by Ingrid Hahn
Lady Rushworth’s eyes narrowed. “I need you here.”
Eliza remained straight and calm. “Then it’s simple, isn’t it? We shall both be staying.”
The way she stood up to her mother, determined and resolute, was humbling. He should have known that first day they’d come to Idlewood when she’d executed that absurd plan to get the runaway lambs in the carriage. She took action, this one. She didn’t stand by and wait to be saved—she wasn’t some damsel in distress.
Which made what had happened at the ball all the more puzzling. What did it take to spook a woman like Eliza? What was she hiding?
Why was this woman still a cipher to him? It made his blood pound with desperation to crack her open like a closed shell and peer inside. If only it were that simple.
“No. Not him. Not under my roof. After what he’s done to you…” Lady Rushworth gave Lord Bennington an icy glance. Her voice was brittle. “So far as I’m concerned, this man is the worst kind of traitor.”
“Worst kind of traitor, my lady?” Jeremy took a sip of his tea and spoke breezily, as if they were conversing about nothing more important than the weather. “Even after taking into consideration the depth of your feeling, that seems like a gross overstatement.”
Lady Rushworth made a look of disgust. “The Landon blood never fails to assert itself.”
“I’m a Landon, too, now, Mother.” Eliza refilled her tea.
“That’s remedied easily enough.” Lady Rushworth waved a hand, the gemstones crusting her fingers glinting in the light from the candles. “You will get an annulment. Or you will leave and I will never see you again.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It was midmorning and they were on their way to see friends for an informal musical gathering. When Eliza had invited him along, Jeremy had wanted to say no, but instead it had come out as a yes. Damn his tongue.
Lady Rushworth’s pronouncement had eaten at his insides all night long. He hadn’t visited Eliza’s room last night. Maybe that had been a mistake. It would have cemented things between them.
“There will be no annulment.” Jeremy could barely unclench his teeth enough to free the words from his jaw. The carriage jostled as the wheel found a rut.
Eliza turned her attention from the window and gave him a blank look. “I’m sorry?”
“There will be no annulment.”
“I never asked for one.”
He’d been stewing all night over his first meeting with Lady Rushworth since his marriage. It didn’t simply sit uncomfortably with him. The idea of an annulment had been clawing at his insides. “Your mother—”
“—has no say in the matter.”
“The last thing she said to you was that she never wanted to see you again. You were to leave and never return.”
“I know. But she says things in anger sometimes, and…”
The way Eliza sighed tore his heart in two. Nobody should have to excuse such behavior of another person. That a mother could say such a thing to her daughter—her only child—and the daughter be so resigned. It wasn’t right.
“It was a hell of a thing to say.” He winced at the poor language that had slipped out.
“We all say or do things we regret.” Her words were firm. “If we don’t forgive, how can we expect forgiveness ourselves?”
Jeremy didn’t like that logic—not for a moment. Oh, yes, it was exactly the sort of reasoning he aspired to himself. Except instead of merely aspiring to live by those words, as he did, Eliza actually seemed to embrace them without struggle. “That’s not how I was raised.”
“If I were to behave how I was raised, my lord…” Shaking her head, she laughed a knowing laugh. “Were you close to your father?”
The last thing he wanted to do was delve into that particular subject. Jeremy hedged. “I barely knew the man in any meaningful sense.”
“I think of my father every day.” A faraway look came to her eyes. Then a smile flashed over her face—bright and unstudied. The kind he rarely saw from her. “We had a game. For every time my mother said the word ‘disgraceful’ in our presence, he owed me a shilling.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“I still keep a mental tally in my head. And he’s been gone…” She bowed her head, voice softening. “Such a long time. Sometimes it feels like he’s been gone forever. Sometimes it feels like he might walk into the room at any moment.”
There was a long silence.
At last, Eliza looked up. “Why do we have to lose the people we love?”
But they’d arrived, and that put an end to the conversation. He didn’t know whether to be grateful or relieved. A few minutes later they were being shown into the music room at the Corbeau house in Mayfair.
The walls were creamy white, the ornate plaster ceiling high, and a few items of scrollwork were detailed in gold, though it had been treated with a restrained hand. Understated in the most elegant sort of way, subtly whispering to guests the reminder of the owner’s wealth without the vulgarity of outright boastfulness.
Their hosts were the only people in evidence. Lord and Lady Corbeau, of course—the countess being Jeremy’s cousin Grace. And Hetty.
Hetty’s face brightened at the sight of them. “I’m delighted you could come today.” She gave Jeremy a quick once-over. “Do you play or sing, my lord?”
“Neither with any degree of competency, I’m afraid.”
Grace gave him a puzzled look. “You play the violin, don’t you, cousin?”
“I haven’t touched an instrument for years.”
“No time like the present, though, is there?” Hetty beamed as she passed Jeremy a case.
He didn’t reach for it. “Forgive me, my lady, I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you, but couldn’t possibly.”
Then Eliza turned to him, her expression encouraging. “Pray do, my lord. I should like it very much.”
Hetty smiled. “There. You can refuse me, but you can’t very well refuse your wife, can you?”
