Connie (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 3) (20 page)

21: A Little Advice

Connie’s time in London was drawing to a close. The season was far from over, but Amy was anxious to be at home, and for all of them the excitement of town had begun to pall. They were not destined to sit quietly at home, however. Jess was too low in spirits after her encounter in the park to go into company, but Connie and her sisters were caught up in a final whirl of evening engagements from Aunt Tilly’s connections.

Another invitation to Lady Hartshill’s brought Connie’s first meeting in town with the Melthwaites. Having studiously ignored her for weeks, now Lady Melthwaite was all polite smiles and civilities. She did not, however, ask to be introduced to Amy, Belle and their husbands, even though she must have guessed who they were, and Connie felt justified in responding with nothing more than cool courtesy before moving away. The Melthwaites were the epitome of respectability, but Connie far preferred the disreputable company of Aunt Tilly.

One event that Connie missed, however, was the ball at Marford House which she had helped to plan. She read the reports in the newspapers, and heard it mentioned once or twice in company, but she had no regrets about not attending it. It fell into the category of elaborately ostentatious affairs, and while it was undoubtedly wildly successful and much talked of, she far preferred the smaller, more intimate engagements that were now her lot.

Connie wondered how the Marfords had explained the disappearance of two guests from under their roof. Had they invented some crisis calling them home? Or sudden illness, perhaps. But then she recalled that they were officially there as Lady Harriet’s provincial friends, and taken notice of only through courtesy. It was quite likely that no one remembered them at all.

Eventually the day came when they set off for home. The addition of Connie and Jess, Connie’s maid Annie and the extra boxes meant that a second chaise had to be found to accommodate their larger party. The inns they stayed at were not quite as salubrious as those used by the Marfords, but Connie minded no inconvenience, so glad was she to be going home at last. There was much that she had enjoyed about her season, but there were unpleasant memories too, and she was relieved to put them behind her.

Jess was less buoyant about her return to normal life, but for her the contrast between partying with the upper echelons of the
ton
and her role as unpaid cook for her brother was dispiritingly large.

“We both return home as failures,” she said glumly to Connie as they prepared for bed one night in a room tucked under the eaves. “You failed to catch the Marquess, and I failed to catch anyone at all.”

“I did not set out to
catch
the Marquess,” Connie said quietly. “I believed him to be in love with you, and it was never my intention to steal him away. That would have been quite wrong. But Lord Reginald thought his brother might lose interest in you…” She paced restlessly up and down the tiny room. “That was all a sham, of course, and the Marquess was never in love with you.”

“Not in the least,” Jess said. “His attachment was always to you.”

“If he ever had the slightest attachment to me, he never showed it,” Connie said with heat. “He ignored me for weeks, and then told me I am to marry him! Dreadful man!”

Jess smiled sadly. “He managed the business very ill, I will admit that, but I truly believe he loved you sincerely. He talked of you all the time he was with me, you know. I did think, at first, that being so much thrown together I might turn him away from you, but not a bit of it. I can scarce believe you turned him down — a marquess! How brave you are! I should never have dared to refuse him.”

“His title is of no interest to me,” Connie said in surprise. “How should I care about that? It is the man who matters, not the rank he holds. I want a marriage of love and respect, and a man who cares for my well-being above his own. I cannot marry for less, no matter how high his rank might be.”

“That is exactly as it should be!” Jess said. “If only I could afford such scruples, but I have wasted my one chance to attract such a paragon.”

“There will be plenty more opportunities,” Connie said. “With your looks and lively manners, you will not be single for long, I warrant. There will be another assembly at Brinchester quite soon, and you were very popular there.”

“I do not think we can afford to go again,” Jess said. “Quite apart from the tickets, the cost of an hotel for the night is prohibitive. We had a little money to spare when we first arrived, but we must be prudent now and only spend as much as our income allows. I hope we will still be invited to one or two private balls, however. Do you think there are bugs in this bed? The inn looks very ill-kept to me. I am glad we thought to bring our own sheets.”

~~~~~

With the Amblesides and Burfords disappearing to their respective houses, and Jess dropped off at the schoolhouse in Lower Brinford, the chaise bore Connie and Annie in stately solitude the short remaining distance to Allamont Hall. As soon as they rounded the last corner of the drive, the front door opened and out poured Dulcie, Grace and Hope, bouncing with excitement, and hurling questions at Connie so fast that her head was spinning.

“Wait, wait,” Connie cried, as they danced around her. “Let me get into the house and take off this wretched bonnet, for the chaise was so hot and stuffy, I am sure I am melting like a candle.”

“Come on, come
on
!” cried Grace. “Tell us everything!”

“I will but there is little new to tell since my last letter.”

That hardly mattered to the three sisters left behind, for they wanted to hear it all again — the balls, the fashions, the name of every gentleman Connie had stood up with and for which dance. No detail was too small to be gone over again and again. But one subject kept recurring.

“And so it was all a sham with Lord Reginald?” Grace said. “It was the Marquess who offered for you in the end? But you turned him down?”

“I could not marry a man who behaved so abominably,” Connie said stoutly.

“Of course,” they said. “We quite understand.”

“But it is very provoking of the Marquess,” Hope said plaintively. “Dulcie cannot marry until
you
do, Connie dear, and Grace cannot marry until Dulcie is wed and at this rate I shall
never
marry! Whatever is to become of us?”

It was a question that had been vexing Connie, too, but she had reached no conclusions.

However, she received a possible answer two days later in the shape of Lord Reginald, who arrived unexpectedly bearing a huge bunch of hothouse flowers for Connie. She blushed and blushed again at the eagerness in his face, which there could be no misunderstanding. And when Grace, in her tactless way, asked him why he had left London when the season was not yet over, he had smiled and looked directly at Connie.

“The charms of the country far outweigh the attractions of London, Miss Grace.”

There could be no doubting his intentions, for he called every day, bringing flowers or fruit from his great-aunt’s glass-houses, or a journal newly arrived from London, and it was only a matter of time before he paid his addresses in proper form. It was a good match for her, she knew that. He was personable and she liked him a great deal. Even though he did not make her heart sing as the Marquess did, Connie began to feel that, for her sisters’ sake, she must consider the prospect seriously.

If only she knew how the Marquess felt! Their parting at Marford House had been steeped in bitterness, but his manner at Lady Cunningham’s ball had been gentleness itself, and he could almost inspire pity in her. What was in his mind? Jess believed him truly in love with her, and perhaps at one time it had been so. Did he feel any residual affection for her, or was that all over? But he was still in London, according to Lord Reginald, and there was no way for her to find out.

