In Pursuit Of Eliza Cynster

by Stephanie Laurens

  She blinked. Carefully hugged Breckenridge back; he was still recovering from the life-threatening wound he’d received while saving Heather. “I know what sort of man he is. I’m not likely to forget.”

  He was her hero in more ways than anyone seemed to realize. That not even her sisters seemed to actually understand that felt very like her last straw, but now that the causes of her irritation had largely left, she could draw breath — and rein in her temper before it actually broke loose.

  Lady Osbaldestone and her aunt Helena had gone so far as to assure her that being married to a man known for his propensity to bury himself for weeks at a time in his library wouldn’t be that bad; they’d patted her hand and told her she would find plenty of other interests to fill her time.

  All of them — all — had behaved, and had alluded to Jeremy, as if he was somehow second-rate. As if their marriage would be a second-best, a not-best outcome, for them both. At least Heather and Angelica had acknowledged the possibility of another outcome, although neither seemed to have all that much faith that better outcome would come to be. Not if the matter was left in Eliza’s and Jeremy’s hands.

  At that moment, Jeremy strolled up. He shook Breckenridge’s hand, squeezed the hands Heather and Angelica held out of the carriage windows. Then Eliza’s parents came up, along with Royce and Minerva. Breckenridge climbed into the carriage; shutting the door after him, Royce signalled the coachman.

  With waves and farewells all around, the carriage rumbled off.

  And, finally, they were alone.

  Or at least surrounded only by those who had a real reason to be there: Eliza’s parents, Leonora and Tristan, and their hosts, Royce and Minerva.

  Chatting among themselves, those others all ambled back to the steps, clearly intending to return indoors.

  After considering the general retreat, Jeremy glanced at Eliza, still beside him. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

  Relief shone in her eyes. “Yes, please. I definitely don’t want to go inside and sit.”

  A feeling for which he had a great deal of sympathy. “We can walk to the stream and take the path around the lake.”

  She nodded and they headed across the front of the castle, leaving the drive for a well-tended path that led through beds and down the edge of a lawn to the stream.

  Taking her hand, he steadied her across the planks of a wooden bridge that arched over the burbling stream. “I’m almost grateful to Scrope for shooting me, given he didn’t do too much damage.” Meeting her eyes as, surprised, she glanced at him, he grinned ruefully. “Thanks to the wound, we’ve been able to claim at least a few days’ grace before making our expected appearance in London.”

  Before declaring their engagement and making the necessary plans to wed.

  She grimaced. “That’s true.”

  “But as they have all consented to give us the time … perhaps we should use it.”

  Stepping onto the path that ran along the other side of the stream, she arched her brows. “What did you have in mind?”

  He hesitated, then said, “Tell me your favorites — colors, flowers, music — anything on which you have an opinion.”

  She laughed, and did, then demanded the same of him.

  They traded likes, dislikes, opinions, and views as they strolled toward the lake. Jeremy found the questions, and his answers to hers, coming more easily to his tongue than he’d expected; talking to young ladies had never been his forte, but in this case … this was the lady with whom he would be sharing the remainder of his life; there was no real need to censor his tongue.

  What he did need was to learn more about her, even though, to his mind, he already knew the most important things. He knew he liked her laugh, knew that a certain private little smile of hers made him feel like a king. But he paid attention to the answers she gave, his attention wholly locked on her …

  Wooing her.

  With an odd little start, he realized that was what he was doing. More, that he was doing it deliberately, with intent and passion … because some part of him, that newfound part of him that had emerged over recent days, drawn out from some recess of his soul by the demands of their flight, believed she deserved it. That she deserved so much more than a preordained union.

  Once he realized, somewhat to his surprise, he didn’t draw back, but instead went further, set himself to charm and amuse and draw her out. And found he could.

  Eyes laughing, she responded openly, without guile. They reached the lake and continued strolling beneath the trailing branches of the willows, taking the path that led away from the house, slowly circumnavigating the lake.

  Eliza found herself captivated, her heart captured all over again. Sliding her arm into his, she walked by his side and asked after his uncle Humphrey, asked him to describe the house at Number 14, Montrose Place, where he and his uncle lived. He duly described the house and gardens with the degree of detail she expected from him, but even she detected the one glaring omission. She arched a brow at him. “What about the library?”

  He pulled a face, almost a wince. “Actually, it’s libraries. There are two. I converted what used to be the conservatory into a drawing room, and then took over the original drawing room for my own.”

  Before he could do violence to his feelings and offer to reverse the conversion — as his somewhat stricken expression suggested he was about to do — she leapt in to ask, “So the new drawing room overlooks the back garden?”

  Somewhat warily, he nodded.

  She smiled and pressed her shoulder to his. “That’s all the rage these days, you know.”

  “It is?” He looked at her cynically. “You’re making that up.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No, truly. It was in all the lady’s journals these months past — the latest trend.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. His face cleared. “Well, then, it appears we’re ahead of the times. I must remember to tell Humphrey.”

