Seething in Uncle Crispin’s phaeton
‘If you don’t mind, Felicity?’
Her uncle shot her his get out of the carriage and give us some privacy look. Fliss knew this because he had already left her twiddling her thumbs as she stood idly waiting for him to conclude his business three times already.
‘Actually, I do mind. This is not at all how I thought I would be spending the day.’ This morning she had awoken early because her uncle had promised she could finally visit the Menagerie at the Tower of London, a place she had been dying to see for as long as she could remember.
‘I have a little bit of business to attend to, Felicity. We’ll be on our way shortly and I promise my little surprise will be worth the delay. I am just waiting for one more thing and then I shall take you to Gunther’s.’ He said this as if she should be impressed.
‘What is Gunther’s?’
‘The home of the finest ice cream in all of London.’
‘You want to feed me ice in February?’ Thanks to the sedate pace and lack of exercise, Fliss’s fingers were already frozen inside her thick gloves.
‘You might sound a little more grateful. Gunther’s is the place to be seen.’
I don’t want to be seen, I want to see the lions! Or the Elgin Marbles or the Changing of the Guard. In fact, almost anything which did not involve the rest of the fashionable residents of Mayfair.
Fliss bit back the angry retort because her uncle’s business associate had pulled his curricle alongside and was doing his best to appear as if he couldn’t hear their taut conversation. Uncle Crispin nodded to the man, then turned back to glare at her. ‘Now if you will excuse us, Felicity, I shall be but a few minutes.’
For the fourth time she reluctantly lowered herself on to the path and took herself a few feet away. For good measure, she folded her arms and positively seethed at him, not that it had any effect.
Behind her she heard the snort of a swan and turned to watch it floating across the Serpentine, instead. For such beautiful birds, they had the ugliest sound. They didn’t quack or tweet. The best way to describe the noise of a swan was a cross between a snort and an asthmatic cough. Nature’s way of reminding the bird it wasn’t perfect. Nothing ever was. Today was certainly turning out to be a thorough disappointment. Even though Fliss had awoken in a perfectly lovely mood, her uncle had spoiled it straight after breakfast and she was already regretting the compromise she had made in the spirit of family harmony.
Last night, after the Renshaws’ ball, he had promised faithfully she could begin seeing the sights of the capital, decreed that she could take the carriage and her great-great-aunts to visit the Tower with his blessing and Fliss had started the day believing him. With hindsight, she should have realised something was wrong when her maid had laid out a wholly inappropriate and showy outfit for her to wear. Kitty had been most insistent she wear it and Fliss had been equally as insistent that she didn’t.
She’d rejected the thin silk ensemble specially designed for her by Madame Devy because clearly the modiste had never ventured outside in winter. To the maid’s vocal consternation, Fliss had rifled through her own wardrobe for something more suited to a cold February morning of exploring. That flimsy pelisse and those thin-soled slippers would have left her hideously exposed to the elements and ruined her feet. Instead, Fliss had dug out the sensible navy-wool walking dress she had brought with her from Cumbria, complete with its matching thick coat, and paired it with her sturdy yet comfortably worn boots. Garments much better suited to traipsing around a damp castle and climbing up its ancient battlements. But when she reached the hallway to meet her aunts, she met her uncle instead.
‘There has been a change of plan.’ Her uncle was dressed in his expensive riding clothes and the smile which materialised on his face was not echoed in his cold, flat, grey stare. ‘It occurred to me last night that we have not spent enough time together, Felicity. I wish to remedy that and I hope you will indulge me in my quest to get better acquainted with my only niece by asking you to accompany me this morning on a little adventure.’
She’d had an adventure planned, one which blessedly had not included him and the unnecessary restrictions he placed upon her. ‘I don’t ride and I want to see the lions.’ The churlish response was the best Fliss could manage in the wake of the disappointment. Yet another day would pass and she would still be denied the opportunity of seeing the places she had specifically wanted to see.
‘I have something more exciting planned and you do not need to ride. I shall drive my phaeton and take you to see a part of this fine city which is much more interesting than the Tower. You will be diverted. I promise.’
His jaw was tight and his gaze was frosty and Fliss was well and truly trapped. It would be unforgivably rude to turn down her host’s invitation even though she sincerely doubted he really wanted them to become better acquainted. He was up to something. She knew that in her bones. ‘If you insist, Uncle Crispin, then I shall postpone my excursion.’
‘That outfit is a little plain for what I have planned.’ His eyes rested on the spectacles sat on her nose and narrowed. ‘I’m sure your maid can quickly find you more suitable attire.’
