Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

to his feet courteously. ‘We have agreed that marriage is out of the question. It would be most improper to act on the attraction between us in any other way. Your trustees have ruled out a business relationship. But I do not want to lose you Lily.’

      Lily found she was regarding her hands, twisting the cords of her reticule and not looking at Jack. How could she look at him, watch his face, while he consigned whatever it was that was between them to the anodyne realms of propriety?

      ‘No,’ she agreed slowly, keeping every trace of how she felt out of her voice. ‘No, I would not want to lose you either. As an acquaintance.’ She looked up. For one moment she thought she saw disappointment on Jack’s face; but that was ridiculous, she was agreeing with him, it must have been a trick of the light.

      ‘Good.’ He was brisk, obviously relieved by her agreement: she had been mistaken about that fleeting expression of yearning. Then his face changed from serious thoughtfulness to almost laughable horror. ‘Oh, my Go … goodness. Look at the state of your clothes.’

      ‘And yours.’ Lily could not help laughing. ‘You look as though a building has collapsed around you and then a woman fell on top of you!’

      ‘Good manners prevents me from telling you what your appearance resembles,’ Jack grinned back. ‘So what, exactly, do you suggest we tell my mama we have been doing?’

      ‘First of all we find a hackney carriage and then we do what we can on the journey back to the inn to retrieve matters.’ Lily delved into her reticule. ‘I do have a hairbrush in here, and some pins.’

      Struggling in the confines of a lurching hackney carriage to brush off dust and cobwebs, straighten clothing, pin up Lily’s hair and pluck wood splinters out of Jack’s, reduced both of them to an unfortunate state of juvenile giggles.

      They got out of the carriage in the inn yard, struggling for composure in the face of Jack’s assembled family. Lady Allerton swept one comprehensive glance over the pair of them and declared, ‘We will go inside for luncheon.’

      Trailing up the stairs behind Penelope, Lily whispered, ‘I feel as though I am twelve again and have been caught skipping lessons to go out scrumping apples.’

      ‘Me too. What happened to you? I got whipped by my tutor.’

      ‘I had to sit in the corner balancing a grammar primer on my head to teach me the importance of decorum.’

      Jack’s raised eyebrow made it quite clear that Lily’s unfortunate governess had failed in this endeavour.

      ‘What on earth happened to you two?’ Penelope demanded, the moment the door was closed.

      ‘The roof fell off a building, very close by, and Jack rescued me,’ Lily said promptly. It was true, if misleading, and earned her an admiring look from her fellow adventurer. Her respectable acquaintance. Her lost love.

      ‘Outrageous,’ Lady Allerton declared. ‘One is not safe in the streets these days. As if beggars and pickpockets were not enough, now we have buildings collapsing!’

      The rest of the day passed decorously enough. The combined efforts of the chambermaid and Caroline rendered their appearance respectable enough to complete the day’s business, Lily pressing the warehouse keys into Jack’s hand with a silent plea to do what he could to explain to the agent what had occurred.

      The ladies completed their shopping to their perfect satisfaction and Penelope’s day was crowned with glory by being allowed to drive back again with her brother in the curricle. Caroline explained, once they had set off, that she did not feel that some of the childbed details from her visit to Mrs Hodges were quite suitable for Penny’s tender ears.

      Lily was not at all certain she wanted to hear them either. Remarks such as seven pounds and eight ounces, and in labour for thirty hours made her feel quite dizzy, although Caroline and even Susan were taking these horrid revelations perfectly calmly.

      ‘I suppose you do not visit many lying-in mothers, Miss French,’ Lady Allerton remarked. ‘As we have many tenants, naturally the older girls and I do so quite often.’

      ‘Oh, yes, I can imagine you would.’ There was an entire world out there, of tenants and one’s obligations to them, that Lily knew nothing about. By the time the Lovell sisters married they would know just how to manage the domestic duties of an estate, whereas if she and Jack had been so foolish as to … Her mind baulked at the thought, then she made herself follow it through. If they had married. She would have had to learn all these things about tenants from scratch; as for childbirth, that would have had to be encountered too, very personally indeed.

      The damp moorlands and solid clumps of windswept beech trees passed the carriage windows while Caroline and Susan left the subject of babies and began to bicker gently over which of the new ribbons would look best with Mama’s second-best muslin.

      Lily gazed unseeing out of the window and thought about children. She had never considered them before, assuming that babies would come along as a consequence of marriage. The image of Adrian’s children had never entered her imagination, but now she found herself trying to conjure up Jack’s. Her children with Jack. What would they have looked like? Would they have had her dark red hair, or his black silk? Green eyes or flint? Her impetuosity and stubbornness or his pride and courage?

      Possibly the poor little things would have had the worst characteristics of both parents and would have had red hair and a forceful chin allied to a stubborn nature and a regrettable taste for gold and glitter. She would never know.

      ‘A penny for your thoughts, Lily,’ Susan said brightly. ‘They must be very interesting, for you were smiling, and now you look quite melancholy.’

      ‘My thoughts? Only fantasy,’ Lily prevaricated. ‘I was thinking about … about a play I saw.’

      ‘And was it a tragedy?’

      ‘I hope not,’ she said earnestly, only realising, when the words were out of her mouth, that they would make no sense to her audience.

      The bustle of arrival at the castle saved her from having to explain herself, although Caroline’s quizzical glance warned her that perhaps she saw more than Lily found entirely comfortable.

      The footman stood patiently while the ladies tumbled out of the carriage, pressing parcels into his hands, issuing instructions on what was to go where and impressing upon him that he must be absolutely certain that Miss Susan’s new bonnet did not get crushed.

      The curricle had arrived just before them and Jack was on the ground, reaching up his hands to lift Penny down. It made a charming picture: the strong big brother lifting down the pretty girl. One day he would be standing like that, lifting his daughter down, tossing her up just a little to make her squeal as Penny, despite all her pretensions to be almost a young lady, was doing uninhibitedly.

      Behind Lily, Caroline laughed. ‘Jack spoils that child outrageously.’

      ‘I think it charming,’ Lily retorted. ‘He will make an excellent father.’

      ‘Indeed he will. Perhaps we should find him a wife,’ Caroline said lightly. ‘I rely on you to help me, Lily—I am sure between us we can find him a charming bride.’

      Chapter Twenty-One

      ‘You have managed to tear yourselves away from your purchases, I see.’ Jack uncoiled himself from the depths of a wing chair in front of the fireplace in the drawing room as Lily and Caroline came in. ‘I was resigned to dining alone this evening.’

      ‘Well, I think we have done very well,’ Caroline congratulated herself. ‘Both Lily and I resisted the temptation to put on anything new tonight, but Mama purchased a very dashing turban and is trying it out on us before she risks it in company and Susan and Penny are bickering over who is going to wear the gauze shawl they bought jointly.’

      ‘Do turbans take a long time?’ Jack enquired with a reasonable pretence of interest.

      ‘This