Lyon's Bride: The Chattan Curse (11 page)

Lady Sophie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, I can’t eat anything.”

“When did you last eat?” Thea wondered, laying a hand on the girl’s brow. It was cool. She would recover. She was probably just weak from being ill.

“Dinner,” Lady Sophie said.

“And nothing else?”

“No.”

“Did you sleep well last night?” Thea asked.

“I did until I became ill.” Lady Sophie sighed heavily. “I wasn’t feeling terribly the thing earlier in the day yesterday. Just a little queasy.”

“Her monthly,” Lady Carpsley said, leaning toward Thea as she divulged this information, as if she didn’t want the sleeping Lord Carpsley to overhear.

“Mother gave me a troche to settle me. I told her I was so nervous with excitement I didn’t think I could sleep.”

“And she must sleep!” Lady Carpsley declared. “We need her looking fresh.”

“A troche?” Thea questioned.

“Yes,” Lady Carpsley answered. “Lord Corkindale gave it to me. Said it always settles his daughter’s nerves. He is such a kind man. The others are biddies, spiteful and competitive. Lord Corkindale is very much a gentleman and understands fair play. He told me he can see Lord Lyon has developed a fondness for Sophie. He was regretful his lordship didn’t favor his daughter, but it is what it is.”

“Lord Corkindale said this?” Thea repeated in disbelief.

“He was very supportive. Told me to have my daughter let the troche dissolve slowly in her mouth. And it did settle you down, didn’t it, Sophie? Of course, what we didn’t know is that she was taking frightfully ill. Maybe I should have asked him for another to give her.”

And maybe Lord Corkindale had dispensed with his daughter’s competition along with that troche.

Thea forced a smile. “Please let us know if there is anything you need, Lady Sophie.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin,” the girl said, but then added, “have they returned from the picnic yet?”

“They have not yet returned, Lady Sophie. However, don’t be anxious. Lord Lyon’s character is not a shallow one,” Thea said.

“But he
is
male,” Lady Carpsley said. “They can’t help themselves. Even that one,” she finished, rolling her eyes in her sleeping husband’s direction. She sighed. “No, I prefer to put my faith in you.”

Thea did not appreciate the subtle reminder of what was at stake if Lyon failed to offer for Lady Sophie. She left the room. As she was coming downstairs, the picnickers were just returning.

Lady Lila had her hands, both of them, around Neal’s arm, and her father appeared very happy.

The Montvales stormed up the stairs past Thea without so much as a passing glance.

Plastering a smile to her face, Thea greeted those in the hallway. “I take it you enjoyed yourselves?” Thea asked.

“I believe we did,” Neal answered. “How is Lady Sophie?”

Thea’s smile grew tighter. “She might be joining us for dinner.”

“That’s wonderful,” Lady Lila said with a sweetness that had to have been false. There was nothing “sweet” about her at all. In fact, Thea had chosen her for her callousness.

Lord Corkindale came up to their group. “That was an excellent adventure. I’m ready for my supper now.”

Mrs. Pomfrey came up beside Thea. “The ruins were nothing special,” she said dismissively and then turned to Lady Lila. “I hope that chafing on your cheeks improves. The sun can be so harsh on a lady’s skin.”

“My cheeks aren’t chafed,” Lady Lila countered.

“If you were
my
daughter,” Mrs. Pomfrey said, putting a motherly tone behind her words, “I would advise you to run upstairs quickly and have your maid rub cream in them without delay.”

“Nonsense,” Lord Corkindale answered, growing blustery. “My daughter is the picture of health. Ruddy cheeks is good on a girl.”

“Ruddy?” Lady Lila repeated.

“I mean you have some good color to your face,” her father tried to explain, but the damage had been done, and Mrs. Pomfrey didn’t hesitate to capitalize on it.

“Well, if you were my daughter . . .” She let her voice drift with the obvious implication.

Lady Lila pretended to shrug off the suggestion, but a beat later said, “I really should go upstairs and dress for dinner.” She turned to Lord Lyon, gave him a dreamy smile. “Thank you for your help this afternoon, my lord. I am in your debt.” Honey dripped from every syllable.

