“I believe you may be right, Miss Ellsworth,” Cordelia agreed as she stepped closer to Walter. “Forgive us, Mr. Townsend. I certainly never meant to cause you any discomfort.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Miss Lowe,” Walter began. “I assure you, I haven’t taken offense.”
“How gracious of you,” Tillie said, edging closer to him, which resulted in her edging out Cordelia. “Allow me to redirect the conversation to something less contentious. While you’ve assured us you didn’t suffer any repercussions from saving Miss Brinley, may I dare hope the same for Mr. Higgenson?”
Before Walter could respond, Cordelia wiggled between him and Tillie, craned her neck, and gestured to something in the distance. “It appears Mr. Higgenson is in fine form, considering he’s now engaged in what appears to be an intense discussion with Miss Brinley.”
Walter turned to where Cordelia was gesturing and discovered Gwendolyn and Clarence sitting in the shade of the boulder, their heads together and looking quite oblivious to anything around them.
Tillie sucked in a sharp breath. “On my word but I now find myself wondering if Miss Brinley’s drowning was intentional, a ploy, if you will, conceived by Mrs. Parker to assure her assistant matchmaker received some unbridled attention from one of the most eligible bachelors of the Season.”
“If it was,” Cordelia said, “it was a very clever ploy on Mrs. Parker’s part.”
Tillie’s jaw set. “That’s hardly fair. I know for fact Mrs. Nelson, my sponsor this Season, will not appreciate learning about the underhanded tactics Mrs. Parker is using to give her charges an unfair advantage on the marriage mart.”
Cordelia released a snort, causing Elizabeth to begin eyeing her quite like she’d lost her mind, as if snorting was taking matters too far, even though the conversation at large had taken on an unexpected and slightly contentious tone. “As if Mrs. Nelson didn’t encourage you, Miss Wickham, to sabotage my prospects this Season by smashing a tennis ball into my face.”
Tillie’s eyes flashed with temper. “I didn’t intentionally hit you, and I resent your suggesting otherwise. Perhaps you should strive to improve your tennis game. Because that, and that alone, was responsible for you taking a ball to the face.”
“You know I’m a formidable player, just as you know you deliberately took that shot when I was distracted by a duck that unexpectedly flew across the court.”
Not wanting to be swept up in a drama he never imagined he’d be a witness to between society ladies from two of the oldest upper-crust families in the country, Walter took a few experimental steps backward, pivoted on his heel, and when no one tried to stop him, strode off down the beach, moving at a pace just shy of a run. He made it a good fifty feet before he noticed Clarence charging across the sand and disappearing around a bathing hut a moment later.
Walter’s gaze darted to Gwendolyn, who was calmly dusting sand from her bathing costume, quite as if the conversation she’d just shared with Clarence had not sent him dashing away from her.
Curiosity prodded him in her direction.
“What did you do to poor Clarence?” he asked when he reached her side.
She stopped dusting herself off and wrinkled her nose. “There’s no need to take that tone with me, Walter. It’s not as if I did anything dastardly to the man.”
“He just raced across the beach as if a pack of wild animals was chasing him.”
She bent over, plucked a seashell from the sand, looked it over, then tucked it into her pocket. “His rate of speed only goes to prove how anxious he was to rectify a grave mistake he made, one concerning Mrs. Lanier, or darling Michele as he prefers to call her.”
“Oh no, you didn’t . . . ?”
“Encourage him to find some gumption, profess his love to his darling Michele, and then ask her to forgive him for nonsensical behavior?” She nodded. “Oh yes I did, proving I, contrary to your opinion, am on my way to becoming a most excellent assistant matchmaker.”
“Encouraging Clarence to abandon what’s expected of him to pursue a forbidden love, given that society frowns on unions between gentlemen and divorced ladies, proves you have no business being a matchmaker, assistant or otherwise. If he doesn’t come to his senses, he’s guaranteed to bring scandal to the Higgenson family. It would have been more beneficial to him if you’d convinced him Miss Hannah Howe would make him an excellent wife.”
“That wouldn’t have been beneficial for him or Miss Howe, and especially not better for Mrs. Lanier, who, from what Clarence told me, adores him.”
Walter raked a hand through his hair. “On the contrary, it would have been better for everyone involved.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, because Clarence, after a mere three minutes of my questioning him, blurted out he’s hopelessly in love with Michele and cannot imagine a life without her.”
He scratched his nose. “Perhaps, instead of an assistant matchmaker, you should consider a job with the Pinkertons. They’d probably relish the opportunity to hire a lady capable of getting a man to confess in under five minutes.”
“It wasn’t as if I was brutally interrogating the man until he folded. After he told me he thought he and Miss Howe would rub along nicely together, I merely told him that was complete rubbish, and that a gentleman should expect more out of marriage than simply being able to claim they married a woman of good social standing.”
“But gentlemen of society don’t marry ladies who’ve been divorced.”
“Is that written in one of those society manuals?” Gwendolyn shot back, holding up a hand when he opened his mouth to reply. “Don’t bother telling me if it is. I’ll only be more disillusioned with society than I already am. But returning to what you see as a lack of competency on my part, my encouraging Clarence to seize the day and go after his love is exactly what matchmakers should do.”
“Not if it ruins the reputation of someone in the process, that someone being Clarence.”
She plucked another shell from the sand, considered it, then tossed it aside. “I would hope Clarence’s reputation can survive something as trivial as marrying for love, because what you don’t seem to be grasping is that being madly in love with a woman is not the type of love a gentleman ever forgets. Because I’ve decided to take my position as an assistant matchmaker seriously, prodded into that decision by you, I would have been doing Miss Howe and Clarence a grave disservice.”
“I have no idea how I could have possibly goaded you into taking your position seriously. I’ve been doing my best to dissuade you from your current occupation because I’m of the firm belief you’re not qualified to be an assistant matchmaker.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’ve been very clear about your opinions regarding my matchmaking skills, and I’ve taken your skepticism as a direct challenge, one I intend to win. I’m very competitive, you see.”
“My skepticism was never meant to challenge you. It was meant to encourage you to abandon your current profession.”
She dismissed that with a wave of a sand-encrusted hand. “You’re only trying to get me to abandon matchmaking because you want me to take up the role of governess—something that’s never going to happen.”