by Louise Clark
He reached for her hand and kissed it once more. “Fear not, my dearest lady, I am resolute. It would take more than a pair of blackguards to turn me from my path.” His lips turned up in the insouciant grin she loved so much and her heart did a little flip. He was so very dear to her.
“Mr. Byrne!” her mother said. Her voice was frosty. Though Andrew was a head taller, she managed to look down her aristocratic nose at him. “You forget yourself. Mary Elizabeth, we must return to your father. Do you have something you wish to say to Mr. Byrne?”
She almost said no. Then she sighed. “Andrew…”
Her mother cleared her throat.
“Andrew,” Mary Elizabeth said again. This time she stared deliberately into his eyes, then flicked her gaze toward her mother before she began again. “Mr. Byrne, I am sorry to say that I cannot speak with you again. I believe we must part.” Another flick of her gaze toward her mother. “Forever.”
His dark brows met in a quick frown. “You do not wish to receive my courtship any longer?”
She carefully arranged her features into the saddest expression she could manage without her mother protesting. “I—It is necessary. You understand, do you not?”
“No, I do not,” he said. He cast an angry glance at her mother. “However, I am not surprised, given your father’s frosty reception to my request for your hand.”
“We wish you good day, Mr. Byrne,” Lady Elizabeth said curtly. “Come, Mary Elizabeth. We will not remain here to listen to this young upstart disparage your father.” She caught Mary Elizabeth’s elbow and turned her toward their carriage where George Strand and Colonel Bradley waited.
She had one last chance. “Andrew—” Surely, he would see the despair and desperation in her expression and know that she was being coerced.
Her mother tugged her arm, frowning prodigiously.
Glancing from her to her mother, his eyes widened as he suddenly realized the message she was trying to convey. He nodded, then said in a low voice that only she could hear, “Be well, sweetheart.”
Her heart swelled. “I’ll wait for you, Andrew,” she whispered, choking back a sob as her mother towed her toward the carriage.
Chapter 4
The carriage lurched over yet another rut, jarring everyone inside. Mary Elizabeth gritted her teeth and thought, not for the first time, that it would have been much easier to walk to and from church. The day was beautiful and sunny, the temperature not too hot. Her father, however, believed that walking would diminish their status in this small community. Servants, he said, walked. Their masters did not. So the Strand family endured the rutted road home.
Lady Elizabeth had kept the conversation flowing. She was doing it, Mary Elizabeth knew, to allow her to regain her composure after the emotional conversation with Andrew. She was also doing it to show her daughter what a fine catch Colonel Bradley was.
He was certainly well-bred, holding up his end of the conversation Lady Elizabeth initiated with a quiet ease. Several times Mary Elizabeth caught her mother looking at her with a glance that said, ‘See what a charming man he is? The kind of man who would make a woman an excellent husband.’ She also felt the colonel’s thoughtful gaze on her several times. She tried to ignore it, but she knew the man was trying to read her emotions, to decide if she was as willing to receive his advances as, no doubt, her parents had said she was.
The carriage ride seemed interminable. The conversation inevitably had to include Mary Elizabeth, even though she didn’t want it to. “Mary Elizabeth was able to enjoy several weeks in London last year while we were visiting my brother, the earl, and his family,” Lady Elizabeth said.
At that, Colonel Bradley smiled. “How did you enjoy the city, Miss Strand? I am desolated to say that I was stationed abroad at the time. I would have liked to have shown you the sites.”
Lady Elizabeth answered for Mary Elizabeth, bestowing an approving smile on him. “Your escort would have been much welcomed, Colonel, particularly by my brother, who said that there was little in London to hold one’s attention beyond the fashionable salons of the beau monde.”
Mary Elizabeth’s memory of her uncle was of a portly man who didn’t like to be bothered with anything that didn’t provide him with his own entertainment. Still, she couldn’t say that to a stranger like Colonel Bradley. “The parties were quite magnificent, sir. We regularly were out half the night and slept the day away as a consequence.” She smiled at him. “Quite different from my usual schedule.”
He smiled back. In fact, he chuckled sympathetically as if he found her observation quite entertaining. “I have heard my mother and sisters complain that the fashionable season can be exhausting. Yet they love it and insist on joining my father in town when he is there to deal with matters in Parliament.”
“Your father is elected to the House of Commons?” Mary Elizabeth asked. She knew nothing of Colonel Bradley’s family, only that her parents approved of him.
“The Lords,” her father ground out.
Colonel Bradley smiled gently. “My father is the Viscount Camberly. He is a friend of your uncle’s. Indeed, your mother’s family and mine have a long history of alliances.”
The word hovered in the coach, simple, but ambiguous. “Alliances, Colonel Bradley?” she asked. The question came out breathlessly, because her heart was racing with dismay. Was the man proposing to her? Here? In the jostling coach, in front of her parents?
“Why yes, Miss Strand. Their political beliefs tend to coincide and I know that your grandfather and mine worked together to ensure important bills were passed.”
Her heartbeat slowed down and she stopped feeling as if she couldn’t breathe. “Of course,” she murmured. Her father shot a sardonic look her way. She pressed her lips together. She’d had enough of this conversation.
