Meg Alexander - The Passionate Friends

Elizabeth looked startled. “Great heavens, Dan, what is this? This is our own dear Judith. Had you forgot?”

“I have forgotten nothing.” He laid no stress upon his words, but Judith understood. The wound had gone too deep. She had killed his love through no fault of her own. She would not be given an opportunity to explain, and perhaps it was better not to try.

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MEG ALEXANDER

After living in southern Spain for many years, Meg Alexander now lives in Kent, although, having been born in Lancashire, she feels that her roots are in the north of England. Meg’s career has encompassed a wide variety of roles, from professional cook to assistant director of a conference center. She has always been a voracious reader and loves to write. Other loves include history, cats, gardening, cooking and travel. She has a son and two grandchildren.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

1802

Elizabeth Wentworth gasped in dismay. “Judith, you can’t mean it! Do you tell us that you have agreed to marry Truscott? I won’t believe you!”

A slight cough from the third member of the trio of ladies seated in the salon of the house in Mount Street checked a further outburst for the moment.

Elizabeth looked at her sister-in-law in a mute appeal for support, but Lady Wentworth refused to catch her eye.

In the twelve years since her marriage, Prudence had mellowed, learning to control her temper. Hasty words could never be recalled, however much one might regret them later.

Now, heavily pregnant with her fourth child, she struggled to sit upright on the sofa, smiling at their visitor as she did so.

“When did this happen, Judith? How you have surprised us! We had no idea…” Her voice was gentle, and the look she gave her friend was full of affection.

The effort to soften the impropriety of Elizabeth’s reaction to Judith’s news did not succeed. The younger girl jumped to her feet, and began to pace the room.

“Why did you accept him?” she cried. “Oh, Judith, he won’t make you happy. Why, the man is a charlatan, a mountebank! I know that he is all the rage at present, with his fashionable sermons, but he doesn’t believe a word of them. For all his talk of hellfire and damnation, he likes nothing better than to mix with the very society which he affects to despise.”

“Elizabeth, you go too far!” Prudence said sternly. “Pray allow Judith to speak at least one word. You might also pay her the compliment of believing that she knows her own mind.”

Elizabeth looked mutinous, but she held her tongue as she flung herself into a chair.

“Pru, don’t scold,” Judith said quietly. “I knew that this must come as a shock to both of you. After all, the Reverend Truscott has never given me reason to believe that he had noticed me…that is, until these last few weeks.”

Elizabeth tensed, and seemed about to speak, but a glance from Prudence silenced her. Each knew what the other was thinking. It was less than a month since Judith had learned of her handsome inheritance from her mother’s brother. Nothing had been expected from the elderly recluse, but he had surprised the Polite World by leaving his vast wealth to his only niece.

“I was surprised myself,” Judith continued in her gentle way. She gave her listeners a faint smile. “I am no beauty, as you know, and I don’t shine in society. I find it hard to chat to people I don’t know, and as for being witty…?” She pulled a wry face at the thought of her own shortcomings.

“Dearest Judith, you underestimate yourself,” Elizabeth exclaimed with warmth. “Confess it! You have a wicked sense of humour. Why, on occasion have we not been helpless, all three of us, when you have been telling us your tales?”

“That’s because I know you well, and I feel easy in your company. Your family has been so good to me…I still miss the Dowager Duchess dreadfully.”

“And she was fond of you.” Elizabeth returned to the attack. “What would she have said, I wonder, had she known of your decision?”

“She always wished me to marry,” Judith said mildly. “She was so happy for both her sons when they chose you and Prudence. She longed for the same joy for me.”

“That was different!” Elizabeth said firmly. “Judith, will you tell us that you have a tendre for this man?”

Judith coloured. “Perhaps not everyone can hope to be as fortunate as you were yourselves…to find the one person in the world for whom you’d give your life.”

“Then wait!” Elizabeth cried in an agony of mind. “You are still young. There must be a dozen men more suitable than Truscott. Few could be less so. You haven’t given yourself a chance.”

“I’m twenty-five, and I’ve had several Seasons. How many men have offered for me? No, don’t bother to reply. You know that I didn’t take, as the saying goes.”

“That’s because you are so quiet. You don’t give anyone a chance to know you. Dearest, we all love you. At one time we had hoped that you and Dan—”

“Elizabeth, that is quite enough!” At the mention of her adopted son, Prudence felt it wise to put an end to Elizabeth’s incautious remarks.

Six years ago she too had hoped that Judith and Dan might make a match of it. She’d welcomed the growing friendship between the two young people, so different from her own fiery relationship with Sebastian, or Elizabeth and Perry’s stormy wooing.

Judith and Dan would sit for hours, exchanging few words but evidently content in each other’s company, as Dan drew his designs for improvements to the warships of the British Fleet, and Judith put her thoughts on paper.

Only with friends could she be persuaded to read her words aloud, but they were worth waiting for. Her pithy little vignettes describing the foibles of the world about her reduced her tiny audience to tears of laughter.

Now, at the mention of Dan’s name, Judith started and turned her head. Naked emotion showed for an instant on her face, but it was quickly banished.

“How is Dan?” she asked in an even voice. Not for a second must she betray the wrenching agony of that final interview six years ago. These loving friends must never know how bitterly she regretted her decision to refuse the man she loved. They loved him too, and they would not forgive her.

“He’s home at last,” Elizabeth said with satisfaction. “He’s changed, of course—quite the elegant man about town now that he is grown so tall and broad—but beneath it all he is still the same old Dan.”

Judith felt a twinge of panic. She must not see him, especially now when she had steeled herself to wed the Reverend Truscott. That would be a refinement of torture. She rose to take her leave.

“Do stay!” Elizabeth begged. “The men will be home quite soon. Perry and Sebastian will be sorry to miss you, and you haven’t seen Dan for years—”

“Judith may have other appointments,” Prudence broke in swiftly. She was well aware of what had happened all those years ago. Had she not spent months listening to an inconsolable Dan? How she’d struggled to provide him with diversions, but nothing had served to comfort him. In the end it was Sebastian who had suggested a solution. Dan had been accepted as a chartmaker on a trip to the Antipodes. To part with the boy she’d first known as a terrified nine-year-old foundling had been a wrench, but Dan had welcomed the suggestion, and therefore she’d agreed to it.