The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance

A Suitable Gentleman Sara Bennett

A sharp breeze tossed the simple cambric skirts of the petite lady walking along George Street, threatening to display much more than her dainty ankles. Her apparel, while not of the first water of fashion, displayed a certain elegance. Dark hair curled becomingly about a pale heart-shaped face, and big blue eyes were shadowed with tiredness.

“Plain and simple” were Lady March’s watchwords when it came to visiting the dressmaker with her eldest niece. “Clarinda is too old now for frills and furbelows. And of what use are they to her anyway, when her place is by my side?”

Of course Lady March would never have allowed her niece to go about Bath looking like a destitute orphan, although strictly speaking that was what she was. But her aunt had always been kind to her; Clarinda could not fault that. Lady March had taken Clarinda and Lucy into her home when they were in dire circumstances, and since then they had wanted for nothing.

Nothing material, that is.

Clarinda’s face, so clearly fashioned for love and laughter, appeared drawn and serious as she considered the situation that awaited her at home, where Lady March had taken another one of her turns. If she were truly ill, Clarinda would be genuinely concerned, but her aunt treated illness as a diversion; since her husband died she had sought out ever more bizarre symptoms to while away her boredom. Now Lady March had run out of her tonic — Clarinda doubted it was more than sugar syrup — and had sent her niece out as a matter of urgency to purchase another bottle.

Buried deep in her thoughts, Clarinda did not see the top hat. Blown from a gentleman’s head, it came bowling across the roadway, narrowly missing the wheels of a passing barouche, and rolled up on to the pavement. It wasn’t until the hat struck her on the shin, hard enough for her to cry out in surprise, that she realized she was under attack.

The bottle of tonic wobbled in her hand and she only just prevented it from smashing on the hard paving. Another gust threatened to carry the hat away from where it was nestled at her feet, and, without thinking, she reached down to secure it. Automatically she smoothed the soft beaver fur with her gloved finger. This hat was well made — a wealthy man’s accessory — and he would be missing it.

She looked about her for its owner, and spotted him at once.

Tall and dark, he was standing across the road, directly outside the Good King hostelry. The coat he wore was fashionable without being ostentatious, his neckcloth was elegantly tied and his boots were shiny. The smart equipage behind him looked as if it had just arrived, and baggage was being disengaged by bustling servants.

All that movement going on about him, thought Clarinda. How strange then that he seemed so still. So alone. As if his concerns were such that they set him apart.

Clarinda realized she was staring, but then so was he. The next moment the gentleman was striding across the road towards her. Her breath caught in consternation as she remembered she should be returning post-haste with her aunt’s tonic, and yet her feet did not want to move.

As he drew closer, Clarinda could see that he was handsome indeed. A faint smile was curling the edges of his firm lips and crinkling the skin about his dark eyes. “Good morning,” he said, his voice deep and with a laughing note to it. “You appear to have rescued my hat from this violent weather.”

Clarinda held out the object in question, returning his smile. “Bath is famous for its weather, sir.”

“Infamous, perhaps,” he replied with a teasing note. “If I was not standing on dry land I would believe I was at sea, with squalls such as these.” Another gust of wind blew cold splatters of rain against them and he gave a chuckle of amazed laughter. “It gets worse. And I see you do not carry an umbrella, eh … madam?”

They had not been introduced but that didn’t seem to matter. “Miss Howitt. Clarinda Howitt. I normally carry an umbrella, sir, but this morning I was in a rush and forgot it.”

As if to underline the fact, the feather on her bonnet suddenly gave way beneath the weight of water and sagged over her eyes. She laughed, and then wondered at herself. Clarinda rarely laughed in the street, and yet the gentleman’s dark eyes were smiling back at her, seeming to encourage her.

“Allow me, Miss Howitt,” he said. He unfurled his umbrella, then held it over her.

“Thank you, sir. You are newly arrived, I think?” she said, a little breathlessly because he was now so close to her.

For some reason the laughter in his eyes faded, their intensity hinting at something serious. Clarinda wondered what it was that had brought him to Bath, for certainly it did not appear to be pleasure.

“I am indeed newly arrived,” he said. “In England, as well as Bath. I have been abroad in the army for a number of years but now I am home again, and I hope to remain in Bath for some time to … eh … take the waters. Do I have the phrase correct, Miss Howitt?”

The laughter was back and she responded.

“Perfectly correct, sir. The waters are supposed to be very beneficial. My aunt takes them daily, when she is well enough to make the journey to the Pump Room, that is.”

“Your aunt is an invalid?”

“My aunt is as fit as a fiddle, but she has taken up illness as a hobby.”

He lifted his eyebrows at her dry note.

“Forgive me,” Clarinda said, and lowered her eyes. “That was unkind of me. I have had very little sleep. In fact my aunt is the reason I am out now — she required a bottle of her tonic from the apothecary.”

There was a pause, and she wondered what he must think of her, complaining about her relative to a complete stranger. And yet something about him seemed to invite her confidences, as if he would understand. When he spoke again there was no censor in his voice, only the same warm friendliness as before.

