Beneath Spring's Rain (Ashton Brides Book 1)

by Rebecca J. Greenwood

  Eliza strode toward him, her face flushed, her eyes wide and her eyebrows lowered. Her nostrils flared. She was glorious. He stared, her beauty and her anger holding him captive.

  “Is it true? You are giving up an inheritance for me?” She gestured with an emphatic arm.

  His stomach sank.

  Florentia came running in behind, her chest heaving, face aghast. “Sorry, Daniel, sorry! I didn’t realize she didn’t know!”

  “Or that I’d have reason to not want to burden her with it?” He shut the ledger, placed it over the columns of figures on the scrap paper.

  “Burden!” Eliza’s voice was high and strained. “Burden, yes, because I am nothing but a burden!” Her bitter words cut the air.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” Florentia clutched her hands before her mouth and looked between them with a pale face.

  Daniel stared down at the closed ledger and took a moment to gather himself before standing.

  “Florentia, would you allow me time alone with my fiancée?”

  She looked on the verge of tears, but after several glances between him and Eliza’s stiff figure, she nodded and scurried out of the room.

  “Eliza,” he kept his tone calm, “you are worth—”

  “No, I’m not,” she interrupted. “Because, Daniel, no one is worth so much. No other person is worth giving up an independence.” She clenched her skirts, her mouth tight.

  “Forgive me, but I disagree.”

  Her shoulders rose. “Can you imagine what I would give to have independence? To be beholden to no one? How can you give that up so easily? It is incomprehensible.” She spoke rapidly, her hands flying open at her sides.

  He held back a flinch at this reminder that she would not tie herself to him if she had another choice. “I see.” He modulated his tone. “But I value you and your welfare higher than mere money.”

  Her jaw clenched. The area around her mouth whitened with strain. She swung round and stalked away from him with long steps, then pivoted and paced toward him again. “You seem to see me as some sort of . . . of angel.” She flung her hands away from her body.

  He couldn’t keep a half-smile from forming. “Aren’t you?”

  “No, I am not.” She bit out her words with flashing eyes. “While I am not wicked, I am a flesh and blood woman, who is sure to disappoint you when I make flesh and blood mistakes.” She thrust her forefinger into her palm to emphasize her points. She paced away again. “Then you will hate me for not being your perfect angel, and not being worth giving up an independence.”

  “I will not hate you.” He wished to take her into his arms and calm her wild restlessness, but she would not welcome his touch.

  She pivoted back to him, drew herself up, lifted her chin, and glared down her fine nose. “You will resent me. You will resent me for making us poor.”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  She gave what could only be termed a growl, and stalked out of the room.

  After half an hour of staring sightlessly at his columns of numbers, his chest tight from her anger, Eliza came through the door again.

  He stood.

  She appeared calm and in control of her emotions again, but he could see the leashed strain of it in the cords of her neck.

  “Lord Daniel.” She curtsied. He bowed.

  “If against all sense you insist on sacrificing yourself for me, then I must insist on something as well. Something you will not like, I believe.” She tilted her head up.

  He gestured, curious to know what she meant to bargain with. As unfair as it was, he knew he held the cards in their relationship.

  She gave him a steady gaze. “You called out Lord Crewkerne.”

  His stomach clenched, but he merely tightened his mouth and did not answer.

  “I heard you, yesterday at the Magdalen House,” she continued. “I insist you withdraw your challenge.”

  His brows lowered. “This is not something that I can discuss with you.”

  She pierced him with her eyes. “No dueling, Daniel.”

  He raised a brow. “You object to duels?”

  “Of course! Any sane person would.”

  “All the gentlemen of the polite world are insane?”

  “That they think duels are the answer to hurt pride? That their feelings are so tender and precious,” her voice was mocking, “that when insulted, they are willing to kill over them?” Her passion burst its constraints. “To kill another man, or let themselves be killed over it? Yes, it is vain folly.”

  “It is civilized, controlled, with correct forms and safeguards. Not a back alley brawl like meaner men.” He took a step toward her. “And I do this not to mollify my pride. I seek to avenge you. To bring retribution for his despicable treatment of you.” He willed her to understand. “The man has no honor, but being a peer of the realm, the only way to seek justice and restitution for you is through a duel, not in a terribly public—and likely unprovable—trial in the House of Lords.”

  “My name has already been dragged through filth. What is the House of Lords to that?”

  “Eliza, I’m trying to protect you.” He spoke it low and earnestly.

  “By getting yourself killed?” Her eyes flashed, her chin lifted.

  He waved off that concern. “I am a soldier. He is not. Who is more likely to walk away from a meeting of arms?”

  “You’re a soldier who came back whole, God be praised for it. But don’t tempt Him, or your enemies, by instigating a blood match. You protect me much more by being alive and whole than some chancy duel that means nothing, accomplishes nothing—”

  “Honor would be satisfied.”

  “It would not satisfy me! And is it not my honor you are claiming to be defending?”

  He looked at her in exasperation. “The earl must not go on believing he can make a prey of gently bred females. That they are not unprotected.”

  She threw up a hand. “But I was unprotected!”

  “And you aren’t anymore. I’m here.”

  “Not if you’re killed.” She tilted her chin up in challenge.

  He couldn’t stop a smile from forming on his lips. He wanted to reach out and hold her. “You’re worried for me?”

  Her mouth opened, then closed with a snap. Her chest heaved, her nostrils flared, and her mouth twisted. “What about the un-gently bred females? Where are their champions?”

