TWENTY-TWO
For all it was only two months since Eleanor had left Merryoaks, it felt so very much longer. As soon as the house came into view – its golden bricks glowing welcomingly in the sunshine, surrounded by trees laden down with heavy pink cherry blossom, she knew she had made the right decision in coming home and declining the dowager’s offer to accompany them all to Brighton. As well as having tired of all the endless, meaningless socializing, she could not bear the pain it would have caused her to set eyes upon James again.
Grateful that the house appeared unchanged, the same could not be said regarding her feelings for her objectionable stepmama. Much to Eleanor’s disappointment, it was Hester who provided her ‘welcome’, storming into the entrance hall as she arrived and informing her that her father had had to go into town on some urgent business and would be back within the hour. Having imparted that information, the woman then launched into a predictable diatribe, which Eleanor was both expecting and prepared for.
‘Really, Eleanor,’ she began, before the girl had even had time to remove her bonnet, ‘words cannot express my disappointment. I had hoped that in London someone would take you. I mean one hears of so many poor second sons who encounter such difficulties in finding a wife. Surely one of those would have been grateful for you.’
‘I am not a horse looking for a new owner, madam,’ replied Eleanor curtly, handing her bonnet to the butler.
Hester ignored her. She began pacing up and down the marble floor of the hall. ‘But what of this viscount? You were certain he was going to offer for you.’
‘As indeed he did,’ informed Eleanor, tugging an arm out of her pelisse. ‘And I refused him.’
Hester stopped pacing and grabbed the back of a chair as if to steady herself. ‘Refused him? But how could you possibly …? I mean why did you …? Do you not know girl, that beggars cannot be choosers?’
‘I am not a beggar,’ replied Eleanor stoutly, now handing her pelisse to the servant and dismissing him with a fleeting smile.
‘Oh, I beg to differ,’ countered Hester, resuming her pacing. ‘For if you cannot find a husband in London then where on earth do you think you are going to find one? They do not grow on trees, you know.’
Eleanor regarded her coolly. ‘Then perhaps I shall never have one. Perhaps I shall live out my days here with you and Papa.’
Hester came to a halt directly in front of Eleanor, her face only inches away from hers. ‘The only way you will do that, Eleanor, is over my dead body.’
Eleanor smiled sweetly. ‘I’m sure that could be arranged, madam,’ she pronounced, before picking up her skirts and heading towards the staircase.
Eleanor spent most of the next two days in her room. For all the weather was glorious, she was in no mood for company, nor Hester’s incessant condemnations. Indeed she was feeling so low that even the pleasure of seeing her father again had failed to shake her melancholy.
This morning, she had positioned her armchair in front of the open window and was attempting – unsuccessfully – to lose herself in a copy of Miss Austen’s Mansfield Park. Unable to concentrate on anything for more than a minute, she inevitably found herself staring into space as yet another image of James Prestonville invaded her thoughts. She had not seen the man since the evening of his proposal. He had not come home that night and she had done all she could not to think about where he was or who he was with. It had been bad enough imagining him with Madeleine and that had been before she realized how much she loved him. To now imagine him with the Duchess of Swinton was more than she could bear.
A timid knock at the door intruded on her ruminations. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’ enquired her father concernedly.
Eleanor’s spirits momentarily lifted. At least here was someone who genuinely cared for her. ‘Yes, Father,’ she replied with forced brightness. ‘Come in.’
He entered the room, smiling warily. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea,’ he said walking over to her and placing the cup and saucer on the pie-crust table in front of her.
‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’
‘Well, then,’ he began awkwardly, sinking on to a small cushioned footstool. ‘You don’t need to tell me what has caused this melancholy, but you do need to assure me that you really are all right.’
Unable to help herself, tears began silently streaming down Eleanor’s face. ‘I’m fine, Father, really I am.’
‘Well you certainly have a strange way of showing it,’ declared Lord Myers, shaking his head despairingly. ‘I dread to think of the state you would be in if something was wrong.’
Eleanor managed a watery smile. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry you.’
‘Well, you do, my girl. A great deal,’ he informed her, with mock severity. ‘Oh, I know I don’t understand much about matters of the heart – not in the same way your mother did - but I can see that someone has upset you and I would wager, knowing our ways, that it is most likely a man.’
Eleanor wiped away the tear that was midway down her cheek and pulled a rueful face. ‘You are right, as ever, Father. It is a man. But in a couple of days I shall be as right as ninepence. I shall put him to the back of my mind and carry on exactly as I was before. As if I had never met him.’
Lord Myers nodded his head in sympathetic agreement. ‘Put him out of your head, eh? Yes, that’s probably for the best. No doubt, like the rest of us, he’s more trouble than he’s worth.’
