This was such an understatement that he almost tripped over the words. Eliza’s face had, at some point during their long-ago courtship, become his idea of the best face possible, and he had never quite shaken the impression.
“You don’t want to speak to me. Because you don’t trust me? Or because you don’t trust yourself?” She ticked off the questions on her gloved fingers.
“What could we have to say after all this time?”
“That’s not an answer.”
His fingertips clenched on the arms of the wing chair. “All right, then. A bit of both”
After a second, her gaze fled from his, and he was glad. “Why don’t you trust yourself?” she asked.
Had he thought the ceiling falling in was to be the oddest thing that happened today? Now the very sky was falling.
He took a deep breath and let it crumble about him. “Because, Eliza. I wanted to marry you once, and though I’m not the same man I was, it is so good to look upon you that it hurts me.”
His hand drifted to his ribs. There was the scar, where a bullet had punched through flesh and bone to lodge within him. He would carry it inside for the rest of his life.
She seemed to sink into the depths of the chair. Then, with a determined shift of her shoulders, she sat up straight. “I am not the same as I was either. Is that not as it should be? If we did not change in the past ten years, we should be ashamed of ourselves.”
“Oh, yes? And in what ways have you altered, Miss Greenleaf?”
A sly, slanted look. “I no longer bother with answering questions I don’t wish to.”
“You never did. It was one of the things that made me admire you.” Was that past tense? Strictly? Irrevocably?
He wasn’t sure.
She swallowed. “I am thought a great flirt and an even greater scandal. Free with kisses to those who ask me to dance, spinster that I am.”
“Again. Just as I remember. Surely you haven’t forgotten the night of Lord Tantamount’s party, when you met me in the garden, and we—”
“I remember that well enough,” she broke in. “But there was no scandal in it.”
“There would have been if we’d been caught.”
“I wish we had been,” she murmured.
Had she? He had wished that often himself. Why had they been careful not to be seen? Why had they sneaked, laughing and groping, to quiet hidden corners? They had loved each other. They had wanted to wed. They should have forced her father’s hand instead of letting it shove them apart.
The silence had drawn out long. But they had been separated for far longer, and that was what really mattered.
Though it was only mid-morning, Bertie felt tired, the bullet within him heavy. “All right. You’ve convinced me,” he finally said. “You never wanted anyone to know of our romance when we first met, so it seems you really have changed.”
Her lips went pale, pressing together. “All right. I deserved that.”
“That and much more. You said you’d marry me, then you threw me over on the day of our elopement.”
There. It was out.
He felt as though he’d lost something by being the first to mention it.
Or…maybe not. Eliza winced as though the words were a slap, then she set her jaw. “I did. And I did. I…had to.”
“Because your father said I wasn’t good enough for you.” Greenleaf had never liked Bertie. Which made leasing his house a cruel pleasure.
“Because I had to marry into the nobility.” Her voice held a pleading note. “For my family. They needed me to wed someone of influence to cover and defer their debts.”
“So you chose them over me.”
“One living parent. Three brothers. Three sisters-in-law. Five nieces and nephews.” She picked at the fingertips of her gloves, drawing them off in agitated flickers of movement. “One Eliza. One Bertie. The mathematics…you see, it doesn’t add up.”
The silence that followed this explanation was somehow less heavy than the previous one.
“You were right,” Bertie granted. “You have a fair gift for numbers.”
Her smile was a thin, fragile curve.
“Yet you didn’t make the brilliant match of your dreams.”
Slowly, she rolled the fragile tan gloves into a neat cylinder. “I couldn’t sell myself, in the end. Not when there were other things to sell.”
Or lease, he thought. “So you gave me up for nothing.”
Setting the gloves aside, she leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. A shadow dipped between her breasts. Gray light through the window made her eyes cool, while firelight painted her lips the red of sin.
“Your butler is French. Your footmen and maids are French. You live among our former enemies. How can you forgive the French for almost killing you, but you cannot forgive me?”