“I have been remiss, Miss Howitt. Let me introduce myself. James Quentin at your service.”

She allowed her gloved fingers to be swallowed by his much larger hand and felt his grip tighten. The hard warmth of his fingers was pleasing, reassuring, although she had no idea why.

“Are you in Bath visiting friends or relatives, Mr Quentin?”

“Alas, I am all alone,” he said, but he didn’t appear to be sorry about it, with his smiling eyes fixed on hers. “Although now I have made your acquaintance I am not quite alone, am I?”

Clarinda felt a tingle of excitement. James Quentin was handsome, clearly with means, and a bachelor. Perfect. Lucy would bowl him over with her pretty vivaciousness, marry him and be set for life. It seemed that it was providence that brought his hat sailing towards her upon this windy Bath day.

“If I visit the Pump Room, Miss Howitt, will I encounter you and your aunt?”

Clarinda’s smile was sparkling with delight. She imagined Lucy in her best muslin, pretty as a picture. How could any man, how could this man, resist her?

“I do hope so, Mr Quentin.”

“Then I will haunt the place every day until you appear,” he promised her, the laughter dancing in his eyes.

She realized with a sense of shock that she was still holding his hand, or he hers. The rain had eased. He refurled his umbrella and placed his hat upon his head.

“Mr Quentin!”

A small dapper man was hailing him from outside the hostelry. Mr Quentin turned and nodded, before bowing to Clarinda.

“I fear I am wanted. Good day, Miss Howitt.”

She returned his bow with a curtsey and a smiling upward glance. “Good day, Mr Quentin.”

“You must take my umbrella, just in case,” he added, as she went to turn away. “I will not need it this morning.”

Clarinda hesitated, but the umbrella would give her a reason to contact him again. She nodded her thanks, her head full of possibilities. She knew her aunt would be beside herself at the delay but even that did not worry her as much as usual. She had the urge to stand and stare after this tall, handsome figure — an urge so strong it was difficult to resist, but resist it she did. Mr Quentin was not for her. He might have been charming and polite, with an air of mystery, but once he saw Lucy he would forget Clarinda entirely.

Men always did.

Clarinda told herself that her sister’s happiness was enough for her, that she didn’t really mind sacrificing herself to ensure Lucy’s future. Lucy would escape Lady March’s household but Clarinda must remain, a hostage to her hypochondriac aunt’s tyranny.

“Even my husband has not heard of some of the things with which Lady March is afflicted,” Etta had informed Clarinda, a sparkle in her dark eyes, “and he is a doctor. It certainly keeps him on his toes.”

“Oh, Etta, you make light of it, but how does he find the patience? She has run through three other doctors, you know.”

“It is not so bad. He says he enjoys the challenge. And the tonic he prescribed has helped, has it not?”

“Yes, it has. My aunt declares it a miracle. I do not think she has had a single bout of brain fever since she began taking it.”

Etta had laughed, but there had been a great deal of sympathy in her eyes. “Poor Clarinda, I wish there was some way I could rescue you from this situation. Sometimes I fear it must be like being in gaol!”

Gaols, Clarinda agreed, did not necessarily have barred windows and locked doors. Restraints could just as easily consist of tears and vapours and demands for attention. And Clarinda’s sentence was a lengthy one, for she had long ago come to the conclusion that despite Lady March’s protestations, she would outlive them all.

A rattle of raindrops fell on the pavement around her, bringing her back from her anxieties to the present. It was always raining in Bath. One grew accustomed to it. She unfurled James Quentin’s umbrella. Normally Clarinda would never have forgotten hers, but Lady March had made such a fuss when she discovered her tonic was nearly gone that Clarinda had left the house at a run, and set off for the apothecary as fast as she could manage, Lady March’s threats of dire consequences to her health echoing in her ears.

“I cannot possibly manage without it,” she’d gasped, clutching her shawl across her ample bosom. “I feel palpitations coming on. Do hurry! Oh, my head is beginning to pound.”

With such threats hanging over her, Clarinda had set out on her mission without a thought for the weather. Now she retraced her steps more slowly.

Milsom Street was not directly on her way home, but she turned down it anyway. It contained most of Bath’s more interesting shops and Clarinda found herself dawdling past their windows, casting a wistful eye over the new fashions. Not for herself, of course. She’d long ago accepted such fripperies were not for her. No, she told herself, she was thinking of Lucy.

At nine and twenty, Clarinda had heard herself described as an old maid. Oddly, until now she’d thought herself accepting of the stark truth that she would never have a home and family and husband of her own, but suddenly a sense of rebellion arose in her. She imagined herself in the latest evening gown, dancing lightly in the arms of … of …

Clarinda sighed. This was the fault of the handsome and charming James Quentin. Well, there was no point in wishing herself in love with him, or him with her.

Clarinda turned her back on Milsom Street, and hurried towards home. But no matter how she tried to flatten her spirits there was an anticipation bubbling away inside her, like a child with a promised treat. She found herself quite oblivious to the raindrops and the biting wind.

