Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

Chapter 7

“You will?” Sir John surged towards her, his face breaking into a wide smile. “Oh, you won’t regret it, ma’am, I promise you won’t. You do us too much honor—indeed you do—but you shall enjoy every moment of your stay. Mrs. De Lacey—by Gad, ma’am, I could kiss your hand for what you’ve done for me today!”

Thus warned, Elinor swiftly clasped her hands behind her back. “Indeed,” she said coolly, “we could hardly allow poor Penelope to suffer. But I expect you to escort me to Hathergill Hall yourself, Sir John, with no more nonsense about chasing errant nieces about the country or pursuing some sort of Gothic revenge upon their sisters.”

“No, ma’am, of course not, if you don’t like it. Certainly not.” He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his shining forehead. “Even Penelope couldn’t…that is, you’ve done me an immense favor, Mrs. De Lacey, and I know it.”

“Indeed,” said Elinor, and tried in vain to determine whether hysterical laughter or a scream most wanted to escape in response to all of it.

“Ah…” Benedict Hawkins cleared his own throat.

With true relief, she turned to where he stood by the table. “You had something to say, Mr. Hawkins?”

He nodded, making a rueful face as he stepped forward. “Sir John, I had hoped to meet you in more fortuitous circumstances, but...I must tell you, I had indeed hoped to meet you today. It was the very purpose of my travel here.”

“Oh, was it?” Still beaming with relief, Sir John waved an expansive invitation. “You said you’d heard of my daughter, young man, didn’t you?”

“Why, yes, I have.” Mr. Hawkins nodded. “Her praise has reached across the country—even as far as my own estate near Cambridge.”

“Of course. Beautiful girl, Penelope,” said Sir John. “An angel. That’s what everybody calls her, you know!”

Elinor bit her lip and fixed her gaze purposefully on the wall beyond.

“I had heard something of the sort,” Benedict agreed. “But in fact, it was you I’ve heard most about.”

“Oh?” Sir John frowned. “I haven’t heard your name before, Mr. Hawkins.”

“No, but I know an old friend of yours.” Benedict reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a sealed letter. “Mr. Edmund Crawford was kind enough to write me a note of introduction. He hoped you might be willing to give me some advice on the running of estates and so forth, as I’ve so recently come into my own. I’ll be staying here at this inn for the next week or two, and I’d be grateful if you could spare any time to take me in hand for his sake.”

“Hrmm.” Frowning, Sir John broke open the seal and began to read.

Elinor’s uncle had never been a speedy reader. As the moments stretched on, Sir Jessamyn uncoiled himself enough to peer over her shoulder towards the table of food. He nudged her cheek with his snout, then looked pointedly back at the waiting table.

“Oh, very well,” Elinor whispered. “Greedy monster.” Still, she reached up to stroke his neck affectionately as she moved back to the table and resumed her seat...and she reached for the teapot, too.

With hysteria looming high on her emotional horizon, tea—even sadly cooled tea—had become a true medical necessity.

The two men took their own seats at the table a moment later, but she didn’t raise her eyes to look at either of them. Instead, she focused on feeding Sir Jessamyn and taking restorative sips from her cup. Her own stomach was knotted far too tightly to consider any of the vast quantities of food on offer anymore.

Fortunately, that could never be a problem for Sir Jessamyn. From the voracious way he snapped up every bite, any new observer might well have imagined that he’d spent the last month subsisting on nothing but stale bread and water. Feeding him a steady stream of food—and stopping him from taking more at a time than was good for him—was the perfect excuse for Elinor not to meet the gazes of either gentleman at the table.

She badly needed that time to think, because the words she had spoken on desperate impulse were resonating throughout her body now...and flooding her with a cascade of increasingly horrifying realizations.

She had no carriage or horses. She had no maid. She had no piles of expensive luggage, nor clothing that was fit for anything but the poor relation she was.

What was I thinking?Illusion or no, she could never fool everyone at Hathergill Hall—not for five full days, the length of time that she would have to wait for Penelope’s début to take place. Perhaps Rose could have managed it in these circumstances; she had the confidence and strength of will to carry off any daring masquerade. Harry was quieter but so clever that she could have planned all sorts of persuasive details.

