Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

like her!

      Silent now, Drusilla followed Bree upstairs to the spare bedroom next to Rosa’s room. ‘Here you are. I will send my maid up. Let her know if there is anything you need.’

      She closed the door and wandered downstairs, wondering vaguely why she was not in the throes of violent hysterics. ‘Years of having to cope with whatever comes along, I suppose,’ she murmured out loud as she reached the hall, only to find Rosa waiting anxiously.

      ‘What did you just say?’

      ‘I was explaining to myself why I was not in the throes of strong hysterics,’ Bree said wryly. ‘I have settled my betrothed’s wife in the spare bedroom, by the way. She is staying with us, as she cannot bring herself to be with Max.’

      Rosa’s face was so expressive of her feelings that Bree found she could laugh—a little. ‘I’ll explain quickly on the way down to the basement. I need to send Lucy up to her.’

      Her rapid explanation was enough to strike Rosa dumb by the time they pushed open the door and went into the kitchen. Cook was making pastry, while at the other end of the table Lucy was talking to a girl a little younger than herself.

      ‘Oh! I beg your pardon, Miss Bree. This is my sister Penelope. Penny, make your curtsy to Miss Mallory and Miss Thorpe. I hope you don’t mind her visiting, Miss Bree, only she’s up from the country looking for a position and Mrs Greenstaff at the end of the road is advertising, so I was telling her about the household.’

      ‘That’s all right, Lucy.’ Bree smiled at the younger girl. She was neatly turned out and her hands were clean and well kept, plump still, with a touch of puppy fat. ‘How old are you, Penelope?’

      ‘Seventeen, Miss Mallory.’ Something was nagging at Bree’s mind, but she could not catch hold of it. It is hardly a wonder, she thought, given what has passed in the last few hours. She exerted herself to be pleasant.

      ‘I hope you have good luck in securing a suitable position. Lucy, we have an unexpected visitor. La … I mean, Miss Drusilla. She has had a difficult journey and is resting in the spare bedchamber. She has very little luggage and may need to borrow some things—just take whatever seems suitable to you from my room. And, Lucy, she has very bad smallpox scars—do try not to let her see any reaction to her appearance.’

      The maid’s eyes opened wide. ‘Poor lady. I’ll be ever so tactful, Miss Bree.’

      ‘I’m afraid that is one more for dinner, Mrs Harris,’ Bree apologised.

      ‘No need to fret, Miss Bree. Mr Piers put his head round the door not half an hour since and said he would be eating at the Mermaid, so it all evens out,’ the cook said placidly, reaching for the flour.

      ‘I packed him off to the inn,’ Rosa explained as they climbed back up to the ground floor. ‘I told him you would be more in need of female company and if I wasn’t at the inn, he would be most use at the office.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Bree sank down in her favourite armchair and let her head fall back onto the cushions. ‘Oh, Rosa. I think Max has broken my heart.’ And then, at last, the tears came, and with them the merciful release of simply not having to cope, to control herself, to think of anyone else.

      Max stalked into the hall and thrust his hat and cane into the butler’s hands. ‘I am not at home to anyone.’

      ‘Until when, my lord?’

      Max paused in the doorway into his study. ‘For the foreseeable future, Bignell.’

      He shut the door, taking care to do so softly, recognising in that the same instinct for keeping control that he had seen in Bree’s eyes as she had politely enquired if anyone had wanted tea.

      It would have been easier if she had broken down, had railed at him, wept, accused him of deceiving her. He felt he deserved all of that, but her courage and self-control had imposed the same duty on him to hold back the emotion he was feeling.

      About Drusilla he could hardly think at all, beyond anger at her shrinking, her accusations and thinly veiled hints that he meant her harm. He pitied her profoundly, for her disfigurement and also for the fact that she seemed no deeper, no wiser, than she had ten years ago. That kind of tragedy, if one survived, would surely make one stronger, give one the wisdom to cope.

      His own feelings could wait. Whatever pain he was feeling, and would feel for the rest of his life, he could lay at the door of his own infatuation and his own reluctance to do anything in the years since Drusilla had left him.

      Max splashed brandy into a glass and began to pace to and fro before the cold hearth. What had he done to Bree? To her heart and to her reputation? It was widely known in society that they were intending to wed; now it would appear that she had been jilted, or that she was a jilt. And somehow he did not believe that any story they might put around about her sudden reluctance to marry one of society’s most eligible bachelors was going to convince anyone.

      The only way he could protect Bree was to reveal the truth about Drusilla. Could he expose her and her pitiful story to the gossip and sniggers and prurient curiosity? He came to a stop in front of a pair of small portraits. On the left was his father, painted on his twentieth birthday, on the right was Max at the same age.

      Less than a year after his portrait had been completed he was married. For the first time Max studied his own likeness, glancing between it and his reflection in the mirror over the mantel. Had he ever looked that young? He began to catalogue the changes: laughter lines at the corners of his eyes; a harder, stronger set to his jaw; a sprinkling of grey just touching his temples; the replacement of that look of eager anticipation with one of guarded experience.

      Ten years and he was another man, looked another man. And loved, hopelessly, another woman.

      Dinner was a bizarre experience. Drusilla said virtually nothing and ate everything that was offered, while the other two women made valiant attempts at conversation.

      When the meal finally dragged to a conclusion she took herself off to bed with the announcement that she was very tired after the dreadful day she had had.

      ‘Well!’ Rosa exclaimed. ‘After the day she has had!’

      ‘It must be very difficult for her.’ Bree tried valiantly to be fair. The alternative was bitter ranting or to relapse into floods of tears, and that had left her red-eyed and exhausted.

      ‘Nonsense.’ Rosa sounded every inch the headmistress. ‘She is reacting just like a spoiled chit of a girl—I have seen enough of them to know. She has no thought for anyone else’s feelings and she is totally self-absorbed.’

      They sat for half an hour in virtual silence, then Bree said, ‘It feels like a bereavement—that awful time when your mind is full of nothing but the fact that someone you love is no longer with you and there is nothing to talk about, nothing you have the energy to do.’

      ‘It is a bereavement,’ Rosa said gently. ‘Unless …’ She hesitated. ‘Drusilla will not be living with him. Have you thought of an irregular relationship?’ She looked decidedly uncomfortable saying it.

      ‘No.’ Bree stared at her. ‘No. That never entered my head.’ She tried to imagine it, almost seduced by the thought. Drusilla did not love Max, did not want to live with him. She could not be hurt by it. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I love him, I want to be with him openly, to have his children. I cannot bear the thought of something clandestine. It would get out, there would be rumours and whispers. There are Piers and James to think about. And what if I became pregnant?’

      Rosa nodded. ‘That is what I thought you would say. But he might ask you—it is best to be prepared.’

      ‘No.’ Bree smiled, thinking about Max. ‘He might be prepared to anticipate marriage, but he would not ask me to be his mistress.’ Warmed a little by her certainty in him, she got up and stretched. Every muscle ached; it must be from the tension of the day. ‘I think I will go to bed too. I don’t know if I will sleep, but I must try