  “He sounds like he would appreciate the cachet.”

  “Indeed, he will.”

  The light banter continued, yet beneath the airy comments there was a thread, a direction, she hadn’t missed. He was, in his own way, telling her about his life, his home, the sort of life he led — and asking after hers.

  Showing her, revealing to her, the information they hadn’t had time to share before ending up engaged-by-default, courtesy of Scrope and the laird.

  He didn’t have to do it, to extend himself in this way, to let her see the little things, the minutiae of his life that were important to him, that meant something to him.

  And he didn’t have to be interested in her. Yet he was; there was nothing the least fabricated in his attention, his interest. Indeed, being the focal point of his undivided attention gave her a definite thrill; as a scholar, his concentration was truly impressive and having that concentration trained on her was in itself riveting.

  Knowing him for the scholar he was, largely divorced from the social scene, she hadn’t expected him to court her like this. That he had, that he was, made her lose her heart again.

  They’d rounded the lake and turned toward the castle. Looking up at the turreted keep, he sighed. “I have to confess I know nothing about betrothals, about what we need to do, publicly or privately.” He slanted a glance at her. “I’m assuming you do?”

  She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. The segue had been so seamless, so smooth, but he’d shifted from the theoretical to the practical, to the issues with which they now had to deal. “First comes a notice in the Gazette. There’s a fairly standard wording.”

  “And then?”

  She drew in a breath, her lungs suddenly tight, let it out with, “That depends very much on us. On what we decide. On our … direction.”

  When he frowned, clearly not comprehending, she explained, “What we do after the notice of our betrothal is posted will signal to the ton, to society at large, what the … for want of a better term, basis of our marriage is to be.” She
fought and succeeded in keeping her tone direct and matter-of-fact. “In circumstances such as ours, there’s an expectation that, following the notice in the Gazette, matters will be organized quietly, and our wedding will be a subdued, family and close connections only, affair.”

  “Ah.” Raising his head, he looked toward the battlements.

  She couldn’t see his features, his eyes, couldn’t get any real sense of what he was thinking. But she needed to know. This was the crux, the point to which his earlier tack that they not think about society’s expectations but simply let what might be between them evolve had brought them to.

  Were they to marry for love — were they to grasp the chance for the ultimate happiness she felt sure was within their grasp? Or were they to step back to the safety of a conventional, socially dictated union, one which left them both, at least theoretically, free to step back from love.

  Free to remain uncommitted to love.

  “We have to make a decision, you see — a choice, one way or the other.” She tried to catch his eye, but he didn’t look her way.

  “Yes. I see.”

  From what she could glimpse of his face he appeared to be frowning in a rather scholarly way, as if the question of what lay between them was a matter for analysis.

  A matter yet in question.

  She was tempted to press, yet … it was possible he hadn’t thought through his feelings yet. Hadn’t yet decided on his direction. Men, as her brothers’ and cousins’ wives frequently pointed out, were often reluctant to engage in such emotional decision making, and while Jeremy might be a scholar, he was also undeniably a man.

  Perhaps she should give him time to think, to reach his own conclusion before she advanced hers.

  Angelica’s words rang in her mind, but she pushed them away. She wasn’t backsliding. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t turning aside from her goal in the least, but she couldn’t have what she wanted, couldn’t attain her ultimate goal, if he didn’t want it, too.

  They’d reached the house.

  Jeremy held the side door for her, then followed her into the corridor. “Tell me — what’s the most unusual, unconventional wording you’ve ever come across for a betrothal notice?”

  The question took her by surprise. “Unusual?” She racked her brain, then shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything but the norm.”

  “No ‘Lord and Lady Higginbotham are hugely relieved to announce the betrothal of their fifth daughter Priscilla to Mr. Courtney’? ‘Mr. and Mrs. Foxglove are ecstatic in declaring their eldest daughter Millicent is to be wed to Viscount Snaring’?”

  She laughed. “No mention of relief, no matter how real, much less ecstasy.”

  He humphed. “I think we should make an effort to be original — at least to assess our every option.”

  She was struck by the reminder of the way his mind worked. “Like we did during our flight?”

  They’d reached the large front hall. Halting, lifting her hand from his sleeve, he turned to face her; his fingers lightly clasping hers, he met her eyes. “Yes. Just like that.”

  Her heart skipped a beat; she searched his eyes. Did he mean —

  The gong for lunch cut across their senses, fracturing the moment.

  Multiple female voices approached the top of the stairs; the rumble of male voices came from the direction of the library.

  Their gazes returned to each other, met, held.

  Jeremy’s lips twisted. He offered his arm. “Shall we?”

  Stifling a sigh, telling herself they would have plenty of time later to pursue their discussion, Eliza set her hand on his sleeve and walked beside him to the dining room.

  If Jeremy had harbored any doubt as to what Leonora and Tristan, Royce and Minerva, and Eliza’s parents imagined the “basis” of his and Eliza’s union would be, the fact that not one word on the subject, not even an allusion to it, was uttered throughout the meal would have set him straight.

