Nicola Cornick (22 page)

‘It is blondes, not brunettes, that are all the rage,’ Caroline observed without inflection.

‘Very true.’ Alicia smiled mischievously. ‘And it was a foolish thing to say to Lady Stansfield, who told her that if she wanted to risk her daughter’s reputation with so dangerous a man she should not regret it were he to ruin her!’ She looked up and met her friend’s blue eyes with a challenge in her own. ‘There now, Caro, I have made it as easy for you as I can…Now, ask me what you want to know!’

There was a pregnant pause, then Caroline took a deep breath.

‘I collect you mean about James Mullineaux…’ She gave Alicia a frank look. ‘I would do so if I dared! You must know I am expiring with a most ill-mannered curiosity!’ She looked so uncharacteristically confused that Alicia felt quite sorry for her. ‘I mean, I never thought that you and James had really—’ She broke off and started again. ‘When you met at Ottery, I thought it was an accident…James never suggested…Well, I suppose he wouldn’t—’ She broke off again, caught Alicia’s amused look and met her eyes accusingly.

‘Damnation!’ she said abruptly. ‘What I am trying to say, Alicia, is that it makes no odds to me whether you and James are lovers! I just thought that you would both have been honest with us!’

Alicia realised that the intimate embrace she had shared with James
at Chartley Church must have looked particularly incriminating. If she had been Caroline, how would she have interpreted finding Alicia locked in James’s arms in what appeared to be a pre-arranged secret assignation?

‘I suppose I should have slapped his face,’ she said casually, shuffling the sheets of music together. ‘Unfortunately, he took me completely by surprise! I realise how it must have appeared to you.’

There was a pause. Caroline was looking even more thunderstruck as she took Alicia’s meaning. ‘You mean that you did not arrange to meet? That you had not intended—? But Alicia—’

Alicia made an expressive grimace. ‘You know James’s reputation as well as I do, Caroline! It would be difficult to judge which of the two of us was more shocked—you at witnessing the scene, or myself at being the unsuspecting recipient of James’s attentions!’

Caroline swelled with indignation. ‘Well, upon my word! The presumption of the man!’

‘Indeed!’ Alicia said, very dryly.

Caroline eyed her closely. ‘You do not appear much offended, Alicia! Are you sure that there is not more to this than meets the eye?’

Alicia burst out laughing at that. ‘You’re very shrewd, Caro! Come on, let’s go for a walk in the gardens—and I will tell you everything!’

Donning warm pelisses and stout boots, the two friends slipped out of the garden door and began to wend their way by common consent through the maze of garden paths. The gardens at Chartley were small by the standards of the major local estates, but Alicia had not lied when she’d claimed gardening as her passion, and they demonstrated a range of styles and plants carefully and lovingly cultivated. Now that spring was upon them, the Chartley grounds were beginning to show all their promise.

‘So what’s to tell?’ Caroline asked bluntly, seeing Alicia was preoccupied with her thoughts. ‘How about your meeting with James at Ottery? I have heard a little from other sources—indeed, James himself mentioned the encounter to us. I imagine,’ Caroline said with a slight smile, ‘that it must have been quite eventful!’

‘Yes,’ Alicia agreed reminiscently, ‘but perhaps not so eventful as the scene at the church might have led you to believe!’ Her smile faded. ‘It was an uncomfortable meeting, to tell the truth. I was ill-prepared to meet James again after all that time, and he…well, he made his low opinion of me very plain! I accept that I was much to blame for sending Miss Frensham away, but at the time she was cold and ill, and I thought
I was doing the right thing! Anyway, James was very angry—I expect he told you—and we quarrelled very badly. As I said, it was an uncomfortable meeting!’

They turned into the herb garden, where the air was lightly scented with thyme. Caroline drove her hands more deeply into her fur muff—though there was a sun, the air was still cold.

‘It seems even more surprising, then, that James proposed to you the following morning,’ Caroline ventured, and watched with interest as the colour flooded into Alicia’s face.