“It was nothing, my lady,” Neal said. She smiled at him again and went upstairs, the sway of her hips a beckoning call—and Thea had an irrational urge to charge right up behind her, grab her arm and give her a shake.

“Harumph,” Mrs. Pomfrey said as if echoing Thea’s sentiments.

With the exit of his daughter, Lord Corkindale’s attention turned to a more important matter. “I say,” he said, addressing Osgood, “where might I find a healthy draft of something to wet my palate?”

“Where is Miss Susanne?” Thea asked, just realizing Mrs. Pomfrey was without the rest of her family.

Mrs. Pomfrey’s lips pursed in disapproval. “She and my husband are coming.” She forced a smile. “You will wait for her, won’t you, my lord?”

Before Lyon could answer, the door opened and Mr. Pomfrey entered, followed by his daughter and Sir James, who were both chatting in an animated way. In fact, Sir James was looking years younger, and Miss Susanne’s face glowed with the most becoming flush.

Mr. Pomfrey’s eyes met his wife’s with a resigned look. He’d obviously failed at an assigned task, which, Thea assumed, had been to nip a budding romance. Her assumption was affirmed when Mrs. Pomfrey took charge. “Susanne, you need to dress for dinner.”

Miss Susanne didn’t take her eyes off Sir James when she said, “Actually, I’m not ready to dress yet, Mother. It is such a lovely day, and Sir James and I thought we’d take a turn around Lady Palmer’s garden.”

“I
suggest
you dress for dinner” was her mother’s reply.

“I will,” Miss Susanne said, already starting down the hall with Sir James.

The lawyer threw over his shoulder, “I shall see that she returns with plenty of time to dress for dinner.”

“Well.”
Mrs. Pomfrey’s exclamation seemed to hover in the air, but only Thea and Lyon heard it. Mr. Pomfrey had caught wind of Lord Corkindale’s interest in a good dram or bottle of wine. The two were already walking toward the sitting room, where Osgood promised to bring them two glasses and a sampling from the late Lord Palmer’s highly respectable liquor cabinet.

Mrs. Pomfrey stood puzzled a moment and then retreated. “I believe I’ll dress for dinner,” she announced. “If you will excuse me?” She didn’t wait for permission from Thea or Lyon but went up the stairs as fast as she could.

Thea turned to Neal. “It appears Mrs. Pomfrey
has
found a match for her daughter.”

“And she can’t ask for anyone better than James. He’s one of the finest men I know and is besotted. I’ve never seen him this way around a woman. It was a marvel to watch romance bloom. The rest of us could have just as well not been there for all the attention they paid us.”

“And
you
have been close with Lady Lila.”

Thea had not meant to say anything. Certainly she hadn’t meant to sound slightly caustic.

He frowned, looking tired. “This morning you informed me I was paying too much attention to Lady Sophie and needed to spread my attention around. You can see James has captured Miss Pomfrey’s attention. What should I do? Ignore Lady Lila?”

“You appeared very obliging to her,” Thea had to say in the face of his reasonable explanation.

He took a step back, as if he needed a hard look at her. His voice dropped. “What do you want, Thea?”

She crossed her arms, suddenly needing a barrier between them. “I don’t want anything.”

“Then why do you care which woman I favor?”

“Because,” she said dragging the word out while thinking of a reason. “I never thought of you as a womanizer.”

“A womanizer?” he repeated as if not believing his hearing.

It did sound preposterous, yet Thea felt she had good cause to call him such. “Lady Sophie feels she has captured your affections. She believes you are very interested.”

“You know how aggressive Lady Lila is. Yesterday, I used Lady Sophie to keep her at bay. This morning, you didn’t like that. So, today, I let Lady Lila have her lead and, yes, she plastered herself to my side. But what can I do without being rude? She is a very forceful young woman.”

“So you
are
leading both of them on?” Here was a fault to support her accusation, although, yes, she knew she was being slightly unreasonable.

“I’m not leading anyone anywhere, Thea. You know what I’m looking for. I don’t understand why you are being so crotchety.”

“Crotchety?”
She couldn’t believe he’d accused her of such a thing.

“Difficult,” he amended.

“Oh, no, you said crotchety.” She wasn’t letting him off on this one, and it felt good to have something firm and
reasonable
to explain her feelings.

