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Thea had little time to wonder at what sounded almost like heavy sarcasm before the shrill urgency in Aunt Minerva’s voice spoiled the moment.
“Thea! Come this moment!”
Reluctantly, Thea nodded at the young man. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr Grayling.” Boldly, she held out her hand. “I hope business is good in the south.”
“Thank you, Miss Brightwell. I hope so too.” He gripped her fingers just a little longer than was required, his eyes warm as he replied, “If it’s not, it won’t be too great a hardship to return early.” Relinquishing her hand after a quick kiss on the tips of her fingers, he nodded in farewell. “Enjoy your stay in Bath. I’m sure any time spent with Lady Quamby is guaranteed to be …diverting.”
Thea returned to the carriage, her heart turning over like a waterwheel. She wished she’d had the courage to enquire further as to the nature of his business. That might have given her an indication of how soon or otherwise she’d see him again. Clearly her connection to Lady Quamby, her irrepressible cousin Antoinette, interested him.
Thea didn’t know why, but her aunt had never spoken well of Thea’s two cousins, Antoinette and her older sister Fanny. She’d therefore been highly surprised when Aunt Minerva had accepted the invitation to attend the christening of Lord Quamby’s heir, baby George, whom Thea was simply dying to meet. In fact the invitation had been directed to Thea and had only included Aunt Minerva as an afterthought. Cousin Antoinette’s careless phraseology had put the old lady into high dudgeon and she’d let loose with a great many nasty things said pertaining to the respective ‘loose characters of those girls’, as she’d put it.
Nevertheless, after initially roundly refusing to attend the event, Aunt Minerva had changed her mind just the day before and informed her niece, Lady Quamby, by return messenger that she would accept her invitation after all, and that she intended to stay three weeks. Thea, who loved her beautiful, bold and somewhat wild cousins, couldn’t wait to see them again.
Though she’d have been even happier if her aunt had chosen to remain behind.
As Thea settled back into her seat, she tried to attend to what her aunt was saying but an image of handsome Mr Grayling bending over her hand, his eyes locked on hers, kept intruding. She tried not to shiver or do anything else that might alert her aunt to her romantic daydreaming; therefore she began to coolly list an inventory based on his obvious attributes.
Probably he was somewhere in his latter twenties. That was a very nice age, she decided. Not too old, like the widowers her aunt liked to suggest would be the only marital prospects a dowerless maiden such as herself could entertain.
Like his name, his eyes had been a cool grey. She decided she very much liked the combination of cool grey eyes and slightly curling light-brown hair.
“Devil’s spawn!”
“What? Mr Grayling?” Startled, Thea spoke out loud before she could stop herself.
“If that was the gentleman you were associating with after I ordered you back to the carriage, then I have not the slightest idea since I was not the recipient of his address.” Her aunt’s nostrils twitched. “I was in fact remarking upon the gathering we just stumbled upon. The devil has done his work and there will be no redemption for those creatures—mothers or babes—here on Earth.”
“You can’t say that about a baby!” Thea gasped.
“I can if it has the wickedness of both parents coursing through its veins. And as for that young man, Thea, let me tell you that a moonstruck girl is like a beacon advertising her availability.” Aunt Minerva’s small black eyes bored malevolently into Thea’s from beneath a wayward bunch of silk lily-of-the-valley that had come loose from her bonnet. “Your behaviour was most unbecoming. I overheard he was leaving town and not a bad thing, either, my girl. Let me tell you one thing. If he shows you the same flicker of interest once he learns your true situation, you had better beware. A man of good standing, as he clearly is, wants a dowry, Thea, and you have nothing.” She sucked on her gums and her nose twitched even more as if something very unsavoury were in the wind. “No, my girl, let me tell you that if he’s still interested, it’s because he’s ferreted out your vulnerability and intends to trade on it.’
Thea pouted, then bravely muttered, “Not everyone is motivated by money or…bad intentions, Aunt.”
Her aunt was unimpressed. “In my experience they are, girl, and you’re an innocent if you think otherwise.”
With a huff, Thea retrieved her tatting from her reticule and set to work grimly correcting her last mistakes in the cuffs she was hand working. She would not give her aunt the satisfaction of, an answer. So Mr Grayling would not have offered her the time of day if he’d known her true station in life? Well, that was probably true enough but she could dream a little, couldn’t she?
As for those babes, their pitiful plight tugged at her heartstrings. How could her aunt speak so about them?
Thea loved babies. She didn’t care whether they were the dirty little creatures she sometimes saw in the arms of the working women in town, or the pristine-clad, sweet-smelling infants of her distant relatives. Babies were adorable, regardless.
Aunt Minerva regarded her through beady brown eyes. “No girl is ever too young to understand the dangers to society of the devil’s spawn,” she muttered. “A child born out of wedlock will forever writhe in the fiery furnace of hell.”
‘Born out of wedlock?’ Thea looked at her aunt steadily. She wasn’t exactly sure what being ‘born out of wedlock’ entailed but she’d heard Aunt Minerva spouting sentiments like this for the seeming eternity she’d been her unpaid companion. “Then it’s a harsh world we live in, Aunt, if we are judged on transgressions beyond our control, rather than by our own actions.”
Aunt Minerva raised her eyes heavenward. “Perhaps it’s a good thing you know so little, though you’re unlikely to ever be educated in the dubious joys of marriage. Spinsters forever, you and me both, and you’d best get used to it.”
Thea felt her mouth drop open and disappointment wash through her veins. “I’m twenty years old, Aunt Minerva. I mightn’t have a dowry but that doesn’t mean I must reconcile myself to remaining a spinster for the rest of my days. Why, Mr Grayling—”
She bit her tongue as her aunt rounded on her. “When that Mr Grayling returns to Bath he won’t offer you the time of day, I can promise you that! Not when he learns you’re a charity case because your impecunious father was more interested in keeping his peagoose of a wife happy with her fripperies and indulging her with a growing brood of children they could not afford to keep.”
“Aunt!”
“That was perhaps harsh, and I shall apologise for the reference to your brothers and sisters, struck down through no fault of their own by misfortune.”
Through tear-filled eyes, Thea could see her aunt looked a touch remorseful though not nearly enough. How could she say such shocking things about her family?
“But as for being a spinster, I’d say it was a decent enough state of affairs to be in control of one’s own fortune, for let me tell you, I’ve been preyed upon by fortune hunters all my life.”
