The Frost Fair (29 page)

Meg turned pale. “What are you talking about? It
couldn't
be!”

He chortled at her patent disbelief. “Knew it'd surprise you. Came right over soon as the news was out.”

“But you're not making any sense. Sometimes, Mortimer, I get the oddest feeling that you and I speak in different languages.
What
news is out?”

“About Trixie. Released me from my pledge, as easy as
that
.” He snapped his fingers.

“But when? How? She's been up in her room all … I think I'd better sit down and let you explain everything to me from the beginning.”

“Yes, but first …” He pulled her into his arms with a grip of iron and leered down at her. “Been waiting for the chance to do this ever since your aunt interrupted us,” he said, gloating.

“Mortimer, no!” But she was unable to stop him. He locked his mouth on hers so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. She pushed against his chest with all her strength, but it had no effect. He was like an ox. So intent was he in his purpose that he even forgot to worry about his shirt-points. If she weren't so completely furious with him, she would have found it amusing to realize that she'd had so strong an effect on him that he was willing to bend the points in this heedless way. But this drawn-out and presumptuous embrace was not amusing, and she could hardly wait for him to release her so that she could smash the nearest vase over his head.

There was a cough from the doorway. Mortimer lifted his head but didn't release his hold. Meg, feeling helplessly humiliated by being caught in this hideous embrace, hoped desperately that the person in the doorway would be the finally awakened Trixie. But the cough had been deep and masculine, and when she glanced, wincing, over her shoulder at the doorway, she was not really surprised to see an embarrassed Maynard standing there staring at her. The real jolt came a fraction of a second later, when she caught a glimpse of a man standing
behind
Maynard. But no … it couldn't be!

“I'm sorry, my lady,” Maynard mumbled awkwardly, “but this gentleman insisted—”

“I had no
idea
, of course,” the gentleman said in icy disdain, crossing the threshold of the room, “that I would be interrupting so intimate a scene.”

“Geoffrey!” Meg gasped, wishing the floor would open and swallow her up.

His eyes were blazing, and his lips were set in a tight line. “I would, in ordinary circumstance, make an immediate withdrawal and leave you to your … er …
activities
, but unless I'm mistaken, the fellow so awkwardly embracing you is
my sister's husband
.”

“I am
not
!” Mortimer exclaimed sullenly, dropping his hold on Meg and taking an instinctive step backward.

Geoffrey (who did indeed look threatening with his greatcoat flapping open, his hair tousled, his boots muddied and a riding crop held carelessly in his left hand) grew pale at Mortimer's words. “You … haven't
married
her?” he asked, aghast. “Why, you repulsive whelp, I'll—”

“Don't, Geoffrey,” Meg said, stepping between them. “There's no need to look so stricken. Trixie has been staying with
me
all this time. There's been no impropriety, I promise you, either before or during her stay with me.”

Confused, Geoffrey glanced from Meg to Mortimer and back again. “Do you mean she's been here from … from the
first?
”

Meg nodded. “As soon as she learned that the Justice of the Peace would not permit the marriage, she came straight here … with her abigail.”

Geoffrey shut his eyes and took a breath of intense relief. “Thank God,” he muttered, turning away and wandering absently across the room, his instinct leading him to the fire. “I've been so distraught,” he said quietly, leaning exhaustedly against the mantelpiece. “I'd searched everywhere … every inn and hostelry in Yorkshire … then all the way to Gretna without finding a trace. At times, I wanted that fellow's neck in my bare hands with such …!” He shook his head, smiling bitterly at the memory of his own useless rage. “At other times … well, I would have been grateful just to learn that she was alive. Finally, when it occurred to me that they might have come to you, I couldn't wait to … But the snow came, and it was days before I could get through. And then to find you in—”

He stopped himself and looked up. Meg met his eyes, for a moment ready to launch into a tearful explanation of her behavior. But there was something in his look, something so cold and disdainful, that she wanted to slap him.
Let him believe what he pleases
, she said to herself furiously.
And to think that I'm in this fix for his sake!

For a frozen moment neither of them moved. Mortimer, still apprehensive of Geoffrey's temper, stayed quietly in the background. At last Geoffrey spoke. “May I see my sister now?”