A week later James Quentin stood before the looking glass, straightening his sleeves with sharp tugs and smoothing the creaseless cut of his waistcoat. He felt like a hunter pursuing his quarry, but he had learned over the years that he must be a patient hunter, if he were to succeed.

He must watch and learn and listen; he must blend into life in Bath until he was all but invisible.

This morning he was going to the Pump Room, with the added frisson of possibly seeing Miss Howitt there. He felt a lightening of his spirits as he remembered her face, blue eyes shyly peeping at him beneath the wreckage of her bonnet, and the sweet curl of her lips. She was his ideal woman, petite and pretty and intelligent. If only he wasn’t here in Bath with an ulterior motive, he might consider getting to know her better. He had been alone too long and Miss Howitt was extremely tempting.

“What are these Bath waters like?” he demanded of his manservant, Dunn.

“Very nasty, I believe, sir.”

“But beneficial?”

“So the inhabitants of Bath would have us believe, sir.”

James would have made a visit to the Pump Room a week earlier — indeed he’d planned to do so the day after meeting Miss Howitt outside his hostelry — but he’d been forced to travel out of Bath on urgent business. His late brother had left his affairs in a damnable mess. If he’d known how bad things were he would have come home earlier rather than spending his time with the occupying forces in France, after Waterloo. But he admitted he’d been reluctant to step into his elder brother’s shoes — it had never been his ambition to do so — but then he had never expected his brother to die so young in a foolish attempt at a fence that was too high.

James gave his coat another tug. “Very well, I am as ready as I will ever be. Do I take the carriage?”

His manservant allowed himself a small smile. “I believe the established modes of travel in Bath are chair or perambulation.”

“And which do you suggest in the circumstances?”

“I think you should walk, My Lord.”

James raised a dark brow at his manservant. “I think I prefer ‘sir’ just for now. I do not feel like a lord.”

“Very well, sir.”

James went to the door, but paused with his hand on the latch. “Do you think we will find her in Bath? Is she here somewhere?”

“Yes, sir, I am certain of it.”

James nodded, his mouth losing its good humour, his eyes bleak.

“Then if she is here I will find her. I fear I cannot rest, Dunn, until I do.”

Clarinda tried not to fidget. Lady March was leaning heavily on her arm, as if her legs could barely hold her up, and yet when Clarinda suggested they return home the elderly lady had given her a glare that could have curdled cream.

“I am certain the waters will do me good.”

“Oh yes, Clarinda, we must stay!” Lucy piped up. “I see Isabella over there.”

“Quiet, miss,” Lady March said, sharply for one in such a weakened state, “no one asked you.”

Lucy bit her lip, but her sparkling eyes were unrepentant. She was a girl with spirit, and it would take more than her aunt’s crotchets to depress her. She fluttered through life expecting only the best to happen. Clarinda was older and wiser, but it was her dearest wish to see that, for Lucy, all her dreams came true.

Now, with a smile to her sister and her scowling aunt, Lucy hurried across the room to her bosom bow. Clarinda watched her go, aware that most of the gentlemen in the Pump Room were doing the same. Lucy was wearing one of her newer gowns, a pretty muslin with a flounced skirt, her hair was simply dressed, but the sheer simplicity of the young woman’s attire only made one more aware of her beauty.

We were right to come to Bath, Clarinda told herself. Despite what she herself had to endure in payment for their food and lodging, Lucy was far better off here than she would have been, destitute, at home in the country. Here she had a chance to shine.

After their parents had died — victims of a fire that had also rendered their home a blackened ruin — they had been alone and in debt. So when their father’s elder sister, Lady March, heard of the death of her profligate brother and his wife, and wrote offering them a home, Clarinda had jumped at the chance. She had not realized then that taking up that offer would mean a lifetime sentence for herself as unofficial nurse to Lady March’s imaginary illnesses, but even if she had … Well, there was no other option if Lucy was to take her rightful place in the world.

“Lucy is looking very fine.”

With a smile Clarinda turned to find her friend Etta, the doctor’s wife, at her side. “She is, isn’t she?”

“And you are no slouch in that department yourself, my dear,” Etta added, her dark eyes searching Clarinda’s face with sharpened curiosity. “What has happened to give you that sparkle?”

“Nothing. I am the same as always.” And yet Clarinda felt herself blushing, as if Etta knew she had spent the past week dreaming of James Quentin’s warm smile and longing for him to make a reappearance. She’d even gone so far as to send a note to the Good King, when she returned his umbrella, but their servant informed her on his return that Mr Quentin had gone out of Bath on business for a week. The disappointment she felt had been ridiculously excessive, but the week was up and this morning she was hoping to see him in the Pump Room.

“Well, I think you are looking very well, Clarinda.”

Etta was a woman her own age, but sometimes her manner seemed to belong to someone much older. Although Etta said little of her past, Clarinda suspected that her life had not been easy before she married her beloved Dr Moorcroft.

