Page 75 of Not Quite a Lady
Chapter Eighteen
Lily felt she had survived her first meal at Allerton with reasonable success. She had been exceedingly careful to say nothing which might reveal the gap between her dress allowance and those of the Lovell sisters when they questioned her about gowns, she had changed the subject as soon as possible when Penelope had asked aboutchaise longueswith crocodile legs and she had entertained her hosts with unexceptional anecdotes about the Duchess of Oldbury’s ball without the slightest reference to challenges or quarrels.
‘And did you dance with Jack?’ Penelope demanded.
‘Yes, I have done, once or twice,’ Lily conceded. ‘Once only at that ball, but before then at another party. Lord Allerton,’ she added slyly, sliding a glance at him from under her lashes, ‘is a most accomplished dancer.’
Jack’s mouth twitched slightly. Susan laughed. ‘Is he really? I am not sure I believe you, Miss France. He is all flat feet when he has to dance with us.’
‘Dancing with Miss France is a much more inspiring matter than having to take the floor with one’s baby sisters,’ her put-upon brother retorted. ‘An elephant would dance well with Miss France.’
Lily liked the way Jack was with his family. He was obviously fond of all of them, he put up with his sisters’ teasing with humour and he was clearly a loving and attentive son.
This, she found, was not helpful. The discovery that he was a short-tempered domestic tyrant would have made her feel much better.
‘Is it still raining?’ Penelope lamented when the meal was over. ‘I thought we could all go for a walk and show Lily the countryside.’
‘Miss France, Penelope,’ her mother corrected. ‘Really, our visitor will think you dragged up with no manners.’
‘Please, I would like it if the girls call me Lily, ma’am. It is a pity about the weather, Penelope, I would love you to show me around. Perhaps you can another day.’
‘Why not show Lily the picture gallery, Jack?’ Caroline suggested helpfully.
‘Penny, you and Susan can help me look through the journals Jack brought us and see how we would like our new muslins made up. And then later Lily can tell us whether we will be bang up to the mode or sadly dowdy.’
Lily would have been more than happy to be curled up looking at theLadies’ Journalbut to refuse to go with Jack would have looked too pointed. She smiled politely and accompanied him up the main staircase and off down a passage she had not yet seen.
‘It is very confusing, I am lost already,‘ she remarked as they turned a corner and went up a short flight of steps.
That’s right Lily, prattle away, anything but acknowledge you are alone with him.
‘I expect to have to rise at five in order to arrive at breakfast at a reasonable hour.’
‘You will get used to it. For children, of course, it is the most wonderful playground. Mama used to live in dread of one of us vanishing and being found, years later, shut in a mysterious chest or locked in a haunted tower room.’
‘She must have disliked Gothic tales then, that sort of thing constantly happens in those,’ Lily observed. ‘I enjoy them, but Iamnervous of all these suits of armour. I keep thinking I can see them out of the corner of my eye, moving.’
She shivered, less out of any fear of the armour than from being so close to Jack, alone.
Here, in his own home, he was almost a stranger. It was as though Jack Lovell had retreated from her behind the front ofLord Allerton.
‘Do you think I should have them polished?’
‘What? The armour? I have no idea – are they supposed to be?’ Lily went close and regarded one suit on its plinth. It had no rust, but it had dulled to an almost pewter shade.
‘I was thinking the Great Hall looked a little worn and wondered how you would transform it, Lily. If the armour was polished we could set more of it about in there. Suits of armour up the stairs and possibly some arrangements of weapons on the wall. What do you think?’
Lily regarded him. There was mischief, carefully repressed, in the curve of his mobile mouth and his lashes were lowered over eyes that he knew would betray him.
‘I think that would look like a Great Hall in the medieval style,’ she retorted tartly. ‘As you alreadyhavea medieval hall I can only conclude that you are teasing me by suggesting that you dress it up to be a pastiche of itself.’
With a flounce of skirts Lily marched off down the corridor. In a way, arguing with Jack felt much more comfortable than when he was being frigidly polite.
‘I miss your style of interior decoration, Lily,’ he remarked plaintively, following her.
‘No you do not, Jack Lovell, you miss being able to laugh at it.’ She turned to see where he was and found he was right behind her, trapping her neatly against the wall.
‘Did I laugh, Lily?’ He was so close she could see the lines at the corner of his eyes, the way his skin was paler where his hair had been ruthlessly cropped, the way the dark flint of his eyes had lightened into the grey of pebbles under water.
