“George knows Jeremy!” Alyssa exclaimed.
“You’ve met His Lordship, then? Such a dear boy. My late husband’s land marched with Beauchamp, and Jeremy was like another brother to George and Letty.”
Afraid that George might reveal her true name to Jeremy, Alyssa cried, “You must impress upon George that I am now known as Raff and he must never, ever, refer to me as Eliot to Jeremy or to anyone else in London. You know how adamant Grandpapa was that no one know I am an Eliot as long as I am residing with Mama.”
Lady Braden sighed. “For a learned man, your grandpapa can be very foolish, but do not worry. I will make certain that George does not give you away. Your grandfather misses you, Alyssa.”
“Enough to relent and let me return to Ormandy Park’?”
“In time.” Lady Braden squeezed Alyssa’s hands comfortingly. “He was deeply hurt when you insisted on going to your mother, whom he detests. Now he is too proud and stubborn to admit that he wants nothing more than to have you at his side. Eventually he will come round.”
But when? Alyssa wondered sadly. She desperately wanted to escape her mother’s house, but until her grandfather took her back, she had nowhere to go.
“Be patient,” Lady Braden counselled.
But it was not easy when Alyssa was so intensely unhappy beneath her mother’s roof. “Does Grandpapa still plan to travel to Stockholm this summer?” she asked, remembering the other journeys that she had made with him in the past when he had been working on one or another of his histories. At various times, they had sojourned in Paris before the Revolution, Rome, Venice and Vienna.
“The journey has been postponed,” Lady Braden replied. “I think that he does not want to travel without you. Your Northumberland neighbours miss you, too. Illness strikes with added terror, now that Miss Eliot cannot be summoned from Ormandy Park.”
“You must not call me by that name,” Alyssa cried in alarm.
“I won’t again, I promise.”
“What brings you to London?” Alyssa asked.
“George.”
“I am surprised that you could tear him away from his beloved Sarah Turner. How unfortunate that her father died just as George was about to ask for her hand, or I imagine that they would be married.”
“It appears now that they never will be,” Lady Braden said.
“Why?” Alyssa demanded, much shocked. Although she privately thought Sarah Turner boring and insipid, she had rarely seen two young persons who seemed so much in love with each other as Sarah and George, who was not himself quick-witted.
“A few days after you left for London, Sarah’s uncle and appointed guardian, Sir Egbert Turner, brought her here to live with him and his family.”
“Her uncle is the most odious man, and that wife of his is even worse. Poor Sarah!” Alyssa exclaimed. “Don’t tell me that the child has fallen in love with a London gentleman?”
Lady Braden shook her head sadly. “No, but she caught the fancy of Thomas Stokes, and her uncle insists that she marry him.”
“That cruel, lecherous old reprobate!” Alyssa exclaimed in disgust. “Why, he is three times Sarah’s age.”
“That he is, but he is also rich as Midas, and Lord Turner is deep in dun territory. Poor George and Sarah love each other so, but His Lordship is unmoved by their pleas. George insisted upon coming to London to try to persuade her uncle to change his mind, but I am certain that his suit is hopeless.”
“But that child cannot be permitted to marry Stokes! Sarah is scarcely out of the schoolroom, and he has already buried three wives. It is said that he helped them into their early graves by his cruel treatment.” The thought of meek little Sarah married to that dreadful old man made Alyssa feel ill. She understood, though; why Sarah would have caught Stokes’s eye. The girl was as pretty as a picture with her blonde curls and creamy complexion. But she was such a timid, spiritless, easily frightened little creature that Alyssa feared it would not be long before she shared the fate of Stokes’s previous wives.
Lady Braden shrugged helplessly. “Her uncle insists that she marry him. What can George do to stop it?”
As Alyssa and Jeremy arrived for the Hagars’ party that night, she saw at a glance that something was very wrong. Several guests had already arrived, but neither of the Hagars, usually the most attentive of hosts, had appeared to greet them. She asked where the couple was.
