Never A Bride

Chapter 7-2

“Yes,” said Kate. “She married a gentleman who lives in Derbyshire. I visit every year.”

James nodded, his eyes still on Miss Penrose. She was a prime article, to use vulgar parlance. He wondered why she was unmarried. She looked to be at least three-and-twenty. “Why is Miss Penrose unwed?”

“In part because she didn’t wish to leave her mother. Mrs. Penrose was an invalid. She passed away last year.”

“An invalid?” James raised his eyebrows, surprised that someone who possessed such glowing health and vitality could have had an invalid for a parent.

“Yes,” Kate said. “And also, I think, because none of the offers were . . .” He glanced at her in time to see her nose wrinkle. “The neighborhood is rather restricted.”

“Has she not had a London Season?”

“No,” said Kate. “Her family’s circumstances are somewhat straitened.”

“Hmm.” James examined Miss Penrose again. Her gown, now that he noted it, wasn’t in the latest fashion.

“But that wouldn’t weigh with you, would it, James?”

He shook his head, his eyes still on Miss Penrose. His fortune was large enough for a dowerless wife and any number of indigent relatives. There were far more important things to be sought in a bride than fortune. Or rank, for that matter. His parents’ marriage had taught him that.

“If . . .” Kate’s voice was tentative. “If you could exert yourself only a little, James, I believe you could easily capture Lizzie’s affections.”

James turned his head to stare at her.

“If you want to, that is.” Kate flushed. “I don’t mean to . . . to dictate what you should do.”

“Are you suggesting that I pay court to Miss Penrose?” he asked, in a disbelieving tone.

Kate’s flush deepened. “Would it be so difficult?”

James said nothing. He stared at her, unable to make up his mind whether to be annoyed or amused.

“Well, would it?”

James looked back at Miss Penrose. No, it wouldn’t be difficult. Quite easy, in fact. Miss Penrose was a delightful young lady, in her manner equally as well as her person. He could find no fault with her. To have her as his wife would be most pleasant. He imagined her holding onto his arm, laughing up at him, standing on tiptoe for his kisses. “I shall think about it,” he said.

“Thank you,” Kate said. She moved away from him, walking along the terrace until she stood beside her brother and her friend. James stayed where he was, his eyebrows drawn thoughtfully together. Could he have a love match with Miss Penrose? He thought it was possible. His frown lightened. Pay court to Miss Penrose? Why not?

Miss Penrose and Kate began to walk further along the terrace, arm in arm. Harry accompanied them. James followed slowly, watching Miss Penrose. She had a very pretty figure, but—

His eyes moved to Kate, noting the differences between her and her friend. Miss Penrose was plumper than Kate, although not even the harshest of critics could call her heavy. Her figure was pleasing, but to his eye Kate’s was even more pleasing. She was several inches taller than Miss Penrose, and he liked that extra height. Strange, he’d always thought of Kate as gawky, but she most definitely wasn’t. Somehow, without him noticing, she’d grown comfortable with her height. Where she’d been awkward as an adolescent, he saw now that her posture was elegant and her movements graceful. More graceful than Miss Penrose’s.

His eyes slid from one lady to the other, preferring the lines and curves of Kate to those of her friend. He frowned, noting that Kate’s silk-clad ankles, glimpsed beneath the flounced hem of her gown, were slim and shapely, and superior to Miss Penrose’s. And the line of her throat was slender and quite lovely. And her profile, when she turned her head—

James stopped on the terrace and closed his eyes for a moment. It was wrong of him to look at Kate like this. She had made it quite clear that she didn’t wish to marry him. Miss Penrose would be his bride, not Kate.

When Kate told Lizzie about the ball, later that morning, she became quite pale. “But I don’t have anything I can wear.”

“Don’t worry, Lizzie.” Kate smiled. “I have a solution.”

“One of your old gowns!” Lizzie said, her tone relieved and some color returning to her cheeks. “I can make it over.”

“No.” Kate shook her head. “Not one of my old gowns. Think how poorly blue becomes you—and that is mostly what I have!”

“I shouldn’t mind,” Lizzie said.

“I should. No, Lizzie, you shall have a new gown for this ball.”

Lizzie became pale again. “I can’t.”

“A gift.”

“But the post-chaise—”

“Lizzie . . .” Kate reached out and took hold of her friend’s hand. “My father left me a respectable portion. I have ample money to pay for the post-chaise and a new ball gown. Two new gowns, in fact, for I shall have one, too.”

“But, Kate, it’s too much. I can’t accept—”

“Yes,” Kate said firmly. “You can. I insist. I won’t enjoy the ball if you’re there in one of my old gowns.”

There was a crease between Lizzie’s eyebrows. “But—”

“It’s shockingly selfish of me, I know! But please, Lizzie, say you’ll accept a new gown. We shall both enjoy the ball so much more.”

Lizzie bit her lip.

“Rose-colored satin, with a gauze overdress . . .”

Lizzie sighed, but there was laughter in the sound. “All right,” she said. “A new gown.”

“Thank you!”

They took the afternoon to visit the dressmaker whom Kate usually patronized in Harrogate, a Frenchwoman possessing considerable skill with a needle. Lizzie settled on a rose-pink satin that was the perfect foil for her coloring, while Kate chose a length of silk in her favorite teal blue. Harrogate boasted a number of shops and, with the ball in mind, Kate made further purchases for Lizzie. She bought long gloves and silk stockings and dainty evening slippers and a scarf of spangled gauze.

“I can’t accept . . .” Lizzie said, fingering the scarf wistfully.

“Yes, you can.” Kate examined a pretty little fan with ivory sticks. It would match Lizzie’s ball gown perfectly. She smiled at her friend and held out the fan. “Do you like it, Lizzie?”

