The Frost Fair (31 page)

“Perhaps not so astounding,” Geoffrey said, keeping his eyes fixed on her face, “for when I saw him, he told me he was betrothed to Meg.”

Trixie's mouth dropped open. “To Meg? But … that's impossible!”

“Why impossible?”

“Well, for one thing, I only cried off a few
hours
ago …”

“Perhaps our Mortimer moves quickly.”

“I tell you, Geoffrey, it's utterly impossible! You couldn't have understood him correctly.”

Geoffrey was not quite ready to believe her. “It seems to me, my dear, that with females—especially in matters of the heart—nothing is impossible.”

“But Meg doesn't even
like
him. Arthur told me that Mortimer sets Meg's
teeth
on edge.”

Geoffrey felt as if a weight he'd been carrying inside his chest had suddenly lightened. “I see. Well, then, I must have been mistaken.”

“Of
course
you were. Meg would
never
marry a twiddle-poop like Mortimer. When she marries, it will be someone like … like …”

Geoffrey watched his sister's face with fascination. “Like whom?”

Trixie knit her brow and pursed her lips in deep concentration, trying to conjure up a picture of a man admirable enough and suitable enough for Lady Meg. “Like a … a … King's minister … or a duke …”

Geoffrey smiled wryly. “Is
that
what you think … that only a minister or a duke will do for her?”

“Well, at least it would have to be somebody for whom she has a high regard … like
you
.”

“Me? Aren't you pouring the butter sauce a bit thickly, my girl?”

“Oh, I didn't mean that she'd consider you
specifically
as a husband—although now I come to think of it, I don't know why she shouldn't, for you're quite good looking when you don't glower, you know—but I meant you merely as an
example
, you see, of someone for whom she has particular esteem.”

Geoffrey knew perfectly well that this sort of conversation was quite beneath him, but he couldn't for the life of him resist going on with it. “What makes you think that she holds me in particular esteem?” he asked with the elaborate casualness of a twelve-year-old boy trying to prove to the pretty girl-next-door that he doesn't care for her a whit.

“It's obvious,” Trixie said earnestly. “She's forever saying things to me like, ‘I don't think Geoffrey would like that,' or ‘Are you sure that your brother would approve?' Why, even yesterday she refused to permit me to come to the fair because she said she'd be afraid to face you if I should come to grief.”

“Yes, but none of that sounds as if I'm a pattern card of estimable manhood, just somebody who inspires fear. However, I think it's time to turn the subject. I'd like to know, girl, why you are here if Meg refused to permit you to come?”

Trixie glanced at him askance and then hung her head. “I ran off. I was very rude to Meg, too. Do you think she'll be very angry with me?”

“I'm sure I couldn't say. But I hope, Trixie, that you'll tell her that you're very sorry and, for whatever time you remain under her roof, that you'll respect her wishes. She's a person of considerable good sense, and you'd do well to heed her.”

They rejoined the others, and Geoffrey offered to take them up in his carriage and deposit them all at Dover Street. “Oh,
no
, Geoffrey,” Trixie cried. “We haven't yet seen all the booths!”

“She's right, you know,” Isabel agreed. “There's so much to see.”

“But aren't you all frozen? Your noses are all red and your eyes are tearing.”

“Aye, but we can warm oursel's at the fire owre yont,” Fraser pointed out, eager as a child to enjoy this unexpected outing.

Geoffrey shrugged. “Very well, then, I'll say goodbye. I expect that we'll meet again before I return to Yorkshire. I'm staying at the Fenton, if you should have need of me, Trixie.”

He Walked back toward Blackfriar's Bridge through the crowd without taking any note of the colorful surroundings that had so fascinated him a short while before. His mind was troubling him with a peculiar sort of unease. The feeling was completely unwarranted, for the problem which had brought him so far from home seemed to have been very satisfactorily solved. But the sense of having left some important business unfinished was very strong.