“I know several gentlemen who would be pleased to offer for you, if you were to give them the slightest encouragement,” Etta went on, and then laughed at Clarinda’s shocked expression. “Did you truly not realize that? But then you are always thinking of Lucy’s future and not your own. Clarinda, Lucy would not want you to martyr yourself for her sake.”

“I want her to have the life she deserves. You make me sound like one of those saints with arrows stuck in them and a pious expression. I assure you I am not a martyr, and my life is very comfortable with Aunt March. She cannot help having a taste for the more bizarre forms of illness.”

Etta gave her a look that meant she didn’t believe a word of it.

But Clarinda’s attention was elsewhere. In the entrance to the Pump Room stood a familiar handsome figure. Mr Quentin! She gave a little gasp.

For a moment she was quite dizzy with the confusing rush of emotions sweeping through her: relief and agitation; excitement and impatience; happiness and melancholy. There was no time to examine and understand each of them.

“Good Gad!” Lady March lifted her quizzing glass and ogled the crowd waiting to enter the room. “Who is that intriguingly handsome gentleman, Clarinda?”

Clarinda was not at all surprised that her aunt had noticed him. “I believe he is called James Quentin—” she began, and his name on her lips made them tingle.

“Quentin, Quentin? Never heard of him,” Lady March replied loudly. “I am most impressed with his wheeled chair. I wonder whether I can have one made?”

Clarinda, bewildered, looked again at the group by the entrance and understood that her aunt wasn’t referring to James Quentin after all. She was more interested in a large figure in a chair with wheels, a man with a sun-browned face and a shock of grey hair who was glowering at the occupants of the Pump Room from beneath his thick, black eyebrows.

“I must speak with him,” said Lady March, and made a beeline towards the man in the chair, her steps strong and sure, with no signs of her previous tottering weakness.

“Oh dear,” Clarinda murmured, turning to Etta. To her surprise her friend’s face was quite drained of colour. “Are you feeling faint?” she said, reaching to support her. “Etta, what is it?”

But Etta shook her head. “I must go,” she murmured, and with that she turned and hurried through the crowded room.

Clarinda stared after her, bewildered. If she had not known better, she would have thought Etta was running away from something. Or someone.

Alone now, Clarinda hesitated. She could join any number of groups in the room, where there were acquaintances who would welcome her and chat politely about the weather and her aunt’s health. But suddenly everyone but James Quentin seemed boring and insipid. She turned towards him, and felt a sharp stab of disappointment to see that Mrs Russo — with her five unmarried daughters — had already captured him.

She wavered. It was not in her nature to be forward, to push in, but suddenly she found herself moving towards Mr Quentin with a new determination, and with each step her determination grew.

James was wondering how on earth he could escape the middle-aged woman in her hideous turban and her packet of simpering daughters. At one point he was on the verge of breaking free but she caught hold of his arm and held on to him with strong fingers.

“Mr Quentin?”

The voice was sweet and melodious. He turned, joy in his heart, and saw that it was indeed Miss Clarinda Howitt, rescuer of gentlemen’s hats. She was smiling up at him, a sparkle in her serious blue eyes.

“Miss Howitt,” he said, with every evidence of a long acquaintance, “how marvellous to see you again. You must tell me how your aunt is. Let us go and find some tea, and then we can chat. Do excuse me, Mrs Russo. Eh, Miss Russo and … eh, all the rest of your family.”

He tugged. The fingers on his arm resisted a moment and then he was reluctantly released.

“Thank you, thank you, Miss Howitt,” he said fervently, as they moved away. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I feared I was to be Mrs Russo’s prisoner for life.”

Clarinda bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “Mrs Russo is one of our long time residents, Mr Quentin.”

“Is that what happens to someone who lives here too long?” he demanded, wide-eyed, but with a teasing smile.

This time she did laugh.

“She said I had a smell of London about me, which sounded most unpleasant.”

Miss Howitt gave him a shy smile. She had the sweetest mouth and he wished she would smile more often. If she were his, he would make it his goal to see her smile each and every day.

“I think she meant to imply you had a certain style, sir, that can only be found in London.”

He nodded soberly. “Thank you for explaining that to me, Miss Howitt. I thought she might be insulting me, but I hardly liked to fight a duel with a woman of her age. Indeed with a woman of any age.”

“No, duels are frowned upon in Bath society. Although I believe Mrs Russo is quite an expert with a crossbow.”

Her blue eyes were sparkling delightfully and a frisson ran through him and centred itself on his heart. It was a sensation he had not experienced in a very long time and he could not ignore it, no matter how urgent his current mission.

“Miss Howitt …” he began rashly.

But she was already speaking.

“Mr Quentin.” She took a breath, as if her words were somehow momentous. Did she feel it too? This sense of the meeting of two beings who were destined to meet? He leaned closer and breathed in her scent, drowning in visions of Clarinda lying in his arms quite naked. And then he heard what she was saying.

“I want you to meet my sister, Lucy. She is standing over there, by the vase of flowers. Do you see her? The girl with dark hair?”

