One Long Hot Summer

by Antonia Adams

  ‘Surely I am allowed to disagree with you sometimes?’ she demanded, aware she sounded petulant. ‘Just because The Great Lucius Crozier says something is true, that does not make it infallible.’

  ‘Elinor … Damn it! Look at me, won’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  He put his other hand under her chin and forced it up so that their eyes locked. Elinor found it hard to breathe properly; she was not sure whether she wanted to run away or fling herself into his arms.

  ‘What is the matter with both of us?’ he murmured quietly.

  She felt his gaze rest on her mouth, and her lips tingled in response. He was going to kiss her – was he? Did she want him to? Before either of them could move further, Elinor’s mother came into view. Elinor wrenched herself out of Lucius’s grip.

  ‘Get off me, you wretch,’ she said fiercely. ‘I hate you.’

  She had taken a few steps away before she heard Lucius’s response. ‘The feeling,’ he called after her, ‘is most certainly mutual.’

  After that, it was war to the knife between the pair.

  Nevertheless, those days seemed a long time ago now.

  They dated before Lucius gained his reputation as a womaniser and gambler. Before the death of Elinor’s father Augustus; before the terms attached to the family entail had pushed Elinor and her mother in one fell swoop from riches to barely surviving in genteel poverty. Before their situation had deteriorated further with the serious illness which now racked her mother. Elinor and Lucius moved in very different circles now; very different indeed.

  Which was why the announcement by their maid (their one and only maid) that Mr Crozier was requesting to speak to Elinor came as rather a shock.

  ‘Thank you, Molly,’ she said quietly. ‘Please assure him I will be down presently.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  The maid withdrew. Elinor could see a glint of interest in Molly’s eyes, and could not blame her. Elinor too was wondering why Lucius should visit unexpectedly like this. Their challenging relationship, with each liking to get the last word in any discussion or dispute, had hardly hinted at surprise visits in later days. Perhaps, she thought wryly, Lucius was here to get the very last word: to rub in finally the gulf between their separate positions. Even without this morning’s final blow of a doctor’s bill Elinor knew she could not pay, their circumstances were now like chalk and cheese. He was owed, Elinor admitted privately, his victory.

  She was never going to give him that satisfaction, however. Elinor Everton would keep her stubborn pride to the end. Smoothing her dress down, and hoping that the many darns were not over-evident, she took a quick look in the dusty mirror at her hair (still tightly coiled) and descended the shabbily carpeted stairs to the withdrawing room.

  ‘Mr Crozier.’ Her smile was rather forced, but the best she could produce. She gave a brief curtsey, and he bowed in return.

  ‘Miss Everton,’ he replied. ‘How formal we are today.’

  Elinor thought fleetingly of the days in which they had been Elinor and Lucius to one another, and dismissed the pang of regret for what had gone.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked.

  ‘It is more a case,’ said Lucius, ‘of what I can do for you.’

  ‘I fail to understand.’

  Lucius glanced at the sofa. ‘May I ...’

  ‘Please, be seated,’ Elinor said coldly, placing herself on the edge of a chair as far from him as possible.

  ‘Thank you.’ Lucius settled himself with his usual elegance. ‘You are as beautiful as ever, Elinor.’

  Elinor did not dignify this with a response; instead she kept her green eyes firmly on his face, waiting for him to come to the point.

  He laughed. ‘You are also, as ever, impossible to distract with compliments.’

  ‘If you consider your words to be such. For my sake, I prefer to be admired rather for my abilities than my looks.’

  This was not quite true: Elinor was human, was female, enough to be flattered by Lucius’s words. But that was something she was certainly not prepared to acknowledge aloud.

  ‘You are also,’ said Lucius, his mien unchanged by Elinor’s sharp retort, ‘regrettably short of money.’

  Elinor felt her whole body tense at his words. The Evertons’ parlous financial state was no doubt evident to all, but she was grateful that most people did not feel authorised to comment aloud on it. ‘We manage,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Do you? I had heard otherwise.’ He shrugged. ‘Lack of funds is fortunately not a situation I am personally acquainted with, but I gather that you –’

  Elinor interrupted him before he could make any further remark; insult her further. ‘I do not want your money.’ Her breast heaved with short angry breaths. Had Lucius come here to offer patronage? She stood up and began to pace back and forth, aware all the time of Lucius’s eyes on her.