“I believe my husband said that you have been offered a position in the Horse Guards after your mission here is completed?” Lady Elizabeth remarked, when it was clear that Mary Elizabeth had nothing more to say.
The colonel inclined his head slightly. “Indeed, my lady, you are correct.” He turned his gaze back to Mary Elizabeth. “When you are next in London, Miss Strand, I will be able to escort you to the park or to see the sites. And I hope that you will allow me to dance with you at the many balls.”
Mary Elizabeth managed a slight, smile. It would certainly be a change from her only Season. She’d spent all those hours at fashionable parties standing on the edge of the dance floor overhearing the other debutantes gossip that she was nothing but a vulgar colonial, while their mothers whispered behind their fans about how sadly forthright she was, not to mention that she was quite on the shelf. She’d even heard one grand lady say that there was nothing a man found quite so dull as an assertive, intelligent woman.
While Mary Elizabeth liked the idea of being defined as intelligent, she hated being the object of speculation and derision. So she spent the parties and grand balls standing apart. No young men asked her to dance and no one asked for her hand, much to both her father’s and her uncle’s annoyance. A waste, of his time, her uncle had complained. Later, her father, writing from America, chastised her for not making suitable use of the investment he had made in her future.
Except that the future he had invested in wasn’t the one Mary Elizabeth wanted. She was one and twenty years old. Her family had come to America when she was only four and ten. In the years before the family left England she had spent most of her time in a select school for girls and had seen her parents very little. The school had been pleasant enough. She was the granddaughter of an earl, which gave her more rank that some of the girls in the school, but less than others. Still, she hadn’t been picked on or ostracized. She’d enjoyed learning, but had made no close friends.
Then her father had decided that he would bring both his wife and daughter to the colonies with him and she’d come to Boston. Instead of a school, she’d had a tutor for her lessons and her mother to teach her how to manage a household.
She and her mother had become close, though her relationship with her father remained cool. She met and became friends with the daughters of prominent Bostonians. While her father associated with men who were committed to retaining British rule, she found the American girls friendlier and more open. They were also far more forthright English ladies of her acquaintance and far more likely to express their views and take a stand on an issue.
It was a trait Mary Elizabeth loved, but one that brought her into conflict with her father far too often. Eventually, he decided it was time she wed and she was sent home to England for the wretched Season.
It didn’t take several months in overheated London ballrooms for Mary Elizabeth to know her own mind. She’d grown into a woman in the colonies and she had discovered that she thrived in the freer society. She didn’t want to return to England. Nor did she want a marriage within the English aristocracy with a man who cared nothing for his wife or what she believed in.
No. She wanted Andrew. She wanted to marry him, to create a life together with him. Here. In America.
The carriage turned ponderously into the lane leading up to the house. Mary Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. The strained conversation would soon be over. She would be sent back to her room to serve out the punishment her father had meted out to her. She welcomed it. The solitude of her bedroom would be a welcome relief to the subtle pressure of the colonel’s courtship.
It was the colonel who handed her down from the coach. She thanked him with a polite smile and a slight curtsey. After they entered the house, she headed for the stairs, knowing she must return to her chamber.
“You will join us for the mid-day meal in one hour, Mary Elizabeth,” her father said.
She looked at him, wide-eyed.
“See that you are not tardy,” he said, his tone sharp, his words a brisk command.
She fought down a momentary panic. It was only lunch, after all. She shouldn’t be surprised that her father would provide Colonel Bradley another opportunity to court her. She lowered her eyes and curtseyed again. “Yes, sir.”
The luncheon was a substantial repast. George Strand had brought a French trained chef with him to America, so the many courses were more like those served in an aristocratic household in England, than in an American one. The first course was a smooth and savory beef bouillon. That was followed by at fresh-caught trout, pan-fried with thyme and lemon. The meat was roasted lamb, served with a mint sauce. At the end of the meal, cheese and biscuits followed a fresh baked apple tart. Mary Elizabeth ate heartily, not sure when she would next enjoy a feast such as this. There were a few times when she noticed the colonel watching her with raised eyebrows, but she didn’t care.
The conversation at the table flowed steadily thanks to her mother. They discussed the current political situation in the colonies and Mary Elizabeth was not surprised to learn that the colonel held similar views to her father. The colonists needed to be taught a lesson, he said at one point and she thought how much fun Andrew and his friends would have had with a comment like that one. They would not allow it to pass without a response, she was sure. She considered asking why it was so important to suppress the aspirations of the colonists, rather than treating them as equals and allies, but knew that she would be thoroughly denounced if she did. So, she remained silent and continued to fill her belly with delicacies while she could.
When the meal was over, her mother remarked the afternoon was so fine that the colonel and Mary Elizabeth should take a turn about the garden.
Mary Elizabeth frowned. “But, I thought—” She expected to be banished to her room. This change in scenario was bringing butterflies to life in her stomach.
“I should be delighted if you would walk with me,” the colonel said.
“Of course, she will,” her father said. He shot Mary Elizabeth a cold look she interpreted to mean she should remember her place.