Confused, he glanced in the direction she indicated. There were a number of girls gathered in a group, girls who looked as if they were just out of the schoolroom. One of them did seem to have dark hair.

She was watching him with anticipation, and because he didn’t want to disappoint her, he said, “Delightful.”

He was rewarded with a beaming smile, her eyes shining up at him. “Yes, she is delightful. I think, although of course I am biased, she is the loveliest girl in Bath.”

“Indeed your sister is very pretty, Miss Howitt.”

“Come and I will introduce you, Mr Quentin.” She began to make her way towards the group of schoolgirls. He stood a moment, watching her go, absorbed in the graceful perfection of her figure and the elegance of her bearing. Why did no one else in the room realize what a treasure she was? When she glanced back, surprised he was not following, he had to hurry after her.

The introductions were made, although James hardly heard them, but he must have said all the right things for no one gave him a peculiar look. Lucy was indeed an engaging girl, and smiled and chatted about Bath and then laughed when he lamented the weather. And all the time Clarinda beamed upon him like a fairy godmother who had just granted him his dearest wish.

When an older woman in a striped silk gown joined them, she was introduced as Lady March, Clarinda’s aunt. She examined him coldly through her quizzing glass as though seeking fault.

“How do you do, Lady March?” he said politely.

“Particularly ill, sir. My niece misled me as to your identity.”

“Aunt, I’m sorry, I thought you were speaking of Mr Quentin when you—”

“As I recall I said, ‘Who is that handsome gentleman?’ and you told me it was Mr Quentin. In fact it was Mr Collingwood I was referring to.”

“Aunt, please …” Clarinda’s eyes met his and darted away. She flushed scarlet.

“Mr Quentin is handsome enough,” her aunt went on, as if he wasn’t there, “but he is rather too healthy looking for my liking. Mr Collingwood has some very interesting ailments — he quite puts the rest of us invalids in the shade.”

“You are an invalid, Lady March?” James said with an air of surprise, trying not to enjoy the fact that Clarinda thought him the handsomest man in the room. “You disguise your suffering well, I must say.”

She gave him a stoic smile that did not reach her steely eyes. “There is no point in complaining, Mr Quentin. Now, come along, Clarinda. You too, Lucy. I have discovered there is a shop where it is possible to purchase wheeled chairs. We have no time to waste. I really must have one. Mr Collingwood says his sister pushes him everywhere in it,” she added with satisfaction.

For a moment there was anguish on Clarinda’s face, so heart wrenching that James took a step closer, but the next moment her face assumed a resigned expression.

“Yes, Aunt. Goodbye, Mr Quentin. Will we see you at the ball in the New Assembly Rooms on Thursday night?”

“Oh yes,” piped Lucy, “you must put your name down in the book, sir. No one is allowed to attend unless their name is down in the book.”

“Then I shall do so post-haste,” he assured her, with a quizzical smile. “Where is this book?”

Aunt March was hurrying them away, showing amazing resilience for an invalid.

“Ask Mrs Russo!” Clarinda called back to him, and for a moment her smile was back, though less brilliant than before.

James watched them go. The old woman, Lady March, seemed to have Clarinda in her clutches and would not easily let her go. Well, he would see about that. At Waterloo he had helped defeat Napoleon; Lady March didn’t stand a chance.

“And who, pray, is this Mr Quentin?” Lady March demanded, when they were safely back in Sydney Place.

Clarinda turned from the soft patter of rain on the window, where she had been staring dreamily into the afternoon shadows. “He is lately arrived in Bath,” she said, but when Lady March continued to glare at her impatiently, she added, “He is a gentleman, and his manners are good. He is putting up at the Good King and planning to stay for some time. He—”

“He is wealthy.” Lady March liked to get to the point.

“It would seem so,” Clarinda replied cautiously. She glanced at her sister, who was reading upon the chaise longue. “What did you think of Mr Quentin, Lucy?”

Lucy set down her book and yawned sleepily. “Lord, I don’t know, Clarinda. He’s amusing enough but he’s quite old, isn’t he? Not like Monsieur Henri,” she added dreamily.

“You can’t prefer the hero in that book to Mr Quentin,” Clarinda declared with uncharacteristic crossness. “Really, Lucy, he’s charming and sophisticated and perfect in every way.”

Lucy’s pretty face took on a mulish look. “If you think that, Clarinda, then you must be falling in love with him yourself.”

There was a silence. Clarinda felt too shocked to reply, not so much at Lucy’s temper but at the idea that she should be falling in love with a man when her future was already set.

“I am most disappointed about my wheeled chair,” Lady March announced in a loud voice. “Sold out indeed. I cannot believe there are so many people in Bath requiring them at this present time. I am sure no one needs one as urgently as I do. Perhaps I could send up to London for one. What do you think, Clarinda?”

“I think you should wait and see if you can find one closer to Bath, Aunt,” said Clarinda, knowing who would be pushing her aunt around in the wheeled chair.

“Humph!”

“Perhaps Mr Collingwood could help you find one,” Lucy added, with a bland look on her face and a naughty twinkle in her eye. “Do you know where he is staying, Aunt?”