  ‘No?’ Lucius raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you want from me, then, Elinor Everton?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she lied.

  Once, she had thought that perhaps …

  But that had been a long time ago. She looked at him and knew she still wanted him, and the thought hurt. Too many issues now lay in their way: complicated things like Pride, and Money, and Power. Lucius had all three; what Elinor lacked in the last two, she made up in spades with the first.

  ‘I, you see,’ explained Lucius, as if the small passage between them had not occurred, ‘am plentifully supplied with the oh-so-filthy lucre on which our world turns, but regrettably lacking a wife.’

  ‘I never heard that you considered that much of a misfortune,’ Elinor shot back.

  ‘No?’ Lucius smiled. ‘I never realised you kept yourself so acquainted with the minutiae of my life. I am flattered that you cared to do so.’ Elinor felt herself blushing; knew that Lucius could see the tell-tale colour flooding to her cheeks. He allowed the silence to linger for a moment before continuing to speak. ‘Nevertheless, there you have it. I am in need of a – shall we say – an amenable wife; you are in need of money. It seems we both have something the other requires.’

  Elinor stopped pacing and stood looking down at Lucius. ‘Do you really think,’ she asked, her voice low, ‘that I would sell myself for my own betterment?’

  Lucius’s answer was oblique. ‘I gather your mother’s doctor’s bills are large.’

  ‘I’ll manage something.’ Elinor dug her fingernails deeply into her palms. She couldn’t bring herself to say that she didn’t need money. She needed it so desperately it hurt. Mrs Everton’s chances of recovery were minimal without the continued attendance of the doctor.

  A doctor who would not be returning unless his last bill was paid.

  If the money had been for herself, it would have been easy to refuse Lucius. But for her mother – oh, for her mother ... And in one way, it was so tempting to take up his offer. After all, it was not as if he were suggesting something she did not want to do. Elinor thought about the offers she had refused in her first season, and faced for the first time the knowledge that it had been thoughts of Lucius which had prevented her marrying before. But that had been when things were different. When she was a decent match for an eligible young man.

  To drop her pride, though, to the extent that she would marry Lucius in order to let him pay her family’s debts for her? It was too much to ask. Too much. In an unusual moment of self-doubt, Elinor wondered whether the only reason Lucius had made the offer was because he knew she wouldn’t take it. He could humiliate her with no fear of reprisals – no fear of finding himself saddled with an unwanted wife. It was not as if by birth she was no match for Lucius. But since her father’s unexpected early death, Elinor and her mother had moved ever further down the social ladder. Now they owned nothing, not even a house; and Elinor’s mother was sick.

  ‘Of course, I would require an obedient wife,’ Lucius said.

  ‘Then it is fortunate that I do not aspire to the position,’ Elinor replied through gritted teeth.
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br />   Lucius smiled. ‘Three days, Elinor. Tell me your answer then.’

  There must be something. There had to be something. Elinor thought she would rather die than marry Lucius for his money. She spent three days trying every possible avenue – governessing, even chamber-maid positions; but it was made clear to her that she was not considered an appropriate candidate for either. Too ill-educated for the first; too well-educated for the second.

  And meantime she watched her mother dying, inch by inevitable inch.

  Lucius came on the third day, and she arrayed herself in her best – or rather, in her least worn – dress to meet him. When Molly announced his arrival, Elinor forced herself to look at him, to make the expected curtsey. And then to say, her eyes lowered in shame, that she would marry him.

  ‘I accept your proposal. And I thank you for it.’ The second sentence caused bile to rise in her mouth, but it had to be done. He had bought and paid for her; her future now was to be the dutiful, obedient, wife which he required.

  ‘I am overcome by the honour.’

  Elinor wanted to kill him for the mocking tone in which the words were drawled. Instead, she said, ‘When?’ Her voice was strained. ‘I mean ...’

  ‘You can hardly wait for the day.’