“I meant difficult,” he reiterated, punctuating the word with one finger aimed at her. “As in, not knowing your own mind, as in fussy, as in hot and cold. I haven’t known what to expect from you since we arrived here.”

Thea took a step forward. “I’ve been very clear in what I’ve been trying to do. Marrying someone you do not like is the ridiculous notion. It’s not natural.”

“Do I have to explain myself again—”

“No, I don’t think I could stand to hear it again.” And that was true, but she wasn’t certain why. It was his life. He could do what he would. Still . . . “It’s not natural, my lord. It’s not sane.”

“It’s what it is,” he replied bleakly, the anger leaving him. “It’s what it is.”

They stood in the foyer, the door still open, the evening sun filling the room with light—and Thea wanted to grab him and shake him for all he was worth. He was too good a man to marry someone like Lady Lila or into the Carpsley family. He deserved better. Much better.

He was a man of substance, a man who had values and was respected. A
noble
man.

And yet he was so obstinate, so convinced he was right in his actions, that he’d throw himself into marriage with some ninny-headed, selfish chit—

“I don’t want to see you trapped in marriage,” she whispered. “I know what it is like, Neal. I was trapped. And marriage is more than having children. It has to be.”

“I don’t expect you to approve of my decisions, Thea.”

“It’s not a matter of approving or disapproving,” she said. She raised a hand as if to take hold of his arm, to urge him to heed her warning, but then drew it back. “I just don’t want—”

She broke off, suddenly uncertain of what she didn’t want. She didn’t want him in a loveless marriage . . . but did that mean she didn’t want him in a marriage at all? With
any
woman?

For the past five minutes they had been circling each other. Either could have walked away at any moment, and yet they hadn’t. Worse, she’d been going on like a jealous fishwife—

This could not be.

They were friends, nothing more.
Nothing
more.

He frowned, concerned. “Thea, is something the matter?”

She was so aware of him, from the cowlick that gave his hair a little lift above his brow, to the shape of his earlobes, from the weave of the material of his jacket to the dust on his boots—and yet he was here to marry another. He didn’t hear the jealousy in her words.

And he’d already walked away from her before.

Neal wasn’t like her. He didn’t
have
to care.

“Everything is as it should be,” she said, choosing her words carefully. She took a step away from him, and then another. “You are right. You are handling this whole situation well—”

“Thea—”

She held up her hand to block any more words between them. “I shall see you at supper.” She took off up the stairs, running from him as fast as she could.

At the top of the stairs, she looked back. He was on the first step, as if he’d started to follow and then had thought differently of it.

For a long moment, their gazes held. She understood.
They
could not be. He would not change his path.

And then he turned away, walking toward the sitting room, where the other men were enjoying a drink.

Thea waited until he was out of sight, and she felt defeated. This was not right, but it wasn’t her place to tell him. She
had
overstepped her carefully erected boundaries.

She started toward her room and almost walked into Mirabel, who had come up behind Thea without her knowledge.

Mirabel reached out and caught Thea before she ran into her. “I’m so sorry,” Thea said. “I didn’t see you.”

“I am hard to notice,” Mirabel answered. “Are you feeling quite the thing? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Thea said, moving past her friend. “Everything is fine.” She kept moving and didn’t stop until she reached the inner sanctum of her room, and there she collapsed.

Sitting at her dressing table, Thea studied her reflection in the mirror. “You are a fool,” she told herself. “
Twice
over.”

Of course, her reflection didn’t argue.

But there was no time to waste feeling sorry for herself. Thea had to think of her sons. That traitorous yearning for someone special in her life, that desire for love and all it promised, were not for her. She’d had her chance, and she’d bungled it.

And perhaps her words with Lyon hadn’t been such a bad thing. It brought him down to earth from her youthful dreams of “what might have been” to “what is.” Since everyone had their own self-interest at heart, including Lyon, with his talk of sons and curses, and Mirabel, with her social climbing, well, perhaps Thea should be mercenary as well. If the Carpsley connection could place Jonathan in Westminster, why shouldn’t she take advantage of it?

In truth, the possibility of dirty play and troches from Lord Corkindale made Thea determined to keep the willful Lady Lila from becoming the next Lady Lyon.

There, she now had a purpose.

So determined, Thea dressed for dinner.