“He has a disease of the lower limbs that makes them swell up enormously,” Lady March said with relish. “He has invited me to tea, to examine them.”

“Poor man.” Lucy could not help but feel sorry for him.

“I wonder how he contracted it?” Lady March gazed into the fire.

Clarinda and Lucy exchanged a speaking glance, and Lucy gave a shudder. “I’m sorry I was cross,” Lucy whispered. “I did not mean to snap at you.”

“I know you did not.”

“You only want what is best for me,” Lucy went on in a dull voice.

Clarinda looked at her sister in surprise. “But you must want to marry and have a fine house and fine clothes and … and … Surely every young woman wants to live grandly?”

“I suppose so,” Lucy agreed, but she didn’t sound very certain. “But I want to fall in love first, Clarinda. I would hate to marry a man simply because he was wealthy or had a title. I do not crave to wear pretty dresses or ride in a fine carriage as much as that.”

“You are very young,” Clarinda began, as if this was an excuse.

“You speak as though your own life were over,” Lucy retorted.

“We owe Aunt March a great deal,” Clarinda said, as if this were an answer, glancing at the older woman now dozing in her chair.

“You have spent ten years caring for her,” Lucy said, suddenly seeming far older than Clarinda knew her to be, “and it is time I took my turn.”

Clarinda opened her mouth, closed it again. Suddenly everything seemed to be turning topsy-turvy. Slyly, the image of herself and James Quentin crept into her head. How could she dare to believe such a thing was possible? That she should be granted the chance of such happiness?

If she were to allow herself to begin to believe only to have her dreams snatched away from her, it would be too cruel. Clarinda knew she would rather lock them away now, before they could gain purchase, than be shattered by the dashing of her hopes.

“We shall see,” she said firmly.

Lucy sighed. “That means you intend to have your own way,” she murmured. “But this time, Clarinda, you will see. I intend to have mine.”

“The Pump Room went well, My Lord?”

Dunn’s curious gaze took in his master, as if trying to decide what there was about him that was different.

“Well enough, and please do not call me by that title.” Dunn took his coat. “I am sorry, sir, but you are Lord Hollingbury.”

“I know I am, Dunn, I just … Oh dash it, I suppose you’re right. I’ll have to get used to it one day.”

“Did you learn anything to your advantage, My Lord?”

“To my …?” James repeated, momentarily dazed. “Oh, you mean … No, Dunn, I didn’t.”

James poured himself a brandy. He felt the need of it. The water in the Pump Room had been as nasty as he feared, and he told himself the brandy was to wash the taste out of his mouth. In truth it was to settle his nerves, which were rattled far more than he liked to admit.

Mrs Russo had clutched hold of him again after Clarinda left, and she had been most forthcoming. She had informed him, with false sympathy, that Lady March’s two nieces were only with her because she had kindly offered them a home after they were destitute. “Poor as church mice,” she added, with a sly look. “Good looking, I grant you. The younger one may make a good marriage. Miss Clarinda is obliged to remain with her aunt, but she has expressed a wish that her sister may have an independent life. So unselfish of her, don’t you think? What did you think of the youngest Miss Howitt, sir? She is generally thought to be quite a beauty.”

James frowned. Now he recalled the moment when Clarinda introduced her sister and there had been something watchful in her gaze as she beamed at him. He almost groaned aloud. Clarinda thought he would fall for Lucy and she was happy with that. She did not want him for herself. Acknowledging it made him damned angry.

Now James shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts of Clarinda. He had come to Bath with one object in mind and here he was being diverted. It would not do at all.

“How can I find her?” he muttered. “Does she even want to be found?”

Dunn looked concerned. “If she is in Bath, then we must discover her, sir, whether she likes it or not. It is not such a large town and there is a great deal of gossip.”

“But she has hidden herself away. Will she understand how much I want to find her and restore her to her proper station in life?” His face darkened. “My brother had a great deal to answer for, Dunn.”

“It was unfortunate you were away in the army when it happened, My Lord.”

“But now I have a chance to amend matters.”

If only Clarinda would stop distracting him.

No, he told himself, he would put her from his mind.

But he found he couldn’t. She came to him in his dreams. Clarinda Howitt was perfection, well perhaps not entirely, she did want him to marry her sister after all. But he knew he wanted her by his side when he began his new life as Lord Hollingbury.

Which was why he found himself in front of her house two mornings later, waiting for his card to be taken upstairs, and permission given for him to meet Clarinda face to face.

Clarinda felt her hands shaking as she smoothed her skirts and pinched her cheeks. She looked wan, with great dark shadows under her eyes. Her aunt had taken a turn in the night, claiming her limbs were swelling like the hot air balloon they had seen flying overhead in the summer. Clarinda knew it was all nonsense, that she had taken the idea from Mr Collingwood, whom she’d visited during the day. But when Lady March decided she was ill there was nothing to be done but ride the wave to its conclusion.

