Miss Lindel's Love (21 page)

“Never mind. If Mama wants to see you, old beaus will have to go to the wall. Sons, too, more than likely.”

He did not seem crushed by his mother’s curt request to “take himself off” when he’d introduced Miss Lindel to her. Maris noted he did not go far enough to be out of earshot. Though Lady Barrington’s hands might tremble and her movements might be stiff, her small black eyes were not dimmed by age or by sentiment. Her ivory white face floated above the rich black she wore for her son, killed in Spain. Her voice creaked like a parrot’s.”You’re that chit who nearly trapped Danesby.”

Maris judged that this was a deliberate goad to see how she would jump. “Yes, ma’am. Alas that my strategy failed,” she said, casting her gaze toward the decorated ceiling in a parody of hypocritical rue.

“Alas, indeed, if you think me gulled by such nonsense. It was Elvira Paladin’s plot as I very well know. What are you doing in Bath? Come to lick your wounds?”

“Had I any, I should wish to bathe them, but I have none.”

“What? Not one regret at losing a fine title, a grand fortune, and a handsome husband all in one moment? I hear you turned him down flat.”

“What good is a title and fortune if your handsome husband despises you for tricking him into marriage, ma’am?”

“Ha, there speaks a starry-eyed babe. Don’t trouble to deny it. All girls are romantic until they outgrow it.” One bony finger crooked, drawing Maris nearer. “Men never do outgrow it. Look at that foolish boy of mine. Denying me grandchildren until he ‘falls in love.’ Bah! I’ve no patience with that sort of lunacy.”

Sir Rigby turned around at this, though Lady Barrington didn’t see him. He winked at Maris, then was taken aback when she returned the gesture. After a moment, he grinned.

“Sir Rigby is very engaging,” Maris said. “I’m sure he’ll soon give you all you want.”

“An optimist, too? Who’s that woman with whom you entered the Pump Room.”

“A Miss Menthrip, ma’am, from my hometown of Finchley.”

“That’s right. I’d heard you’d known Danesby before you’d come to town. The two of you may call on me later today.” She reached out with the stick that lay beside her knee and nudged one of her attendants in the back. The large man turned, nothing but the most ardent concern on his face. “I’m ready to go. Rigby, you see Miss Lindel home.”

With Lady Barrington’s support, Maris and Miss Menthrip found Bath to be socially quite the equal of London. Miss Menthrip’s dry humor soon made her a favorite of her ladyship. The baron’s widow and the scholar’s sister found they had little in common besides a general distrust of the manners and morals of youth, their own friends and relations exempt from the strictures laid on the rest of mortals under thirty. This was enough to cement a lifelong friendship.

Despite the pace of balls, at-home impromptus, and visits to the theater, Miss Menthrip looked younger every week. Even the steep hills of the town didn’t seem to distress her, though Maris often wished she would take a chair when she walked up to the Crescent to visit the Barringtons. “I’m well enough,” she said, taking a deep breath of the fresh air rising from the river. “If the lease on the house weren’t for four more weeks, I could go home tomorrow feeling more rested than I have in years.”

“It is not your health that troubles me,” Maris said, leaning her gloved hand against one of the pillars of creamy golden stone that proliferated throughout the city. “It’s my own. I can’t keep up.”

“You young people have no stamina. Though I noticed when we went shopping the other day, you had no wish to rest.”

“That’s different,” Maris said loftily. “Besides, we weren’t purchasing, and that makes all the difference. Nothing is more exhausting than buying.”

“I still argue in favor of that brown silk bonnet with the long ribbons,” Miss Menthrip said, then caught her breath with a gasp. “Oh, look. Is that Lord Danesby? No. Or is it?” She peered shortsightedly down the street, then fluttered her handkerchief, having made up her mind.

Maris saw him raise a hand in greeting, then begin to cross the street to come to them. She felt the old tremulous excitement in her breast and scolded herself. There was no need for this fervency. That was an old reaction, left over from when she adored him. True, he’d been in her dreams nearly every night, she reflected, preparing a smile of greeting. But a girl could not be held responsible for anything but her daydreams.

She hadn’t seen him for three days, not since he’d danced with her at a subscription ball in the lower rooms. They’d apparently resumed quite their old footing, she thought, though he hadn’t seemed to care for Sir Rigby, declaring him to be an overfed popinjay. Maris had defended him, saying that his clothing was far more tasteful in Bath than in town. His plumpness was not his fault, as it worried his mother if he lost any weight or even ate less.

