Page 30 of The Austen Affair

“I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked he’s like this.” Hugh chuckles, still gazing at George in wonder. “It’s from his melodramatic genes that three generations of semisuccessful BBC actors will eventually spring.”

“Three generations?” I ask, intrigued against my will.

“Three,” Hugh says. “My grandfather was the first in our family to get bitten with the acting bug. He spent thirty years popping up in minor roles on Coronation Street, Poirot, and various Dickens television adaptations. George would have been his great-grandfather. I guess that’s not so far back that some little vestiges of personality and interests wouldn’t have been passed down and remembered. ”

I cannot play this game with him today. I can’t have sweet, melancholy discussions about inheritance and family and love. Not when my blood buzzes with spite and all I want is to flick him in the ear. “Hugh—”

“I need to tell you something,” Hugh says suddenly, interrupting me.

I fall immediately silent, waiting for him to confess to his liaison with Cecelia Crawford.

“I wasn’t sure whether to tell you,” Hugh says, brows furrowed. “But I don’t know what to do about it, and I think you would. You always seem to know what to do in social situations and I—I am utterly useless. So I’m rather hoping you have the magic fix.”

I arch a brow at him, wondering exactly how he thinks I am going to fix him deflowering a young lady of gentle breeding.

“Last night,” Hugh says slowly, as if choosing his words very carefully, “Miss Crawford came to visit me in my bedroom.”

It takes everything in me not to respond with “ I know. ” But I let Hugh keep going undisturbed.

“She was very angry with me,” Hugh says, and I see an actual spark of fear behind his eyes. “She definitely thinks I’m my uncle, and—how’s this for a twist in the plot?—five years ago, she and he secretly promised themselves to each other before he went to war.”

My mouth falls open. “You’re fucking with me.”

Hugh shakes his head, insistent. “I am not. I wish I was. I tried to explain to her that I have a head injury and amnesia, the same old chestnut we used before, but it did not take. She thinks I’m faking it to get out of an engagement with her in order to marry you.”

My jaw has already dropped as far as it can go, but were that not the case, it would drop farther.

For a second, my old vanity flares up and my cheeks go pink with pleasure.

Me? Pretty Cecelia Crawford thinks a man would abandon her to chase little old me ?

But then I shake this arrogant thought away and remember that this situation is extremely serious.

Hugh’s story picks up tempo as his anxiety begins to spiral, but he keeps his voice hushed nonetheless.

“And I don’t have a clue what to do! She gave me such a deserved dressing-down, at least from her perspective.

It’s plainly evident to me that she and my great-uncle did have a secret understanding that he would wed her when he returned from war.

She had years of his love letters in hand.

Obviously, he intended to be faithful to her, considering how long he wrote.

This man was not Willoughby, to jilt Marianne.

He was a good, decent fellow. And just by existing here under his identity I stained my ancestor’s memory and cracked her faith in humanity! ”

My heart is palpitating with confusion and shock—but all the same, my blood races with a fervent relief.

Hugh didn’t sleep with that woman, which means I have no reason to be angry with him.

But this is truly the most dreadful wrinkle to our stay here.

My unfounded anger at Cecelia washes away in a wave of sadness on her behalf.

I hate to think that this woman, who may have recovered from the tragic but understandable loss of her fiancé to war on the continent, might now never bounce back from the belief he had betrayed her.

“Oh God,” I whisper, almost breathless. “That’s just… that’s just super fucked up, isn’t it?”

“You took the words out of my mouth,” Hugh says, tone extremely dry. “So what do we do to fix it?”

“You’re asking me ?”

“Of course I’m asking you,” Hugh says, quite earnest. “I am hardly the expert in social interaction. Let’s be honest: I do have the tendency to ruin everything I touch.”

I shift over to close the small gap between us, threading my arm with his and lacing our fingers together. “Take this from an expert in the subject: you don’t ruin things, Hugh.”

Hugh gives a rueful laugh. “If you truly think that, you haven’t known me long enough.

I’ve been this way as long as I can remember.

Charlotte knew it. Everyone at drama school knew it.

Even my classmates at Eton knew it, and at least at Eton every move was so scheduled and regimented I could hide behind that to a degree.

Every time I talk to people, I feel like there’s an unwritten script that everyone else knows by heart.

Like the director sent out updated sides and mine were never delivered.

Meanwhile, I’m left to blunder through each conversation to the best of my limited ability, usually giving offense even where it is not intended. ”

Suddenly, I see every interaction I’ve ever had with Hugh in another light. “So…” I say, “when you told me I had sap on my dress?”

“I was genuinely trying to be helpful.” Hugh groans, grimacing as he tilts his head onto my shoulder. “I can see, in hindsight, how that could be interpreted as rude. And I am very sorry.”

I tighten my grip on his hand. “Well, it’s very sweet that you asked me for help. It makes me feel like we’re a team. I like being on a team.”

Hugh keeps his head exactly where it is, slotted comfortably into my shoulder. “Then what do we do, teammate?”

I sigh, keenly aware there is no easy answer. “I think we both know that some problems can’t be wrapped up neat and tidy. Can’t be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. And in the absence of fixing this problem for Cecelia, I think there’s only one thing we can do.”

“What’s that?”

“Be kind.” Then, thinking about it for another second, I add, “And hope that Dr. Beckworth sends us an electrical machine sooner rather than later. Perhaps Cecelia’s wound would be quicker to heal if we weren’t here pouring salt in it.”

Hugh nods, and I can see the gears in his mind whirring as he consults the research archives in his mind. “He should have gotten our letter by now. Mail delivery was quite reliable by this point in the century. Perhaps we’ll hear from him as soon as tomorrow.”

My stomach flip-flops at this news. “I’m kind of scared,” I admit.

“We don’t even know if this machine will work yet.

It feels like when I would wait for a big audition, you know?

The feeling that both outcomes are equally true: that this role could change my life or I could fall totally flat. And until I know which, it’s both.”

Hugh hums his agreement. “A sort of Schrodinger’s cat of anxiety. I know the feeling well. We’re either home free when the machine comes or it doesn’t work, and we’re left standing in the parlor with our hair sticking up, like two absolute knobs.”

I bump my shoulder gently against his. “At least we’ll be knobs together.”

“Together,” Hugh agrees. And within a few minutes of peaceful silence, he falls asleep.

I can hardly believe it. An hour ago I was furious with him.

Now I’m watching him breathe peacefully against my shoulder, and all that keeps me from kissing his forehead is the knowledge that moving would wake him up.

Now, with both Balfour “brothers” napping on either side of me, I spend a little time recalibrating everything I know about Hugh.

I’m starting to realize I am not dealing with anyone at all like the handsome, collected, acclaimed dreamboat I’d first imagined.

He’s not cool. He’s not conceited. He’s a stack of anxieties and defense mechanisms in a trench coat.

And I like him so much better this way.

I don’t think either of us got much sleep last night.

It’s clear Hugh was spinning out about the Cecelia situation just as much as I was freaking out about the idea of them sleeping together.

I drift off for a few minutes there, too, and when I wake up, Hugh’s head is no longer on my shoulder.

We’ve moved in our sleep and now he’s curled up on his side, his mouth not too far from my ear.

I roll over and check on George. He’s clutching one of his many pillows, shivering despite the blankets he’s tucked under.

I put my hand to his forehead and am shocked by the heat beneath my palm, as if precious George’s skin has become a raging furnace.

My heartbeat stutters. Frantic, I start shaking Hugh.

“Wake up. George’s fever is spiking. I don’t know what to do. ”