Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [24]
“I may be thankful my own mother's inclinations are in a less material direction,” I said dryly, “for I should assuredly be the ruin of her hopes.”
Having met with my mother frequently while in Bath, Isobel could not repress a smile; but her sad tale reclaimed her attention. “Lord Payne was newly resident in his uncle's Town home, having left his estate in Derbyshire for the season. Fitzroy immediately became the object of my aunt Delahoussaye's excited speculation; for where one union is effected in a family, and the respective members thrown much together, another may well be formed; and to see her daughter as heir apparent to the title I was to assume, by marrying my husband's heir, became my aunt's primary object.”
“It reigns unabated among her schemes,” I could not refrain from saying; “I was nearly pulled from die dance die other evening in Madame Delahoussaye's eagerness to secure Lord Payne as her daughter's partner.”
“And that, after I had already asked Fitzroy to lead Fanny in the first dance, behind his uncle and myself. He detests nothing so much as dancing, however he excels at it; and he regards standing up with Fanny as a punishment. He should rather have partnered you, my dear Jane—he told me so himself.”
“I am flattered. But we digress.”
“In London, my husband-to-be was frequently attended by his men of business, and prevented from escorting me to the season's gaieties as often as he might like. Frederick found it no difficulty, however to send Fitzroy in his place, and my aunt was ready enough to have Fanny make a third.” Isobel stopped short, overcome by memory.
“How many hours the three of us strolled Bond Street, Jane, a lady on Fitzroy's either side; or took the air of the Park in our carriage, Fitzroy seated opposite with Fanny at his right hand. It gradually became a torment; his mind and mine were too much alike not to leap at the chance to converse; we found much in common that thrilled and moved; and yet behind the growing felicity in one another's company, there was a burgeoning despair. The inevitability of my fate approached—and to dishonour the man who had done so much for each of us was impossible. That we thought severally in this vein, without speaking of it to the other—that we had never spoken of the feeling that overcame us in one another's presence—I need not assure you. Such a speech could not but harm.” She fell silent, lost in despondency.
“Until?” I prompted.
The Countess hesitated, as if unwilling to repeat in speech the indiscretions of the past. “Until the day Fanny suffered a slight indisposition, due to her greediness for cold stuffing at dinner the previous evening.”
“It prevented her from accompanying you the next day?”
“It did. We had formed the design of a visit to Hampton Court, by barge up the Thames, and visit we did—though the party was formed of but two.” My dear friend's face was suddenly transformed. “The delight in those few hours, Jane! The carefree happiness of our day! What laughter, what meaning in silence, what trembling in my hand as I took his arm to promenade! We moved through stately rooms and terraced gardens as though they were ours and we had come into our kingdom. A marvelous charade. For a time, we might play at what we never could be.”
A little of Isobel's emotion affected my senses, and I strove for calm. “And you spoke, then, of the future?”
“How could we not?” Her glad aspect dimmed. “But it was a discourse saved for the waning of the day, when the long shadows proclaimed our liberty at an end, our paradise lost. In contemplating the necessity of a return, the duplicity it meant, Fitzroy found that he could not bear it; and in the shadow of a great tree in the Court gardens, he seized me in his arms and…kissed me, Jane.”
I was silent with pity and horror.
“The