“There are other ways to take the heart out of a man besides shooting him. And the French might have tried to kill me, but they also saved my life. How have you ever tried to atone?”
This time, the smile was sweet, but also dangerous in its promise. “That’s why I’m here.”
Chapter 3
Despite Eliza’s promise, the process of installing her anew in the Friar’s House did, in fact, involve inconvenience to Bertie.
When her trunks arrived from Sturridge Manor, raindrops beading on their painted wooden lids, it was inconvenient to see servants swoon over her smiles and reply to her perfect French.
When he retreated to the study to tug a ledger from one of the bookcases, it was inconvenient to hear her laughing with Georgie. And when he ventured forth to investigate—and grab a biscuit or two, which the women were enjoying with tea—it was inconvenient to step over the contents of Mrs. Clotworthy’s workbasket, which Eliza had unrolled all over the floor of the morning room.
As the day wore on, it was most inconvenient of all to realize that he was distracted, listening for her step around every sliver of a corner, or for the luxurious swish of the deep-colored silk she wore.
By the time they all dined at the tail of the afternoon, Bertie was in a state of complete bewilderment. So easily had Eliza slipped into their family circle that he could almost believe the Friar’s House had never stopped being hers. When they entered the dining room, she had even seated herself at the foot of the long table before hopping up, cheeks flushed, with a “Beg your pardon” that made Georgie laugh.
And he—if this were not his household after all, what was there for him to do? An ill-timed bullet had stripped from him the only occupation he’d ever known. Thanks to the money Georgie’s brewery-heiress mother had brought to the family, both Bertie and Georgie had the means to lead a life of leisure. But he couldn’t manage such idleness. For years, he had controlled a regiment, and now the only person he had to oversee was Georgie.
“Try the potatoes,” he suggested to his sister. “Madame Florian made them with extra butter this time, to strengthen you.”
“They were already half butter last time she made them,” Georgie muttered, but she took a dutiful spoonful.
“I like them,” decided Eliza. “Look, Georgie, you can put a pat of them atop the fish, and they melt all over.”
“Potatoes never melted when I was a young woman.” Mrs. Clotworthy’s pleasant, plump features looked aghast as she helped herself to boiled vegetables. “This French cooking is too elegant for me.”
The four diners sat in a little square midway along the stretch of the great table. One of the grandest rooms in the Friar’s House, the dining room soared with cornice upon cornice up to a coffered ceiling, and the long room ended in a wide bay window draped in velvet of the vivid shade women called Pomona green and seemed to adore.
Outside the window, all was gray. The autumn rain had continued all day, draining the color from the leaves and sky. Within the dining room, branches held candles enough to cast a heated glow. The table, all polished mahogany, was long enough to seat
eighteen, and its surface sparkled with the china and silver plate Bertie had bought over the past several months.
Across from him sat Eliza. Closer than she’d been in ten years, but irrevocably distant.
He should have set a place for her at the foot of the table, to keep space between them. Seated in a cozy knot, it was impossible to ignore her.
And yet. This was, for now, his dining room. Why should he try to ignore her? Ignoring her would be…well, inconvenient. Better to pay the attention to her that he would like to, allowing himself to notice the way candlelight found bronze strands in her hair. Flickered over the lovely lines of her face. Flattered the swells of her breasts in a maiden-white gown trimmed in gold.
Until she caught him looking at her. “Is there something amiss?” Eliza asked.
“Just…wanted to get some of the potatoes,” he excused, grabbing for the dish before the footman at the side of the room could step forward. He spooned some up, adopting as nonchalant an expression as he could manage.
Damnation. They were almost all butter.
After dinner, Bertie declined to drink port in solitude, so the group gathered at once in the drawing room.
“We are four,” noted Eliza, “so how about a game of whist?”
