Simply Unforgettable

“Oh,” Amy cried, clasping her hands to her bosom, “I do hope you send for her, Mrs. Melford, and I do hope she comes. Then I will be able to see her again. I will have Luce bring me here. I would like it of all things.”

“And perhaps,” the earl said, chuckling, “she will sing for Miss Driscoll, and I will wangle an invitation to hear her again too. I cannot imagine a better tonic.”

“I shall do it,” Mrs. Melford said with firm decision, clapping her hands together. “I daresay she may not be able to get away in the middle of a school term, but I will not know if I do not ask, will I? I can think of nothing I would like better than to see Frances again, and I am convinced that a visit from her will do Gertrude the world of good.”

“Perhaps, ma’am,” Lucius said, smiling his most charming smile, “you should say in your letter that the idea was all yours.”

“And was it not?” Her eyes twinkled at him.

And what the deuce had that been all about? Lucius wondered during what remained of the visit and after they had taken their leave. Why would he have pounced upon a slim opportunity of enticing Frances to London?

Did he really want to see her again?

But for what purpose? Had she not made herself clear enough the last time he saw her? Had he not suffered enough rejection and humiliation at her hands?

What the deuce was he hoping to accomplish?

Just yesterday he had gone to

Berkeley Square

to talk marriage settlements with Balderston—and found him from home.

He had not returned this morning.

Would he go back there tomorrow?

Very probably Frances would not even come.

And if she did, so what? She would be coming to see her ailing great-aunt, not him.

But if she did come, he thought, clamping his teeth together as Amy prattled away to their grandfather beside her on the carriage seat and presumably to him too, he would certainly make it a point to see her.

No one had yet written the end beneath their story. It was not finished.

Deuce take it, it was not finished.

Not in his mind, anyway.

That is the trouble with you. You really cannot take no for an answer, can you, Lord Sinclair?

Yes, of course he could. He did it all the time. But how could he accept a no when he had never been quite convinced that she had not desperately wanted to say yes?

Then why the devil had she not?

The outskirts of London were not attractive in the best of circumstances. They looked downright ugly in the rain and with a swirling wind blowing rubbish across open spaces and into soggy piles against the curbs next to the pavements.

Frances ached in every limb, having made the journey from Bath all in one day in the dubious comfort and at the very plodding speed of her great-aunts’ carriage, with Thomas up on the box. She had a bit of a headache. She felt slightly damp even though all the windows were firmly shut. She was also chilly.

But really she was not thinking much about either the view beyond the windows or her physical discomforts—or even about being back in London. She was not coming here either to enjoy herself or to mingle with society, after all. No one would even know she had been here.

She was coming because Great-Aunt Gertrude was dying. Not that Great-Aunt Martha had announced the fact in such stark words, it was true, but the conclusion was inescapable. She had begged Frances to come if she possibly could even though she knew it was the middle of a school term. And though she had added that she was sure dear Frances would not be able to get away before the end of term and that she must not distress herself if she really could not, she had sent an inescapable sign that her great-niece’s presence in London was an urgent necessity. Instead of sending the letter by post, she had sent it with Thomas and the ancient private carriage—“for your comfort if you should be able to get away,” she had added in a postscript.

Claudia had granted her leave of absence before Frances had even formed the words to ask for something so inconvenient, assuring her that she would find a temporary replacement to carry on with her teaching duties. Anne had hugged her wordlessly. Susanna had helped pack her bags. Mr. Huckerby had offered to conduct her choir practices while she was gone. Each of her classes urged her to hurry back.

Frances had actually dissolved into tears after sharing the contents of the letter with her friends.

“They are just great-aunts,” she had said. “I have not seen a great deal of them during my life and I write to them only once a month. But now that it seems likely that I may lose one of them, I realize what an anchor they have always been to my existence and how much I rely on their love and support. With my father gone, they are all I have of my very own. And I do love them.”

It was of them she had thought with most distress after Lady Fontbridge had made her threat more than three years ago. It was largely because of them that she had made the promise to leave London and never return. She could not have borne it if they had been told. So much of their world would have been destroyed.

“Of course you do,” Claudia had said briskly. “Stay as long as you need to, Frances. We will all miss you, of course, including the girls, but no one in this life is quite indispensable. It can sometimes be a humbling realization.”