He couldn't fool himself. It was Meg on his mind. She'd been lodged there making him uncomfortable ever since his carriage had taken her out of his life two months before. All through the dreariest November he'd ever experienced, all through the weeks of searching for his sister, Meg's face had haunted his dreams and her memory had clouded his days. He had to see her again. He had no idea of what could come of the meeting, but he knew that
something
between them had to be resolved.

It was foolish to hope that the resolution would be pleasant. She was an unpredictable female whose relationships with men were beyond his understanding. But he couldn't deny the strength of his feelings for her. And at Knight's Haven he'd believed that she'd seemed to care for him with a rather noticeable intensity. If he could somehow revive that feeling … if he could convince her, as he'd lately convinced himself, that they belonged together …

He raised the collar of his coat against the icy blast of the wind and trudged on through the crowd, letting himself dream of the happy possibilities. If he could convince her to accept him, they could be married by special license in three days, and he might be able to bear her off with him to Yorkshire before the week was out! The prospect made his heart pound with a kind of delirious excitement. But he was being unbelievably foolish. She would probably not have him at all.

Nevertheless, he would try. He'd drive back to her house at once. And he would tell her, without roundaboutation, that he loved her to distraction. Even if she laughed at him … even if she told him
again
that what had passed between them at Knight's Haven had only been a game (and he fully expected such a response), he would at least feel the satisfaction of having declared himself, of having mustered the courage( which he'd not been able to do before) to face defeat.

With the blood racing in his veins, he quickened his pace. In less than an hour he would see her again. Even if it turned out to be a last look, he wanted once more to see those taunting brown eyes, that freckled nose, her unruly hair …

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, squinting in amazed distraction at a woman standing directly in his line of vision. It was as if the creature had materialized out of his thoughts, for although her back was to him, the hood of her dark cloak had fallen back to reveal a tousled head of magnificent hair, the same hair he'd just been dreaming of. Even from the back, the identity of the woman was unmistakable. No one else carried herself with quite the same proud set of the shoulders; no one else cocked her head at quite the same angle; no one else had hair of quite that magic fire. It was Meg, right here at the fair … and standing not twenty yards away from him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sparkle of the late afternoon sunshine, bouncing off the ice and dazzling her eyes, was just one of the delights that set Meg's blood tingling as she stepped out on the frozen river and mingled with the roistering crowds. There was the nip of the cold, the sounds of excited revelry, the color of flags and scarves and mufflers and skirts and headgear. And there was music, and the smell of gingerbread, and the piercing gaiety of women's laughter.

But there was also Mortimer, whose escort had been required but whose presence was enough to drain the joy from the atmosphere. He had been persisting, ever since they'd set out, to challenge her refusal to admit her affection for him. “But I
don't
love you, Mortimer,” she'd declared repeatedly. “I know I said I like you, but even
that
was an exaggeration, and even if I'd meant it,
liking
is far from
loving
.”

But Mortimer, despite the various setbacks he'd suffered in the last few hours (setbacks which would have sent lesser mortals into paroxysms of self-castigation), had not seemed to sustain any injury to his remarkable self-confidence. He simply attributed Meg's disclaimers to the tendency of London ladies to be coy. “Aware it's much too soon for a lady like yourself to admit her feelings, my dear,” he said, doggedly perservering, “but at least tell me that you'll accept me in due course.”

She groaned in irritation. “I've told you too many times already that I will
never
, under any possible circumstances, accept an offer from you. Now,
please
, let's concentrate on looking for anyone in our party. You look to the right and I'll watch the left.”

“Seems to me to be the outside of enough to have been battered and bruised today,” he muttered, feeling his jaw gingerly to see if the swelling had gone down, “without having you play these coquettish games with me.”

“Confound it, Mortimer, you are being deucedly exasperating! I am not being coquettish. I mean what I say. Now, either talk about something else or be silent!”