‘Indeed, he is,’ nodded Eleanor resolutely.
‘And then you can spend the rest of your days here with Hester and me,’ said Lord Myers innocently. ‘Won’t that be delightful for you?’
‘It will,’ replied Eleanor, pushing all thoughts of a home of her own, filled with love and children, out of her mind.
‘Very well then,’ asserted Lord Myers, rising to his feet. ‘You wipe this wretched man from your mind and we shall all carry on as though he doesn’t exist. Agreed?’ He held out a hand to her.
She reached out and shook it with a hesitant smile. ‘Agreed,’ she said, wishing desperately that that were possible.
Three days later and Eleanor’s spirits had not lifted in the slightest, despite her father’s valiant efforts to cheer her up.
‘Any further forward with our little agreement?’ he asked at breakfast that morning.
Eleanor shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, pulling an apologetic face.
‘I see,’ said Lord Myers pensively, just as his new wife, burst – with uncharacteristic fervour - into the room.
‘Do I not have the most marvellous news, Husband,’ she declared, marching across the room and claiming the seat opposite Lord Myers.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really, my dear? And what would that be?’
‘I have just heard that Kitty Osbourne’s brother is to visit – Mr Jeremiah Osbourne. Is that not the best news ever?’
Lord Myers looked puzzled. ‘I am sure Kitty is thrilled by it, my dear. But what, pray, has Mr Jeremiah Osbourne to do with us?’
Hester rolled her eyes. ‘Is it not obvious? He can marry Eleanor of course,’ she declared matter-of-factly.
This time Lord Myers’s eyes grew wide. ‘But if the man is of a similar age to Kitty, then he must be nearing sixty.’
‘Nonsense,’ scoffed Hester, waving a dismissive hand. ‘He is only eight and fifty. And quite respectable so I have heard. I believe he has fifteen thousand a year.’
Lord Myers looked unconvinced. ‘Regardless, my dear,’ he countered softly. ‘I do think that eight and fifty is a little old for a girl of not yet twenty.’
‘Poppycock,’ declared Hester stoutly. ‘The girl needs a mature man; someone experienced who can control her wilful ways. Mr Jeremiah Osbourne will be perfect. I have invited him to tea this very afternoon.
Eleanor knew not at what hour Miss Kitty Osbourne and Mr Jeremiah Osbourne were expected at Merryoaks for tea. She had paid scant attention to Hester’s twittering, having not the slightest interest in
anything the spiteful woman said. At a little before three, however, while Eleanor was in her room making yet another futile attempt to read, Lord Myers sought out his daughter and informed her that he had a horse in dire need of exercise and he would appreciate it if Eleanor would take it out for a short ride. Aware that he could have asked any one of the grooms to perform such a task and that the request was a thinly disguised ploy designed to get her out of the house, Eleanor could not find it in her heart to refuse. Her father made no disguise of how worried he was about her and she had no desire to cause him even greater concern. She had therefore managed a fleeting smile and, having changed into her riding attire, had gone to the stables to collect the horse.
She followed her usual route along the banks of the river, having neither the strength nor the inclination to do anything other than hold the animal at a brisk trot. When she reached her favourite spot – a small clearing which awarded magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, she dismounted and tethered the horse to a tree before lying down on the grass and staring up at the clear blue sky. Immediately a vision of James, lying on the grass in Paddy’s Meadow with a blade of grass sticking out of his mouth, flashed through her mind. Was she to be plagued by thoughts of the man forever? It certainly seemed so, when everything around her reminded her of him.
‘Not fishing today I see, Lady Eleanor,’ suddenly came a deep voice from behind her. Startled, she jerked up into a sitting position and swung her head around to find James walking towards her.
All her blood rushed to her head and her heart started to race. ‘James! But how … I mean … how on earth did you-?’
‘Your father told me this was where you would stop.’
‘My father? But how did you-?’
James sat down alongside her on the grass. ‘It seems that your father is a very perceptive man, Eleanor,’ he declared, as he appeared to admire the view.
‘Perceptive?’
‘Indeed,’ he continued matter-of-factly, still not looking at her. ‘Far cleverer that me for example, for he guessed immediately that it was I who organized the robbery of the Graysons’ coach the day the viscount was supposed to offer for you.’
Eleanor’s mouth dropped open. ‘The coach? But I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you?’ He turned to look at her, his dark eyes locking onto hers. ‘I organized a distraction, Eleanor, because I did not want you to marry Viscount Grayson.’
‘But I never had any intention of marrying Viscount Grayson,’ gasped Eleanor.
‘And how, exactly, did you expect me to know that? Every time anyone said anything the least bit derogatory about the man, you had an annoying habit of defending him.’
