Mistletoe Magic

continued after a few moments. She lifted her kerchief and wiped at her watering eyes. ‘And now we shall have no trip to Paris. For the wedding gown,’ she qualified, noticing the puzzlement of the others.

‘I should think that the lack of a shopping excursion is the least of our worries,’ Ernest said, waiting as the servant behind reached over to remove his empty plate. ‘But if we are to have any hope of weathering this disaster, we also need to put what is past behind us and move on.’

‘How?’ Jean returned quickly. ‘How is it that we should do that?’

‘By the simple process of never mentioning Lucas Clairmont’s name again.’

Her aunt was quick to agree and Patrick followed suit. ‘And you, Lillian?’ her father said as he saw her muteness. ‘How do you feel about the matter?’

‘I should like to forget it, too,’ she answered knowing that in a million years she would never do so, his pointed lack of contact a decided rejection of everything she had hoped for.

But as the days had mounted and the condemnation had blossomed, even amongst those who had no reason to be unkind, anger had crawled out from underneath hurt.

Why had he followed her into the dim privacy of the alcove if all he meant to do was leave her? Surely his actions had not been that mercenary?

Lilly. The way he had said her name, threaded with the emotion of a man whose control was gone, and whose touch had burnt the fetters off years of restraint, leaving her vulnerable. Exposed.

Her father’s voice interrupted her reveries.

‘We will leave for Fairley in the morning and shut the house here until the end of January. Some of the servants will stay to complete the process before they come on to us. If we are lucky this…incident may not have filtered out to the country and perhaps we may even entertain on a smaller scale. I hope, Patrick, that you in particular will not find the sojourn too quiet.’

Lillian gritted her teeth, though she was hardly in a position to remind her father of her own need for some company. The winter stretched out in an interminable distance: Christmas, New Year, Twelfth Night and Epiphany. All celebrations that she would no longer be a part of, her newly purchased gowns hanging in the wardrobe for no reason.

As the terrible reality of her situation hit her anew she pushed back her plate and asked to be excused. The eyes of her family slid away from her agitation, another sign of all that she had cost them in her error, for the invitations that had once strewn the trays were now dried up, and the few that pertained to a time in the future cancelled by yet another missive.

Her entire family had become personae non gratae and she had not stepped a foot outside the house in all of five days. Even the windows overlooking the park had been out of bounds-she often saw curious folk looking up and pointing.

Poor Lillian Davenport. Ruined.

Suddenly she could not care. She could not hide for ever. She was twenty-five, after all, and hardly a woman who had been caught in flagrant deshabille.

Pulling on her heavy winter coat, her hat and her gloves, she called for the maid and the carriage to be ready to leave.

‘I am not certain that the master-’ The girl stopped when she noticed her expression. ‘Right away, miss.’

Within the hour she was at her modiste trying on a dress she had ordered many weeks ago and Madame Berenger, the dressmaker, was polite enough not to ask anything personal, preferring instead to dwell on the fit and the form of the gown.

‘It is beautiful on you, Miss Davenport. I like the back particularly with the low swathe across the bodice.’

Turning to the mirror, Lillian pretended more interest in the dress than she felt because a group of women she recognised had entered the shop.

An awkward silence ensued and then a whispering.

‘It is her.’

‘Has she seen us?’

Lillian tried not to react, though the hands of the modiste had stopped pinning the hem as though waiting for what might occur next.

‘Perhaps now is not a good time to be here.’ Christine Greenley spoke loudly, but the young assistant who had rushed to attend to the new arrivals assured her that there were seamstresses ready to help them.

‘That may very well be the case, but will Miss Davenport be here long?’ Lady Susan Fraser was not so polite. ‘I should not wish to have to speak to her.’

No more pretence as silence reigned, the sound of a pin falling on to the wooden floor louder than it had any need to be.

Lillian thanked the woman kneeling before her and picked up the skirt of her gown so that she would not harm the fragile needlework. ‘Please do not leave on my account, Lady Fraser, for I have finished.’ The walking distance seemed a long one to the welcomed privacy of the curtains in the fitting room, her ingrained manners even giving her the wherewithal to smile.

Behind the velvet curtains her hands shook so much that she could barely remove the garment; when she looked at herself in the mirror it was like seeing a stranger, eyes large from the weight she had lost in the past week and dark shadows on her cheeks. Taking three deep breaths, she prayed for strength, her maid’s shy call on the other side of the curtain heartening her further.

‘Can I help with the stays, Miss Davenport?’ she queried, her face full of worry when Lillian bade her enter and her fingers were gentle as she pulled the boned corset into position and did up the laces.

When they came from the room the group was still there however, the oldest lady stepping into her path as she tried to leave.

‘I am sorry for your plight, Miss Davenport.’

Her plight. Just what was she to say to that?

‘Thank you.’ Her words were a ludicrous parody of good manners. Ever the gracious lady even in ruin!

‘But at twenty-five you really ought to have known better.’

‘Indeed I should have.’ Another inanity.

‘If I could offer you some advice, I would say to go to Wilcox-Rice cap in hand and beg his forgiveness! With a little luck and lots of genuine apology, perhaps this situation could be remedied to the benefit of all those involved.’

‘Perhaps it may.’

Perhaps you should mind your own business. Perhaps you should know that your son has propositioned me many a time in a rude and improper manner.

Layers.

Of truth. One on top of the other and all depending on the one beneath it.

And Luc Clairmont. What was his truth? she wondered, as she walked out on to the pavement, carefully avoiding meeting the eyes of anyone else before entering the waiting carriage and glad to be simply going home.

Lucas awoke to the sound of water, the deepness of ocean waves, the hollow echo of sea against timber and wind behind canvas sails. He was in the hull of a ship! Trying to swallow, he found he could not, his mouth so dried out that it made movement impossible.

An older man sat on the table opposite watching him.

‘Ye are thirsty no doubt?’

Luc was relieved when the fellow stood and gave him a drink. Brackish water with a slight taste of something on the edge of it! When he lifted his hands to try to keep on drinking, he was pleased that his captors had not thought to bind him. The rattle of chains, however, dimmed that thought as he saw heavy manacles locked on his ankles.

‘Where are we?’ His voice was rough, but at least now he could speak.

‘My orders were ye are not to be told anything.’

Luc attempted to glean from his fob watch some idea of the time, but the silver sphere was gone. Gone, like his boots and his jacket and cravat. Glancing across at a porthole at the far end of the cabin, he knew it to be still dark.