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‘The first time we met it was in the worst possible place in the world—Almack’s. He was in town for Tattersall’s settling day and his cousin had all but forced him to attend. He arrived five minutes before they closed the doors and he told me later he planned to be late so he would be barred, but his luck was out, or rather in, as he told me later. We were introduced and we danced, but as usual I was quite dreadfully discouraging; after we wed he told me I treated him as the lowliest of worms. I didn’t mean to be awful, but I was so miserable I think I was dreadful to most people I met in London.’
‘Was it so bad? Most portionless young women would have been grateful for an opportunity to attend the London Season.’
She walked a little faster, her shoulders curving against the wind. He caught up with her.
‘Don’t run away, Jo. You can always tell me to mind my business if you do not wish to discuss something.’
‘I am not running away. It is cold.’
‘Liar.’
She bent to pick up a smooth grey stone, her voice barely a mutter.
‘If I had been pretty, or accomplished or...or something, perhaps I would have been grateful.’
He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her words, but the memory of her—stiff, silent, awkward—made him keep his peace. She, too, had changed through the years, but for the better, unlike him.
‘You didn’t tell me how you came to wed your Alfred after all.’
Her face softened and warmed once more, and peculiarly he felt the spear-tip of jealousy. It was not right that when he thought of Bella he could conjure up none of the warmth so apparent on Jo’s face. He could still make no sense of what he felt after losing Bella—love and resentment and disappointment and sadness all tangled together like a mess of kelp tossed up on the shores after a storm.
‘I met him again quite by accident. Celia had just given birth and Lady Theale asked me if I would attend to her.’
‘Just as she asked you if you would attend to Jamie?’
‘Well, since I was helping Cousin Philippa, who is far worse than Celia, I think she was rather doing me a favour.’
‘Good God, talk about the choices of the damned.’
‘It wasn’t that bad. But whatever the case, it was January, and I was travelling and we slipped on the ice and broke a wheel and had to walk to the nearest inn. Then suddenly a man on horseback rode by and I saw it was Alfred, but I never expected him to remember me and certainly not fondly.’
‘I gather he remembered you none the less.’
‘He did. He was very kind and he put me on his horse and when we were out of sight he mounted behind me, took me to his house where he introduced me to his mother. She had a weak heart, but was very lovely, rather like my own mother. Alfred and I used to laugh that he rescued me just as in the fairy tales. There I was, stranded in the snow, well, a flurry at least, and up he rode on his white steed—which was a grey, in fact, but close enough—and swept me off my feet quite literally. I was not very good as a rescued princess, though. I was very suspicious at first. I even thought he was making an effort to promote me to his mother because he wished to find a companion for her. In fact, when he did propose, I was convinced that was what he was offering me. It took a few confused moments for him to understand we were talking at cross purposes. He enjoyed teasing me about it later.’
She smiled, lost in her memory, and Benneit looked away to the shore below them. Jamie had stopped to inspect something Flops was scratching at and they stopped as well. The sun was dancing on the choppy water. It was a rare, clear, beautiful summer day. There was no rhyme or reason to why he felt annoyed. It was almost as if he begrudged her that happiness just as the Uxmores had. That love.
‘Bella painted a very different picture of your Alfred.’
‘I wonder how. She never met him, after all. We never went to Uxmore.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘We were never invited. Not that I would have wanted to go anyway. I presumed eventually I would have no choice, but we were in mourning and then... Well, it hardly matters. I know what they said of us. I heard it all when I returned to live with Celia.’
