“At least hear us out,” Miss Lancaster pleaded.
He could see no means of escaping their explanation. It might even prove a little diverting. The heavens knew he could use a bit of lightening after his difficult interactions with his parents.
He gave a slight nod.
A grin spread across Miss Lancaster’s face. “Excellent.”
Newton took a moment to study Miss Ellie. He couldn’t imagine her undertaking anything remotely likely to raise eyebrows. To his utter shock, he saw as much mischief in her eyes as he did in her companion’s. Entirely unexpected.
“Let us continue our walk around the room,” Miss Lancaster suggested. “We will make you privy to the details of our plot.” She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, not requiring him to offer it. He did, however, undertake the niceties with Miss Ellie and, in the length of a breath, had a young lady on each arm as he resumed his walk around the Pump Room. It was an odd posture for one who tended toward quiet solitude or membership in the crowd of onlookers rather than the out-and-outers. Still, he was not complaining.
“Here is our situation.” It was Miss Ellie and not Miss Lancaster who began the telling. “My parents are single-mindedly determined to see me make a match with Mr. Jonquil, which I don’t particularly care to pursue.”
“No intelligent person would,” Miss Lancaster tossed in.
“And my sister is equally determined to pursue you, Mr. Hughes,” Miss Ellie said. “Unless I entirely misread the situation, you are not particularly keen on that.”
This was not the demure, quiet miss he’d interacted with thus far. There was a boldness to her no one would predict.
“Have I misunderstood your feelings for my sister?” Miss Ellie pressed.
“You have not.”
Far from offended on her sister’s behalf, Miss Ellie nodded. “I suspected as much. It seems the four of us are in something of a bind.”
“The five of us,” Newton corrected, drawing both their attention fully to him. “My father has latched on to the idea that Miss Lancaster would make me an excellent wife.”
Miss Lancaster snorted. “We would be terribly ill-suited.”
Indeed, they would. Newton enjoyed what he knew of Miss Lancaster, but he knew he would find her utterly exhausting were they to attempt to build any sort of life together.
“Our plan is even more ingenious than we realized.” Miss Ellie leaned the tiniest bit forward and addressed her remark across him to Miss Lancaster. “It will rescue you as well.”
His curiosity was thoroughly piqued but not the least satisfied. Part of him wondered how essential he actually was to this plan if they had already declared it a roaring success without informing him of any part of it.
“We would like to recruit you for a vague and entirely fabricated courtship.” Miss Ellie’s eyes shone with merriment and mischief. “Nothing pointed, nothing that would cause whispers or raise expectations, but enough time and attention that my parents would not push me to throw myself at Charlie and my sister would relax her efforts in your direction.”
That would certainly be an improvement.
“And, Mr. Hughes,” Miss Lancaster joined the explanation, “seeing your interest directed elsewhere might convince your parents not to push you to pursue anything but a friendly connection to me.”
He did like the escape they were offering, but his misgivings were plentiful. “This would require remarkable care. Should expectations be raised . . .”
“We have thought of that,” Miss Ellie said. Heavens, she was actually bouncing a little. The humdrum young lady he’d encountered at the ball had disappeared entirely, replaced by, if he did not miss his mark, one as capable of legendary mischief as Charlie in his Eton days. “If most of our time together, the two of us, is spent in the company of both Artemis and Mr. Jonquil, then people will never be entirely certain if our connection is truly a budding courtship or simply an extension of the four of us being friends.”
The four of us? Newton looked to Miss Lancaster. “Charlie has agreed to participate?”
“He has.”
“And does he know that—?” A careful tone seemed best when on such thin ice. “Is he aware you are part of the scheme?”
She grinned. “That did give him pause. But in the end, his wish to not see you miserable outweighed his utterly nonsensical animosity toward me.”
“You do enjoy poking at him,” Newton pointed out.
She pressed her free hand to her heart in a show of feigned innocence. “I would never do any such thing.”
“That is precisely the expert acting we will need if we are to be successful in this scheme,” Miss Ellie said.
“I am ready to dedicate myself to this absurdly entertaining venture,” Miss Lancaster said. “Will you take up the cause, Mr. Hughes?”
With this scheme, he could avoid Miss Napper’s trap, assist in Charlie’s escape from a similar situation, and perhaps loosen his parents’ grip on his future. “I believe I shall.”
“Excellent.” Miss Lancaster pulled her arm from his. “I am going to go speak a moment with Miss Carlton—she is a dear friend, one of a few here in Bath just now. The two of you continue your circuit of the room, and I will rejoin you after a time.”
Newton understood the strategy: he and Miss Ellie would be seen in each other’s company—exclusive company for a brief time—which would begin to lay the foundation of the ruse they were enacting without being the least shocking or inappropriate.
Miss Lancaster slipped away.
“She is a whirlwind, is she not?” Miss Ellie said.
Newton kept an eye on the crowd around them, not wishing to cause a collision, but also watched Miss Ellie more closely. There was a time for silence and a time for speaking up. The current moment called for the latter. “Please be fully honest with me, Miss Ellie. Do you truly wish to undertake this campaign? I would not want you to be bullied into anything of which you are not truly in favor.”
“I assure you, I am not being pressured into participation. Artemis and I hatched this scheme together.”
She was quite full of surprises. Newton’s interactions with her up until this one had given the impression of an almost excessively prim young lady, one who would most certainly not whip up a plan for a feigned courtship. “And you are not bothered by the deception, Miss Ellie?”
“Is not Society’s matrimonial dance one of deception?” she asked. “We are, at least, choosing to be honest with each other, something few would-be couples bother with.”
There was a great deal of truth in that.