Eleanor emitted an embarrassed chuckle. ‘Well, I can assure you, sir, that if that was the case, it was more to protect my own pride, rather than the viscount’s.’
James continued to regard her gravely. ‘So,’ he continued, lowering his voice to a level of intimacy which sent her already racing heart beating even faster. ‘I hear you have declined that man’s offer too.’
She immediately averted her eyes from his and focussed them instead on her riding boots. ‘Indeed I have,’ she muttered.
‘So am I correct in assuming you are still determined that you will never marry?’ he asked softly.
She continued looking at her boots. ‘I will never marry a man who does not love me, sir.’
‘Then why on earth didn’t you accept my proposal?’ he asked in an incredulous tone.
She turned to look at him once more. ‘Because it was made only out of obligation, sir. You felt that you had to propose to me because I had saved your life.’
James shook his head disbelievingly. ‘I am extremely grateful, Eleanor that you saved me not only from death, but from a fate much worse than death – marriage to Felicity Carmichael. But if you really believe that that is the reason I asked you to marry me, then you are-’
‘And because I know that you are still in love with the Duchess of Swinton,’ she pronounced softly, averting her eyes to her boots.
‘The Duchess of Swinton?’ he echoed in amazement. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I saw the way you looked at her at the masquerade ball.’
‘I see.’
Still staring at her feet, Eleanor stopped breathing for a moment, terrified of what he was going to say next. Terrified that the slight glimmer of hope she had experienced at seeing him here was going to be extinguished forever by the information he chose to reveal with his next words.
There was a brief hiatus before he said, ‘I trust you know that that liaison is now at an end?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘I was forced to end it even though I had developed a deep … affection for the woman, and she for me.’
‘I see,’ said Eleanor tersely, still refusing to look at him.
‘Oh, I know it was wrong,’ continued James, noting her disapproval, ‘but hers was not a love match: it was a marriage of convenience. She is deeply unhappy with her husband.’
Eleanor tossed back her head haughtily. ‘How very magnanimous of you to cheer the woman up.’
‘That is not what I meant, Eleanor. And talking of looks, for God’s sake, haven’t you noticed the way I look at you? I can barely take my eyes of you. I was very fond of the duchess but I was never in love with her. Not the way I love you.’
She jerked her head round to look at him. ‘You love me? But you never said. I mean how can you-?’
‘Oh, I can quite easily,’ said James, moving closer to her. ‘And I do. I love you to distraction, Eleanor Myers. I have been going out of my mind these last few days not knowing what to do. I thought you had not changed your mind – that you never wanted to marry and I had no wish to make another cake of myself in front of you. You cannot even begin to imagine my relief when I received your father’s note.’ He lifted his hand to her face, tilting it towards him. ‘I can assure you, Eleanor,’ he whispered, as he lowered his head to hers, ‘that there are a great many women out there like the Duchess of Swinton, but you – you are something incredibly special.’ He planted a tender kiss on her forehead. ‘So beautiful.’ He planted another on her cheek. ‘So funny.’ Another brushed her lips. ‘And so-’
‘- unbecoming,’ they chorused together, before breaking into fits of laughter.
TWENTY-THREE
The wedding of Lady Eleanor Jane Myers to James, newly-appointed Duke of Ormiston, took place on a perfect July day by special licence in the same parish church in which the bride had been baptized some nineteen years and eight months earlier.
With the exception of the groom, the bride’s father was the proudest man in the land as he escorted his beautiful, radiant daughter up the aisle followed by a beaming Milly Maguire, pretty as a picture in her bridesmaid dress of exactly the same colour as the damask roses which filled the church.
‘Of course I always knew that she would make a good match,’ Eleanor overheard her stepmama saying as she walked down the steps of the church on the arm of her new husband. ‘Nothing but the best would do for her, I made sure of that.’
As bride and groom were reluctantly forced apart by their guests, all eager to pass on their congratulations, it was Hester’s old Uncle Arthur who was the first to embrace Eleanor.
‘I must admit, my girl,’ he chuckled, ‘I did have my doubts when Hester came up with that plan for me to feel your leg that evening – just before you went away. But she did make me an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ he concluded with a wink.
Eleanor gazed wide-eyed at him, as the meaning of what he had just said, sank in. ‘You don’t mean to tell me, sir, that Hester bribed you to feel my leg that evening?’
‘Sworn to secrecy, I was,’ replied the old man, tapping the side of his nose with a wrinkled finger, ‘but let’s just say the bottles of whisky didn’t half hit the spot. Hope it didn’t get you into too much bother, girl.’
Eleanor looked at James, her husband, chatting merr
ily with Zach, the farmer, and felt her heart swell with love. ‘No, Uncle Arthur,’ she replied, slipping her arm through his. ‘No bother at all.’
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The Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor Page 24