For a fleeting second, he regretted having told Eliza about having once played. But the fact of the matter was—no, he most certainly could not refuse her. He took the instrument. It was as strange as it was wonderfully familiar. An old friend he hadn’t realized he’d missed, having been too stupidly busy with matters he’d considered more important.
Strange. At the moment they didn’t feel more important. In fact, he felt nothing if a little foolish for having abandoned everything he’d deemed superfluous in favor of things he’d thought deserved priority.
The last time he’d held one, he hadn’t been an earl. He opened the lid to the scent of rosin and wood polish. The instrument gleamed. He hummed an A and plucked the strings, tuning by ear—no easy task, but one that his music master had spent hours training him to be able to do effectively.
It had been too long. He had no intention of playing before these people.
Regardless, he pulled out the bow and tightened the screw to make the horsehair taut. Then he rosined aggressively.
The mere act of touching one of the things that had provided so much happiness during his childhood brought an unexpected comfort. The smells he’d known so well, the feeling of the instrument in his hands. And it was a convenient distraction while he ignored the warm interactions among the other people in the room.
In the years since his resolution to rise above the scandal, he’d disdained Society. Now he saw how wrong he was. Oh, he might have been right about the stuffy balls and insipid conversation. But he’d done a disservice to a great number of people by assuming that there was no more than a single kind of person to be found.
Maybe it had been the lie he’d had to believe to remain focused on the task he’d set himself.
A force beyond him drew his gaze to Eliza. If he hadn’t done everything he’d done, he might not have married her. They might never have met.
Imagining a life without Eliza brought a hollow ache to the center of his chest.
Hetty let out
a squeal of delight. “Fredericka!”
Corbeau’s sister ran to greet the young girl who entered the room—a rosy creature with large eyes and fair hair. Hetty took the newcomer by the hand and brought her to the group. “I’m so pleased your mother allowed you to come today, for you can meet my very great friends”—she introduced the girl, Miss Fredericka Chapman, to Eliza and Jeremy in turn—“and they can have the pleasure of hearing you sing.”
“My mother is coming, too, I’m afraid. She insisted. And him, of course.” Fredericka gave Hetty a flat look and lifted her eyes to the ceiling, shaking her head.
“Never you mind about that. We’re glad to see you. It’s been too long.” Hetty patted her friend’s hand. She had a way about her of boosting everyone’s spirits—quite an admirable woman. “Where are they?”
“If they found a crack in the earth and fell in, it would be—”
Two more people entered the room. With them, the mood shifted. Hetty’s smile, a minute ago so bright, became stiff. Corbeau’s stern look hardened, and Grace shot Fredericka a look of motherly concern.
The couple were introduced as Lady Tutsby, a slight woman with a crane’s neck and a long nose, and Sir Domnall Gow, a distinguished gentlemen of some years, impeccably groomed, with an air of insincere graciousness.
But it was Eliza’s reaction that put a shadow over Jeremy’s mood.
Taking one look at her, Sir Domnall’s mouth fell open. He recovered himself and dropped Lady Tutsby’s arm to cross the room. Presumably to greet Eliza.
Eliza turned her back on the man and moved close to Hetty and Fredericka, immediately engrossing them both in close conversation.
There was a quality to the paleness of her face that brought everything in his brain to a grinding halt as he stared, trying to discern what it was he saw. His Eliza was strong. Why did it look as if it took every ounce of willpower she could dredge from her veins to merely remain standing? What did it mean that her eyes had taken on so haunted a quality?
Something was terribly wrong.
Fear cut through Jeremy with the ease of a blade slitting the belly of a lamb. Icy rage burned in his veins. Jeremy would wager every scrap of respectability he’d fought, sweated, and bled to bring back to the Landon name that Sir Domnall—this smug, simpering, slippery excuse for a man—had a past with Eliza.
The very idea was too much. Instantly, his control began to slip. He stood on the edge of a dangerous precipice about to tumble forward—so close he was shaking.
It took a full five minutes before he was able to regain hold of himself.
Jeremy gently rested the violin on his chair and came to stand beside Grace. “How is Isabel?”
Grace smiled. “She’s very well, I thank you. I take it you haven’t yet been to see your mother since you’ve returned to London?”
Isabel was only nominally his mother’s companion. Discovering her in a gaming hell had caught him completely unawares. He’d wanted her to leave—immediately—and she’d told him she had a duty to pay her father’s debts to the house. That his uncle had had more debts than the acknowledged ones Jeremy was already paying—secret debts that his beautiful cousin was being forced to pay by working in that place… He had not taken the news well. They’d had a bit of a row over the business. One that, in the end, had accomplished nothing. She’d stayed, the stubborn woman.
“No, I haven’t seen my mother yet.” But now he needed her. If anyone could find out anything about Sir Domnall, it would be Isabel. Asking her would save him from having to hire a runner. “I will pay her a call tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eliza had to work unusually hard to concentrate on the afternoon’s activities. Usually, music was a welcome reprieve from the harsh realities of the world. In this particular instance, however, it was a strain. Sir Domnall was too near. And Lord Bennington seemed to suspect something. Or was it her guilty conscious making her fancy seeing things that weren’t there?
