“I intend to get the process started, with your generous help," Damon replied. "And I will be forever indebted to you, William.
“Well, I wish you luck, my friend. It’s been a long time coming," Lord Sheffield said. "I only hope my daughter will receive you well. She’s been away at finishing school so she knows nothing about you or your quest while here in London, and we’ll leave it at that. How much time can you spare for courting?”
“A few days at most,” Damon said. “But judging from the reaction of the ladies aboard ship, a prince from the Punjab has an edge over London’s fops and dandies, and definitely over Lord Damon Ravencroft, if my infamous name followed me from India.”
“If it did, Elizabeth will have my assurance that Lord Ravencroft is a man of honor. You are still a man of honor aren’t you, Damon?”
“Where your daughter is concerned, I give you my word, William. But when do you intend to tell her who Prince Rao Singh really is?”
“Only when necessary," Lord Sheffield replied. "All females like to talk nineteen to the dozen, and it wouldn’t do for word to get out that Lord Damon Carlisle is roaming around on British soil, at least not until your solicitor has built a solid case for you.”
“I’m glad you see it that way," Damon said. "My half-brother had powerful friends who, even after his death, wouldn’t hesitate to tamper with documents in order to prove I’m not rightful heir to Westwendham."
“Well," Lord Sheffield said, "if Elizabeth accepts your hand, this will be behind you in the near future.”
“I hope so," Damon replied. "And I look forward to meeting Elizabeth.”
“I think you’ll find her not only a woman of rare and exotic beauty, but poised and gracious as well, now that she has completed finishing school." Lord Sheffield eyed Damon with an air of uncertainty. "However, I do need to explain the circumstances leading to her flight to India," he said, in a guarded tone. "In our correspondence I touched only lightly on it. I didn’t want to scare you off before speaking directly to you.”
Damon laughed. “You should know by now, William, that I don’t scare easily.”
“I know, but it would be dishonest of me to withhold from you Elizabeth’s motives for leaving school, as she did, the way she did.”
Damon looked at Lord Sheffield with interest. “Go ahead. Fill me in.”
Lord Sheffield steepled his fingers, drew in a slow breath, and said, “When Elizabeth was eight, and we were living at Shanti Bhavan, her mother did something that was so beyond the pale, I led Elizabeth to believe she had died. I also thought it best for Elizabeth to leave India, so I sent her to boarding school in London. But, when she was fourteen, her mother learned of Elizabeth’s whereabouts and wrote to her. When Elizabeth found out that her mother was alive and living in Calcutta, she was so angry with me that she left school, cropped her hair, signed onto a steamer as a busboy in the galley, and made her way to India, leaving me to assume that she’d been kidnapped from school. She didn’t contact me for several years. But when she did, I arranged passage for her return. She’s a very resourceful young woman, Damon, and not disobedient under normal circumstances. I’m sure you’d have no trouble with her as a wife.”
Damon shrugged. “No trouble at all. Every man wants a poised, gracious, rare and exotic run-away for a wife.” Seeing the worry in his friend’s eyes, Damon smiled and added, “Actually, William, she sounds fascinating.”
Lord Sheffield's brows gathered in a deep frown. “I don’t know whether fascinating is the right word to describe Elizabeth," he said, his thumb and index finger stroking his chin. "Maybe impulsive, though she’s not impulsive as a matter of course, only at rare times and under extreme circumstances.”
“I suppose that’s understandable,” Damon said.
Lord Sheffield smiled. “I’m relieved you feel that way. It’s not been easy finding a match for Elizabeth. I would not delve into her dubious behavior with any of her suitors, unless of course, they asked for her hand, in which case I'd have to tell them. I’m relieved you’re still open to the idea of taking Elizabeth as a wife. I had faith you would be, which is why I wrote to you about her. I’m glad it coincided with your plans to clear your name. I’m just sorry I cannot offer you my youngest daughter, Helen. She’s much more settled than Elizabeth. But I have to marry my eldest first. You do understand?”
“I do indeed," Damon replied. "I’m thankful you’d entrust either of your daughters to me. And you’re very generous with the dowry. It should more than cover the expenses needed to clear my name. And your offer to intercede in my behalf is greatly appreciated.”
