The Demure Miss Manning

Chapter Four

‘Oh, Miss Manning! Thank heavens you’re here,’ Mary’s maid cried, leaping out of her seat in the hall of the Manning house as Mary stepped inside. The floor was piled with crates and trunks. ‘Your father has been asking for you most urgently.’

‘My father?’ Surprise and worry jolted Mary out of the dismal reflections that had been running through her head ever since she had left the duchess’s ball. She had thought it was rather odd that her father would leave the ball early and send the carriage back for her, but she had been too busy chastising herself for ever trusting Sebastian Barrett.

She quickly handed her shawl to the maid and followed the butler down the corridor to her father’s library.

She found her father standing in the midst of more crates, sorting his books and papers as more of the servants hurried around him taking paintings from the walls and draping the furniture in canvas covers. Candles were lit everywhere, casting a flicker over all the frantic activity. She noticed how tired her father looked and now concern replaced the hurt and embarrassment.

Mary was bewildered. It was nearly the middle of the night—what could be happening?

‘Papa? What is going on?’ Mary asked, making her way between the uneven stacks of crates. She caught sight of herself in the looking glass on the wall, just before a footman threw a cloth over it. Her hair was tousled, her cheeks overly pink.

Luckily, her father did not seem to notice. He shoved a stack of books into her hands and vaguely gestured at one of the boxes.

‘I am very glad you’re here, Mary,’ he said. ‘There is not an instant to lose! We must leave in the morning. I’ve instructed the maids to start packing your gowns.’

‘In the morning!’ Mary cried, even more confused. Had he found out about what happened at the ball, that she had disgraced herself? ‘Papa, whatever do you mean? Where are we going? Surely it is not so bad yet we must flee from gossip...’

‘Gossip?’ Her father turned to peer at her closer, his arms full of more papers. ‘Is there gossip about Portugal? How very odd. The prime minister said haste and secrecy were of utmost importance, but I wouldn’t have thought London society would care. Not yet.’

‘Portugal?’ Mary’s head was spinning. ‘Perhaps we should slow down for a moment, so you can tell me what exactly is happening. A half-hour ago I was at a ball...’ Kissing Sebastian Barrett, but her father didn’t need to know that. ‘Now you say we must pack and be gone by morning.’

Her father gave a wry laugh and leaned down to give her cheek a quick kiss. ‘You are quite right, my dear. It is all quite odd, but surely you have become rather accustomed to that in this strange life of ours.’

Mary nodded. Strange things had always happened in her life. New nurseries, new nannies, balls, receptions, new customs, new manners. She had been able to weather them all, thanks to her parents’ example. But now she had no idea how to manage her own feelings. Her own mistakes.

Her father took her hand and led her to a quiet spot near one of the windows, away from the rush and noise of the footmen carrying away the crates. ‘I spoke to the prime minister tonight and he says it is most vital that I be in Portugal as soon as possible. The Portuguese have been trying to maintain neutrality between England and France, but Napoleon’s diplomats have been making very threatening noises to Dom Joao. Lord Strangford has been made Britain’s representative to the royal court there, but the prime minister wants someone with a great knowledge of the country to join him and advise him.’

‘As you do, because of Mama,’ Mary said. She thought of the short time they had been in Portugal when she was a child, the sun and light of it, her mother’s laughter. Surely it could be a refuge of sorts, somewhere far from England where she would make no more romantic mistakes.

‘As I do, yes. It will be a great challenge, I confess, perhaps the greatest I have faced in my career.’ Her father sighed, his face a bit weary. He reached out and gently touched Mary’s cheek. ‘I am sorry, my dear. We have barely settled in London and now I must drag you away again. Perhaps you would rather stay here, maybe with your friend Lady Louisa?’

‘Oh, no, Papa,’ Mary cried. ‘I want to go with you, of course. I should love to see Portugal again and you will need someone to make sure you eat properly.’

He laughed. ‘And I confess I would be most lonely without you. But I can’t help but wonder—are you quite all right?’

Mary was afraid the events at the ball could somehow show on her face and the last thing her father needed was more worries. ‘Of course, Papa. I must be a bit tired after the dancing.’

He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but the butler called him away with a question about the packing. Mary hurried out of the library and upstairs to her chamber, past several servants carrying out more trunks.

She paused at the window on the landing to peer out at the night. The sky was just beginning to lighten at the edges, a pale grey that would see them gone blessedly soon. Against her will, a vision of Sebastian Barrett flashed through her mind. Those jewel-green eyes, that had seemed so sad just before he kissed her. The rush of hot, burning pain when she realised she was only a joke to him.

She pushed the memory away and rushed on towards her room. It felt horribly like running away, but she was very glad of the sudden departure to Portugal. There, she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Lord Sebastian, facing what her foolish infatuation had led her into.