All she had to do was glance over to Fredericka, and her determination to see this through won out over her desire to run away from the newly opened wounds of her shameful past. She knew what Sir Domnall was capable of—and she would keep it that way. Fredericka should never have to endure what Eliza had.
Studying the girl was like stepping back in time for a view of what she herself had been like, once upon a time. The headstrong opinions, the vivacity, the fierce determination that nobody would see beyond the hard exterior to the inner confusion and hurt.
However, there was a critical difference. The summer Eliza had been fourteen, she’d been alone. She’d wanted to invite friends to stay with them, but she’d been too ashamed of her parents. She hadn’t wanted anybody to know how they behaved like angry, willful children.
Then what she’d done had spiraled her more deeply into shame—a different kind. One that stripped her of critical pieces of herself, transforming her into a sullen creature.
That could not happen to Fredericka. The girl wasn’t alone in the danger she would never know existed.
Climbing into the carriage, the full weight from the strain of the afternoon was upon Eliza’s shoulders. They were stiff and tight, as if she were sixty-two instead of six and twenty.
“I wasn’t aware you had such a beautiful soprano, my lady.”
“I’ve always enjoyed singing.” Eliza focused on her husband. The day was dimming, and the enclosed carriage cast his face into shadow. “But you didn’t play for us.”
“I…thought about it. But I’m afraid it’s too late for me to take up music again.”
She started. “Forgive me, my lord, but that’s an absurd thing to say. If that was your philosophy, Idlewood would still lie in ruin. You turned it around in a mere ten years.”
He waved a hand. “I had no choice.”
“You gave yourself no choice. There is an enormous difference.”
For a minute, it seemed as if he would argue with her. Then he relaxed, his eyes searching her face for something she couldn’t perceive. “You’re right, of course.”
They continued in silence for a spell. Abruptly, the earl intruded on the quiet calm of the sound of the carriage wheels over the Mayfair streets. “Did something upset you this afternoon?”
He had noticed. She’d have to work harder at hiding her inner feelings. “Of course not.”
Her conscience prickled at the lie. But it was for the best.
For the best…something she’d told herself for a long time about any number of things. For the best that she stayed with her mother. For the best that she was alone with her secret. For the best that she hadn’t married Captain Pearson—although in that case, it absolutely had been for the best.
“Are you prone to melancholy, my lady?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were, you know. There is no shame in it.”
She tilted her head at him. “That’s an odd thing to say.”
He paused. “My mother”—his voice went raspy—“she, well, for a long time…I mean there are some…I mean, I don’t see it as a character flaw. It’s foolish for anyone to believe otherwise.”
He stared out the window, expression intensely concentrated.
Eliza wanted to reach for him. There was something tender in that difficult and complicated exterior. She knew all too well the pain of isolation. Lord Bennington was a great many things. A man without a heart, he was certainly not. Under different circumstances, she might have wanted to believe there was hope of her being able to carve out a small niche for herself inside that heart.
It could never be. Women with the stain of a sin as heinous as the one that sullied her didn’t get second chances.
…
The following morning, at about the time his mother usually had finished her letters and descended to take breakfast, Jeremy rapped on her door and was shown in.
There was something about sharing the first meal of the day that Jeremy particularly liked. It was
an intimate setting, yet relaxed. And people were generally in better spirits when there was food to be had.
His mother, Mrs. Landon, was indeed in the breakfast room, reading a newspaper over a light meal of bread and jam. Beside her, Isabel gave him a cool nod. His cousin was possessed of the sort of will that could have bent steel. By day she was no more than his mother’s companion, and very seldom, if ever, in company. By night, she was the famed Beauty of Faro.
“Fix yourself a plate, my love.” He leaned down to his mother, and she stretched her neck to meet him as he placed a kiss on her cheek. “Have you heard from Arthur lately?”
No matter what, no matter where, Arthur was always the first topic of conversation. Jeremy didn’t resent the attention. His brother had given his mother pain from about the time he’d turned fifteen or sixteen. In a way, she grieved.
At the sideboard, Jeremy fixed himself a plate, not asking if she’d seen her younger son when their time in Bath overlapped, because he already suspected the answer was no.
“He came to the wedding.” Jeremy sat. “He’s tolerably well, I suppose. You know how he is.”
“Yes, I know.” That drew a sad sigh. She always said approximately the same things about her second son. “Poor lost boy. I do hope he finds his way. He was such a happy child. I would give anything to help him, but he has to want it first, doesn’t he?”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Mrs. Landon’s cool hand reached out to pat his, and she gave him a wistful smile. It was as if she was acknowledging everything between them that neither could say.
Then she peered at his plate with open disapproval. “Is that all you’re going to have? Only meat?”
“It’s what I like. And no. It’s not all I’m going to have.” At precisely that moment, a footman set coffee before Jeremy. He raised the china cup in a little toast to his mother. She tsked and, shaking her head, went back to her own food.
The comfortable familiarity was still something he cherished. Growing up, he’d never thought to achieve this. Never considered it, really. He’d thought her fragile. Broken. It was still painful to think about, even so many years later, as the tightening in his chest reminded him.
