Page 4 of A Delicate Deception
“Well, obviously,” she said with undisguised frustration. “I hardly thought you were building siege engines. I meant what are you doing with them? Where are these engines going? Looms? Pumps? Ships?”
“Well, yes,” he said, flustered.
She stared and made a promptingon with itsort of gesture with her hand.
“Mostly railways and tramways at the moment,” he added, not certain why she was staring at him but finding it disconcerting.
She licked her lips. His face flushed with mortifying promptitude. He stumbled over a tree root and only barely regained his footing. Served him right for looking at young women’s lips like he had never seen a pair of them before. He tried to get some control of himself.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, thinking that if she could be frank and forthright about their previous meeting then so could he, “but three days ago you didn’t want me on your property. Now you seem eager to hear about steam engines. On the one hand I feel certain I ought to remain silent so as to spare you the burden of conversing with me, but on the other I don’t want to be silent and churlish. I’m afraid I’m quite at a loss.” This, he knew, was too much honesty. People didn’t care for that. He expected a chilly silence, perhaps even a rebuke. Maybe he even wanted that, just to get it over with, just so he’d know where he stood.
To his surprise, she let out a ripple of laughter that might have been deemed a snort in someone with any other accent. “Believe me, sir, if I could begin to explain the inner workings of my mind I’d be a very happy woman. The fact is that I’m—” She hesitated long enough for Sydney to turn his head, seeing her furrowed brow and pursed lips. “I don’t do well with people,” she said slowly, as if weighing each word. “I’m something of a recluse.” The hesitation in her voice reminded him of the way he thought about being the owner of Pelham Hall—a reluctance to give voice to an unwanted truth. “So it came as an unpleasant surprise to see you at a time when I wished to see nobody. But when my dog—excuse me, a dog who thinks she’s my dog—attacks a man, I rise to the occasion. And when I have the chance to learn about something that’s unknown to me, I can’t resist.”
She spoke those last three words as if speaking of a pleasure more carnal than machinery. Sydney ran a finger under his collar and kept his attention on the path before him until they reached the place where the lane diverged towards Heatherby and the inn in one direction, and Crossbrook Cottage in the other.
“Good day, sir,” she said, her face tilted up towards his. “I wouldn’t object to seeing you on my walk in the future.” With that, she nodded her head at him and walked away.
Really, he shouldn’t be so flattered by a person announcing that she wouldn’t dread encountering him. He watched her progress along the lane to her cottage for a full minute before he realized that if things went reasonably well, there would be some message from Lex waiting for him at the inn, and he wouldn’t ever see this woman again.
That would be for the best. Sydney remembered what happened the last time he had met a young lady with a moneyed accent on these hills.
“Georgiana!” Amelia cried upon entering the cottage. “I met a person unexpectedly, spoke to him, and it wasn’t terrible!”
She already knew she was able to make sufficiently unremarkable conversation. Her years in London had been nothing if not proof that she could talk to virtually anyone without disgracing herself, regardless of how she felt about it. Occasionally, when she had been able to talk to people who had ideas and learning, she had been able to lose her self-consciousness in the thrill of actually talking about something interesting. Those moments had been rarer and rarer with every season she spent in London, as the weight of apprehension crushed any joy she might have once felt.
Furthermore, she was far from unused to men. Amelia’s mother had firmly believed in demystifying the entire gender, and had therefore allowed her daughters to attend dinners and salons far in advance of their official debuts. Amelia had been making conversation with gentlemen since she could string together a sentence. And even though she was far from a sparkling conversationalist, she could get the job done.
“Georgiana?” she called again. “I think I’ve discovered the solution to all that ails me. The trick to graceful social intercourse is to wait until after one’s dog has attempted to murder one’s interlocutor. Do you think they’d let me do that at Almack’s?” She knew she was being absurd, but the fact that she had managed to comport herself in a somewhat social situation, without wanting to run screaming away made her think there might be an end in sight. Perhaps her mind was reverting to something like normal. “We’ll be in London before Christmas, or as soon as I’ve trained up a pack of dogs to do my evil bidding. Georgiana?” But there came no response. She remembered belatedly that Georgiana had taken the pony cart into Bakewell to purchase some things for the house.
