Page 33 of Not Quite a Lady
‘Aunt!’
Mrs Herrick was sitting in the smallest salon with her feet up on a footstool and a novel in her hand, dozing. ‘Wha…? What dear? Do not bounce so, Lily.’
‘Where, or what, is Schleswig Holstein?’
‘Goodness, how would I know? Germany, I should think. Look it up on the globes in the study, dear. Why do you want to know?’
‘Just something Mr Lovell said.’
‘Discussing geography?’ Mrs Herrick asked vaguely, picking up her novel and pushing her cap straight. ‘That is nice, dear.’
Chapter Eight
Lily approached Lady Frensham’s party with some trepidation, not helped by a pessimistic Lady Billington prophesying doom throughout the short carriage journey.
‘I can place no reliance upon Sally Jersey remembering from one day to the next what she has promised,’ she remarked waspishly. ‘She is as changeable as Spring weather and as empty headed as a pea goose.
‘She has probably been sympathising with all of Randall’s friends and family and saying what a close escape he had. This will be worse than Lady Troughton’s. You should have retired to the country as I advised.’
But Lady Frensham was, if not effusive, perfectly pleasant and, although Lily received some frankly curious stares, no-one cut her except Mrs Cunningham who pretended, somewhat unconvincingly, that she had not seen her.
‘Knows she made a mistake and does not know how to deal with it,’ Lady Billington remarked. ‘The woman still smells of the shop – stop bristling, Lily, the whole point of our efforts are to make sure thatyoudo not – and she has no confidence, which is why she behaves so. Do not regard her.’
So Lily did not. The evening seemed likely to be pleasant enough, although it would have been nice to have a male escort. She still felt vulnerable. What if there were other men like Lord Dovercourt who thought she would be so desperate that she would allow any liberties in her pursuit of a title?
And she missed Jack. To have quarrelled with him hurt, although she still could not understand just why that last encounter had seemed so difficult, so charged. Loving him, she felt as though his slightest look touched her bare skin, his smiles kissed her. And his anger burned like a brand.
The major domo was still announcing guests, his loud voice almost muffled by the volume of conversation.
Lily looked around, puzzled, from an exchange about the weather with Miss Monroe and her beau. ‘Who did he just announce?’
‘I am sorry, Miss France, I did not hear. Were you expecting someone?’
‘No, no-one.’ Shaking her head Lily made herself concentrate.
Miss Monroe was teasing Lieutenant Forrest to organise a picnic party and was begging Lily’s support in convincing him that the weather would hold.
She would have to learn to pull herself together if she was going to cope when Jack left London: she could not go on imaging she heard his name when he was not there.
‘Miss France?’
With a gasp Lily turned.
Jack was standing just behind her in an immaculate evening suit, his hair rigorously pulled back and tied with a narrow velvet ribbon, his head wound discreetly concealed by a black plaster, giving him a rakish air.
‘Mr Lovell.’
‘You are annoyed with me,’ he said smoothly with an apologetic glance towards her companions. ‘I promised to escort Miss France and was then held up at the last minute,’ he explained.
Lily smiled weakly.
‘Aunt Araminta, you know,’ he explained.
‘Indeed? Excuse me,’ she said to Miss Monroe. ‘I must hear about the poor old lady, such an invalid.’
Lily took Jack’s arm and let him steer her to a bench in an alcove. ‘What are you doing here? Miss Monroe must have been wondering why on earth I reacted like that.’
‘Which is why I gave a reason for you to be annoyed with me.’
