by Mary Balogh
"Amelia," he said, his tone colder, harder than it had been, "I am not contemplating matrimony with any woman, and am not likely to in the future. I am sorry, my dear. I am sure that you can make a brilliant match if you will. But it would not be fair to encourage you to dangle after me. I may not marry even if I wished to."
There was no answer to his words, but after a few moments Elizabeth could hear a rustle of skirts and assumed that Miss Norris had swept back into the ballroom in high dudgeon. She dared not move. She had no way of knowing if Hetherington had accompanied his companion. She was relieved a short while later to hear a deep sigh from the other side of the plant and then the unmistakable sound of his footsteps moving away. Only then did she feel free herself to return to the welcome warmth of the ballroom.
The excitement of the evening was still not over. Mr. Mainwaring claimed the supper dance with Elizabeth, as he had promised, and led her in to supper. He seated her at a table with Cecily and Ferdie Worthing. These two were engaged in a spirited argument about an incident from their childhood when they had been caught by the gamekeeper of the previous owner of Ferndale trespassing and eating apples from the orchard. The argument concerned which one of them had been responsible for getting them both caught.
Elizabeth and Mr. Mainwaring listened in amusement to the epithets that flew between the heated pair. Ferdie was "idiotic, stupid, and clumsy," and Cecily "silly, slow, and shrill."
Cecily snorted. "It was funny, though, was it not, Ferdie, when you told him you were the squire's son and he realized that he could not thrash us?"
"I say, Cec," Ferdie replied with enthusiasm, "you put on a jolly good show of crying and wailing. The only time in my life I ever heard you cry."
"It worked, though," she said proudly.
"Yes, I was the only one who was punished," Ferdie said dryly. "The dratted man sat me down at the foot of a tree and told me that if I wanted apples, I could have them. He made me eat one after another until I was sick."
"You ate eight and a half," Cecily remembered.
"And have never eaten one since," he added.
They all laughed. Mr. Mainwaring touched Elizabeth's hand briefly and smiled directly into her eyes. She had been glad of the lively conversation provided by the younger pair. She was thankful now for another interruption. Lady Worthing had touched her on the shoulder.
"May I speak with you a moment, Miss Rossiter?" she asked.
Surprised, Elizabeth rose to her feet and followed the older lady into the deserted ballroom. Squire Worthing was there, too.
"Miss Rossiter, will you help us?" the squire's lady asked. She was obviously distraught.
"What is it, ma'am?" Elizabeth asked, helping the lady to seat herself, taking her vinaigrette from her nerveless fingers and waving it in front of her nose.
"Lucy is missing," Squire Worthing said gruffly. "Has been missing for an hour or more. We do not wish anyone else to notice but cannot find her ourselves."
"We know you to be discreet," his wife continued, "and perhaps you would be less conspicuous moving about than we are. The silly girl must be hiding somewhere and does not know how much time has passed."
"Gracious!" said Elizabeth. "Is she alone, ma'am?"
Lady Worthing hesitated. "I believe Mr. Dowling is absent too, Miss Rossiter," she said. "Oh, it is too provoking. I quarreled with Lucy just this afternoon. What does she want with that dull, undistinguished man when her father and I are sacrificing a great deal in order to take her to town next winter?"
Elizabeth bit her lip. "I shall walk into the garden," she said. "Rest assured that I shall keep looking until I find her. There is no chance that she has left altogether, I suppose?"
"Our carriage and Dowling's are both still in the stables," Squire Worthing replied.
"Then there really is nothing to be worried about," Elizabeth said practically. "I am sure it is as you say, ma'am. They have just forgotten the time." She smiled and hurried away.
She stepped out through the French windows onto the balcony and down the steps at one end. Lanterns had been hung in the trees close to the house. Elizabeth wandered over the lawn and peered among the shrubs that surrounded it, but was afraid to go farther as the lighting was not good and she did not know the grounds at all. She decided that Lucy would probably not have wandered beyond that area for the same reasons. She must return to the house, it seemed.
