Simply Unforgettable

Frances!

He was still too far away to see her face clearly, but he was quite close enough to know that it was filled with warm animation. She was absorbed in her task of instructing the group of girls, and she was enjoying herself.

She was not, he noticed, looking either haggard or heartbroken.

Devil take it, had he expected that she would—no doubt as a result of having pined away over him to a shadow of her former self?

She was also, it seemed, quite unself-conscious about the presence of other persons in the vicinity. She did not glance at any of the fashionable people strolling on the Crescent or in the meadow below it. Even so, after one long look, Lucius tipped the brim of his hat lower, as if to ward off the bright rays of the sun and half turned as if to admire the view behind him.

“Bath never ceases to astonish me with its loveliness,” he said stupidly.

Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford, both of whom were residents of the city, were quite happy to take up the theme with voluble enthusiasm, and Amy told them how very much she had enjoyed shopping on

Milsom Street

the afternoon before, when her brother had bought her the bonnet she was now wearing.

The two ladies admired it with effusive compliments.

When Lucius next turned his head to look, the schoolgirls had completed their walk about the Crescent and were making their brisk way down the hill past the Marlborough Buildings.

Goddamn it, he thought profanely, had he actually been hiding from her? From a mere schoolteacher, who had wanted to boil him in oil one day, who had slept with him the next, and who had passed judgment on his lovemaking the day after that by calling it pleasant before saying a very firm and final good-bye to him?

Had he really been hiding behind his hat like a groveling coward?

He felt decidedly shaken, if the truth were known. He wondered what would have happened if he had been standing up on the street rather than down here in the meadow and they had come face-to-face. He wondered if he would have stuttered and stammered and otherwise made a prize ass of himself or if he would have gazed coolly at her, raised his eyebrows, and pretended to search for her name in his memory.

Lord, he hoped it would have been the latter.

And then, as the girls disappeared into

Marlborough Lane

, he found himself wondering how she would have behaved. Would she have blushed and lost her composure? Would she have raised her eyebrows and pretended to have half forgotten him?

Damnation! Perhaps she had forgotten him.

It was a very good thing they had not come face-to-face. His self-esteem might well have suffered a blow from which it would never recover. His grandfather and Amy and these two ladies would have witnessed his humiliation. So would the crocodile of schoolgirls, their eyes avidly drinking in the scene so that they could titter and giggle over it in their dormitory for the next week or month or so.

There would have been nothing left for him to do but find a gun somewhere and blow his brains out.

He felt suddenly irritated again and intensely annoyed with Miss Frances Allard, almost as if she had seen him and had not recognized him.

Perhaps, he thought, gritting his teeth, she had been brought into his life by a malevolent fate in order to keep him humble—this schoolteacher who had preferred her teaching job to him.

Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Abbotsford were taking their leave. Lucius touched the brim of his hat to them and looked closely at his grandfather.

“I think that is definitely enough for one afternoon, sir,” he said. “It is time to go home for tea.”

“Perhaps Amy would like to stay out longer,” the earl suggested.

But Amy smiled cheerfully at him and took one of his arms while her other was still linked through Lucius’s.

“I am very happy to go home for tea with you, Grandpapa,” she said. “It has been a wonderfully exciting afternoon, has it not? We must have spoken with a dozen people or more. And we have been invited to a soiree tomorrow evening. I will have much to say when I write to Mama and Caroline and Emily tonight. I do not know what I am going to wear.”

“I believe,” Lucius said with an exaggerated sigh, “I can predict another shopping expedition to

Milsom Street

tomorrow.”

“You may purchase a ready-made gown with my purse, child,” the earl said. “And all the trimmings to go with it. But do trust to Lucius’s good taste when you make your choices. It is impeccable.”

As they walked, Lucius found himself grappling with a memory of Frances Allard sealing the edges of a beef pie with the pad of her thumb, pricking the lid so that the steam would not blow it off, and then bending over the hot oven to set it inside.

Why he should still feel rather like the beef filling lying beneath the unpricked lid in the middle of the hot oven was a mystery to him—not to mention a severe annoyance.

Why had she chosen today of all days to bring a class up onto the Crescent?