Georgiana had been the Allenbys’ governess until the girls no longer required one. The daughter of an impoverished but respectable family, she was an unobjectionable choice as a lady’s companion. That, however, was not why Amelia had asked her to come to Derbyshire. Georgiana had been a perfectly responsible and respectable governess, but after—well, Georgiana had always been game for what Amelia’s father had once indulgently referred to as her pranks. When Amelia smuggled a kitten into church, Georgiana covered up the animal’s mewls with a feigned coughing fit. When Amelia slipped out of ballrooms to flirt with red-coated officers and moustached fortune hunters and bejeweled widows of ill repute, Georgiana aided and abetted her at every step. When Amelia anonymously published a novel so obscene that it would have sent her to prison if her identity had been discovered, Georgiana demanded an annotated copy. And then when Amelia began publishing much less objectionable novels, Georgiana insisted that all the best villains be named after her.
So after that final incident, when Amelia decided becoming a hermit in the Peak District was preferable to watching her mind come apart at the seams, of course Georgiana had declared herself delighted to come along. It was not meant to be permanent, only a holiday from the circumstances that were quite literally driving Amelia mad. Amelia had thought a few months would do the trick, and then Georgiana could return to town and get another post as governess or finally accept Amelia’s offer of an annuity. But a year had passed, and still Amelia was no closer to feeling ready to return to London. She couldn’t keep Georgiana here indefinitely, nor could she face a future of total solitude. It was no wonder that she had greeted that day’s painless interaction with the stranger as a good omen.
“There was a letter for us at the inn,” Georgiana said when she burst into the parlor later that afternoon. Her face was alight with barely checked mischief.
Amelia glanced up from the book she was reading. Georgiana waved a folded sheet of expensive stationery. At least, Amelia assumed it was expensive. All previous letters from Mr. Marcus Lexington had arrived on paper so fine that Amelia hadn’t been able to resist looking up her correspondent inDebrett’s, but to no avail. “Give it over,” Amelia cried, making a grabbing gesture with her hand.
Georgiana plopped down beside her on the sofa. “Shall we?” she asked as she broke the seal.
This bizarre correspondence had begun six months and twelve letters ago, in the middle of a harsh winter. For several days Amelia had been unable to leave the cottage for so much as a stroll around the grounds, and Georgiana hadn’t even been able to call on the vicar’s wife. Huddled around the fire, Amelia had read aloud Mr. Lexington’s defense of Richard III in one of the historical publications she subscribed to. A bottle of wine and some righteous indignation later, they had penned the first letter together. Amelia hadn’t expected the man to write back. She has assumed anyone who could be so devotedly ignorant about history would also be the sort of chauvinist who did not condescend to engage with ladies on the merits of his theses. But he had written, and—wonder of wonders—seemed to enjoy quarreling with them as much as they enjoyed quarreling with him. Now she and Georgiana looked forward to new letters from Mr. Lexington, Georgiana because she thought the letter writer very droll, and Amelia because perhaps she enjoyed getting herself riled up more than she cared to admit.
“‘My dear Miss Russell,’” Georgiana began to read aloud from over Amelia’s shoulder.
This letter, as always, was addressed to Miss Georgiana Russell, care of the Swan in Heatherby. This small subterfuge had seemed a reasonable precaution: Allenby was not only a more unusual surname than Russell, but Amelia had achieved some notoriety as the writer of three historical novels. Meanwhile, calling for letters addressed to a totally fictitious name would have created unwanted gossip in the village. Perhaps the wisest course of action would have been simply not to engage with lunatic historians, but that would have required a degree of restraint that Amelia had never possessed.
“‘My dear Miss Russell,’” Georgiana repeated, elbowing her for attention. “‘Regarding the future queen’s ladies-in-waiting and their possible loyalties to continental powers—’”
“Ha!” Amelia interjected.
“‘I advise you to consult the transcript of Sir Reginald Howard’s 1797 address to the Society for the Advancement of—’”
“Does he think that his Sir Reginald is some kind of seer? A mystic? A man with a unique line of connection with someone in Richard III’s court? Because unless Sir Reginald had access to papers the rest of us don’t, I don’t give a fig what conclusions he draws about anybody, past or present.”
“I’d bet this plate of biscuits he’s having you on, and that there’s no Reginald Howard and never has been.” This wager might seem inconsequential to anyone who did not know Georgiana. She clutched the biscuits to her bosom like a newborn baby. “He goes on to say that surely you don’t mean to impugn Elizabeth of York’s character—”
“That’s precisely what I mean to do, and he knows it! He’s being deliberately obtuse. I’m accusing the woman of cold-bloodedly killing her little brothers and framing Richard III for it. Does he think I’m paying her a compliment?”
“Well, it’s probably the most interesting thing anyone has ever suggested about her. She really is such a bore. The next time we decide to defame a historical figure, let’s pick somebody more interesting.”