How splendid. Another battle of wills and directly after breakfast. The food had already begun to curdle in her stomach. ‘Uncle, it is February and freezing outside. If I am going out in a phaeton, then I shall do so wearing wool or not at all.’
‘Will you at least take off those ugly spectacles?’
‘I thought you were taking me to see something special. If I take off my spectacles, then it’s hardly worth going as I shan’t see whatever it is you are so eager for me to see at all.’ As she had intended, he couldn’t argue with sound logic and they walked to the phaeton in a silence so brittle, the merest puff of the cold February air would likely shatter it.
Since then, Fliss had been largely invisible to him. Uncle Crispin’s apparent idea of a treat not to be missed was to join the fashionable crowd in parading up and down Rotten Row. A pointless exercise in her opinion if ever there was one. So far they had spent an hour either saying hello to people they had said goodbye to only a few hours before or, like now, he was discussing business and she was excluded. She had a good mind to take herself off to the Tower as a mark of protest, but with her atrocious sense of direction, going alone would doubtless end in disaster. There was no telling where she’d end up if she attempted the trip by herself on foot. Kent, probably. Or worse. It would be typical, for her useless nose would take her to one of the less salubrious parts of the capital where she’d end up accosted by footpads or garrotted in an alleyway.
Much as she loathed taking the coward’s way out, a solitary expedition to the Tower of London was out of the question. With a sigh, she stared out over the lake and smiled at the sight of a solitary rowing boat drifting across the middle. Only here, in London, where people ate ice cream in February, would a person be daft enough to row across a freezing lake for pleasure. The gentleman in charge of the oars appeared to be flagging under the exertion, while the lady passenger was hunched inside her highly ineffectual but highly fashionable coat as if her life depended on it. It was a pretty coat, made in the exact shade of blue as the eyes of a certain rake of Fliss’s acquaintance. A rake she had dreamed about last night despite her better judgement and one she rather liked. For all his faults, Jake Warriner had rescued her at the ball and asked nothing in return.
And they had waltzed.
Even now her body warmed at the thought of it.
His arms been firmly wrapped around her body. They had needed to be to hold her up and to prevent her from seriously damaging his poor toes, yet he’d not mentioned her embarrassing clumsiness once, despite the fact she had stepped on his foot repeatedly. Although not all those footwork mistakes had been caused by her ineptitude with the waltz. At least two mishaps had occurred from being so close to him while staring into his beautiful bright blue eyes. Or perhaps it had been the solid feel of his shoulder under her palm which had made her pulse quicken and her feet fail? Thanks to Jake’s raw masculinity Fliss had experienced a bit of a moment worryingly akin to swooning.
He smelled sinfully delicious, too, which was indeed a bonus when she considered what she could have been forced to sniff on that dance floor at that particular time. Whatever cologne he had applied before dressing must have contained some sort of magical ingredient, because it was more intoxicating the closer her nose got to it. At one point, during a dizzying set of fast spins, the urge to press her nostrils against his Adam’s apple had been fairly difficult to ignore, but she’d struggled on. Valiantly. Making do with seductive wafts which emanated from his exceedingly fine person and chastising herself for being weak. Waltzing with the rakish Mr Warriner had not been a chore at all. It had been, she was prepared to admit only to herself, the highlight of her week.
He’d hardly even flirted and yet still she had been charmed. Charmed and intrigued in equal measure because the more she got to know him, the more she began to suspect he wasn’t quite as superficial as he seemed.
Jake did have a way of looking at a woman as if she was the only woman in the room, which had made her feel very special. She had also spied a few jealous glances from the other young ladies as he had twirled her around the floor; young ladies who would have given their eye teeth to have been in his strong and capable arms in her stead. Fliss was just vain enough to be flattered by this and rather liked being the frivolous centre of attention for once, rather than the responsible Miss Blunt who always set an example to her students. The former wayward girl made good. An inspiration to aspire to. Sometimes all that made her feel old and dull.
With Jake, for a few short minutes, she had been vivacious and gloriously young. That waltz had been an adventure in itself. Shameless flirting aside, he was also good company. Interesting.
Interested.
He listened to everything she said, whether it be her bemoaning of her uncle’s persistent and irritating attempts at matchmaking or recounting boring details about canal tunnels. He had called himself a nosy fellow and that he was, but Jake also paid attention and knew how to make a lady feel special. And his name suited him. Piratical and dashing.