“The master, he went for a walk.”
“With guests arriving!” Alyssa could not have been more surprised if the butler had said that Oliver, who had eyes for no woman but his beloved Charlotte, had eloped with a lightskirt.
“Yes, ma'am, and the mistress, she is feeling unwell. She wishes you to go to her immediately in her dressing-room.”
Alyssa, who had never known her vivacious hostess to be in anything but the best of health and spirits, was much alarmed. Hurrying upstairs, she found Charlotte lying, pale and listless, on a chaise.
“Whatever is the matter, Charlotte?”
“The Duke of Carlyle is coming tonight.”
“Here! But he is supposed to be at Beauchamp.” The colour drained from Alyssa’s face. “Can it be possible that he knows about...” Her voice failed her at the thought.
“You can be assured he knows,” Charlotte said grimly, “although he did not say so in his note.”
“What did he say?”
“Only that he had heard from his son and his brother, Lord Sidney, what charming little parties Oliver and I gave and prayed that he might be permitted the pleasure of attending the one tonight. His messenger brought the note less than an hour ago and was instructed to return with my reply. What could I do but invite him?” Charlotte gave a mirthless little laugh. “His presence is deemed a triumph for a hostess. If I were not so certain of his reason for coming tonight, I would be honoured.”
“Jeremy promised me that he would not tell his, father, and he did not say a word about the duke coming here!” Alyssa cried, her stomach churning. “Even if Carlyle knows, why would he come here?”
Charlotte closed her eyes, her face seeming to grow paler. “Oliver fears he means to humiliate you publicly. Oh, Alyssa, I am so worried. Oliver fears that the duke may hold us responsible for introducing you to Jeremy. You know how important Oliver’s political career is to him. Carlyle is a very powerful man, and if he is so disposed, he could end it.”
Alyssa was sick at heart. The Hagars had been such good friends to her, and she could not bear to repay their kindness by unwittingly destroying Oliver’s career. “I must talk to the duke privately when he arrives and explain everything to him,” she said firmly, even though she dreaded the prospect of facing him. “If he has the slightest understanding of his son, he will, I think, be mollified. Please have him brought to me in the green sitting-room as soon as he arrives.”
Alyssa squeezed her friend’s hand, hurried down the back stairs so she would not be seen by the other guests, and slipped unobserved into the sitting-room. She wondered how long she would have to wait for the duke, unaware that he had arrived only a moment after she had gone upstairs to see Charlotte.
Carlyle had been as startled as Alyssa that neither host nor hostess was available to greet their guests. The butler showed him to the drawing-room, where early arrivals, including his son, were gathered.
Jeremy’s jaw dropped when he saw his father, and he demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“Having heard from both you and Sidney what “bang-up” parties the Hagars give, I was moved to attend one.” Carlyle’s eyes swept the room in vain for a vulgar, overblown female with too much face paint and too little dress, who would be an older copy of the garish Rosina whom he had met in Vauxhall Gardens the previous night. “Where is the divine Alyssa?”
“Upstairs with Mrs Hagar. She will be so angry at me when she sees you,” Jeremy reproached him. “She will think that I broke my word to her that I would not tell you of our betrothal.”
“Why should she be angry
at you, when her mother informed me of it at Vauxhall last night?”
Relief shone on Jeremy’s face. “But, of course,” he began as a young officer in the scarlet regimentals of the Hussars, whom he had met during an earlier visit to the Hagars’, joined him. Carlyle, who had no desire to converse with other guests while he awaited Miss Raff’s arrival, strode into the hail, Unnoticed by the butler who was answering the door, the duke slipped into a little sitting-room that he had noticed when he had arrived. He was shocked to find that it was already occupied by the lady of the laburnum.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “You here!”
Chapter 8
Alyssa’s head jerked up in surprise. “Richard!” she cried, her heart giving a happy lurch at seeing the man from the park again. She was seated on a wing chair, her hands clenched tightly together in her lap, trying to shore up her courage before she must face the Duke of Carlyle. But all thoughts of that harsh man and the unpleasantness that lay ahead of her were banished by the sight of Richard. She rose to greet him with a radiant smile.