‘As a gentleman, I suppose—’

‘Oh, stuff and nonsense, Alicia!’ Caroline reverted to type and forgot her gentle line of questioning. ‘James never behaves as a gentleman ought; you should know that!’ Their eyes met, and they both burst out laughing.

‘No, Caro, that is too harsh!’ Alicia protested, through her laughter. ‘I can think of at least one occasion—’

‘Just how many times have the two of you met?’ Caroline demanded. ‘James mentioned several heated arguments, but failed to elaborate on where they took place!’

Alicia counted on her fingers. ‘Two at Ottery, one at Theo’s vicarage, one at Monks Farm…I think that’s all, for we were very civil on the other occasions!’

‘More than civil,’ Caroline said dryly.

‘Oh, and, of course, we quarrelled at Monks Dacorum,’ Alicia said, with a wicked twinkle in her eye. ‘But that was before we had the chance to talk properly and sort matters out between us!’

Caroline gave an infuriated squeak. ‘Alicia Carberry, I shall shake you in a moment! So you
were
at Monks Dacorum last week! Marcus and I thought so! Now how did that come about?’

They were walking through the orchard now, between the laden branches of the fruit trees, towards the greenhouses where some of Alicia’s most prized vegetables were growing.

Alicia was looking amused. ‘I met James by chance when I was out riding,’ she said, quite truthfully, but with a little, secret smile which Caroline did not miss. ‘He…persuaded me to dine with him and after dinner I told him what he wanted to know, which was the truth of my marriage to Carberry.’ Her green eyes met Caroline’s blue ones quite frankly. ‘The past is now all explained and can be put behind us.’

‘And what of the present and future?’ Caroline demanded. A flush rose in her cheeks. ‘Alicia, you can be the most vexatious creature at
times! You tell me the merest outline of what must have been a very interesting meeting indeed and then you glibly gloss over the rest! Tell me properly!’

A rueful smile lit Alicia’s face. ‘I’m sorry, Caro! What do you want to know? I suspect that you and Marcus had already been instrumental in encouraging James to seek a meeting with me, and for that I must thank you. As for the rest, it is as I said; it seems that James did not desert me as I had imagined, and he now no longer believes that I jilted him to marry Carberry for money, so now we may all be comfortable, and act as though it never happened!’

‘Pshaw!’ Caroline gave a snort of disgust. ‘You can hardly have forgotten that you were in love with each other once and pretend that that never happened! And, good God, Alicia, if you had seen the pair of you yesterday, you would have drawn the same conclusions as I, and have thought that the two of you were lovers!’

They had reached the gate in the wall which led through into the quiet churchyard. Alicia put out her hand and pushed it open. All amusement had fled from her face, and her voice.

‘Love?’ she said, a little bitterly. ‘No, I do not forget that, Caro. But that was seven years ago, and people change. And are you not confusing two quite different matters? What you saw yesterday was nothing more than James indulging a whim! He had the opportunity—’

‘And the inclination,’ Caroline said dryly. ‘This is all becoming a little sophisticated for me! Are you sure you do not mistake James’s feelings? And what of your own?’

Alicia’s pain showed in her eyes. ‘I have had plenty of time to think about this,’ she said, very quietly. ‘For my part, my feelings have not changed in all the time I have known James, but I cannot expect him to feel the same. Since we cannot go back to how matters were before, we can only go forward as friends. Things will be more comfortable now—only imagine how intolerable the Season would have been if we were constantly avoiding or ignoring each other!’

Caroline looked unconvinced. ‘My dear Alicia, the feelings between yourself and James were never
comfortable
—’ she stressed the word with heavy irony ‘—either before or after you quarrelled! You can hardly expect them to be so now!’

They were walking along the cypress-lined path around the church. The air was a dim green beneath the trees. There was a rustic bench placed to allow visitors to take the view, and they sat down, looking out across the moors in much the same way as Alicia had done the
previous day. For a while there was silence between them, then Alicia sighed.

‘You are right, of course,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I am still in love with James, and though I am glad that the past is now settled between us I cannot see that it will make matters easier for me in the future. I shall always be wanting more than he is prepared to give!’

A blackbird squawked off overhead.

