Page 10 of The Baron Without Blame
Lolly still hadn’t written Frances.
For the last three mornings, she told herself that would be the day. It wasn’t so complicated after all. She had been writing to Frances every month for years. Martin would post it for her; all Lolly had to do was put pen to paper.
Except she couldn’t seem to make herself do it.
Explaining the situation would be tricky enough. Even though the encounter on the balcony had been as innocent as a lamb in May, when written out, it sounded ridiculous.He knelt to free my skirts from the railing.Lolly knew it sounded like a lie. And she flinched to think what Frances would make of it.
Then, once she sorted out that section of the letter, Lolly would have to ask Frances to take her in. Lolly knew with deep certainty that Frances would welcome her at the orphanage. But she worried that Frances would tell her not to come if it meant lying to her parents and fleeing a fiancé.
So another day passed without writing the letter, and then another, and Lolly grew increasingly anxious that she would never convince herself to do it at all.
Her penance was being trapped in Northfield Hall with her family. Louisa and Charlotte bickered over everything, including what color dresses they would wear at the wedding. Mama kept correcting Lolly on her posture, her language, and her behavior, as if she were still a girl of fourteen. Papa, meanwhile, was practically giddy, and he paraded around Northfield pointing to this and that which Martin could improve.
Now that she knew how Martin felt about Papa’s suggestions, Lolly cringed whenever she heard them.
She thought about Martin’s boycott often. Almost more than she worried about her letter to Frances. She knew the Quakers and a few eccentric ladies boycotted sugar on account of slavery. Mama had even purchased a sugar bowl painted with a little African boy in chains from a fundraiser for the Abolition Society. But Papa had scoffed when Mama showed him the dish: “As if porcelain will change the fundamentals of our economy.”
Lolly had been satisfied with that analysis. Until now. Until Martin suggested with no trace of a smile that the entire system was base. Cruel. Perhaps even inhuman.
Now she wanted to think about it more. With the right person answering her questions.
And every time she contemplated it, she blushed with shame. Because as much as she wanted to learn more about Martin’s theory, twofold did Lolly regret not letting him kiss her.
She had kissed Ned once, back when she thought he was going to propose. They were at a ball at their mutual neighbor’s, the Pemberlys, and she had let Ned lead her down to the lake under the moonlight. “You’re so beautiful,” he had said, and then he had cupped her chin in his palm and kissed her.
It had been delectable. Unforgettable. Addictive.
Then Ned had turned around and married Ursula instead.
Lolly wondered what Martin’s kiss would be like. Would he dart his tongue between her teeth the way Ned had? Would his hands wander beyond her chin? Would he taste of strawberries?
Would her body melt into another foolish puddle?
She knew she shouldn’t want to kiss him. It was only proper for an engaged couple to kiss because they would soon have the protection of marriage. Whereas Lolly would be jilting Martin in a blink. What would Martin think of her, if she actually let him hold her?
It was unfair, really, that a woman was supposed to guard her virtue so viciously. Men enjoyed all sorts of escapades before marriage. All Lolly wanted was one little kiss.
Perhaps Martin wouldn’t think badly of her at all. He always smiled so kindly at her. At the dinner table, he sought her opinion on topics, even when she wasn’t seated beside him. When they passed in the corridors, he paused and asked her how her day was going.
All the expected behavior of a fiancé, of course. Each time it happened, Lolly resolved to ignore the burn of excitement across her skin.
But it did make her wonder about kissing him.
She was following her mother outside for an afternoon of embroidery in the quiet garden when Martin intercepted them. “Lady Turner, would you mind terribly if I stole Lady Rosalind away for a few minutes?”
Mama couldn’t have been more pleased. “Certainly, my lord.”
Lolly, curious, followed him down the main corridor and to the right, into the front room he used as a study. Other than a desk, it had little furniture or décor to advertise its function. At the moment, three large art canvases were spread across the floor.
“These just arrived from Portsmouth,” Martin said, his voice husky with excitement. “I wanted to show you.”
He led her around the perimeter of the room to face the door from the desk, so that she could look at the paintings from the proper angle. Unframed, the paint stopped not quite at the edges of the canvases. The blank margins filled Lolly with the same sense of embarrassment as if she had discovered Martin in his underclothes.
Not that she had any idea what that would be like. Or what he would look like.
She blinked to keep her focus on the oil paintings. One depicted a yawning green mountain range. Another looked out over a sea with little boats dotting the horizon. And the final was a never-ending field of cotton with bright blue sky above it.
“I had these commissioned from the Company School while I was in India,” Martin explained. His brows were lifted in apprehension. “What do you think?”