Now as he lifted his curly brimmed hat to them, she smilingly gave him her hand. “I had hoped to see you on Saturday, Lord Danesby. You had said that you would help me understand the play.”

“I’m sure your friends assisted you,” he said crisply.

“If you mean Sir Rigby, he has no head for Shakespeare. Fortunately, Miss Menthrip’s brother had made quite a hobbyhorse of him and she could help me unravel
As
You Like It.’’

“And did you?”

“Very much so.”

“Sir Rigby would make an excellent student of Shakespeare, if he attended more closely,” Miss Menthrip said thoughtfully. “Do you recall how he wished he might have a Rosalind to teach him how to woo in form? I thought that showed he was attending.”

“He needs no further tutelage in that subject,” Maris said gaily.

“Are you going to the Crescent now?” Lord Danesby asked, his voice dark.

“Miss Menthrip is,” Maris answered. “Our ways part here. I have a bonnet to buy.”

“May I offer you my escort, Miss Menthrip?” he asked.

Maris smiled to see him offer his arm in the grand style. Miss Menthrip, however, seemed at a loss, glancing between the two younger people. “I warn you, my lord,” Maris said, “Miss Menthrip takes no rest between the Bridge and the Crescent. She seems to think it un-British to do so.”

“I shall not cry a halt before she does so.”

“Yes, you will,” Maris said with a laugh. “Good day.”

* * * *

Kenton watched Maris walk away, her parasol open above her head, her carriage very upright yet with a lightness that made it a definite effort not to follow her. Two middle-aged bucks on the strut paused to look after her, one raising a quizzing glass, and Kenton frowned. “When may I wish her happy?” he asked Miss Menthrip curtly.

“I cannot say. Not soon, I think.”

“Not soon? Do you mean that Barrington has been trifling with her? Surely he must mean marriage.”

“I cannot say,” Miss Menthrip repeated. “If he has given her any sign of affection, I have not seen it.”

“She would tell you, I’m sure,” Kenton said, still distracted. If that second buck turned back to follow Maris, he would know how to act.

“I’m not sure she would. Maris has changed, my lord. She has not quite the open, confiding nature I saw in her when she was a girl.”

“London changed that, soon enough.”

“And do you bear no part in that change?” Miss Menthrip asked.

“Too much for my peace of mind, ma’am.”

“So I see,” she muttered but Kenton only heard her vaguely. The second buck had taken one step after Maris but his friend had apparently reminded him of an appointment. Kenton’s fists relaxed.

“I tell you this, my lord. If he asks and she accepts it will not be for love on either side.”

“I beg your pardon? When they have all but been living in each other’s pockets for weeks. Half the town is certain they are in love.”

“The less gossips know, the more they say,” Miss Menthrip said sharply. “I have been living in Maris’s pocket, as you put it, and I know the truth. They are more like brother and sister than Rosalind and Orlando. If he asks her to marry him, it will be because his mother has dinned it into his ears how much she likes Maris.”

“Does she?”

“Immensely, but then, she’d love any girl that boy brought home as a bride. If by some chance she didn’t, the first infant would change her mind.”

“And why would Maris marry him?” he said, like a man worrying a sore tooth, knowing it will be agony but unable to keep from exploring. “Because he’s rich?”

Miss Menthrip snorted. “If Maris were mercenary, she’d be married to you.”

He looked down at her, forgetting for an instant to shield his feelings behind armor. When she blinked and stammered, he realized she’d seen the truth. “I wish to God she were mercenary,” he said.

She patted his forearm. “Why don’t you ask her, my lord?”

He shook his head, her sympathy no solace. “She wouldn’t have me when she was in love with me. She wouldn’t have me now.”

“She might. She’s so lonely.”

“Lonely? Maris?” He looked down the street, but she had slipped into a shop or otherwise gone out of sight. “I thought she was enjoying Bath. I see her or hear of her everywhere.”

“Pish. What good are parties and such? She doesn’t laugh as she used to. The only time I hear her really laugh is when she’s with you.”

The hope he’d been keeping alive with half-glimpsed sightings of her and the occasional dance burned a little stronger at this. But he couldn’t accept it. “Has she told you that she isn’t in love with Barrington?”