They walked on, Mortimer in petulant silence and Meg watching the activities about her with wide-eyed pleasure. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed. “There's a puppet theater! I do so love a puppet play, don't you? Too bad we haven't time to stop and watch. But perhaps later …”

She began to realize she'd been much too missish with Trixie when she'd denied her permission to go to the fair, for it seemed, now, to be safe enough. The ice felt solidly thick beneath her feet, the amusements neither corrupting nor overly vulgar, and the people not in the least menacing. She smiled at a little boy standing before a cook-tent, greedily licking his fingers after having devoured some favorite treat like chopped anchovies mixed with bacon grease and spread on bread, or a bit of liver sausage. If the fair was suitable for children, surely she'd been overly solicitous to ban Trixie.

After a quarter-hour of searching the faces of the passersby, Meg began to feel discouraged. “Do you think we'll ever find them in this crush?” she asked Mortimer, her excitement beginning to dim.

“Might find 'em at the skittle alley. Your aunt said this morning that she wanted a chance to knock down the ninepins before the day was out.”

Meg brightened at once. “Let's go there, then. Perhaps we'll be in luck.”

But Mortimer hung back stubbornly. “Not yet. Won't budge until I've had a proper word from you.”

“If you've returned to the subject of a match between us, Mortimer Lazenby, I shall explode! You've heard my answer, and I don't intend to change it by so much as a syllable!”

“Won't move from this spot until you do,” he said petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest and looking mulish.

She wanted to give him a shaking. Not only was he conceited and overbearing, but he hadn't any manners. “Very well, sir, if that's your intention, I shall go off without you. And if I come to harm, you'll have only yourself to blame.” And she started off toward the distant booth which bore the sign reading SKITTLE ALLEY.

Mortimer was not so uncouth that he would forget his obligations as escort. He ran after her, caught her by the arms and swung her around to face him. “Dash it all, Meg,” he muttered, holding her arms tightly and shaking her so roughly that the hood of her cloak fell back and her loosely pinned hair tumbled down, “don't push me too far. Dangerous fellow if I'm enraged. Ask anyone in Yorkshire.”

“Mortimer, release your grip on my arms at once,” she said icily.

“Warn you, Meg.
Dangerous
!”

“If you don't let me go, and
at once
, I'll … I'll …”

“You'll send for some assistance,” came a calm voice behind her. Geoffrey's voice.

Oh, no
, she said to herself, wincing. Why was it that he never seemed to come upon her when she was in a position of dignity? She had been searching for him ever since her arrival at the fair, eagerly seeking his eye and feeling perfectly adequate to stand up to his most critical scrutiny. Only
this instant
, when the nauseating Mortimer had taken her in his grip and disturbed her equilibrium, her temper and her hair, was the
one moment
when she was not prepared, and, of course, he had to appear. Some God was laughing at her; some mischievous Fate was using her for his entertainment. “Geoffrey,” she said in an effort to exhibit breeding in the midst of embarrassment, “how fortunate that you happened along.”

“Yes, I see it is,” Geoffrey said, looking at Mortimer so threateningly that the fellow dropped his hold on Meg, stepped backward and put up a hand to protect his bruised chin.

“No,” Meg said quickly, “I don't mean as a defender. I can take care of myself, you know. I mean that I've been looking for you.”

Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. “Have you? Then it's doubly fortunate that I happened along.”

“Fortunate for
you
,” Mortimer muttered sulkily, kicking at the ice in his frustration at having been interrupted.

“Oh, it's fortunate for you, too, Lazenby, I assure you. For I was sorely tempted to plant you a facer on the
other
side of your chin, but I restrained myself.”

“Needn't sound so smug, you know,” Mortimer said defiantly. “If I weren't bruised, I'd square up to you and tip you a settler.”

“Would you indeed?” Geoffrey asked mildly.

“Handy with my fives, don't think I'm not. Been in the ring countless times. Stood up with Gregson!”

“The Lancashire Giant? Well, good for you! Then I suppose I'm fortunate that you're out of commission. But we're being rude, you know. The lady can't be enjoying sporting talk. You
did
say, Meg, that you were looking for me, didn't you? Is there any particular reason?”