harrumphed irritably. ‘I trust her ministrations were successful. You are recovered?’
Lucinda thought she had better be recovered. Even in candlelight, she was looking far too healthy.
‘She brewed me a wonderful concoction of her mother’s—Mrs Tindall is a genius— and since I have rested, the headache has vanished.’
Her uncle’s small blue eyes peered at her short-sightedly. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You certainly look well enough and it is most important that you do so.’
He began to pace up and down the room, the wooden floor occasionally creaking beneath his considerable weight. After a few minutes he stopped to face his niece and saw her puzzled expression. ‘I wish you to look your very best.’
As an explanation it fell far short. She was beginning to think that perhaps her uncle had imbibed rather too heavily at dinner when he startled her by saying, ‘In the event it is fortunate that he has not yet arrived—although I must say that I do not understand the delay.’ His tone was pettish and there was a frown on his face. ‘I trust that he will be with us tomorrow at the latest.’
‘Who?’
‘Do you never listen, Lucinda?’
She tried to look contrite, but it was difficult. She had no idea to whom her uncle referred nor any memory of a likely guest. Guests at Verney Towers were as rare as hen’s teeth. She seldom had time for her uncle’s little schemes and tonight even less. Tonight she had almost been caught and the spectre of the gallows wavered in the shadows of her mind. She shuddered as she thought of Black Jack’s fate. She had risked that same terrifying destiny, but only to fail. Her beloved twin was still imprisoned, still liable to succumb to illness or worse.
But she tried to school her face to one of complacence, for her uncle must not suspect for one minute what she had been at. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Francis, you must have spoken of this some time ago and it has completely gone from my memory.’
She must humour him sufficiently that he would go away. Reaction to her wild adventure was setting in and every limb felt leaden. Her wrist was throbbing ever more painfully and her whole being felt as though weighted by iron. All she wanted was sleep.
Her guardian shifted impatiently and when he spoke his tone was part irritation and part indulgence. ‘I shall never understand how women can remember the precise shade of a ribbon, but ask them to remember something of importance and it is all hay with them.’
She felt indignation rising. Long ago she had come to the conclusion that her uncle was one of the most tiresome men she would ever meet: a combination of foolish pride and moral rectitude was not a happy one. But she needed to be rid of him and she forced herself to sound agreeable. ‘Please remind me, Uncle.’
‘The Earl of Frensham is to visit us!’ Francis Devereux said this with the air of a ringmaster about to produce his most celebrated lion.
‘I see.’ She knew her response was inadequate, but her uncle appeared too absorbed by his own cleverness to remark on it.
He had resumed his pacing, the squeak of new boots now joining with the creaking floorboards in rampant disharmony. ‘I did not mention earlier that a message had come from the earl, for I had no wish to unsettle you unnecessarily.’
You thought it best not to put me on my guard, she translated inwardly, but why he had been so reticent, she had no idea.
‘The Earl of Frensham!’ Sir Francis exclaimed again. ‘Think of that. Such a splendid prize! It has taken a deal of time and persuasion to get him here, you know.’
Her head was buzzing; her uncle’s self-satisfaction was hardly new, but what had this earl to do with her?
Sir Francis stopped walking and drew near. ‘I won’t hide the fact, Lucinda, that on occasions I have not been entirely certain that it was the right path to pursue. I’ve had my doubts. Disquieting rumours from time to time, but they have turned out to be nothing but spiteful gossip—the usual scurrilous talk of the ton—and I was right to dismiss it. All froth and no substance, my girl!’ he finished triumphantly.
‘So the earl is coming,’ she ventured, hoping that he would get off his chest what he needed to say, and leave her in peace.
‘He is. He is coming to meet you, my dear.’
‘But he does not even know me.’
Her uncle looked at her as if she were slightly feeble minded. ‘Naturally he does not. That is why he is coming to Verney Towers, to make your acquaintance.’
‘I am most flattered,’ she managed, ‘but why me?’
‘Surely, Lucinda, you remember that much. His grandfather and my father made a promise to one another.’
She recalled hearing some such nonsense at the breakfast table one morning of late, but she had dismissed it as unworthy of notice. Her uncle was not of the same mind.
‘If the old Earl of Frensham—that is the second earl—if he were to have a grandson and my father a granddaughter, they were to make a match of it.’
She stared in astonishment. ‘But why?’
‘It was their dearest wish that the two families should be joined. They were the very best of friends for all their lives.’
‘It seems a little odd to be making plans for your grandchildren.’ More than a little odd, she thought. ‘What about their own children—surely they would have fulfilled the family wishes much sooner?’
Her uncle looked fixedly at the floor. ‘It pains me, as you well know, to talk of your mother. I believe the old earl’s son proved similarly unreliable.’
‘I’m sorry, Uncle Francis, but I still don’t see what this has to do with me.’
Her uncle lifted his gaze. ‘You are the granddaughter, of course.’ He spoke slowly and emphatically, as though by intensifying every word, any objections would be blown away. ‘I hope very much to see you marry into the Frensham family.’
‘You wish me to marry an unknown man, years older than myself?’ Truly her uncle had run mad.
‘He is not old, foolish girl. He is the third earl and inherited the title and considerable estates when he was a very young man. He can be little more than thirty.’
‘But I do not know him.’ She realised that she was repeating herself but felt too dazed to argue coherently.
‘This is your opportunity to become acquainted. I consider it a blessing that you have not previously met. Your unspoilt charm will come as a delightful surprise, for he has been on the town for many years and has suffered every kind of lure.’
She was too appalled to respond, but it hardly mattered. Francis was in full flow. ‘The earl is a very wealthy man,’ he sounded inordinately proud of the fact, ‘and has been much courted. I understand that he has grown tired of the attentions shown him. You have never mixed in high society and so will be the perfect antidote. His sisters—all three of them charming creatures—are as convinced as I that you will make an ideal couple.’
And what about me, she wanted