“Oh, I need to finish my knitting,” said Mrs. Clotworthy, hauling forth yet another workbasket and plumping onto the chintz-covered sofa. “You young people go on and enjoy yourselves.” In the lamplight, the lenses of her spectacles went silver.
“What are you working on so industriously?” Bertie asked, ignoring Georgie’s widened eyes and silently mouthed no of alarm.
“A trousseau for your sister,” said the older lady in a loud whisper.
“Er…knitted? I wasn’t aware that such things were usually…knitted.”
With a grumble, Georgie collapsed onto a cane-seated armchair, one of the new bits of furniture that had replaced Greenleaf’s decaying ones. “They are not, usually. Nor are they made for hemmed-in spinsters with no marital prospects.”
“This one will be very special,” said Mrs. Clotworthy mildly. As her needles clicked through coarse woolen yarn, Georgie’s expression grew more alarmed.
Eliza cleared her throat, easing onto a twin to Georgie’s chair and pulling it into a confidential coze. “I cannot have heard you correctly. A spinster, you? Ridiculous,” said Eliza. “I remember you as a girl, which means I’m a full decade older than you. Why, I shall be thirty in another two weeks, and I cannot bring myself to be called a spinster.”
Her voice was light, but Bertie thought he saw strain about her eyes and mouth. Odd, how quickly he had again fallen into the habit of tracing her every flicker of movement.
“What name shall we use instead, then, if not spinster?” asked Georgie.
Eliza tapped her chin. “Hmm. What do you think of…woman of independence?”
“I like that,” Georgie decided.
“Woman of independence or not, it won’t hurt you to have fine things when you’re a bride,” said Mrs. Clotworthy.
At which Georgie grumbled a profanity and Bertie cast a desperate look at the bracket clock on the mantel and wondered whether it was time for the world to end.
Mrs. Clotworthy followed his gaze, then made a noise of annoyance. “Dropped a stitch—and look at that, it’s half seven already. Tut! No wonder I’m missing stitches. The hour is late, Georgie, and we must get you upstairs. You need your rest.”
Bertie was not sure whether Georgie’s indignant expression or Eliza’s surprise was more pronounced, but he ignored them both. “Some tea in your bedchamber, maybe,” he suggested as Georgie flounced by. “Or a book? You love to read, I know.”
“I’m thinking of something I’d love a great deal more, and it involves the destruction of that clock.”
“Perish the thought. It’s Greenleaf’s clock.”
This won a wry expression from his sister, who waited by the drawing-room door as her chaperone stashed knitting needles and the giant woolen…whatever it was to be. Mrs. Clotworthy was yawning, and the daylight was fading, but maybe the hour was a bit early for a young woman to be packed off to bed.
He was on the brink of suggesting Georgie stay when he noticed that she was leaning against the frame of the door as she waited for her chaperone. Tired, too? Maybe, or maybe just not as strong as she’d been before her illness. He couldn’t allow her to take chances with her health. If she sickened again, she would not be strong enough to bear it.
And after the many losses Bertie had borne, neither would he.
“Rest well,” was all he said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Remember to take your breakfast in the dining room.”
“I will remember, just as I promised the first fifteen times you said something to me.” With a rueful waggle of her fingers, she bade Bertie and Eliza good night and trailed upstairs, followed by Mrs. Clotworthy.
Once the door had closed a decorous halfway behind them, Eliza looked up at Bertie. “Is that it? Is this how you spend your evenings now?”
“What, being educated as to the making of a trousseau?” He attempted lightness, but did not quite succeed.
“Alone, after sending your sister off to bed at an hour better suited to a child in leading strings.”
He deliberated for a moment, then crossed to a cabinet in which was stowed a decanter and several glasses. Pouring a generous measure into two, he returned to Eliza’s side and handed her one. “French brandy. Very fine stuff. I developed a taste for it under Florian’s care and had several casks shipped back to England with me. While the war continued, I had to ration it. Now one can order it freely.”