Dr Moorcroft had come and was upstairs with Lady March, listening patiently to her symptoms. At first, when there was a tap on her door, Clarinda had thought it was the doctor wishing to speak to her, but instead it was the maid with a card from James Quentin.

Her James Quentin.

No, no, that was not right. He was not hers. He could never, ever be hers. Her life, her future, was fixed. Lucy could never handle Lady March, no matter what she said. No matter how much she wished it could be so. Whatever he wanted she must send him away and as soon as possible. To let him linger was only to cause herself more pain and suffering.

With a new iron resolve, Clarinda descended to the vestibule.

He was gazing at a gloomy hunting painting that belonged to Lord March, but turned at the sound of her steps on the stairs. His smile faded a little at the chill tone of her voice.

“Mr Quentin, how do you do?”

“Miss Howitt. I am interrupting. I am sorry to intrude upon you without an invitation. I felt the need to see you.”

He made it sound as if seeing her was somehow imperative, but she dared not imagine that was true.

Without answering, she showed him into the parlour and they were seated. “I cannot stay long,” she said. “My aunt is ill and the doctor is with her.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Although your aunt did not seem to be an invalid when I met her at the Pump Room, and the first time we met you mentioned her penchant for imagining herself ill.” His look was quizzical.

“That is neither here nor there,” Clarinda said quietly. “I owe my aunt a debt. Without her Lucy and I would have been … well, I don’t know what would have happened to us.” Suddenly she looked at him, her eyes widening. “Oh.” A thought had occurred to her. He’d come to offer for Lucy! After one meeting he was hopelessly in love with her sister and wished to ask for her hand. Her emotions sank even lower but she tried to smile. “Lucy is out shopping with her friends. I am sure she will be sorry she missed you.”

His smile was gone. He was frowning almost furiously. “I didn’t come here to see Lucy, I came here to see you. I thought I made that perfectly clear, Clarinda?”

Puzzled, not daring to believe, she gazed into his eyes.

“Clarinda, let me make myself very clear. I have no interest in your sister whatsoever. It is you I am interested in.”

“I don’t understand,” she began, hoping for and yet dreading his answer.

“Mrs Russo informed me of your circumstances,” he said dryly. “An unpaid servant to your aunt. I have come to offer you a way out, Clarinda.”

“A way out?” she croaked, praying she was wrong, and yet hoping …

Lady March’s voice drifted down from upstairs. “Clarinda!”

Clarinda stood up, shaking.

Footsteps on the stairs and a white-faced maid poked her head around the door of the parlour. “Miss Clarinda, the doctor says can you come?”

Clarinda hesitated, torn between hearing what James Quentin had come to say and her duty to her aunt. “I must go.”

“Clarinda, please, I know I have put my question very badly. I should have said how much I admire you, how I dream of you, how ever since we met in the rain I have longed for your company.”

Her heart was thudding so hard she could barely hear herself think. “I must go,” she croaked, and with a gasp she fled the parlour.

In her brief absence Lady March’s bedchamber had turned into a bedlam. Servants were running back and forth with smelling salts and lavender-soaked cloths. Lady March was wailing on her bed, clutching her head and saying her brain was boiling.

The doctor was standing, watching her, a frown on his face. Clarinda, approaching the bed, caught sight of her aunt’s reading matter on the bedside table — Strange and Unusual Diseases.

Her aunt opened one eye and, seeing that Clarinda was distracted, redoubled her wailing.

“Aunt, please, you are frightening us.”

Dr Moorcroft appeared at her shoulder. “She was perfectly all right until she heard you had a visitor downstairs,” he said. “A Mr Quentin?” His eyes searched her flushed face. “Your aunt seems to have taken it into her head that he is here to take you away from her.”

“Well, she is wrong,” Clarinda replied bleakly. “I know where my duty lies.”

His glance stayed on hers a moment more and then he squared his shoulders. “Right,” he said grimly. “How odd. I have just come from Mr Collingwood, who also possesses this book. Can there be a connection, do you think?”

“My aunt has recently made the acquaintance of Mr Collingwood,” Clarinda said cautiously.

Her aunt opened one eye, then closed it again quickly when she realized she was being observed. “Is Mr Collingwood as unwell as I?” she demanded in a surprisingly strong voice for one so ill. “I’m certain he cannot be.”

Dr Moorcroft considered her. “It may be necessary to quarantine you and Mr Collingwood, Lady March. To ensure this … this disease does not spread throughout Bath.”

Lady March looked quite thrilled at the prospect. By the time arrangements were made, and the doctor was leaving, she was sitting up drinking tea.

“She is lonely and bored,” Clarinda explained, knowing it was no excuse.

“All the more reason to find her a friend of similar mind,” the doctor said, with a twinkle in his eye. He paused at the head of the stairs, waiting until the servants had passed by and they were alone. “Has she reason to fear Mr Quentin, Clarinda?”

Clarinda looked away. “No. I cannot put my own happiness before that of my aunt, or Lucy.”

The doctor sighed, but said nothing.