He advanced to her with his singular grace. In his superbly tailored evening garments, he looked even more resplendent than he had in the park. His chocolate-brown frock coat matched his thick curly hair; beige breeches and white silk stockings revealed handsome legs; his snowy white neckcloth was tied with enviable skill, and his waist coat was also white, but of silk embroidered with green.
Taking her hand in his, he raised it lightly to his lips. The warmth of his lips on her skin, coupled with the light pressure of his hand on hers, sent a shiver of excitement through her.
As he released her hand, he smiled at her in a way that caused her heart to lurch again. Clearly, he was delighted to see her. His gold-flecked eyes were admiring, and his smile was friendly, without the cynicism Alyssa had seen when they had first talked this morning. She found herself wondering what it would be like to be kissed by that sensual mouth.
His soft voice held a hint of laughter as he said, “I trust you managed to reach home this morning without being further molested by runaway toddlers and irate, if incompetent, nursemaids.”
She laughed. “Yes, it was quite dull. I collect that you were able to locate Oo-ses’s runaway home.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Yes. He turned out to be Lord Thorn’s brat. Why are you hiding yourself in here?”
The answer to that question sent Alyssa’s heart plummeting to her toes. The thought of her forthcoming confrontation with the Duke of Carlyle was upsetting enough, but the possibility that Richard might witness it was intolerable to her. If His Grace created the scene that Charlotte feared he would, Alyssa would appear to be a conniving cradle-robber who had entrapped a calfling to further her social and financial ambitions. In what disgust Richard would hold her then. The prospect of his disapproval disturbed her even more than facing the duke, and she suddenly felt exceedingly unwell.
“I—I am waiting for someone to come to me,” she stammered, wishing that she could flee before Carlyle arrived. At the very least, she had to get Richard out of the room before the duke came to her there.
His face hardened almost imperceptibly about the eyes and mouth. “Are you, now?” His voice, too, had hardened.
She wondered what had caused this change in him, but she was so desperately anxious to be rid of him before the duke descended upon her that she did not have time to refine upon it. “I hope you will not think me rude, but I wish to be private with him’
His hazel eyes glittered like hard gems, their cynicism again firmly in place. “But, of course. I should not like to intrude upon a romantic tête-à-tête. Who is the fortunate gentleman who has won your heart?”
She was so dismayed by his misinterpretation of her words that she said bluntly, “No one has won my heart.”
The hard hazel eyes were like yellow diamonds. “I see,” he said blandly. “A dalliance. Who is the unfortunate gentleman who has not won your heart?”
“You do not under...” She broke off, hearing a noise in the doorway behind her. Her companion glanced toward it. His face suddenly softened, the cynicism magically erased. A look of such pride and love came into his eyes that Alyssa gulped. She wondered if it were his wife who had come to the door, and for the first time in her life envied another woman her husband. She turned, expecting to see an exquisite beauty, and instead saw Jeremy. The way that he looked at Richard caused Alyssa to gulp again as a terrible suspicion suddenly assailed her.
It was confirmed when Jeremy exclaimed happily, “I see you have met Alyssa, Papa. Is she not everything that I said she was?”
Papa! The word echoed and re-echoed like the beat of a painfully loud drum in Alyssa’s head. Surely this man beside her was too young to be Jeremy’s father. Then she remembered that Richard, eighth Duke of Carlyle, had been married at sixteen and was only six-and-thirty now. Any remaining doubt Alyssa had was demolished by the mutual affection in the faces of the two men.
The duke exclaimed with profound shock, “She cannot be!”
Seeing the horrified incredulity on his face, her heart again plummeted, not stopping at her toes, but plunging down and down into the vicinity of the Hagars’ cellar.