“The benefits of peacetime. I knew there had to be a few.” Eliza raised the glass to him, then took a small sip. “Mmm. That warms the throat.”
Bertie folded himself into the seat Georgie had just vacated. No more than a foot away from Eliza, he twisted in the seat to watch flames play in the fireplace, gilding the marble chimneypiece and turning the gold paper-hangings to a darker shine.
The brandy glowed like topaz in his hands. “I know you’ve lived a life of revelry in London for the last decade. Such solitary evenings must seem strange indeed to you.”
“Whether I spent my time in revelry or not, it would seem strange to see your sister packed off to bed at an earlier hour than when she was a child.” Another sip, and then she set her glass on the small table between them. “That’s not a drink meant for ladies. It’ll go to my head.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Indeed, for you’d find your quiet house full of my Londonish revelry.” She nudged the glass, tilting her head. “Which hasn’t been the sort you think. I often feel I’m just passing time, that the amusements of London are nothing but a way to fill empty hours. To what end, though, I cannot say.”
“No,” Bertie replied. It was both agreement and protest. Though this was his impression of the ton, such emptiness should not be how Eliza, vivid and laughing, marked a single moment of her life.
But she was not laughing now, and she was no more vivid in the dim room than were the hands on the clock.
“This is not such a bad way to spend an evening.” He tried for heartiness. “It suits my sister and me. We are all that is left of our family, and so I must watch out for her.”
“You are all…” She trailed off. “Your father has passed away?”
“Nearly three years ago.” He sipped at the brandy, letting the sting of heat roll over his tongue. “I was shot during the Battle of Toulouse. I almost bled to death, then nearly died of infection. While I recovered in France, month after month, I dreamed of England. Then I received a letter telling me my father had died.”
“I am so sorry for your loss. What a kind and good man he was.”
“That’s right, you knew him.” Bertie tilted his head. “I had forgot you knew him.”
“Well. Only a little.” From the corner of his eye, he saw her fingerti
ps play upon the carved arm of the chair. “Still. Please accept my sympathies.”
He nodded. “He had fallen ill, you see. The mail was not to be depended on, and I never knew about it until after he was gone. Georgie had lost her mother young, and so he named me in his will as her guardian. He couldn't know whether I would come home alive, of course. But I was determined to.”
“I am glad,” Eliza said faintly.
Bertie set down his glass. “Such charity, Miss Greenleaf. I am glad you could not find it in your heart to wish me dead.”
She laughed, a quick, low sound. “And I am glad you think so well of me, to believe that the limit of my charity.”
A courteous man would demur. Bertie poked at his glass, shoving it into hers with a clink. “Right. Well. I returned to England near the end of 1814. We had our mourning for Father for a time. And then last year, when we thought Georgie might have a London Season, she fell ill with pneumonia.” How rote he sounded, how calm. “I thought I’d lose her too. It was a very near thing.”
The fire snapped. At his side, Eliza was carefully still.
“So.” Bertie slapped his hands on his legs, then rose to his feet and paced the room. Fiddling with the numerous gewgaws on the shelves. Straightening pictures. “I am quite willing to spend an evening in solitude if it means my sister gets the rest she needs to grow stronger. Or is that truly what you were wondering?”
“No, I suppose not. I’ve no doubt you can occupy yourself.”
There was a hesitation at the end of her sentence, as though she were tasting another phrase before sharing it with him.
He peered at her, hunting clues. “Yet you sound so doubtful.”
Nudging her glass away from his, she twisted it. Brandy sloshed and played, amber-bright. “Perhaps I am. Not about you, though.”
“Feel free to speak your mind.” She had made free of everything else in the household; why not his ears?
Venturing a quick sip of the brandy, she returned the glass to its place. “All right. Bertie, your sister is quite well now. If you looked on her with a stranger’s eyes, you’d see her good health. How is she to get stronger if you cage her?”
A Novella Collection Page 28