It was not until he reached home that he allowed his anger to show. “It really is ridiculous,” he said, as he and Etta sat together in their handkerchief of a garden. “Clarinda obviously loves this fellow but is refusing to allow herself to accept him because of her wretched aunt.”

Etta, who wasn’t her usual smiling self, said softly, “And what is this fellow’s name, my love?”

“Quentin,” he told her, proud he’d remembered.

A moment later Etta was in tears.

“My darling, whatever is the matter? Etta, please tell me?”

Slowly, painfully, Etta allowed him to draw out the truth. Afterwards she was drained and he put her to bed and sat with her as she fell into a deep sleep. When she woke, he was still holding her hand. He bent over her, smiling, and kissed her lips.

“I love you,” he said. “I don’t care about the past. We have the future to look forward to, and I am forever grateful for it.”

Etta gazed at him with shining eyes.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, worriedly. “Whatever it is, you know I will stand by your decision.”

Etta sighed, and, after a moment, she told him.

The Assembly Rooms were lit by lamp and candlelight, the musicians busy playing their instruments as the dancers moved gracefully or gossiped in little groups by the walls. Clarinda, feeling like a shell of her former self, was only here because Lucy had insisted, and her aunt was visiting Mr Collingwood and his sister. They seemed to have so much in common that there was little else her aunt would speak of. Clarinda was bewildered by the change in her.

“You should be pleased,” Lucy said with a grin. “I am. Let her marry old Collingwood. They could be wheeled up the aisle in their chairs together, can you imagine it?”

“Lucy,” Clarinda murmured reprovingly.

Her thoughts were melancholy tonight. Mr James Quentin had asked her to marry him, or at least that was what he’d intended to do, and she had cut him rudely short and rushed away. How could he forgive her for that? He must think he had embarrassed her, or she didn’t return his feelings. How could he understand the conflicting demands that had been tearing her in two?

Of course he would never approach her again. She wouldn’t be the least surprised if he had left Bath altogether.

“Here is Etta,” Lucy whispered. “I will leave you. I see Isabella over by the potted palm.”

Her sister hurried away, eager to join her friends. Clarinda smiled as Etta approached. “I did not know if you would come,” she said.

Etta looked as pale as she had at the Pump Rooms, and there was something anxious about her, a sense of expectation.

“I have heard from my husband about your aunt’s new hobby,” she said, with a ghost of her old twinkle.

“Yes, my aunt and Mr Collingwood are very close.”

Etta glanced beyond her and stiffened. She bit her lip. “Oh dear,” she said in a wobbly voice.

The next moment she had hurried past Clarinda and grasped the hands of James Quentin who had been approaching, resplendent in formal evening wear. “James,” Etta said, as if the name meant everything to her.

Shocked, speechless, Clarinda stared. She tried to understand what this meant but nothing occurred. There was a sick sense of despair in the pit of her stomach, and something else — a feeling of furious jealousy.

She turned away, not knowing where she was going, not caring. She was almost at the door when Etta slipped her hand through Clarinda’s arm and turned her around. Her friend’s eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed. She looked like a woman in love, Clarinda decided bleakly.

She was so busy being miserable she didn’t at first take in the words Etta was saying to her.

“He is my brother! I … I was foolish enough to run off with someone totally unsuitable while James was away in the army. Our elder brother, Lord Hollingbury, disowned me, even when I begged to be allowed to come home.”

“Your … your brother?” Clarinda whispered.

“James came to Bath to find me.”

Clarinda looked up and found her eyes held and captured by those of James Quentin, and suddenly she realized how like Etta’s they were — both so dark and warm and dear.

“I had sworn I would find her and make all well again,” he said softly. “I had people searching and discovered she had married and was hiding in Bath, so I came to fetch her home.”

Etta laughed. “Only this is my home now.”

“But …” Clarinda looked from one to the other. “You do not mean Dr Moorcroft is the unsuitable man you …?”

“Oh no. I met him later, and fell in love. I have been very fortunate.”

As if her words had conjured him up, her doctor joined their little group. For a moment the emotion ran high, before Etta and her husband departed to the supper room.

“I made a bit of a hash of it, didn’t I?” James broke the silence between them. They had stepped into an ante-room, hidden from the crowd by draped curtains. He smiled, his eyes seeming to caress her and warm her.

“No,” she said, her voice trembling with passion, “it was my fault. I thought there was no hope and I couldn’t let myself believe. I couldn’t bear it. So I sent you away.” She lifted her head and gazed into his face. “Did you really come to Bath to find Etta?”

“Yes. But I found you, Clarinda. My darling, will you marry me? Will you be my Lady Hollingbury?”

Clarinda allowed her whirling thoughts to settle. There was her aunt, but she seemed to have found a new life. There was Lucy, but Lucy had a mind of her own it seemed and wasn’t going to fall in with Clarinda’s idea of her future. And that left Clarinda.

“Yes,” she said, and a wave of such happiness washed over her.

He took her into his arms. “I will never complain about Bath weather again,” he whispered against her lips, “because that is what brought us together.”

And then he kissed her.