He did not seem to mind that she flinched away from him with a look of horror.
Taking her hand and caging it once more on his sleeve, he bade her continue walking as he went on, conversationally, “Directly after my tailor’s visit in the morning, I shall deliver my sketches.” Then he stopped, his look cold. “I certainly won’t let your conscience prevent me from making a handsome return on this evening’s work.”
Chapter Eleven
Lissa barely slept that night. Cosmo had taken the sketch from her, forcibly, at the front gate. There was nothing she could do.
For hours she tossed and turned on her lumpy mattress. How could she live with herself if she were responsible for the beating of an unhappy wife? How could she get the sketch back? Was there any possibility of stealing it from Cosmo in the morning, before he could deliver it?
Dawn lightened the room but it was the maid’s knock on the door that wakened Lissa from the exhausted sleep into which she’d finally fallen not long before.
After that, there was the usual round of supervising the girls over their breakfast in the schoolroom, followed by the thankless task of trying to enthuse them with some simple demonstrations on the abacus.
Miss Maria sauntered in while Lissa was again explaining the principles of addition to a yawning Harriet. Lissa likened the eldest Lamont girl to a cat. Miss Maria could be very still and quiet but then she loved to pounce, contradicting Lissa at every turn, undermining her authority in front of her sisters.
After ten minutes of this, Lissa sighed. “You are clearly bored, Miss Maria. Perhaps you’d like to take the lesson.”
Maria’s eyes narrowed, and she was about to offer some no doubt rude rejoinder when she remarked in surprise, “Why, there’s a young lady stopped by the fence. Where’s her maid? My goodness, that is a fine pelisse she’s wearing. Oh, but I do like it.”
Lissa would have ignored her had she not then crinkled her nose and said, “Good Lord, she’s looking right into our garden. Like she wants someone.”
Lissa scrambled up and hurried to the girl’s side. “Look after Nellie and Harriet for just a moment, Miss Maria.” Under normal circumstances she’d have kept a low profile, but memories of last night’s extraordinary series of events and the thought that Araminta might help her, or indeed needed help, were more important.
“Where are you going?” Maria squeaked in outrage as Lissa brushed past her. “To the young lady? What business can you have with such a fine personage? Who is she?”
The fact that Araminta did indeed cut a mighty impressive figure should be sufficient for Maria to let Lissa go without further objection or the need to tell her mother, Lissa thought as she hurried into the garden. Araminta was striking whatever gown she chose to wear, and Maria would be eaten up with curiosity, perhaps jealousy.
“I recognized you at the Masquerade last night,” Araminta said without preamble, pursing her lips and clasping her hands on the top of the fence when Lissa appeared. “I recognized you, even in costume, near the orchestra. I hope you weren’t spying on me.”
“Spying? On you?” Lissa’s sharp response was quickly replaced by interest that Araminta was looking like Lissa felt. Drained and wan. “Araminta, are you quite well?”
“No, I am not!” the girl snapped. “Have you not heard the news that will soon be all over town, making me a laughingstock?”
Lissa clapped her hand over her mouth and felt the pain of Araminta’s public shame. “So that was you running from Lord Debenham’s supper box?” she gasped.
If possible, Araminta looked even more stricken. “No!” But the strangled cry only confirmed her guilt. Quickly she added, “Hetty has eloped. Can you believe it? Hetty!” She spoke her sister’s name as if she were the most loathsome creature on the planet. “And who do you think she’s eloped with?”
Araminta answered her own question with another strangled sob. “Yes, with Sir Aubrey! Sir Aubrey led me to believe he would be speaking to Papa to ask for my hand, but he ran off with Hetty last night. Married her by special license and now they’re on their way to France. What am I supposed to do? I can’t bear being at home. Mama and Papa are utterly horrified, as you can imagine, and it’s all anyone is taking about. Hetty is such a selfish girl! Mama is nearly at her time, and now Hetty has gone and done this just when she’ll need her most.”
This news was even worse than that of Hetty and Sir Aubrey’s elopement. “Lady Partington is...about to be confined?” she whispered. “She’s having a...?” She couldn’t even say the words.
Her poor mother. Lissa had left home more than six months ago and her mother had certainly not known then. Perhaps she still had no idea that the man she regarded as her husband—the man who had abandoned her at the altar more than twenty years before—had fathered a child on his real wife. A baby that would be delivered at almost exactly the same time as hers.
How could Father? Rage bubbled through her veins, making it difficult to concentrate on Araminta’s own troubles, until her sister snapped, “I said I shall be a laughingstock and you don’t even care!”
Lissa blinked and responded without thinking. “You’ll just have to marry Lord Debenham then.”
She was taken aback when, with no warning, Araminta covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. What a pitiful sight she looked, with the flowers adorning her gypsy bonnet appearing to droop by her pretty face in sympathy. “I would if I could but he...” She left the sentence hanging then look
ed up at Lissa with tragic eyes. “Oh, I wish I were a simple governess with not a care in the world. Like you.”
“I have more cares than you, Araminta, when I have not a feather to fly with while you have been indulged your whole life. I’d thank you not to make such comparisons without thinking first.”
“Well, Papa has lost a lot of money, so I may well have to be a governess if I don’t make a decent match before the end of the season.”
Lissa felt herself go cold. She had not known this, either. She thought again of her mother’s tenuous security. If Lord Partington were indeed floating in the River Tick, he’d not be able to afford to keep up two households. He was hardly generous with his by-blows in the first instance.
“Why did you come here, Araminta? To elicit my help in your matchmaking endeavors?” she asked, not quite understanding her. “I don’t see how I can achieve that?”