The house was difficult to earch for all the same reasons. Most of the rooms were in darkness and Elizabeth had never been inside the house before. She dreaded being caught apparently snooping. But she felt compelled to continue with the search. She felt responsible for the apparent attachment between Lucy Worthing and Mr. Dowling. It was her advice at a dinner table that had set Lucy talking to this neighbor, whom she had not noticed before. And it seemed that the girl was in trouble with her parents, who looked higher for a husband for their daughter than to a mere gentleman farmer.
Elizabeth crept down the stairs into the downstairs hall. There was no one there. Apparently all the servants were busy either abovestairs with the refreshments or in the kitchen below. She turned a door handle and peered cautiously into a darkened salon. It appeared to be empty, though she whispered Lucy's name and listened a moment before closing the door again. She repeated the performance at a smaller room that appeared to be Mr. Main-waring's office, and at another, larger room that was obviously a well-stocked library. From this room she had an answer.
"Come inside, Elizabeth, if you must," a cool and familiar voice said from the depths of a large leather chair close to a window at the far side of the room.
"I shall not disturb you, my lord," she replied hastily. "I am looking for someone."
"Why would you search for Miss Worthing in a part of the house obviously not being used for entertainment?" Hetherington asked.
"Er, I merely thought she might be lost," she replied weakly.
"No, you thought she might be enjoying a secret tryst with her country swain," he said with heavy sarcasm. "And being the good and straitlaced companion that you are, you must interfere. She could do so much better if she went to London and hung out for a suitable husband, could she not?"
Elizabeth was angry. "You do not know why I am looking for Miss Worthing, my lord," she said, "and you do not know me. I have no desire either to explain or to justify myself to you. Excuse me, please. I must find Miss Worthing."
"Relax," he said, the sneer still in his voice. "She has been found already by the worthy squire and his wife. She and Dowling were in here with me. We were having a pleasant and quite unexceptionable conversation. It was totally improper, of course, for Miss Worthing to be here with two gentlemen, unchaperoned, but sometimes one forgets such niceties. I suppose the young lady will be whisked home early in deep disgrace."
"I am sorry for it," Elizabeth said, "but really her parents' actions are no concern of yours or of mine."
"No, they are not," he agreed. "Come inside and shut the infernal door for goodness' sake, Elizabeth. You look like a bird poised for flight with one hand on the door like that."
Elizabeth did not know why she did as he asked. He just seemed different tonight, sitting there in the darkness. He seemed unthreatening. She crossed the room and sat on the padded window seat.
"You have been drinking," she remarked.
He laughed. "And I believe you have become a puritan," he returned.
"You used not to drink at public entertainments," she said.
"And you used not to moralize, ma'am," he retorted.
"I was not moralizing," she replied, "merely wondering what troubles you."
There was silence for a few moments. Then he laughed softly again. "It seems to me that we have found ourselves in this situation once before," he said.
"Yes," she agreed softly.
They could find nothing to say for a while. They sat silently, remembering. Elizabeth closed her eyes and wished herself back to that previous occasion when Robert had first kissed
her and told her that he loved her. If only they could go back, wipe out the intervening years. If only she could change the way he was, make him become permanently what he had seemed to be then.
"I suppose the young always imagine the good times will last forever," he said quietly, echoing her thoughts. "It is a rude awakening, is it not, to discover that people change, or that they have other facets to their character that we did not suspect?"
Elizabeth could feel tears welling in her eyes and a tickling in the back of her throat. She stared down at the dim outline of her hands, but could not trust her voice for a while. At last she got to her feet.
"I should not be here, Robert," she said, willing her voice to steadiness. "I must go."
"It is a long time since I heard my name spoken like that," he commented. "You always did have a special way of saying it, like a caress."
"Good night," she said, and moved past his chair.
