Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise AllenЧитать онлайн книгу.
next week will be time enough to get our new dresses finished,’ Caroline said confidently. ‘Mama! Shall we hold an informal dance for Lily? We all do that around here,’ she explained cheerfully. ‘It is a small society and we know each other far too well to stand on ceremony. Everyone is always ready for a party. And there’s a full moon, so people will not mind the travelling.’
‘What a lovely idea, Caroline,’ her mother approved. ‘And how pleased everyone will be to meet a new acquaintance. Tuesday, I think. I will write invitations tomorrow while you are out riding.’
Lily could only smile and agree with every appearance of delight while her heart sank into her satin slippers.
Jack strolled back into the drawing room and found its occupants deep in plans for a dance. After being comprehensively ignored for five minutes, he enquired mildly when it was to be. ‘Next Tuesday. Jack—you won’t be tiresome and say you have some prior engagement, now will you?’ his eldest sister demanded. Denying any such intention, he beat a strategic retreat to the study.
Why Caro was assuming he would want to avoid the dance was a mystery, as was why she was nagging him about finding a wife. Had Lily said something? But that would presuppose Lily had confided their entire story to Caro—she would hardly tell her that she and Jack had decided to behave with circumspection. That would only make sense if she knew Caroline would understand the background. And if Caroline knew that Lily knew that she knew about … He stopped trying to puzzle it out, it was making his head spin.
He could avoid Caro’s clumsy matchmaking schemes easily enough. The real mystery was what had happened to Lily. She had become stiff, subdued and formal ever since his suggestion in the warehouse. He had expected her to relax; it seemed it had had the opposite effect and she had become a conformable unmarried young lady.
And he did not want a prim and proper young lady—he wanted his Lily back. Jack pulled a face at his distorted reflection in the battered pewter inkpot on his desk. ‘You want to have your cake and eat it too,’ he informed himself wryly. He wanted to ride with Lily over the estate and hear her views on the landscape. Was she as much of a town mouse as he suspected, or would she find the wide open spaces irresistible? He was looking forward to her observations on sheep; he suspected they would be forthright. He had plans to tease her with extravagant schemes for redecorating the Great Hall in full baronial splendour and he wanted her to rivet the assembled guests at the dance by appearing in one of her completely outrageous evening ensembles.
But she had made all her gowns simple and elegant. And now it seemed he had made her so self-conscious that not just her gowns had become conventional, but she had submerged her entire personality. Oh, Lily, my love, where have you gone?
Lily appeared next day for their ride in a rigorously tailored black riding habit that drew a covetous gasp from Jack’s two elder sisters and a long, unreadable look from under his lashes from Jack.
Lily made friends with Chaffinch, a pretty strawberry-roan mare, and was boosted into the saddle by one of the grooms while Jack was helping his sisters. He strode over, with a curt nod of thanks to the man, and took over checking Chaffinch’s girth. ‘Are you comfortable? She is not such a spirited ride as you are used to, I am afraid.’
He stood looking up at her, his hand resting on the mare’s neck, so close to hers that she could have extended her little finger and touched his. Why did she want to? Wasn’t this all supposed to be simple now they were merely acquaintances? Why could she not just stop loving him?
Instead she found herself studying the way his hair was beginning to curl as the crop grew out, the way the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled as he narrowed them to look up at her. ‘Jack, this—’
Whatever it was she was about to say was swallowed up by an exclamation of pleasure from Caroline. ‘George! What a nice surprise!’
A tall, sober-looking gentleman on a rangy hack rode into the yard, his austere face breaking into a smile as his eyes found Caroline.
‘Willoughby.’ Jack turned to greet his neighbour. Caroline’s beau, Lily realised, gathering her scattered wits. ‘We were just on our way out for a ride to introduce our guest, Miss France, to the countryside. Will you join us?’
The sober gentleman was easily persuaded, despite a mild protest that he had only ridden over with a book of sermons he had promised to lend Caroline. Lily bit her lip as Penelope rolled her eyes behind his back: he certainly seemed a strange choice for vivacious Miss Lovell, but then, who chose who they fell in love with? Certainly not her.
As the party rode out over the moat, Lily began to suspect that Caroline had known only too well that George Willoughby was going to call at this time. She manoeuvred her own gelding so that Lily had no choice but to ride beside Jack, while she fell in beside George, and Susan and Penelope were left to bring up the rear. Even more suspiciously, the two younger girls immediately began to dawdle.
Jack grinned. ‘Trust Caro to have a plan,’ he remarked softly. ‘I believe it is our role to draw on ahead a little while the hapless George hands over his heart along with his sermons.’
‘Hapless?’ Lily queried. ‘Does he not love Caroline?’
‘I am sure he does, but if she does not take a hand he is going to hesitate in a damnably respectful manner until she goes into a decline.’ He turned his big grey hunter down towards the river. ‘Shall we canter?’
Lily realised she had not seen Jack on a horse before. The sight did nothing to subdue any of her feelings about him. He rode as though he was part of the animal, with a relaxed natural balance she could only envy, yet she was not deceived that he was astride an easy ride. The big horse curved its neck, fretting at the bit, and she could see Jack’s thigh muscles working as he controlled the animal, as much by his balance as by any pressure on its mouth.
He relaxed the rein and it was away, hitting a controlled canter direct from the walk. Lily found she had to give her borrowed mount clear instructions to follow suit. The mare was far too well mannered to take liberties. But once Chaffinch had hit her stride she proved to have a long, easy action and Lily was soon itching to gallop. But, of course, to race a borrowed horse over unknown ground was just not possible.
‘Race?’ Jack called back over his shoulder. The big grey was working itself up into a lather of sweat where the reins touched its neck.
‘I should not, not riding your mother’s horse,’ Lily called back.
In answer, Jack circled round, came up alongside her and leaned over to slap Chaffinch on the rump. ‘Get up!’
‘Jack, for goodness’ sake!’ Lily tightened her grip and pushed her heel down in the stirrup as she urged an already excited mare after the hunter. I’ll give him get up!
But, despite her best endeavours, the little mare could not catch the grey. Jack had reined in beside the river where it widened into a shallow ford before Lily was close enough to carry on berating him.
‘What would I have told your mama if Chaffinch had put her foot in a rabbit hole?’ she demanded, jamming her hat down.
‘That her undutiful son had led you astray?’ He already has … ‘Anyway, I know there are no hidden dangers along that stretch. If we cross here, I can take you up to the edge of the moors.’
‘This is very lovely.’ Lily twisted in the saddle to look around her as the horses picked their way across the river. ‘We have left Caroline and Mr Willoughby behind.’
‘The girls can chaperon her—at a safe distance.’ Jack chuckled. ‘I’d bet ten corves of coal that I’ll be greeting a future brother-in-law by lunch time.’
‘What is a corve?’
‘Corves are the containers coal is moved in underground,’ Jack explained. Lily nodded encouragingly; she was actually getting him to talk about mining at long last. ‘A miner has his own, moved by members of his own family, so we can keep tally on who has mined what.’
‘And