‘Look, Alicia.’ Caroline spoke energetically. ‘Marcus had a long talk with James when we were at Monks Dacorum and he thinks that James is still in love with you, too. He may not necessarily realise it, or even want it to be so, but in the end he will have to accept it. He was very angry with you. That was getting in the way, but now, as you say, it is resolved.’ She looked at her friend appraisingly. ‘James evidently still finds you exceedingly attractive,’ she said, with a hint of a smile. ‘Who knows? Perhaps in time—’

But Alicia was shaking her head, smiling a tight little smile which did little to conceal her hurt.

‘No, Caro,’ she said, with finality. ‘I will not allow myself false hope. I admit that, at Monks Dacorum, I thought there might be a chance—’ She broke off, and resumed. ‘But it only took me a little time to see that what happened that night was in the heat of the moment. It is better this way.’

Caroline was looking almost as shocked as she had done earlier. ‘Alicia, are you telling me that James seduced you that night?’

‘No,’ Alicia said again, this time with the same small, secret smile which Caroline had seen earlier. ‘In point of fact he did not. He could have done, but he was very careful not to!’ The smile faded. ‘So you see—’ she shrugged ‘—even then, he was thinking far more clearly than I!’

‘He has had more experience,’ Caroline observed coolly. ‘I’ll say this for James—he works very fast!’ She looked at Alicia thoughtfully. ‘And if he were to offer you carte blanche, what then?’

‘No,’ Alicia said, for a third time. ‘I won’t deny I’ve thought about it, Caro.’ The colour came into her cheeks. ‘Oh, I dare say it was immodest of me even to consider…but anyway it wouldn’t do! In the end it would only make me more unhappy. For me, it has to be all or nothing!’

She shivered suddenly, and rose abruptly to her feet. ‘Enough of this! I feel a fit of the megrims coming on! Shall we take a turn around the
village? I wanted to tell you of my visit to Greyrigg and the interview with my father, not to mention other matters.’

They walked to the lych-gate and went out onto the village green, circled the duck pond, and made a detour down the lane which ran along the garden wall of Chartley Chase. Once again, Caroline turned her enquiring blue gaze upon her friend.

‘So what of those other matters that are on your mind? Is one of them Christopher Westwood—he has made you an offer, hasn’t he?’

Alicia nodded, glancing sideways at her friend. ‘Yes, and I have refused him.’

‘I should think so!’ Caroline had no very high opinion of Westwood. ‘If you had agreed I should have disowned you! You could do much better than that, leaving aside your feelings for James!’

Alicia looked amused. ‘I did think about accepting,’ she admitted, ‘before I met James again. I knew Christopher was going to make me an offer and I wondered if I should accept for the sake of companionship.’

‘What fustian you do talk sometimes!’ Caroline looked totally disgusted. ‘Next you will be telling me that you should marry him because your grandmother likes him!’

‘Well, and so she does—’ Alicia began, caught her friend’s eye and they both burst out laughing.

They walked on for a few moments in silence. Alicia knew that Caroline was quite right—none of the reasons she had thought of for marrying Christopher were compelling enough and compared to her feelings for James Mullineaux they paled into insignificance.

‘I did not tell you,’ she added presently, ‘that my father had also proposed that I enter the married state again. His was a proxy proposal, on behalf of a business acquaintance, but it was even less tempting than marrying Christopher!’

Caroline stopped dead and stared at her. ‘We thought it odd that Annabella had married and settled in Somerset when you were supposed to be giving her a Season,’ she commented. ‘Was it all a ruse, then?’

Alicia nodded sombrely. ‘Yes, I think it was just an excuse to get me to Greyrigg.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘I had not thought of it much, my visit there having been overshadowed by other events lately, but it was a most unpleasant interview, Caro. I always feel that no matter what distance I put between myself and my father he is always there. I can’t explain it…’ she finished lamely.

Caroline was frowning, her hands deep in the pockets of her pelisse. ‘This match…Did your father say who his business associate was?’

Alicia looked surprised. ‘No, I never thought to ask his name…Why do you ask?’