Page 60 of A Convenient Fiction

It was what the ladies in the water were currently doing with the gentleman in their midst—laughing at him, and with him, as they splashed him with water.

“I don’t mind a gentleman bathing with us,” Henrietta confided as she and Laura walked off together to the bathing machines. “It’s silly for the town council to forbid it. Why, what if the gentleman was your brother? Or your husband?”

“True enough,” Laura said absently.

She gazed out past the sand and to the rolling waves beyond. Farther from the shore, fewer people were in the water. The sea wasn’t as calm there. It was vast and wild. Limitless.

“Laura? Did you hear me?”

Laura turned back to Henrietta. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I said that I wish Alex and George could bathe with us. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable? But there’s no chance of that, is there? Not with Alex looking after your brother.” Henrietta shot a narrow glance back down the beach where Teddy was seated behind his easel. Alex stood nearby, his back to the sea.

Laura had had precious little contact with him since he’d handed her up into the carriage outside Bramble Cottage. From the time they had boarded the train in Lower Hawley, to their arrival at the York Hotel, Henrietta had commanded all of his attention. Laura hadn’t particularly minded. She’d been too much in awe of her surroundings—and too much occupied with settling her aunt and brother. But now…

She looked at him, a little wistful.

Like most of the fashionable gentlemen at the seaside, he was wearing a sack coat and matching trousers in a neutral shade of tan. Unlike the rest of the men, however, Alex managed to make the staid ensemble look dashing.

His coat was unbuttoned, pushed back by his hands on his hips to reveal the tan waistcoat, white linen shirt, and loosened necktie beneath. And his head was uncovered, his dark hair disheveled from running his fingers through it.

He looked like precisely what he was: a rogue. A feral wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Only a fool would fail to recognize the danger he represented.

“I’m going to marry him,” Henrietta announced.

Laura’s gaze jolted back to her friend’s face. “What?”

“I know he wants to marry me.”

“Has he asked you?”

“Not yet, but he’s implied his intentions in dozens of ways. I expect that soon he’ll broach the subject properly. And when he does, I mean to accept him.”

The bottom seemed to fall out of Laura’s stomach. “But Hen…you don’t know him. It’s been less than two weeks—”

“Papa was of the same view. Until I pointed out to him that two weeks of daily meetings—of seeing the object of one’s affection every day for hours on end—is the equivalent of months of courtship. Why, during a London season a lady meets a gentleman once in a ballroom, and then again for ices at Gunter’s, or a visit to the botanical gardens. An outing or two later, the fellow’s proposing. And no one objects to that, do they?”

The cry of the seabirds and the shouts and laughter of the children on the beach softened to a hum in the background. Laura’s head was spinning. She stared at Henrietta, her mind latching onto a single sentence. “Is he the object of your affection?”

“I believe so. And I’m the object of his affection—of that I’m certain.” Henrietta smiled. “Do you know, Laura…he almost kissed me last week. He stopped at the final moment, his lips over mine. He’s a decent sort of gentleman, for all he pretends to be a worldly sophisticate. But I have a mind to tempt him.” Dimples popped in her cheeks. “If he doesn’t kiss me by Sunday, it will not be my fault.”

Laura opened her mouth to say something. An objection. A warning. She didn’t know what. But Henrietta forestalled her.

“Yes, I know, he may well be a fortune hunter,” she said, “but what gentleman of my acquaintance isn’t? They all want Edgington Park, and they all covet my inheritance. It’s to be expected when one is situated as I am.” She linked her arm through Laura’s. “A man who cared nothing for what I can bring to a match would be a simpleton. And I’ve no intention of marrying a simpleton, no matter how noble he might be. Indeed, such a worthy suitor would likely bore me out of my wits.”

Laura allowed Henrietta to steer her down the sand. The sparkle of wonder she’d felt on arriving at the seaside faded to a dull shine.

Alex Archer didn’t belong to her. He never had.

“I should like to be a friend to you,” he’d said.

Not her sweetheart. Not her husband. And certainly not her love. Just her friend. And very soon, the husband of Henrietta Talbot.

Laura’s heart twisted. For a moment, she didn’t know how she could bear it.

But she’d borne it before. With George. In the weeks after he’d made his insulting proposition, she’d wanted to hide in her room, weeping tears of heartbreak and anger by turns. Such girlish dramatics would have been a luxury then, just as they were now. A luxury she couldn’t afford. Not when there was a household to run, a brother and aunt to look after, and clear-starching to finish in the kitchen.