“Of course,” Meg said, making her voice as cold as his. “I'll tell Maynard to inform her that you're here.” She went to the bellpull. “I don't know why she hasn't risen yet. It's not like her to stay abed so late.”

Mortimer was making strange motions and hand-signals at her. The gestures were so ludicrously broad that Geoffrey's attention was caught at once. “I think your … er … Mr. Lazenby is trying to tell you something, ma'am,” he said drily.

“He is not
my
Mr. Lazenby,” Meg muttered savagely. “What is it, Mortimer? What are you trying to say?”

“Not sleeping, you know. Not in her room.”

“What?”

“
Trixie
. Not up in her room,” Mortimer declared firmly.

“What do you mean? Of course she's—”

Maynard reappeared in the doorway. “Did you ring, my lady?”

After throwing Lazenby a last, puzzled look, Meg turned to the butler. “Will you ask Miss Beatrix to come downstairs, please, Maynard.”

“But Miss Beatrix has gone out.”

“Gone out? How could she—? When?”

“Early this morning, my lady. With your aunt and Mr. Steele. Mr. Lazenby was with them also, I believe.”

Meg, astounded and angry, nodded to Maynard that she had no further need of him and turned to Mortimer. “Do you mean to say you took her to the
fair?
After all that I
said
on the subject?”

Mortimer shrugged. “Said she was a free adult. Not my place to argue.”

Meg, with real effort, smothered her chagrin. “It seems, Geoffrey, that I've been laboring all day under a misapprehension,” she said, her mouth tight with suppressed indignation. “Your sister has gone to a fair. The Frost Fair. It's being held on the ice, right on the Thames.”

“I see.” Geoffrey eyes her shrewdly. “I take it she went without your approval?”

Meg would have liked to kick at the walls in frustration. She'd tried so hard to behave in a way that would earn his approval, and not one of her efforts had turned out well. Her eyes flickered to the ground. “I didn't think you'd wish her to attend such a gathering,” she admitted.

“So you, too, have been finding her difficult to manage,” he said with a touch of wry amusement. “I suppose this means I had better take myself over there and attempt to rescue her from whatever scrape she may have tumbled into.” He turned to the door, but before he reached it, he stopped and turned back. “I hope you don't mind my asking, but I find myself confused by the romantic little scene I witnessed on my arrival. Is my sister still expecting to marry you, Lazenby? Do you consider yourselves betrothed?”

“No,” Mortimer said with obvious satisfaction. “Released me, Trixie did. Betrothed to Meg now.”

“Mortimer, I
never
—” Meg cried, outraged.

“Are you indeed? To
Meg?
” His tone was icy with revulsion and scorn. “What an astounding turnabout, my dear. Once you thought of him as a foolish coxcomb, and now you're betrothed. What miracles love can inspire!”

She flashed him a searing glance. “Don't be a clunch! You can't seriously believe that I intend to—”

“I believe that you women are capable of all sorts of idiotic behavior.”

“I say!” Mortimer interjected in offense, “you can't speak to my Meg that way!”

“Dash it all, Mortimer, I am
not your Meg
! And please stay out of this!”

Geoffrey eyed Mortimer with teeth clenched and fists curling. “Forgive me, ma'am, for indulging in fisticuffs in your charming sitting room, but this fellow has had this coming to him for a long time.”

He pulled off his gloves and cast them, with his riding crip, into Meg's hands. Then, in two quick strides, he came up to Mortimer and grasped the bewildered fellow's neckcloth with his left hand. Holding him firmly at arm's length, he swung his right fist—in a motion so swift that Meg's eyes were not able to see the movement—and smashed it against Mortimer's chin.

Meg screamed. Mortimer staggered backward, stumbled, pushed over a chair and crashed to the ground. He lay in an awkward sprawl, completely unmoving, a small trickle of blood beginning to seep from a cut in his lip.

“Oh, my God, you've killed him!” Meg muttered in agony.

“No, I haven't. A little splash of cold water to the face should bring him round. If he
is
your betrothed, my dear, I'm truly sorry. But it was something I couldn't resist.”