  The delicate avoidance, the implied awkwardness in even alluding to it, was smotheringly pervasive. No one wanted to raise the issue of the social compulsion to which they all — patently — believed he’d bowed.

  He had surrendered to a compulsion, but not that one.

  What their attitude implied about Eliza set his teeth on edge.

  Admittedly, neither he nor she had made any statement, any declaration, yet he couldn’t comprehend how Leonora, and even Tristan and Royce, who had both known him for over a decade, could be so blind to the truth.

  A truth he felt in every sinew, that had sunk to his very bones.

  He was different; he’d changed. And it wasn’t simply their flight from danger that had brought about the transformation.

  “We’ve had a good year thus far in Somerset,” Lord Martin replied to Royce’s query. “The planting went well and, barring disaster, the yields should be excellent.”

  The male conversations revolved about cattle, sheep, and crops. How the ladies managed to restrain themselves Jeremy didn’t know, but not once was society in any of its many guises so much as mentioned.

  On his right, seated opposite Celia, Leonora said, “I’ll have to exert myself and find a new governess. Or perhaps an extra governess — our girls have been protesting that they want to learn Latin, and more arithmetic and geography, if you can imagine.”

  “Oh, I can,” Minerva replied. “Ours, sadly, are tomboys, and, of course, Royce is no help in reining them in, but they seem much more inclined to … shall we say more esoteric pursuits than embroidery, music, or painting.”

  Their nearest and dearest were tiptoeing around them, and even more around the subject of their marriage.

  Halfway through the meal, he exchanged a glance with Eliza. From the set of her lips, she, too, was finding said tiptoeing trying.

  He toyed with putting his question about interesting ways to couch a betrothal notice to the table at large, but as he and Eliza hadn’t yet discussed and agreed on anything, he refrained.

  That last thought kept him quiet through the rest of the meal. He often was silent at the table, but this time it wasn’t Mesopotamian hieroglyphics with which he was wrestling.

  Eliza hadn’t actually said anything about what type of marriage she wanted. Had she? He wasn’t the most observant sort, not when it came to people, females in particular, but although she’d come to his bed for the past two nights, although she’d responded quite gratifyingly to his attempt to woo her, she hadn’t actually stated what she wanted.

  He thought he knew; he hoped he was right, but … she hadn’t actually uttered any words on which he could pin his future.

  Indeed, the more he thought of it, the more he analyzed, as was his wont, the more he grew unsettlingly aware that his assumptions about them and their future, about what she wanted their marriage to be, were, thus far, based solely on his interpretations of her actions, necessarily viewed through the prism of his own hopes and fears. His needs, his wants.

  The reality of hers could conceivably be quite different.

  He could, very easily, be wrong.

  And all those sitting around him could equally easily be right.

  What if they were?

  He glanced across the table. Like him, she was silently eating, and paying scant attention to the conversations around her. He tried to view her — her behavior, her expressions, the words they’d exchanged — objectively, dispassionately. Asked himself if what he’d seen might fit equally well if not better with the notion that, having returned to her customary world, she was now happy to slide into the niche that her parents, his family, and their friends had waiting for her — and him — a niche based on preconceptions and on what they believed was preordained.

  Sliding into that niche would certainly be easier.

  On them both.

  Easier to simply surrender the reins, sit back, and follow the prescribed pattern — starting with a conventionally worded notice in the Gazette.

  All he had to do was a
sk her to marry him and then let matters take their course.

  He wouldn’t have to wrestle with what he felt, what she felt, wouldn’t have to make any real adjustments to how he lived his life. Not if he settled for a socially dictated marriage based on obligation and mere affection.

  If that was what he wanted, it would be easy to make happen.

  But was that what he wanted?

  By the time the meal ended and they all rose from the table, he was no longer sure — not of him, not of her, not of what they both wanted, let alone might have, for their future.

  Jeremy took himself off for a longer walk. This time alone. He needed to think things through, to get clear in his mind what he wanted — and then devise some clever way to learn what Eliza wanted before he made a fool of himself by making a bid for an option she didn’t want.

  It might have been easier if he’d been able to speak with her in private, without any of the expectations that — as he’d feared — now all but literally pressed down upon them, but as they’d left the dining room her mother had claimed her attention; engrossed in conversation, Eliza had started up the stairs with the other ladies, presumably heading to Minerva’s sitting room, the duchess’s favored retreat.

  He’d glanced at Eliza’s back, then, conscious of the three men following at his heels, he’d walked on down the corridor, not to the library but past it, to a side door that gave access to the gardens.

  Stepping out of the house, he closed the door and set out along the gravel path, and felt an oppressive weight ease from his shoulders. From his mind.

  This was what he needed, space and silence in which to think.

  Sliding his hands into his trouser pockets, he fixed his gaze on the path and walked. He would have preferred to have ridden, or driven, but his wound still rendered either activity unwise.

  His mind worked on logical lines; logic was the natural perspective from which he approached any subject he needed to understand.