“But of course she is, Papa,” Jeremy said cheerfully. He had eyes only for his adored Alyssa, and so did not see, as she did, the anger that seemed to turn his father’s eyes to molten fire beneath his fiercely scowling dark brows. “I knew you would be agreeably surprised when you met her.”
It was clear to Alyssa that the surprise had been no more agreeable to Carlyle than it had been to her. She cringed as she considered what he must think of her:
a woman of an age that branded her as on the shelf using a calfling’s first infatuation to tie him to her, even though she was beneath him in station and fortune. She herself would feel the same were she in Carlyle’s position and ignorant of her real motive and intention.
The duke turned to the fireplace, struggling to conceal his anger from his son. Watching him, Alyssa realised that Carlyle would never create a humiliating scene, as the Hagars feared, in front of his son. This realisation was small comfort to her.
As Jeremy strode across the room to her side, he was oblivious of the sudden tension in the room. “Isn’t she divine, Papa?” he asked in such a bewitched tone that had Alyssa not been so distressed, she would have burst out laughing. As it was, she was having considerable difficulty not crying.
Almost as much difficulty as His Grace was having in mastering his rage, but he succeeded so well that when he turned away from the fireplace and faced Jeremy, his countenance was bland, giving no hint of his anger.
“Is she not the most beautiful creature you have ever seen, Papa?” Jeremy persisted.
A smile that did not reach the duke’s eyes played on his lips, and he said lightly, “Veracity forces me to confess that I have seen several more beautiful than Miss Raff.” Seeing his son stiffen angrily, he added gently, “But before you fly into the boughs, Jeremy, recollect that I have had several more years than you in which to appreciate feminine beauty.”
Since Alyssa did not consider herself a beauty, the duke’s setdown did not disturb her. What did distress her, however, was his oblique reference to the women whose favours he had enjoyed. She felt as though a knife had been twisted in her heart.
And twisted again when Carlyle gave her a withering look. The softness in his luminous eyes when he had discovered her in the sitting-room was gone, she feared forever. Everything had gone wrong tonight. If only she could explain her real intentions to him privately. But with Jeremy here, that was out of the question.
Desperate to escape Carlyle’s presence until she could recover her shaken composure, Alyssa put her hand on his son’s arm. “Charlotte will think us quite rag-mannered if we absent ourselves from her party any longer. Please escort me back to the drawing-room.”
The marquess, obliging, led Alyssa from the room. Feeling the duke’s penetrating gaze following her, she forced herself
to hold her head high and walk at a dignified pace that made her appear even more regal than usual.
When they were in the hall, out of the duke’s sight, Alyssa rounded angrily on Jeremy. “Why did you not warn me that your father would be here tonight?”
“I did not know he was coming until I saw him here! But I am glad he came, for it gave you a chance to meet. Contrary to what you feared, he does not oppose our betrothal.”
“What?” Alyssa cried in disbelief mixed with alarm. “He cannot have granted his permission for us to wed!”
“He made no objection. It is well that he did not, for I would not have abided by it.” Jeremy’s chin jutted at a mutinous angle. “Much as it would distress me to go against Papa’s wishes, I would do so in this case.”
Which the duke no doubt realised. Alyssa had seen how carefully he had concealed his anger from his son. He recognised as clearly as she did the folly of setting Jeremy’s obstinate back up. Alyssa wondered what steps such a doting father would take to protect his son from an apparent adventuress like herself. Meanwhile, he was no doubt buying time just as she was. To test this surmise, she enquired innocently, “Has your papa expressed a preference for when we should wed?”
Jeremy ran a finger between his neck and the folds of his cravat as though that garment had become too tight. “Papa prefers that I wait a few months to marry. But that was before he met you. Now that he has done so, I am persuaded that he will give his permission for us to wed soon.”
Alyssa thought His Grace would be more likely to renounce both his title and his enormous fortune, but she said hastily, “Even if he gives his permission, do not tease him to wed immediately, for I will not do so for at least a year, and I hold you to your word that our betrothal will remain a secret from everyone else.”
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