“That’s because I know you are a man of honor who would be good to my daughter," Lord Sheffield said. "But there’s one thing more about Elizabeth.”
Damon gave Lord Sheffield a wry smile. “I’m beginning to think there’s a lot more to this woman than you’re revealing, which I suppose adds to her mystique. Go ahead.”
“Well, she also tends to be a bit more outspoken than a woman should be.”
Damon pondered another rare and exotic beauty who was too outspoken—a gypsy wench who absconded with his opal. Had it not been for the chit, he'd long since have returned to England, but not in the guise of an Indian prince. Nor would he have to resort to an arranged marriage and a woman’s dowry to clear his name.
The thought that he'd allowed a piece of gypsy fluff to dupe him not only once, but twice, still grated. Even while the memory of her passionate kisses and eager body clinging to him refused to let go. “I don’t have a problem with outspoken women,” he said. “And your daughter sounds intriguing. In the short time I’ve been in London, rubbing shoulders at the clubs while trying to ferret out information about my enemies, I’ve heard nothing but talk about the beautiful and mysterious Lady Elizabeth Sheffield who appeared on the London scene from out of nowhere. If she’s outspoken as well, I can handle that.”
“Good," Lord Sheffield said, "because it had me worried. She undoubtedly picked up the unladylike behavior while in India, though finishing school seems to have curbed that tendency. But since she tends to be a headstrong young woman, and I know you to be an honorable man, I give you permission to rein her in and modify her behavior as you see fit, though never with physical force, but with firmness and understanding.”
Damon leaned forward, and said, “I give you my word, William, I would never lay a cruel hand on your daughter. In any event, I’m glad she’s finally returned to you.”
“Yes, so am I," Lord Sheffield said, "though I regret to say, I could learn nothing about the family she claims to have lived with while in India. She’s determined to put that part of her life behind, and I could get nothing out of her before she left for finishing school. I leave it to you to ferret out that information, if it’s important for you to know.”
“It’s not," Damon assured him. "And maybe it’s best left at that. If she’s happy with her life now, you should feel blessed. She’s returned to you, and that’s what’s important.”
“Yes, I suppose," Lord Sheffield said, in a wistful voice. "And I’m sorry you won’t have a chance to meet her before her coming out ball, but she, along with my wife and younger daughter and everyone else in the household are busy with preparations, so it won’t be possible.”
“I understand. Nor can I take time," Damon said. "I have a lot to achieve in a short stay. If I am here too long, London’s bobbies will start asking questions about Prince Rao Singh and learn he doesn’t exist. In any event, I look forward to meeting Elizabeth at the ball. And I’ll do my best to make my way to the top of her list of suitors.”
Lord Sheffield rapped Damon on the shoulder. “Good luck, my friend. If anyone can capture her willful heart it would be you.
***
Elizabeth spun around in her white satin ball gown, sending the wide skirt with its numerous petticoats billowing out. “I feel like a giant bell,” she said, eyeing the gown with its puffs and satin ribbons and overlay of numerous tulle flounces.
“But you look like a princess,” Cora Sheffield replied, stepping back to admire her step-daughter. “You will be the sensation of the season.”
“I don’t know about that.” Elizabeth repositioned the small crown on her head. “I thought tiaras were not to be worn except in the presence of royalty.”
“You will be in the presence of royalty,” Cora said. “Your father has invited a prince from the Punjab in India, Prince Rao Singh. The prince is anxious to meet you.”
Elizabeth looked in the mirror, catching her step-mother’s eye. “That man! Why on earth did father invite him?”
Cora held her gaze. “Because the prince is looking for a wife.”
Elizabeth laughed lightly. “Then he’s looking in the wrong place. Besides, I’m only going through all of this coming out humbug to please Father. I do so want him to be proud of me,” she said, wistfully. Although her father had been good to her since she returned from India, their relationship was tenuous.