“Not in so many words,” Miss Menthrip said.

“Then she may be.”

“And pigs may fly.” She gave the arm she still held a little shake. “Don’t be a fool. Go after her. Ask her. She’s in Madame Emelie’s shop, meeting her maid. Ask her to walk with you in the Gardens. Ask her.”

He nodded once and set off down the street. The street turned into a bridge, though one couldn’t tell as shops lined it so that one could only see the river by going into the back of one of the shops. Yet Pulteney Bridge was one of his favorite sights in Bath. He hoped they’d never pull it down as they had London Bridge, for it had always meant Bath to him. Now, it might always mean Maris. He hurried.

The maid was there, chatting with the assistant. Maris had gone. The maid, one of his own from Finchley, blanched white as muslin when she recognized him. She could only stammer when questioned. Fortunately, the shopgirl was made of sterner stuff. “The gentleman said they should walk in the Gardens to discuss matters.” Her voice was more refined than that of most of the duchesses he knew.

“What gentleman?” Kenton demanded, confused by this new note of masculinity.

“Oh, I know, my lord,” his maid said. “It was that Sir Rigby Barrington. He’s called ever so often.”

He handed them each the first two coins he met with in his pocket and rushed out.

He hurried down Great Pulteney Street toward the Sydney Gardens, a great oval at the end. Kenton didn’t know why he felt such a sense of urgency. He could propose to Maris at any time, surely, choosing his moment for the best outcome. Yet here he was, racing along, giving the cut direct to at least two friends, all to catch up with her and interrupt her tête-à-tête with a man described as “more like a brother than a lover.”

Yet when he found them at last, he did not interrupt.

They stood no more than a breath apart in the shelter of one of the little antique follies that stood among the trees. The dry autumn tints of amber and gold made a background like tapestry work behind them. Maris listened, her eyes cast down, while Sir Rigby puffed a stream of words into the air. He held both her hands in his own.

Kenton had been sure that he loved Maris from the moment she’d turned him down at Durham House. Every time he’d seen her since, the feelings he had discovered grew stronger. He wanted to cherish her, to defend her, but at the same time encourage her to grow into the kind of woman her destiny decreed. He didn’t want to keep her in a box, preserved in youth and folly. He wanted to share all the joys and miseries of her life by her side. He’d thought he loved her as much as any man could love the partner of his heart.

Yet, seeing her now, listening to the protestations of some other lover saying the words that were his, he knew he had not loved her at all. Watching her shake her head and then, after another spate of words, nod, smiling into another man’s eyes, Ken-ton felt a pain as though his heart had been cut in two with one brutal stroke. What was left, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, proved to be a truer love yet. He still longed for her. However, if she felt Sir Rigby was the man for her, then he would not interfere with that choice. It was the gift of a true lover to his beloved—the understanding that she belonged ultimately to herself, not to him.

Kenton stepped back into the shelter of the trees, where he could wipe quickly under his eyes without anyone seeing. By some shift in the wind or acoustics, he could now hear the deeper tones of Sir Rigby’s voice, if not Maris’s.

“It’s settled then. You’ll come. You’ll definitely come?”

She nodded again, her lips moving silently.

“Tonight, then. You’ll be able to sneak away?”

What was this? Kenton stared at them, wishing he dared come closer. They couldn’t be planning to elope? Not with Lady Harrington having planned her son’s wedding down to every detail, excepting the name of the bride.

“It’ll be wonderful. You’re such a Trojan, Maris. I can’t thank you enough.”

This did not sound like the language of a successful wooer. Kenton strained forward, striving to hear more. He caught just the thread of Maris’s voice. “I wouldn’t do it for any other man.”

Kenton stayed hidden until they’d gone away. Then he sat down on the steps of their folly to think. If it was an elopement, perhaps to escape Lady Harrington’s sway, then the worst turn he could serve her would be to put a spoke in their wheel. Sir Rigby was well-to-do; Maris would want for nothing. He was a mild-tempered, pleasant chap whom she might even grow to love. Thinking of Maris gazing at Sir Rigby with the same glow in her eyes she’d once had for him, Kenton dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

However, he thought, and brightened, if Rigby has some nefarious plot in mind, thinking Maris has already lost her virtue, then he must find some way of stopping it.