“He is
not
my betrothed,” she declared tearfully, kneeling down beside the fallen Mortimer and looking at him worriedly for signs of life, “but that doesn't mean I wish to see him
mauled
.”

“If he's not your betrothed, then why was he kissing you?” Geoffrey demanded, reaching down and taking his gloves—which she'd forgotten she still clutched in her hand—from her grasp.

“It's none of your affair,” she said in angry pride.

“No, it's not. But I wager, ma'am,” he smiled grimly as he went to the door, “that it'll be at least a month before he'll be able to do it again.”

She listened to his step retreating down the hall and to the slam of the door behind him. He was gone from her life
again
. Why hadn't she considered the possibility that he would come to search for his sister? If she'd had the sense to anticipate the possibility, she might have been better prepared for him. She might have been ready to receive him like a confident, sensible, serene lady-of-the-house, the sort of person she'd always believed she was. Why was it that whenever he was around to observe her, she behaved like a bubble-headed, blundering, graceless, indiscriminate wet-goose?

Two fat tears dribbled down her cheeks and splashed into her lap. She lifted her hand and brushed away the dampness from her cheeks, but she felt her eyes fill up again. It wasn't at all kind of the Fates to have compelled her to endure that scene. Her heart had been broken by Geoffrey Carrier once before … did she have to go through it twice?

“Are you all right, your ladyship?” Maynard asked from the doorway. “Shall I try to restore Mr. Lazenby to his senses?”

Meg wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and squared her shoulders. “Yes, thank you, Maynard. Bring me some wet cloths, if you please. And … do you think perhaps a sip of brandy might be efficacious?”

Maynard came into the room, righting the furniture as he approached. He looked down at the prostrate Mortimer thoughtfully. “Brandy will be just the thing,” he said impassively. “I'll get a glass at once.”

He turned to go, but not before Meg noticed a slight twitch of his lips. “It seems that Mr. Lazenby,” the butler remarked with what she suspected was a touch of glee, “is not very handy with his fives.”

Whatever the butler's private feelings toward Mortimer might have been, he did not reveal them again. Within five minutes, he'd brought the fellow round and helped him to stretch out on the sofa. After leaving Meg with a supply of wet cloths to be applied to the gentleman's chin, he bowed himself out. Meg took a seat beside Mortimer on the sofa and carefully pressed one of the cloths to the area on his face which was already discolored and swelling. “There … is that better?” she asked soothingly.

“Shan't be able to eat for weeks,” poor Mortimer mumbled. “Damned bruiser!”

“Well, you did abscond with his sister, you know. You can't blame him for wishing to wreak a measure of revenge.”

“If he hadn't taken me by surprise, I'd have shown him! If I'd have known what he was about, I'd have planted
him
a facer he'd not soon forget.”

“Yes, yes, don't take on so,” Meg said, patting his shoulder. “There's no use getting upset about it now.”

“Don't believe me, do you? But I've done a round with Robert Gregson, and he, you know, was the Lancashire Giant.”

“Mortimer, let's not talk about fighting any more. I'd rather hear about what occurred between you and Trixie. Are you feeling well enough to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about. She released me from the betrothal, that's all.”

“Today? At the fair?”

“Yes.”

“But wasn't it a bit sudden? Didn't you ask her why?”

“Didn't need to. Plain as pikestaff why.”

“Is it? It's not at all plain to me.”

“Intends to wed someone else, that's why.”

“Someone else?” Meg rose to her feet and gaped down at him. “But … whom? She hasn't been able to meet anyone since she arri—Oh, good God! Don't tell me she's already become enamoured of someone she met on the
ice
!”

“No, of course not. It's Steele.”

“Arthur?” Meg sank down upon the sofa again, feeling her knees give way under her. “You don't mean it!”

“Happy as grigs, the two of em. Word of honor!”

Meg could only stare at Mortimer in complete stupefaction. Trixie and Arthur! It was a pairing that had never occurred to her. Arthur was at least ten years Trixie's senior and had never seemed to be taken with girlishness. And as for Trixie, one would have thought she would prefer a handsome boy … like Mortimer. Why, with Arthur, Trixie would find herself being watched over as closely as she'd been by her brother!