Lizzie touched the fan with a fingertip. “Oh, yes. But . . . but I can’t, Kate. I can never repay you.”

Kate smiled at her. “You are repaying me ten times over by your company. Truly.”

Lizzie must have heard the sincerity in her voice, for she accepted the gifts. Kate was relieved. She knew Lizzie would enjoy the ball a hundred times more if she had the confidence of being beautifully dressed.

Kate made another purchase, too. She bought herself a lace cap.

“But why?” demanded Lizzie. “Why?”

“An old maid such as I must have a cap,” Kate said, laughing. “Surely you know that?”

Lizzie didn’t laugh. Instead she frowned. “But you’re not old.”

“I am,” Kate said, turning the lace cap over in her fingers. “I’m eight-and-twenty this year. Quite in my dotage.” She smiled at Lizzie, making a joke of it. “At my last prayer, almost.”

“No!”

“Yes,” Kate said. “I’m an old maid, and I need a cap!” And she laughed and bought it. But when she unwrapped the purchase later, in the privacy of her bedchamber, she didn’t feel like laughing. She smoothed the lace with a finger. An old maid. A spinster. An ape leader. She put on the cap and looked at herself in the mirror, not liking what she saw.

“Well, I shall just have to get used to it,” she told her reflection. She removed the cap and held it in her hand. She should wear it now, to lend extra credibility to her role as chaperone for Lizzie, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do so. It was too . . . too final.

Kate put the purchase away in the back of a drawer. She would join Cousin Augusta in wearing a lace cap once James had married Lizzie.

Kate watched James watch Lizzie that evening, while they dined, and later when they played cards in the drawing room. He didn’t merely watch Lizzie; he exerted himself to please her. It was what she wanted, Kate told herself as she pushed her food around her plate, what she’d asked of him on the terrace, and yet she was horribly afraid that she was jealous of Lizzie. How could she be? It would be terrible of her to be jealous, quite terrible—but there was a constriction in her throat and something painful in her chest and her appetite had deserted her, and when Lizzie made James laugh out loud, Kate came close to crying.

She rallied over cards, a light-hearted game of Speculation, noting with pleasure how lovely Lizzie looked. She was—as the saying went—as perfect as a picture. A hackneyed expression perhaps, but true in this instance. And it wasn’t merely Lizzie’s appearance that excited James and Harry’s admiration; it was her ready laugh and sweet nature. That, and the prettiness.

Kate had never felt so drab in her life. When James turned his eyes to Lizzie and watched her with a smile, Kate was more aware of her plainness than she’d ever been before. The freckles were heavy and ugly on her face and the red hair garish and hideous, prickling her scalp. She lowered her gaze to her cards and blinked back tears.

“Are you feeling quite well, Kate?” Lizzie asked quietly, as they climbed the stairs to bed. “You scarcely spoke this evening. Is everything all right?”

Kate looked at her friend’s anxious face and smiled. “Everything’s fine.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” said Kate. “Everything is perfect.” And it was. Quite, quite perfect. There would be a love match at Merrell Hall before long. Of that she was certain.

It was Kate’s habit to have breakfast on a tray in her bedchamber, followed by a ride, and to take a walk in the park in the afternoon. This routine was altered by Lizzie’s presence. Breakfast was eaten in the breakfast parlor, a sunny room that was used, in the general way of things, only by Cousin Augusta—and for that very reason, not by Harry and herself—and the morning ride became a walk, for Lizzie was no horsewoman.

If Cousin Augusta had been resident at Merrell Hall, there would have been no merriment over breakfast, but Cousin Augusta was in Bath and couldn’t hear Harry’s outrageous jokes, nor see Lizzie dimple so prettily and notice how James laughed silently with his eyes.

Breakfast was followed by a walk of several miles, just Lizzie and herself, while Harry and James rode out together on horseback. There was great enjoyment to be had in the countryside around Merrell Hall, not merely in the park and estate, but in the surrounding neighborhood. Kate showed Lizzie all her favorite paths, and together they took as much pleasure in the exercise as that ardent walker Marianne Dashwood, heroine of one of Kate’s favorite novels, Sense and Sensibility, could have done. They went further afield, too, in Kate’s gig, and she had the pleasure of introducing Lizzie to Miss Orton and Miss Hart, and seeing them become friends.

The afternoons were for courting. Kate planned, with care, excursions to such places of interest as an abbey, a ruined castle, a celebrated viewpoint, and a waterfall. She watched, with rising hope and an oddly heavy heart, as James smiled at Lizzie, as Lizzie blushingly accepted his arm, as he teased her gently and she dimpled back at him.

When Kate observed Lizzie, she could see no sign that she favored James over Harry. Each man received an equal share of her smiles and laughter, but it seemed to Kate that although Lizzie’s eyes were turned as frequently to Harry as to James, there was more warmth in them when she looked at James.

With that observation, Kate had to be content. Lizzie confided several things to her, but not the status of her heart.

“I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years,” she said on one of their morning walks. “Thank you for inviting me, Kate!”

And once, as they climbed the stairs to bed after a riotous game of jackstraws, so full of giggling and laughter that Cousin Augusta would have read them a thunderous scold for unbecoming levity, Lizzie said: “Your brother makes me laugh so!”

“And Arden does not?” Kate asked, glancing sideways at her. “I quite thought he made you laugh, too.”

Lizzie’s blush was dimly discernible in the candlelight. “He . . . yes, he makes me laugh, too.”

That conversation was as close as they came to discussing James. It was certainly far from a declaration of partiality, but, watching Lizzie, Kate thought that her friend had a certain glow about her. If she wasn’t mistaken, Lizzie’s heart was in danger of being lost.