And, hundreds of miles away, she wouldn’t have to face being led into temptation by him all over again...

* * *

Sebastian knocked on the Mannings’ door again and listened to the hollow echo inside. He stepped back on the walkway and peered up at the house, his hat in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other. It looked as if all the windows were shuttered, the doors locked.

His heart sank. Where could they be? Surely it had only been last night he saw Mary at the ball and everything went so disastrously wrong. He had gone back to his lodgings and drank rather too much wine after he lost her in the crowd, but surely he had not lost that much time?

Even the wine hadn’t been able to give him sleep. Just like so many other nights since he came back to England, he sat awake into the dawn hours, yet last night it wasn’t the haunting thoughts of battle that kept him up. It was the memory of Miss Manning’s eyes, the way she looked up at him just before she kissed him, so full of wonder that she made him feel it, too. Made the night seem new.

And the shadow in those same eyes when she realised the truth. When she realised the damnable cad he had somehow become.

The truth of what he had done, his appallingly ungentlemanly behaviour, had shocked him out of his hazy, pain-filled memories as nothing else could. He hated what he had become, how near he had come to hurting a sweet lady like Mary Manning.

As soon as he had pulled back the curtains to let the light of day wash over his aching head and carry away the cobwebs of the night, he had known what he had to do. He had to go to Miss Manning immediately, apologise and beg for her forgiveness.

Ask her to help him somehow find his way back into the world. After that kiss, the warm newness of it, he was sure she was the only one who could help him. And he had to erase those shadows he had created in her sweet, beautiful eyes.

But how could he make amends if he couldn’t find her?

He knocked on the door again, only to be greeted with the same—no answer. Some of his eager certainty turned chilly.

The downstairs servants’ door to the house next door opened and a maid appeared on the front steps with a bucket and scrub brush. She gave him a curious glance.

‘Looking for the Mannings, are you, sir?’ she asked.

He gave her a relieved smile. ‘Yes, indeed. Though it seems I must come back later, since the door knocker is off.’

‘Won’t do you any good, sir, as I think they left this morning.’

‘Left? For good?’

‘Oh, yes. Carts came and hauled off boxes and trunks before it was even light outside. That happened to the last people who lived there, too, but they ran off from the debt collectors. My master says the Mannings were just sent off to a new posting.’ She gave a doubtful frown under the frills of her cap.

Off to a new posting. Already? How could that be? Sebastian felt the heat of an urgent need to find Miss Manning right away, before she left for good.

He knew of one person who always seemed to know what was happening with the Foreign Office—his father. Sebastian quickly thanked the maid and hurried back to his phaeton, set on going to his parents’ house in Portman Square immediately. His father would be certain Sebastian had messed something up, again, and indeed he had.

But then he had to find Miss Manning.

* * *

‘It is good you are here, Sebastian,’ his father said, barely looking up from the papers scattered across his desk as Sebastian knocked at his library door.

Sebastian was surprised and brought up short on his urgent errand. His father was seldom happy to see him at the family domicile. Even after he had returned from the battlefield and his father admitted that Sebastian’s Army life had been a credit to their family after all, his father had spoken of little but his own work at the Foreign Office. ‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. Henry has been ill this week and there is much work to be done. Several people have been sent to new, vital postings and I must see that these messages go to them immediately. You can deliver some of them, surely? Find out from Henry if he has messages to send, as well.’

Sebastian was even more startled. ‘You want my help, Father?’

His father looked up, blinking behind his spectacles, almost as if he just realised Sebastian was there. ‘You’re here, so of course you’ll do. I told you, Henry is ill and your eldest brother is still in the country looking after the estate. You can make yourself useful, for once.’

Sebastian laughed wryly. That was all he could do, really, when it came to his family. Laugh—and go his own way. His world had been designated the dust and roar of battle long ago, far from the darker world of his father and Henry, the world of diplomacy.

The world of Miss Manning and her father.

He remembered his true errand at his father’s library, to find out what had happened to the Mannings, and he brushed away his irritation. ‘So your diplomatic friends are being shuffled off to new ports, are they?’

His father glared at him. ‘You have never shown an interest in them before.’

Sebastian shrugged. He had to keep up his careless façade; he could never let his father see that something mattered to him, especially if that something was a respectable young lady. ‘These are interesting times, are they not? One never knows when the Army will be called out next. I met your friends the Mannings at the Alnworth ball.’

‘Did you indeed? Sir William has been sent to Lisbon. That idiot Prince Joao has been wavering in his alliance and must be brought back most firmly to England’s side. The loss of Portuguese New World ports at this time would be disastrous. Sir William is the man for the job.’

