The Demure Miss Manning

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.