Simply Unforgettable

A little less than three hours later she was on her way back to Bath. It was already afternoon. It would certainly have been wiser to wait until morning, as her aunts had tried to convince her, but once the decision had been made she had been almost desperate to be back in Bath, back to the sane, busy routine of school life, back with her friends.

It was almost certain that she would have to stop somewhere on the road for the night, but she was not penniless. She could afford one night at an inn.

It was not just a desperation to be in Bath that drove her to such an abrupt departure, though. It was also a desperation to leave London, to leave him before he could come with more excuses to speak with her—and she very much feared that he would come despite his protestations to the contrary last evening.

She could not bear to see him again.

She wanted her heart to have a chance to begin mending.

Her great-aunts had been disappointed, of course. What about Baron Heath? they asked her. What about her singing career? What about Lord Sinclair? He was surely in love with their dear Frances. They had both come to that conclusion last evening.

But finally they had accepted her decision and assured her they felt well blessed that she had come all the way to London just to see them and had stayed for almost a whole week.

They had insisted upon sending her back in their traveling carriage.

And finally, after lengthy, tearful farewells and tight hugs Frances was on her way.

This was a little like the way it had all begun after Christmas, she thought as the London streets gradually gave place to countryside and she tried to find a comfortable position in the carriage—she felt weary right through to the marrow of her bones. It was fitting perhaps that this was how it would all end.

But this time there was no snow.

And this time there was no Lucius Marshall coming along behind her in a faster carriage.

She shed a very few tears of self-pity and grief and then dried them firmly with her handkerchief and blew her nose.

If he had many more dealings with Frances Allard, Lucius decided, he might well find that he had ground his teeth down to stumps.

He had arrived at the house on Portman Street, all prepared to shake the living daylights out of her, only to find that she had flown from there a scant half hour before. He had then had to spend all of ten minutes with her rather tearful great-aunts, who declared that he ought to have come sooner and persuaded their dear Frances to stay longer. But she had decided that she had been away from her classes long enough and must return to them immediately even though she could not possibly expect to reach Bath today.

“You sent her in your carriage, then, ma’am?” he had asked, addressing Mrs. Melford.

“Of course,” she had told him. “We certainly would not allow her to travel in the discomfort of a stagecoach, Lord Sinclair. She is our niece—and our heir.”

He had taken his leave soon after. And that, of course, ought to have been that.

End of story.

Good-bye.

The end.

But he had left the drawing room at Marshall House with such a flourish of high drama—totally unplanned and unrehearsed—that it would seem anticlimactic now to creep back there with the announcement that he had abandoned his plan to offer Frances Allard marriage because she had left town.

Offer her marriage indeed after she had refused him once and shown no sign of changing her mind since!

He really did appear to be suffering from an incurable case of insanity.

After walking back to Marshall House, he took the stairs two at a time up to his room—at least, that was his intention. But he met a veritable wall of people at the top of the first flight—they must have been watching for him at the drawing room window and had come to intercept him.

He half expected to see Portia among them, but neither she nor Lady Balderston was there. All the rest of them were, though, except his grandfather—even Amy.

“Well, Luce?” that young lady called out when he was still six stairs below them. “Did she say yes? Did she?”

“Amy,” their mother said sharply, “hold your tongue. Lucius, whatever have you done?”

“I have been out on a wild-goose chase,” he said. “She was not there. She is on her way back to Bath.”

“I have never been more mortified in my life,” his mother said. “Portia will not have you now, you know. Lady Balderston will not allow it, and neither will Lord Balderston, I daresay, when he hears what has happened. And even if they would, I do not believe she will. She behaved with great dignity after you had left and even advised Emily on the gown she ought to wear to the Lawson ball tomorrow evening. But you humiliated her in front of most of your family.”

“Did I, Mama?” He came up to the top stair and Tait stepped to one side to give him room. He also managed to favor his brother-in-law with a private smirk. “How? By suggesting that she is a gossip? I ought to have been more tactful, perhaps, but I spoke nothing but the truth.”

“I quite agree,” Emily said. “As if I am not perfectly capable of choosing my own gown!”

“I have never liked Lady Lyle,” Margaret added. “She always has a half-smile on her face. I do not trust it.”