Of course, he was still a shocking rake and liking him didn’t mean Fliss was less mindful of his wiles. One of the benefits of living among a succession of wayward girls was one became an expert on the sort of men who waylaid them. Fliss had trained herself to be adept at ignoring her body’s natural reaction to men like him. She wasn’t a man-hater after all. A great many males were exceedingly tolerable, Fliss just knew their limitations. Some men were dictatorial. Some men were unreliable. Most men, however, were fundamentally untrustworthy. It was embedded in their nature, like the female urge to mother, and they really couldn’t help it. One could still thoroughly enjoy the company of a rake without succumbing to his charms. Like all successful rakes, Jake had all the attributes to make a female body yearn. Such things were down to biology, not logic, and she would never allow herself to be a slave to something as base and savage. Logic made him wholly unsuitable. Not that she was in the market for a man at the moment. If she were he would be the very last sort to settle down with. Still, she was grateful he had stepped up to help her in her moment of need. That had been noble of him. It was too bad he was untrustworthy, else she might have been tempted.
To keep her mind from being further seduced by his presence, Fliss had asked him questions about his past. Although his answers had been glib, she could tell they were purposefully so. Another benefit of living among wayward girls was one became an expert in the art of lying. Her students knew she was a master at uncovering deceptions. At Sister Ursuline’s, her ability to spot a lie at ten yards was legendary, although how she could spot one was a trick she kept entirely to herself in case the girls got wise to it and tried to camouflage the clues.
However, the simple truth was it wasn’t really a trick, it was mere observation. There were little, almost minute physical tells which always gave the lies away. Each unique to the person, yet obvious to a master at reading them. To most people, Jake’s casual and seemingly open answers would have sufficed, but Fliss wasn’t most people and Jake’s tell happened to be in those spectacular eyes which had a habit of taking her breath away. And by golly it was tiny. Had she not been staring wistfully up into them she would have missed it. But she had been, so she’d spotted it.
His pupils constricted.
In fact, they had constricted three times.
Once when he had blithely denounced his father as a violent drunk, suggesting he was making light of something which had not been in any way light at all. The second had been stronger, his black pupils constricting to a pinpoint for less than a second, and it had been in a throwaway sentence about his mother. The woman who had died when he was so young he barely remembered her. Fliss would wager all her savings on the fact he didn’t barely remember her. That was a tactic to avoid talking about her and one Fliss sometimes used when new acquaintances inadvertently probed a sore spot. Like her, he remembered his mother keenly. Too keenly and it hurt.
So much so, she had taken pity on him and allowed him to direct the conversation to his brothers where he felt comfortable. Something she empathised with. Despite outwardly projecting otherwise, the rejection of her father when she had needed him the most still cut deep if she allowed herself to dwell upon it. All those years of loneliness and of feeling abandoned. Rejected. Not quite good enough to warrant even the tiniest place in his life. That pivotal moment in her past had shaped her and left her wary of all men, just in case another broke her heart quite so thoroughly and this time the wound would never heal.
What Sister Ursuline called cynicism was the necessary fortress that protected that tender organ from further damage. It was easier to not challenge the comfort of her carefully constructed status quo than subject herself to the risk of further pain. Once upon a time it had been enough, the walls of the fortress impenetrable, yet as the years had marched on Fliss was honest enough with herself to acknowledge those same walls which protected her also imprisoned her as well. This unexpected trip away from the sanctuary of normality had weakened those defences. Heightened the disquiet which had taken root without her noticing and had made her increasingly dissatisfied with her life. Made her yearn to climb a ladder to peek over the battlements at the possibilities beyond. The possibilities Jake presented.
Of all the men to be attracted to, her foolish heart had selected a rake.
Perhaps Jake had constructed a new persona to protect him from history repeating itself, just as she had? And perhaps Fliss was frantically hoping that there were deeper layers to him simply as a means to justify her continued fascination with a man her instincts screamed was wholly unreliable.
Or was he? It was obvious he adored all three of his brothers as his face lit with pride as he described them. Responsible, brave and clever. And then those brilliant, vibrant irises had constricted again when he had called himself the disappointment. In that instant she learned it was a label he wore openly, almost like a shield like her cynicism, but hated it nevertheless. It was on the tip of her tongue to question him about it, but her uncle had come and claimed her, and by the time they parted ways, the flirtatious look was back in his eyes and the peculiarly telling moment and the opportunity to explore it was gone.
Much as the foolhardy rower and his lady friend were now. Gone to freeze in another part of the Serpentine on their quest to be seen. With nothing better to do, Fliss went back to watching the swans and wishing she was somewhere, anywhere, else. Trying to ignore the image of twinkling blue eyes which constantly invaded her daydreams.