‘To Portugal?’ Sebastian said, his mind racing. Mary Manning would be well on her journey now—too far out of the reach of his apologies. He had to find her somehow.

His father waved him away and turned back to his papers. ‘I must finish this. Go see your brother and be on your way, Sebastian.’

Sebastian hardly noticed his father’s curt dismissal, so accustomed was he to this behaviour. He thought perhaps Henry would know more of Miss Manning. They were rumoured to maybe make a match of it, after all, and Henry seemed much more the sort of man Sir William would want for his daughter—on the surface, anyway.

He left his father’s library and made his way up the stairs to the corridor where Henry had his rooms. On the staircase, he was suddenly caught by the painted eyes of the ancestral portraits hung on the red-painted walls. A long line of them, all the way back to a Barrett who represented Charles I in Venice, who served England so well behind the scenes. Who excelled at saving their country time and again.

When he was a child, he always thought they seemed to sniff at him disapprovingly. They didn’t seem to have changed much over the years.

He dashed past them and knocked on Henry’s sitting-room door. ‘Come in!’ Henry ordered, and when he saw it was his brother rather than a servant, he merely added, ‘Oh. It is you.’

‘Your brother, home from the wars,’ Sebastian answered lightly. ‘Father is sending off messengers hither and yon, he wanted to see if you had anything to add.’

‘Just a moment, then.’ Henry turned back to his desk. Like their father, he was tall and slim, with curling hair and spectacles over his faraway blue eyes. But Sebastian noticed suddenly that Henry also seemed pale, a warm wrap closely tucked around his shoulders despite the sunny day. Sebastian wondered with a worried pang if his brother was indeed ill, but he knew Henry would welcome no such queries.

‘Father says all your diplomatic friends are scattering across the Continent, gathering in reluctant allies,’ Sebastian said.

‘I doubt he would put it quite like that,’ Henry muttered. ‘But, yes. We must all do our duty now.’

‘He said Sir William Manning has been sent to Portugal.’

‘It is of vital importance now.’

‘So it seems. But I heard a rumour you might miss Sir William’s daughter when she is gone.’

Henry gave a humourless laugh. ‘Miss Mary Manning? I had thought of her, of course. Our fathers have long known each other and she knows what a life such as ours entails. She wouldn’t be too tiresome.’

Sebastian felt a flare of anger on the lovely Miss Mary’s behalf—only to push it away, knowing he had no right. He was the one she should rightfully be furious with, of course. ‘I saw her at the ball last night. She was very pretty.’

‘She is all right, but that hardly matters, does it? I must find a suitable bride one day and she is one of the ladies who would be suitable. But right now I cannot think of such things.’ Henry glanced up from his letter. ‘Nor should you. Duty is paramount right now, Seb.’

‘You needn’t lecture me about duty, Henry. I have served England with my own blood and will again.’

Henry studied him closely. ‘We all do what we can, I suppose. Here, give these letters to Father. And I hope you are not tempted to add a little line to Miss Manning. Ladies like that are not for such as you, Brother. Besides, perhaps she will be better off in Portugal. I hear her own mother was from Lisbon.’

‘Oh, believe me, I know that she is not for me very well indeed.’ Sebastian took the letter from his brother, looking into Henry’s cold blue eyes, and turned on his heel to leave the room. His brother had long been studious, long been focused on following their father’s footsteps, but when had be become so very distant? So hardened to people like Miss Manning, seeing only her ‘usefulness’?

Then again—Sebastian knew he himself had been no better. Surely his brother was right. Now was not the time to chase Miss Manning and make her listen to his poor excuses. She had her own family to think of now, her own work, and he had his.

Perhaps only through his work could he one day make her see how sorry he was and how he would work to erase that one night. If only he could some day see her again.

* * *

‘Sebastian!’ Sebastian heard Nicholas Warren call from across the street as he stepped out of his father’s house. He glanced over to find his friend hurrying between the carriages and horses, his hat threatening to fly away in the breeze, and the sight actually made him start to smile. Nicholas often had that effect on people.

But his brief smile faded as he saw Nicholas’s face. His friend was usually quick to smile, yet today he looked solemn as a funeral, and Sebastian was reminded sharply of that disagreeable scene at the ball—as if he could forget it. He would never forget the darkness that came into Mary Manning’s bright eyes.

‘Were you calling on your father?’ Nicholas asked. He glanced up at the Barrett house, looking as if the bricks and stone could suddenly sprout teeth and bite him. Most of Sebastian’s friends seemed to have that reaction.

‘Yes, duty done for the day. I was on my way back to my lodgings.’ Sebastian almost suggested they go to the club for a claret, but then he remembered too clearly what had happened the last time they were there.

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