~~~~~

The Marquess was miserable. The first engagement he attended after Reggie had left town was a masked ball, something he usually enjoyed enormously. With all the guests’ faces hidden away, there was far less stuffy formality than attended a regular ball and a great deal more fun. He thought wistfully how much Connie would have enjoyed it, for she had disliked the rigidity of high society protocol, too. It would have been the greatest pleasure to have her on his arm for such an occasion, trying to guess the identities behind the bejewelled masks — and she was so clever at remembering names, and who was related to whom, so she would have been far better at guessing than he was. And then her sweet face rose up in his mind and he was overwhelmed with sorrow again.

What had gone wrong? He had been so sure of her, so confident that she was eagerly expecting his addresses, that he had never thought what he would say to her. And there was all that business with Reggie clutching her as if she were quite his own and they were really betrothed instead of pretending. It had put Dev so much out of countenance that he had determined to settle the matter at once, so he had rushed in and startled Connie, and she had shied like a horse.

And somehow, he was not quite sure how, Reggie had then stepped in and taken the initiative, and Dev could not interfere with that. He himself had failed and lost his chance, so now he had to support Reggie’s efforts to win her. That was what brothers did for each other, after all, although it was very hard when his heart was quite broken. Reggie was doing all the right things, it seemed, with drives in the park and flowers and such like. Did ladies like to be courted and flattered and given presents? Probably they did, and that was where he had made his mistake with Connie. His suit would have gone better if he had been able to buy her little gifts, like that fan she had so liked, that Reggie had bought for her in the end.

Sunk in gloom, he milled about on the fringes of the masked ball, snarling at anyone who approached him. Then they went on to a regular ball, and finally some kind of a rout, by which time he was heartily sick of London and society and his own family, and wanted nothing more than to escape. He told himself he would follow Reggie purely to support his suit. He would stay in the background, and watch how he went on. Then, if he were ever again so fortunate as to meet a young lady who inspired in him such deep affection, he would know how to woo her.

So he sent for his curricle at the extraordinarily early hour of ten in the morning, distressed his valet by giving him only half an hour to pack, and set off for Lower Brinford at a fast pace. The whole journey was consumed by thoughts of Connie, and wondering how many hours it might be until he could see her again. It was only when he reached his great-aunt’s house that it occurred to him that Reggie might be put out by his appearance.

Great-aunt Augusta took one look at him, and said, “Oh, Francis, you silly boy!”

At such times, he wished Mama were still alive. She had been confined to her room for years, and latterly to her bed, but she had always listened to his troubles and given him advice that cleared his head and made everything straightforward. Whereas Grandmama and the great-aunts all terrified him, and made him feel like a naughty child. Worst of all, they confused him by telling him what he ought to do, and yet somehow it was exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do.

As Great-aunt Augusta did at once. “What are you doing here, Francis? Can you not let go of this girl so that Reginald may have his chance with her?”

There was no possible answer that would not make matters worse, so he chose to say nothing. Then, of course, he was berated for that. It was what they did best, the great-aunts, berating. He asked himself sometimes if they trained women in the art of berating their younger male relatives, or if it came naturally.

He mooched about the house for a while, wondering when Reggie would come back from Allamont Hall, and whether he was proposing to Connie at that very moment, but then callers began to arrive, and good manners dictated that he take his place in the drawing room. Besides, it would be a distraction, and anything that turned his thoughts into more productive channels was a blessing.

He found himself sitting next to Miss Endercott, the sister of the Lower Brinford clergyman. For a few minutes they spoke of generalities — the weather, the prospects for the harvest, the roads from London — but then she said, “Lord Carrbridge, I find it quite close in here. I wonder if you would be so good as to show me around the garden for a few minutes, so that I might take the air?”

It was not until they were some way from the house that she came to what he supposed was the point of her little manoeuvre and said, “I must congratulate you, Lord Carrbridge. I was entirely taken in by your little stratagem with Miss Drummond, and I am not easily fooled. I should never have supposed that your interests lay elsewhere. Such a pity that it was all for nought in the end.”

He hardly knew how to answer her, so he said nothing.

“I daresay not much can be done about Jess,” Miss Endercott said. “You, on the other hand, control your own destiny, my lord. You will have to move quickly, however, for your brother is pulling ahead of you, I fancy.”

“It is not a race, Miss Endercott,” he said gruffly, for he found it a difficult subject to talk about.

“Is it not? And yet you could still win her.”

“How?” he burst out. “Miss Allamont made her feelings on the matter very plain. She will not have me.”

“Nonsense!” she said briskly. “You have all the attributes to charm a lady, if you set your mind to the endeavour. Your brother woos her with gifts, but in my experience young ladies prefer a gentleman who makes a grand romantic gesture.”