Elinor, though? As everyone knew, she was plain and sensible; the polar opposite of the dashing Mrs. De Lacey and her set. A crow, trying to pass herself off as a peacock? It was laughable.

“Ha!” said Sir John.

Elinor gave an involuntary start. Sir Jessamyn missed his next bite, and cold scrambled eggs fell across her bare hands.

Fortunately, Sir John wasn’t looking at her. “I haven’t seen old Crawford for years,” he told Mr. Hawkins, leaning back in his seat. “Not since our university days. Dab hand at billiards, that man—or at any rate, he was thirty years ago.”

“He still is,” said Mr. Hawkins. “He played against my late father several times.”

“Yes, he says so in the letter. Says your father was a fine fellow, too.”

“He was.” This time, Mr. Hawkins’s voice was low. “Without him, I wouldn’t be here.”

Still wiping the greasy remnants of eggs off her fingers, Elinor slid him a glance and found his handsome face looking startlingly grim…or, perhaps, haunted.

With a visceral twist of pain, she suddenly remembered the night after her parents’ death, when she’d made her own discovery of the disaster left behind them in the wake of that terrible, fraudulent investment scheme, the one that—according to her father’s earnest correspondence—“could not fail.”

She would never stop loving her kind and hopeful father. She simply couldn’t do it. A childhood of love and warmth and safety would never be canceled out by a single mistake and a too-trusting nature.

But there had been times, as she and her sisters had sat in the empty vicarage, their bellies growling with audible hunger as they’d waited to hear which unknown relatives would agree to take them in and separate the three of them forever…

Oh, yes. Elinor took a slow, deep breath as she admitted the bitter truth to herself.

She was still absolutely furious at her father for what he had done to all of them.

It would have helped to share that tangled feeling with Mr. Hawkins now; or at least, to give him any sign of the empathy she felt. But Mrs. De Lacey, of course, could know nothing of his father’s losses. Mr. Hawkins had worked too hard to keep those secret…and if he was to save his younger brothers, his niece, and all those dependent workers on his estate, it was vital that Sir John, of all people, not be allowed to ever guess that he was penniless.

So there really was only one thing that she could do.

Elinor looked up, met her uncle’s gaze, and steeled herself to be Mrs. De Lacey once more.

“Mr. Hawkins is a fine young man, too,” she said brightly, “and his estate is meant to be delightful. He’ll be quite a catch for some lucky young lady!” She paused, then widened her eyes as if struck by sudden inspiration. “Why, perhaps you ought to invite him to Penelope’s début! The timing is so fortuitous, after all. Aren’t you and Lady Hathergill putting together a houseparty for the event?”

“Well…” Sir John frowned, glancing down again at the letter in his hands. “We’ve invited a few people to come down this week to make up numbers at the dance, but…”

“Perfect,” Elinor said, and smiled with the serene confidence of a woman who never worried about other people’s opinions. It felt astonishingly liberating. “How fortunate that the two of you should meet in this way.”

“I…don’t know,” Sir John said. “I can’t think what Penel—that is, what my wife would say. It’s not a full houseparty, you see, just a few—”

“I’m quite certain your wife would be delighted to have such an eligible young man in attendance for Penelope’s début,” Elinor said. “After all, you are inviting other gentlemen to stay at the house, aren’t you?”

Sir John frowned harder. “Only a few friends from town. I thought we needed more numbers in attendance at the dance, so…”

“Well, then,” said Elinor briskly. “Lady Hathergill will be delighted to have such a handsome young guest for Penelope to dance with at her début. And so will Penelope, I expect.”

Mr. Hawkins cleared his throat. A faint flush tinged his cheekbones. “Mrs. De Lacey—Sir John—you are too kind, both of you, but I wouldn’t wish to cause any inconvenience. As I said, I was planning to make my stay at this inn, rather than imposing on Sir John’s hospitality in such a way.”

If Elinor had been herself, she would have let the matter drop already, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. But Mrs. De Lacey, she was certain, would never give up so easily—and more importantly, she knew which other guests had been invited. She’d written out most of their invitation cards herself. Benedict Hawkins would need every advantage he could get if he was to compete with those gentlemen of fortune and debt-free estates.