After fleeing Shanti Bhavan, she’d telegraphed him, and he'd arranged passage for her to England. When she arrived he’d been overjoyed to have her back. But then their relationship became strained. Years before, he had sold Shanti Bhavan to return to England to search for her, believing she’d been kidnapped. But when he learned she ran away from school and made her way to India to join her mother, not sending word of her whereabouts because she was angry, he'd been furious. Still, he refused to divulge anything about her mother, so she surmised that he was hiding something. Just as she was.
London society was still abuzz with speculation as to who, exactly, Elizabeth Sheffield was. So far, none pinned her to the fourteen-year-old girl who went missing years before, because at the time, her father was living in India. But if it was learned exactly how she'd survived while living in India, it would be the scandal of the season, and her father would have no chance making a match. So all she’d told him was that after her mother died, she worked for a British family for her keep.
Perhaps in time she'd return to Shanti Bhavan where buried memories had begun to surface and try to find her answers. But it was an unattainable dream as long as she was wanted for a murder she didn't commit. Nor would she tell her father about the opal. But she felt no remorse over taking a gem from a man who'd killed his brother to gain an inheritance. For now, she was resolved to remaining in England and marrying a man of her father's choosing. She only hoped that during the upcoming ball she'd make him proud, that being the woman he wanted her to be would help close the rift between them.
“Your father is proud of you, Elizabeth,” Cora said, “but you have to understand that running away like you did and sending no word of your whereabouts for years... well, it will take time for him to come to terms with that. But now that you are ready to take a husband and start a family, your father will be eager to be a part of all that. He missed seeing you grow up, so he won’t want to miss being a part of the next generation.”
Elizabeth tucked a vagrant curl into the upsweep of hair. “I’m not ready to marry yet. I’ve only just finished school,” she said, catching her step-mother’s eye in the mirror. “Having to mollify a husband sounds most unappealing at the moment.”
“Then you must find a man who doesn’t need mollifying,” Cora said, while straightening a flounce on Elizabeth’s dress, ”one who worships the ground you walk on and wants to spend his life treating you like a princess, in fact making you his princess.”
Elizabeth laughed heartily. “Like Prince Rao Singh, you mean. I’ve heard all about the man. Every eligible woman in London is talking about him. In fact, he’s subject for gossip with half the married women as well, though what I’ve heard they are saying about him would make a sailor blush. Why Father invited him here is beyond me.”
Cora stopped what she was doing and stared at Elizabeth's reflection in the mirror. “Whatever have you heard, and from whom?” she asked, eyes eager with interest.
Elizabeth felt heat creep up her face. “I can't repeat it. It's too embarrassing. Besides, what I heard came from my friend Nell, whose lady’s maid heard it from her friend, who was the lady’s maid for a certain countess, who had a tryst with the prince while aboard the ship crossing from India and raved to a certain baroness aboard—whose name I won’t mention—that the prince had—" Elizabeth stopped short.
“Go on. The prince had what? If the man is a potential suitor and husband for you, I’d like to know what’s being said about him... To tell your father, of course. So do tell.”
Elizabeth looked more closely at her step-mother and saw her face color, and knew Cora wanted the information on her own behalf. She loved a tidbit of gossip to pass on, if only to hear the collective gasps of shock from her lady friends. “Well, the countess said that the prince was very much a man—" she stopped short again, her face feeling as if on fire.
“Go on,” Cora urged, leaning toward the mirror, her lips parted in prurient interest. “Very much a man in what way?”
Elizabeth’s eyelids fluttered as she said, “Well, in the way that… men are men. You know, the way that they are different from women.” Fire burned like two embers in her cheeks and her hands came up to press the fire out.
Cora laughed. “Innocent lamb. Your father would be pleased to know you blush as any respectable lady should. As for the prince, I presume we're talking about his prowess in bed?”
Elizabeth’s hands fluttered away from her face like two restless butterflies. She reached for a silver hand mirror to still their nervous trembling. Although she had been bold beyond reason while in India, finishing school had curbed those ways. Her only goal now was to be the proper young lady her father hoped she had become. Catching Cora’s gaze in the mirror, she nodded vaguely, and replied, “Well, yes.”
