint of what it was that had driven Hart to such distraction. He was acting like a jilted lover!

Was that it? Frederick wondered. Had the most impossible love imaginable somehow bloomed in the fertile ground of a Parisian summer?

And now that he considered it, was it so very impossible after all?

“This is the outside of enough, Hart. You must stop being so secretive and tell me what it is that ails you,” he declared at last, quite at the end of his patience. He couldn’t abide the stony detachment with which the marquess had taken to navigating society. It set his teeth on edge to watch his friend act out his ridiculous mummery.

In fact, it was putting Frederick right off his food, which was a damned shame.

They were seated at their club over a splendid supper, and it seemed that Hart was quite content to stay there indefinitely, though he paid very little attention to the meal before him.

Hartley looked up at his oldest friend, face impassive.

“Hah! Secretive, nothing. By the by, it occurs to me that you may soon have a very distinguished brother-in-law. I have been back an entire month, after all,” the marquess said cryptically, though he would not say any more on the matter, choosing instead to drain his glass of wine.

Brother-in-law? Frederick thought, noticing the grim look in Hart’s eyes.

Matters in Paris were obviously a lot more interesting than Hart was letting on.

He decided to try another tack. “And if the journals are to be believed, a point on which I reserve judgement, you shall soon have yourself a wife,” said Frederick, raising an eyebrow at Hart.

“A wife! Unlikely, I assure you.”

“I daresay you are mistaken. Pray don’t look so astonished – for why else would the most esteemed and eligible Marquess of Hartley be taking such an active interest in the Season? Particularly when it comes to dancing with Lady Alice.”

“Lady Alice?” Hart repeated, shaking his head and frowning over this news. “Have I been paying her any particular attention?”

“Well. That is a matter of perspective, I should say. But you have danced with her at every ball that you have attended, and there has been some speculation over whether she was seen driving with you in the park.”

“Banbury stories. I am not in the habit of driving ladies, aside from your sister, and only because she was a right pest about it.”

Frederick shot him a very curious glance. “Yes… Maggie is certainly a handful. I was always concerned that Society might ruin her for it.”

Hart thought back to Paris for a moment, and Maggie’s shocking gowns. “Society has done no such thing, you may be certain. She has Society prostrated at her feet.”

“Well, that’s a relief at least.”

“Indeed.”

*

If Hartley was a bit more impassioned than usual during his evening visit to Angelo’s School of Arms on Bond Street, then Frederick did not bother commenting on this, choosing instead to watch and wait.

Fortunately for his own state of mind, he did not have long to exercise this godly patience because a fresh and urgent letter from his very own prodigal sister arrived at his London townhouse that very evening.

In a few brief lines, Maggie assured him of her well-being and informed him that she rather thought she might return to London for a while, and that he could expect her in town in the next few days.

This announcement was high-handed enough that he was quite astonished. Whether or not she really had fashionable society conquered at her feet, Maggie had certainly acquired the commanding manner of a princess. The confidence with which she had written him was most unlike her.

And why the urgency? Something had clearly set her back up. Did Hart know that she would be in London? Surely not.

Things were certainly unfolding in a most entertaining manner. Frederick had a distinct feeling that the London Season was about to get a lot more interesting.

*

The dark, mud-splattered vehicle drew to a shockingly sharp halt in front of Chenefelt townhouse. The porter came out, lamp in hand, to quint at this late-night arrival, a little scandalised at the ruffian’s unseemly driving. He was very surprised to find the occupant of the coach to be none other than Miss Maggie, who had not been expected at least another two days given the state of the roads after the recent summer rains.

With much haste, the young lady was bundled into the house, and sat in front of the fire while a footman hurried to summon her brother.

The fuss seemed quite unnecessary to Maggie, because the balmy weather did not call for a fire, but she was much too preoccupied with sorting through potential strategies for confronting Hart, to protest.

Frederick met his foot-loose sister with an explanation of relief. “Oh, by Jove!” he exclaimed, flying into the room, just as Maggie dashed over to hug him.

Wasting no time, Frederick enfolded her into a warm embrace. “I am so very glad to see you. I own you
do
look very dapper in that cloak. You know, I was somewhat concerned you would take it into your head to go to Italy next, or some such, and forget about England entirely. ”

Maggie pulled away slightly, and smiled. “Italy is very much the fashion, I am told. It is where all the poets escape to at the first hint of winter.”

“Thankfully, you were never any good at verse. You had better tell me your adventures. Oh Maggie! What on earth possessed you? Father was utterly beside himself and I could not –”

Maggie stepped away and stilled Frederick’s speech with a gloved hand on his arm.

“Later, Frederick. I promise I shall tell you the whole later. But for now there are more urgent matters at hand.”

“You said as much in your note. Oh Maggie, pray tell me you are not in another of your scrapes. Is it debt?”

She frowned, taken aback. “Not at all. You know I haven’t the patience for gaming. But I shall need your help, my dear brother, for I have certainly been the fool.”

“There is some scrape, then! Oh, how I’ve missed you,” Frederick declared, grinning at his sister with the rare, doting expression of an older brother.