He caught her wrist as she passed and stopped her progress. "You are right," he said, his words slightly slurred. "I have been drinking. And drink makes me sentimental. Tomorrow I shall be able to see you as you really are again and I shall despise myself for having detained you here. But for tonight, Elizabeth, I find you infinitely desirable."
He lifted her hand toward him and pressed his lips to her palm. He held her wrist afterward, closing her fingers over the spot that he had kissed. He got abruptly to his feet, dropped her hand, and faced the window. "Go now," he said harshly, "before I forget that there can never be anything but enmity between you and me."
Elizabeth turned and found her way out of the room more by instinct than by conscious direction. She stood outside, her back against the door, for a whole minute, fighting the bitter tears, deliberately taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself. Finally she forced herself to climb the stairs again and enter the ballroom. She made sure that there was a dance in progress before she did so, and made her way to an obscure alcove of the room, where she escaped attention until the final dance, when Mr. Rowe found her.
"Ah, Cinderella," he said, "I thought you were lost. I was convinced that Prince Charming must have chased you away already."
"Yes, he did, sir," she replied cheerfully, "but I considered it too far to ride home on a pumpkin, so I crept back inside through a rear door."
"Ah," he said. "Wise, if unromantic. Do come and dance, Miss Rossiter."
Chapter 7
The weather turned rainy the next day and remained gloomy for most of the following week. Cecily was restless. She had become used to the increased activities of the previous few weeks. Mrs. Rowe fretted. She had set such store by the arrival of distinguished visitors in the neighborhood, yet already the round of social activities had slowed down. And neither of the unattached gentlemen seemed likely to attach himself to Cecily. Perhaps just as provoking was the fact that the girl seemed not to mind.
Elizabeth was relieved, though. She wanted to see as little as possible of the Ferndale residents for the time being. She dreaded seeing Hetherington again. That last, strange meeting with him in the library had unnerved her more than she would have expected. She found his coldness and his anger easier to cope with than the melancholy and near tenderness that drink had induced in him that night. It had taken all her willpower in the hours following the ball not to allow the reserve she had built around herself in six years to crumble away. But she had held on and would continue to do so, perhaps, if she could just stay away from him.
And she was pleased, too, to avoid an early meeting with Mr. Mainwaring. She liked him, and her woman's intuition told her that she could attach his affections quite easily if she set her mind to the task. Common sense had already told her that she must not do so. But common sense sometimes seemed a dreary taskmaster. The previous years had been dull and lonely ones. It was pleasing to know that one was admired, especially when the admirer was a handsome and personable man. She felt that he could become a very close friend. And to a lonely person, friendship can seem a likely substitute for love. Elizabeth was tempted, yet she wished to resist temptation. The tedium of being forced to spend the better part of a week indoors was not wholly unwelcome to her, then.
She did have visitors one afternoon. Mrs. Rowe and Cecily had driven over to the vicarage in a desperate attempt to cheer themselves up. Lucy and Ferdie Worthing arrived on a similar errand, Elizabeth decided after one look at the gloomy faces of the pair.
"Went out this morning for a gallop, rain or no rain," Ferdie told her, "and lamed my best horse when he skidded in the mud. Ruined a good coat and pair of breeches, too."
He wandered off to the stables to examine a pair of horses that Mr. Rowe had recently added to his stable.
"I must confess that I had.hoped to have private talk with you, Miss Rossiter," Lucy said hesitantly as soon as her brother was out of earshot.
"Indeed?"
"Yes. I am so miserable," the girl continued, "and there seems to be no one else to talk to."
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked encouragingly.
"You must know that I have an affection for Mr. Dowling and he for me," Lucy said. "Mama says I am being absurd, that I merely imagine I love him because he is the first gentleman to take any notice of me."
Elizabeth did not comment. She had to admit to herself that the same thought had passed through her mind.
"It is not true," Lucy continued anxiously. "I know everyone thinks him dull. I know he is not excessively wealthy or very important. But he suits me, you see, Miss Rossiter. You taught me how to converse with people, and it works. Mr. Dowling has much to say to me. And I find him interesting. I like to hear about his farm and his livestock and his plans for the future."