  ‘I need ...’

  ‘Of course.’ Lucius’s tone was dry. ‘You need my money. Rest assured, Miss Everton, that from the moment at which our betrothal is announced in the press – tonight, if you wish – your creditors will no longer be knocking upon your door. On the contrary, you will find yourself buried under a deluge of well-wishers and those who wish to sell you fripperies for this miraculous wedding.’

  ‘I feel sure I will be the envy of the débutantes,’ said Elinor, hating the fact that it was true; that she was certainly not the only lady who had looked upon Lucius and desired him. Hating that she could offer him nothing, and he had everything. Nothing? Well, only one thing. Her body. Perhaps it would be less shameful to be a whore out and out; to act a little on the stage, and then act more behind the scenes with man after faceless man. But that would have killed her mother as surely as the illness would do without treatment. Selling herself, body and soul, to this one man was the only acceptable option she had.

  The honeymoon, such as it would be, was going to entail 14 nights at Redvers, Lucius’s country house, so that Elinor could assure herself of her mother’s improved health. After that ...

  ‘London?’ Elinor demanded, shocked.

  ‘It is where I live, at any rate during the season,’ Lucius explained, mock apologetically.

  London. Of course, Elinor should have realised that Lucius was hardly the archetypal country gentleman. Had known it, in fact. But – it had never occurred to her that her main residence would be anywhere but her home village of Carryleigh. Certainly she had had her London season, several years back; but that had always been, in her mind, a once in a lifetime occasion, an anomaly. It was not that she had not fitted in, nor even that she had not enjoyed herself, but it was not life. Not life as Elinor had always envisaged it, anyway.

  But then so much of life was not turning out as Elinor had imagined.

  ‘London,’ she said again, resignedly. ‘Of course. And mother?’

  Lucius’s expression was unreadable, but his words were plain enough. ‘I hardly think she will be ready for the exigencies of London life,’ he said gently. ‘I thought – Rocklands?’ Rocklands was a cottage on the edge of Lucius’s estate, considerably larger than the Evertons’ current establishment, not to mention a great deal more comfortable. ‘A couple of maids; a companion, if she wished?’

  He was burying her in generosity, Elinor thought helplessly. Coals of fire on her head. And what did she have to offer him in return?

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Mother would love that, I know.’

  ‘And you?’

  All she had to offer was acquiescence. ‘Of course. It sounds delightful.’

  ‘And I may kiss my bride-to-be?’

  Elinor felt her heart beat harder, faster; felt as if a small flame was burning inside her. For the first time in years, she was suddenly reminded of that hot summer day when she had thought, for a few exciting seconds, that Lucius might kiss her. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  Lucius moved across to her, and took her hands in his, smoothing his thumbs over her palms. Her skin tingled where he touched. He pulled her in towards him, close enough that Elinor could feel his warm breath against her cheek. She realised she was trembling slightly, and hoped that Lucius would not notice.

  ‘And now,’ Lucius murmured, ‘I do this ...’

  He took one of his hands from hers, and cupped it around her cheek, tilting her face towards his. For the first time in their relationship, Elinor found herself too shy to meet his eyes, and she shut hers. She had a strange urge to press herself closer to him, so that their bodies melded together; but before she could do so, he had bent his head and pressed warm, masculine lips to hers. They clung to the contours of her mouth for a second before he let go, stepping away. Elinor blinked, and opened her eyes, shaken by her reaction to the kiss.

  The kiss. A kiss. Elinor had been kissed for the first time, and by Lucius Crozier. A faint blush spread over her cheeks, and she turned away to prevent Lucius from seeing it. It took her a couple of seconds to compose herself, then she spoke. ‘That ... that was ...’ She paused, uncertain of what word to use to describe the experience. ‘Nice,’ she offered.

  ‘You flatter me,’ Lucius said dryly.

  ‘I mean …’ But Elinor sighed and did not finish the sentence. She did not have the vocabulary for what had happened. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Lucius changed the subject. ‘Well, I have your consent for your marriage, but I believe it is traditional to get the consent of a lady’s parent to her betrothal. Usually, of course, it is the father, but in the present circumstances – perhaps I could have a private word with Mrs Everton?’

