“One wouldn’t normally interfere,” Great-Aunt said as she sipped, “but good grief, child.”
“Are you referring to the burned jam, Aunt?”
The glare was quelling and Tamsyn sat, suitably chastened, letting the sherry warm her insides.
“But, Aunt, he’s a rogue. Can a leopard really change its spots?”
“Your second cousin Lucy keeps a leopard in her bedchamber, gifted by one of her…gentlemen friends. It sports a diamond collar and sleeps on a silk pillow. She walks it in Hyde Park and it’s never once eaten anyone, so a name is merely that.”
Which seemed a good enough answer. But…
Tamsyn took an unladylike gulp of sherry. “His reputation cannot be for naught.”
“Pah! He’s a rich, handsome marquess with a trim physique and pert bottom, what do you expect? But being a rogue, Tamsyn, is not for life, it’s a mere step on the staircase. At times all of us hold ourselves back through fear or some other emotion, never to take the next step. But Lord Winterbourne, an unrepentant debaucher like his father? Tosh. You know the truth, don’t you, my dear?”
Yes, she did. He was honourable and perceptive and magnificent and why had she let him go? Simply let him walk out the door with nothing but a silly drawing to remember her by?
She was a dimwit.
“So…” Aunt flicked the rim of her empty sherry glass and nodded at the decanters. “…what are you going to do about it?”
Weaving along the corridor, Tamsyn considered her options.
Catch up with him by horse? A tad frantic, grimy and after all that sherry, rather perilous.
A letter? Eloquent but slow.
“Benjamin?” she asked as he stood trimming the candle wicks. “Did Lord Winterbourne appear…unhappy at leaving?”
“Something awful, Miss. Gloomy and miserable.”
“Oh.” Unusually succinct for Benjamin. “Thank you.”
He nodded and wandered off.
That reassured. Although Jack could have been despondent at embarking on such a long journey back to London with nothing but the moth book for company.
Her bedchamber door appeared to have two handles – that’s what occurred when your aunt fed you sherry with no breakfast but raspberries. She made a grab for one of them and pottered inside.
Lowdy was sitting on the bed, guzzling from a goblet and writing a letter – quite a feat, although the coverlet had not come away unscathed from either endeavour.
Sheets of Father’s finest and most expensive paper littered the bed, and Dr Johnson’s dictionary lay open on the pillow.
“Are you well?”
A blotchy face peered up. No then.
“I was horrible to Oliver, so I’ve spent all morning writing a letter, explaining everything,” she slurred, blobs of ink splattering her fingers. “I was sooo afraid but now ’tis worse, a-and it hurts so without him.” She flung her arms wide, red liquid splashing Tamsyn’s coverlet. “I told him I couldn’t marry a lowly valet but s’not true, only said it to make him despise me. I don’t care if he’s a valet. I don’t care about society or nice dresses or that I’ll be a hopeless wife who can’t cook. I’ll become a scullery maid… I’d be good at scullering,” she muttered darkly.
Tamsyn plonked down next to her and snatched up the topmost sheet of her letter.
My darling Oli,
Sooo SORRY.
I love you.
Lowds.