"I am very glad to hear it, Lucy," Elizabeth said gently. "But would you not like to try your newfound skills on other people? Perhaps you will find other gentlemen even more interesting."
"Oh, I think not," Lucy replied. "You see, I have always been shy and awkward. I never feel that other people will like me. But Ira makes me forget that I am not pretty or clever or witty. I feel comfortable with him, Miss Rossiter. And he loves me."
"He has told you so?" Elizabeth asked.
"Oh, yes," the girl said earnestly, "and he has offered for me, you know. But Papa has refused."
"Oh, dear," said Elizabeth lamely.
"Mama will not understand," Lucy went on. "She insists that she has my best interests at heart. I will soon forget Ira, she says, when I get to London and meet other gentlemen. Oh, but I shan't, Miss Rossiter. I know I shan't."
"How old are you, Lucy?" asked Elizabeth.
"Almost eighteen."
"And Mr. Dowling?"
"He is six and twenty."
"Perhaps you should agree to your mother's plans," Elizabeth suggested. "A winter in London can do no harm, you know. It will give you experience and polish and some connections. It will also help you know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether your feelings now are lasting ones. I cannot speak for your parents, but I believe they are not tyrants. Perhaps if they can see next summer that your feelings and Mr. Dowling's feelings have not changed, they will consent to the match. A year is really not that long a time."
"A year is an eternity when you know that nothing will change," Lucy said firmly. "I know our love will never change."
Elizabeth smiled. "Then being separated for a few months cannot really harm you, can it?" she suggested.
Lucy looked doubtful but did not reply for a while. She looked up finally. "You are right, Miss Rossiter," she said, “I believe I must do as you say. But what if he does not wait for me that long?" she added on a wail.
"Then you will be hurt," Elizabeth replied carefully, "but at least you will have discovered before it is too late that he did not really love you. You will have escaped a bad marriage."
Lucy smiled ruefully and got to her feet. "I shall go to London," she said, "and I know that Ira will wait for me and that I shall continue to love him. Papa must consent eventually. Thank you, Miss Rossiter. Y
ou always speak such common sense that I wonder afterward why I did not think of the answer myself." She held out a hand to Elizabeth. "I wonder you did not marry. Cecily has told me that you were in society once. You are so beautiful and so wise, I wonder all the men did not love you."
Elizabeth laughed. "There were so many duels over who should have me," she said, "that finally there was no one left alive to claim my hand. I am a very tragic figure, you know."
"And that is something else you do," Lucy said as she drew on her gloves. "You joke a great deal about yourself so that no one can get close to really knowing you."
Elizabeth was startled. Lucy was the last person she would have expected to penetrate so close to the truth.
Finally Elizabeth ventured outdoors. It had rained all morning. She had spent the time in the old schoolroom with Cecily, going through a pile of the girl's clothes, helping her make small alterations to make the garments more fashionable. They had ended up with a lengthy list of small items: buttons, ribbons, lace, and such, needed to complete the transformations. Elizabeth had volunteered to brave the elements and walk into Granby after luncheon to fetch the purchases.
It was a dreary afternoon. The rain had stopped for a while, but the clouds hung heavy and gray and a cold wind emphasized the dampness in the air. The roadway was muddy, the grassy verges wet and cold on the ankles. Despite it all, Elizabeth was glad to be out in the fresh air. She hated to be cooped up indoors for more than a day or two at a stretch. Yet she had hardly set a foot over the doorstep in five days.
It did not take her long to accomplish her errands. She stuffed the packages into the large reticule she had brought with her and started on the return journey. A glance at the sky told her that she must hurry. The rain would not hold off much longer. About half a mile out of town she moved over onto the grassy verge in the hope of saving herself from being splashed with mud by the vehicle coming up behind her. Her head was lowered against the wind.