  ‘No.’ The word came out more sharply than Elinor had intended. ‘It’s not – I mean – she isn’t well. She isn’t receiving.’ The clichéd words slid off her tongue.

  ‘Are you ashamed of me, Elinor?’

  ‘Of course I am not.’

  It was not, after all, Lucius of whom Elinor was ashamed, but herself. It would kill her mother – almost certainly literally – to know that her daughter had sold herself in order to acquire medical care for her. Not that Lucius would be as crass as to say, nor even imply, any such thing, of course, but Elinor felt that this was one conversation best dealt with herself. More objections followed thick and fast in her mind: she could not bear to think of Lucius seeing the state of any other room in her house, and most particularly the one bedroom which she and her mother shared. Nor could she stand and listen to Lucius give fallacious reasons for his offer of marriage: nothing but a conviction that he loved Elinor dearly would allow Mrs Everton to agree to their wedding, and Elinor suspected that the very sight of this smart, handsome gentleman alongside impoverished Elinor Everton would make it obvious that this could not be a marriage of love. King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid was but a story, after all. How Elinor herself would deal with the conversation, she did not know; that, however, could wait for another time.

  ‘Please,’ she said quietly. ‘Let me do it.’

  He bowed ironically. ‘Your wish is my command, of course.’

  He left without kissing her again. Elinor couldn’t help but see this as an omen.

  The bedroom was small and dark, and there was mould on one of the walls. Elinor cleaned it off regularly, but as regularly it grew back. Her mother lay in bed, the pallor of her skin evident in the dark room. Elinor felt her heart contract as she looked at her.

  ‘Mamma,’ she said quietly.

  Mrs Everton’s face was lined with pain, but she summoned up a smile for her daughter. ‘Hello, darling.’

  Elinor crossed the room, and sat on the side of the bed, taking one of her mother’s claw-like hands in her o
wn.

  ‘Mamma, I have something to tell you.’ She saw her mother’s face contract.

  ‘Bills?’ her mother said wearily.

  ‘No, not this time.’ Elinor forced a smile on to her face. ‘Something a lot nicer than bills, dear. In fact …’ She took a big breath. ‘… I’ve got some rather exciting news.’

  She was rewarded by the look of interest which took years off her mother. For a second, Elinor could see the young vibrant Mamma of her youth.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ Mrs Everton encouraged.

  Elinor swallowed. She had practised the lines time enough before coming up to speak to her mother, but somehow the words wouldn’t form with the ease they had when she had not had her mother’s wan face in front of her. All the practised sentences fled from her.

  ‘I’m getting married,’ she said bluntly.

  The expressions which crossed her mother’s face were indescribable. Hope, suspicion, worry, interest …

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Mrs Everton’s hand tightened on Elinor. ‘How can you? To whom? Oh – not the doctor!’ – this last in a voice of woe.

  Of all the responses Elinor had expected, this was the last, and she actually laughed out loud. ‘Mamma! How can you?’

  A fit of giggles overtook her, and her mother joined in. For several minutes their laughter rang round the room, and Elinor thought that if her prospective marriage did nothing else, it had been worth it for this moment alone. Finally, when they calmed down a little, her mother spoke.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t the doctor – and frankly, my dear, we hardly see any other gentleman for you to become engaged to – who is it?’

  Elinor took a deep breath. ‘Lucius Crozier.’

  The lines of worry returned around her mother’s face. ‘Darling …’

  Elinor interrupted her hastily, her words flowing out, she hoped convincingly. ‘Yes, Mamma – isn’t it wonderful? He came round … I mean … Well, you know we’ve always been close, and–’

  It was her mother’s turn to interrupt. ‘I know you’ve always argued,’ she said dubiously.

  ‘I’ve always wanted him.’ There was a desperate truth in Elinor’s words. She’d wanted him to be around when she was younger; later, she had wanted something very, very different from him. The memory of today’s kiss still lingered in her breasts, in a dampness between her legs. She didn’t know precisely what she wanted of Lucius, but she knew she wanted more.