“I think I know exactly the countess in question,” she said, lips quivering with excitement. “She’s been known to rave about certain conquests outside of marriage, men with robust appetites for lovemaking, who are well-endowed... whose... anatomies make up for her husband’s physical... umm... short comings.”
Elizabeth plunked the mirror down, agitated with the focus of the conversation. “Why would any decent woman want a man like that? It’s disgusting even thinking about it.” She busied herself arranging a flounce on her skirt while hoping the heightened color in her cheeks would fade. Discussing the prince’s maleness was having a decidedly unnerving effect on her. She remembered all too well the heated kisses she’d shared with a certain lord, and the other things she’d allowed him to do, hedonistic things that were as shameless as they were immoral. Forcing from her mind her disgraceful behavior with the man, behavior brought on by the object of his maleness, she said, “In any event, returning to India with some prince from the Punjab is the least appealing of any offer I might get.”
“Don’t discard Prince Singh too quickly,” Cora said. “I met him a few days ago. He’s an extraordinary looking man. Gracious, intelligent, and speaks flawless English.”
Elizabeth glanced at herself in the long mirror. With the tiny clusters of pearls and delicate sprays of sequins worked into the bodice of her gown, and the small diamonds glittering from the tiara encircling her head, she did look like a princess. For an instant she considered allowing Prince Rao Singh to find his way among prospective suitors, then dismissed that notion. India held too many uncertainties for her, even if she were to return there as the wife of a prince. “No thank you," she emphasized. "I’ve had my fill of India."
“The prince also has an estate in England,” Cora continued, seeming determined to hold to the subject of the prince, “so you would not always live in India if you were to marry him. In fact, he has plans to return to England in the near future.”
“Well, I have no desire to form a marital alliance with Prince Rao Singh,” Elizabeth clipped, irritated with her step mother's doggedness. “I’ll set my sights on an Englishman, express my wishes to Father, and hope my intended turns out to be either well over ninety years old
, or won’t want to marry for at least twenty years.”
Cora laughed. “I doubt any man betrothed to you would want to wait at all. Not only has your father promised a sizable dowry, but your beauty is celebrated in London. But maybe you’ll find your ideal man at the ball and be eager to form a marital alliance."
Elizabeth was certain she would not. She’d not met a man in all of England during the entire season who’d so much as turned her head. True, she’d met all manner of fops and swells and dandies. But none made her breath catch or her heart hammer or her knees weak. And none sent warm tingles coursing through her to settle low in her belly. And none made her want to throw her arms around him and kiss him until she couldn’t breathe, as if her life depended on the air in his lungs, all the while savoring the sweet, smoky, spicy taste of him.
And try as she might, she could not put Lord Damon Ravencroft, or the hedonistic effect he had on her, out of her mind. But tomorrow night at the ball she would rid her mind of Lord Ravencroft, just as she'd rid his bedchamber of mice two years before. In fact, she was so certain of it, she said to her step-mother, “Yes, I will find my ideal man at the ball tomorrow night, I’m confident. But I assure you, it will not be the prince.”
She let out a little soft snicker. How utterly silly! Princess Elizabeth Singh.
***
Damon moved the curtain aside and peered out the window of the coach as it made its way through St. Giles enroute to Lady Elizabeth Sheffield’s coming out ball. Normally he avoided balls and cotillions like the plague, but this particular ball held the means to an end. Not only was Elizabeth Sheffield something to look on, if there was anything to all the ravings he’d heard, but the sizable dowry she'd bring to him upon marriage would pay the legal fees necessary to restore his name and secure his inheritance. And she’d probably be as good a wife as any.
Beyond the coach window, dreary rain splashed against flagstones and splattered in puddles, tall lamps flickered and flared over narrow crooked streets, and he could see the shadowy figures of forlorn, bedraggled men and women huddled against doorways and hunkered down in protected corners. St. Giles was as he’d remembered—an aggregate of hopeless habitation where garbage was thrown into gutters each night to become a mass of grime and foul vapors, and the contents of chamber pots was pitched from windows to the street below to find its way into stagnant water so charged with decaying matter that in hot weather it filled the air with a stench akin to rotten eggs...
Her Master's Touch Page 7