“Yes, of course.” She agreed, but all those warning butterflies were telling her this stroll did not bode well.
They stepped onto the terrace at the back of the house that led to the gardens. As they walked down the stairs onto a graveled path, Bradley took her hand and settled it on his arm. He held it there with his hand over hers as they strolled. “Your father has very kindly allowed me the opportunity to speak privately to you.”
That was true. They were out of earshot of the house, even though they were in full view of her parents, who were sitting on the terrace. “It is a very pleasant afternoon,” she said, rather desperately trying to keep the conversation to unremarkable topics.
The colonel wasn’t about to play along. “My father has reached old age and his health is no longer as robust as it once was. I am a second son, but my brother does not enjoy good health either.”
He paused and Mary Elizabeth took the opportunity to leap in. “I fear that you must worry about your family, Colonel Bradley. I trust that your brother regains his health.”
The colonel stared ahead. “Thank you. Your warm heart speaks well of you. I do not expect—That is to say, I believe that my wife will one day be Lady Camberly. As such it is important that I marry into a good family, although at the moment my prospects are only those of a serving officer and younger son.”
“You…You are very practical about the subject of marriage, Colonel.”
“As I must be.” They had reached the end of the garden. Here the path rounded an ornamental bush. While they made the turn, they would be obscured from the prying eyes of her parents on the terrace. He stopped and shifted so that they were facing each other. “My brother’s ill health is not widely known. As well, he may yet marry and sire children. My accession to the title is not guaranteed. An alliance with your family would benefit me and marriage to me is perhaps a better match than you might expect, having spent so many years here in the colonies.”
When he first began this speech, Mary Elizabeth thought that he was complimenting her, but by the time he was finished she realized what he really meant. “You have not been able to find a wife high enough to suit you and your aspirations, have you, Colonel Bradley?”
His face flushed scarlet. “I am offering you the chance to marry well and perhaps to gain a title. I have nothing to apologize for.”
“No.” Sadness and perhaps resignation filled her. “You are asking me to settle, as you have decided you must settle, for second best.”
Anger sparked in his eyes. “I assure you, madam, that I have done nothing of the sort.”
“Then you are very fortunate, Colonel. I, on the other hand, do feel that marriage to a man I hardly know and one I do not love, would surely be settling for less than I deserve and desire.”
“The American,” he said, his tone clipped.
She lowered her eyes, but didn’t respond. He was an officer in the army, after all. He could easily make life very difficult for Andrew if he so desired.
“Your father informed me a jumped-up colonist had set his cap for you. The effrontery!”
She looked into his face and realized that he would use the excuse of another man to ease his damaged pride. The danger to Andrew seemed to grow with each passing moment. “I have no desire to be a titled lady, or to live on a great estate in England and be a member of the beau monde. I am happy here, in the colonies. It is where I feel most comfortable, most at ease with myself.”
Relief chased affront from his expression and a smile lightened his face. “I have pressed my suit too ardently, too quickly. You need time to reflect. I understand that. I shall not ask for your hand as I had planned, nor will I demand an answer. Not today. But I assure you, sweet lady, I will not value you any the less.”
His reaction wasn’t exactly what Mary Elizabeth wanted to hear, but at least he was no longer focused on Andrew as a rival. That meant Andrew was safe, at least for the moment.
They strolled back to the house. Mary Elizabeth had her hands clasped in front of her; the colonel’s were behind his back. As they mounted the stairs to the terrace Mar
y Elizabeth saw that her father was frowning.
“What news?” he said, scrutinizing them both from beneath his brows.
“Miss Strand is a very charming young lady,” Bradley said. “But I fear she has no desire to live in England. I hope to convince her otherwise, however.”
“How very kind of you, Colonel,” her mother said brightly, but her eyes were wary.
Her father’s frown turned into a glare. “Mary Elizabeth, a moment in my study, if you please.”
“Yes, Papa.” She knew what the visit to the study meant. She was being banished to her room again after a lecture on the evils of refusing the Colonel’s offer of marriage. She turned to Bradley. “Colonel, it has been a pleasure meeting you.” She didn’t add that she hoped he would be gone by the time she was allowed out of her room.
The colonel smiled and bowed. “The pleasure is all mine, dear lady.”
Her heart sank. He had the look of a man who had made a decision.
And it wasn’t the one she wanted.
Chapter 5
As Andrew watched George Strand’s large, ponderous coach lumber away from the church, he realized the man’s desire to rise within the ranks of the elite would mean he would never allow his daughter to marry a colonist.
In that moment when Mary Elizabeth and Colonel Bradley had emerged from the church looking like a newly wedded couple, his heart had fallen to the pit of his stomach. Her clumsy attempt to convince him that she no longer wanted to marry him, combined with her cautious glances at her mother, had relieved him of that worry. She had obviously spoken the words under duress. She was as much his today as she had been before he asked her father for her hand.
So how to overcome the obstacle of her father? By law, the man had every right to choose his daughter’s husband. However, society was changing. To coerce a daughter into an unwanted marriage was becoming less common. Still, it did happen.