“Nonsense,” she said. “How could it be an imposition? Sir John, do you really mean to say that the hospitality of Hathergill Hall is too limited—too provincial—to host a young man of good estate, recommended to you by an old friend?”

“Er...” said Sir John. “No, but…well, no. Of course not.” He squared his bull-like shoulders. “Of course we’d be delighted to have you stay, Hawkins. Couldn’t possibly let you languish in an inn, could we? Not when old Crawford himself recommended you.”

“Well…” Benedict Hawkins hesitated. For a moment, Elinor thought she saw a flash of actual reluctance cross his face.

For heaven’s sake. He wasn’t going to turn the offer down, was he? She found herself leaning forward, as if she could mentally urge him on.

If he wanted to marry Penelope, he couldn’t possibly refuse! If he still wanted to marry Penelope…

“You are too kind, Sir John,” said Benedict Hawkins, and smiled. “I accept.”

Elinor subsided back into her chair. Her pulse was beating faster than it should have been. Disappointment, illogical and fierce, clutched her throat.

Of course he still wanted to marry Penelope. Why wouldn’t he?

And now she was going to help him do it.

Sir Jessamyn burped loudly, in perfect satisfaction, straight into her face.

* * *

It wasn’tuntil the end of breakfast that the awkward questions arose.

“Shall I order your carriage, Mrs. De Lacey?” Sir John said. “I can’t leave my own horse here, but if I ride alongside—”

“My carriage?” Elinor gave a light laugh. She’d had the whole of breakfast to prepare, but she still felt her chest tighten as she widened her eyes in a semblance of surprise. “Why would I still have my carriage?”

Both of the men at the table looked at her as if she had suddenly started speaking Spanish.

“I’ve sent my carriage back to London,” Elinor said, and let the concluding phrase “of course” linger unspoken in her tone. “I knew I shouldn’t need it here, and I expected that you would be relieved not to stable my horses during my stay.”

Both men were still staring at her wordlessly.

She tried to give a trilling little laugh, like Penelope’s. It came out more like a squawk, half-strangled by nerves. Sir Jessamyn’s head swung around, and he angled his head to stare at her inquisitively.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Hawkins, “but do you mean to say you arrived in the middle of the night and didn’t even keep your carriage with you until the morning?”

She shrugged, taking care not to dislodge Sir Jessamyn. “It was only unfortunate that my luggage—including all of my clothing and my travel purse, too—was still in the carriage when it drove away.”

Sir John’s mouth dropped open, revealing a wad of half-chewed eggs still on his tongue.

Benedict said, his voice sounding weak, “And…your maid? She didn’t realize either?”

This time, Elinor’s shrug was so jerky that Sir Jessamyn let out a chirp of dismay and had to dig his claws in to retain his perch. She had a dire suspicion that her smile had become manic. “Oh, I sent her home, too. Useless girl! I thought I’d just let one of the maids at Hathergill Hall take care of me.”

“Good God,” said Sir John.

Elinor’s shoulder burned where Sir Jessamyn’s claws dug into it. Panic rang clanging alarm bells in the back of her head.

She asked, “Are you saying that you don’t have enough maids to assist me after all, Sir John? Because I can, of course, still return to London. I’ll simply send my coachman a message and—”

“No!” he said hastily. “No, no. Never fear. I’ll start after your carriage immediately. I should catch up with it by—”

“No need.” Elinor smiled. “There was a case of clothing in my room when I arrived. Left there by your niece, I presume.” She touched one finger to the gown she was wearing, in demonstration. “Luckily, her clothing fits me well enough. I find it rather amusing to wear such different attire for a week. It is rather a novelty, don’t you think?”

Both men’s gazes dropped to the drab material of her gown, which was every bit as ugly as it had been inexpensive. Elinor would have winced in humiliation if she had been herself. Instead, she beamed at them with all of her might.

Fashionable and wealthy women were allowed to be eccentric and authoritative, where lesser women had to be sensible and submissive. Mrs. De Lacey was the most fashionable and wealthy woman of them all. Therefore, if they really believed she was Mrs. De Lacey…

“Well,” said Sir John, “we had better find you another carriage.”

But for the first time, she saw a hint of suspicion in his eyes.