  He shut his mouth, pinched his lips together. That struck home. “I cannot—”

  Her eyes filled with triumph. “No, you can’t. No one can. While evil men exist, the weak suffer. I know it. I’ve lived it. Your death will not stop it. So end this foolishness, or else I . . .”

  “Or else what? Your position for bargaining is not strong.”

  She stepped back, clenched her arms around herself. “I will refuse to marry you.”

  His chest tightened, but he kept it from his face. He must meet her passion with calmness. “And do what, Eliza?”

  Her lips whitened, tense and closed. Her eyes shined brighter, her brows crumpling. She turned from him.

  “Forgive me, but where will you go?”

  Her shoulders shook, and he stepped toward her, aching to take her into his arms.

  “Then . . . Then . . .” Her voice was strained. “If you don’t, I will be an awful wife to live with. I shall nag and be a shrew. I shall order you about, Daniel. I’ll act the fish-wife.”

  A smile tugged his lips, and he grasped her hand, turned her toward him, pulled her closer.

  She looked up at him with wide eyes, taking deep breaths. “Now you can take me off your pedestal.”

  “My darling.”

  “You do not have the right to call me that.” She tugged at her hand in his. He held it fast.

  “Eliza.” He put all his adoration for her into the word.

  He caught her gaze. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Don’t duel. Please.” Her voice was a soft plea.

  He ran his hand up and down her arm, his heart w
arm and large in his chest from her concern.

  She swallowed and stepped back. “Promise me.” Her voice hardened again, the sweet softness vanishing.

  He took a breath and let go of his disappointment at its loss. “What is this vitriol against dueling? Why this rancor and fear? What happened?”

  “A waste of life. How can I do anything but object?” She walked away, holding herself as if in pain. “Such foolishness. Blind idiocy.” She spoke low. He barely caught the words. She sat down at one of the comfortable settees that littered the library. He followed and sat adjacent to her.

  She gave a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “Five months ago my cousin Charles—the Broughtons’ only son—got into a duel over a game of cards. So silly, such a silly thing. Of all the senseless wastes of a life! He was barely eighteen. I saw him being brought in, groaning. Bloody. His mother shrieking.”

  She paused, her eyes pained, looking into the distance. “It was in his stomach. He died slowly over several days, the last in a drugged stupor, for the doctors could not save him.”

  A bullet to the gut. He knew that injury well from battle, and how it killed so agonizingly, and relentlessly.

  * * *

  Eliza stared at Daniel. The memory of Mrs. Broughton draped over the bed of her dying son rose in Eliza’s mind. She heard the sound of Mrs. Broughton’s wails once more.

  “I’ve lost my son! Dying, dying! My son dies! And our hope and security with him!”

  Charles had been a jolly youth, three years her junior, and always up to mischief. Eliza had been quite fond of him.

  The second day, Eliza had come in to comfort her cousin, and to take her turn in sitting with the young man. But when Mrs. Broughton saw Eliza, her face had twisted with rage.

  “Get out. I hate the sight of you! Get out! Get out!” she had screamed.

  Eliza had shrunk from her and half-ran from the room, her heart pounding. She did not try to approach again.

  “That is a sad tragedy.” Daniel’s voice interrupted her dark memories. “I’ve seen many a man die in such a way. A slow, miserable death.”

  Eliza straightened her skirts over her knees. “A senseless waste of a promising young life. And the other fool of a young man was ruined as well. He ran to the Continent, leaving his family bereft. I do not know what happened further. But lives were destroyed over foolish, foolish pride.”

  “What do we have, but pride and honor?”

  “You have your lives. And self-control.”

  “It is duty, Eliza.”

  “Have you listened to me at all? Because my young cousin died, the Broughtons were left without a male heir. And because he died before his majority, they were unable to break the entail on Arne Park. When the senior Mr. Broughton passes, it will go to yet another distant cousin, leaving his wife and unmarried daughters as bereft as I.”

  “They were going to break the entail?”

  “Yes, when Charles turned twenty-one. Because the wording of the entail ties off the lands excessively, so I understand. But now, he will never reach his majority, and the entail will stand another generation. Mrs. Broughton needs to get her daughters married. It’s why they brought both girls out and took on the expense of the London Season.”

  Charles’ death, she realized on reflection, was the start of her troubles with her cousins. Mrs. Boughton had never reacted that way to Eliza before. She had previously, though not affectionate, been welcoming.

  “This is interesting.” Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “There was nothing left to you, no provisions for daughters, in this entailment that your ancestors set up?”

  “There was a dowry set aside, but the estate can no longer afford it. No money left.”

  “Interesting.” His brows lowered, and he appeared deep in thought.

  She frowned. “So, you understand why I do not approve of duels?”

  “What?” He appeared to pull himself out of his abstraction. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Then you will withdraw your challenge to Lord Crewkerne?”

  “You have given me much to think on, Eliza.” He patted her arm like he would a child, and stood. Her eyes widened with outrage.

  He walked away, ignoring her. She glared after him.

  At the library door, he turned. “But don’t fear too badly, my dear. The man has gone to ground. I can’t find him to issue the full challenge.” He bowed. “If you’ll excuse me.” He left the room.

  She gave a noise of frustration and crossed her arms around herself. He did not promise, did not agree.

  Chapter 19

  Eliza smoothed the front of her gown. The silver net was beautiful and the dress glinted as she moved. The maids had done an excellent job of altering it.

  Her white kid gloves were borrowed from the marchioness. Eliza’s old dancing slippers had been carefully cleaned and only showed a little wear. Hopefully no one would notice.

  At the dinner before the ball, attended by thirty of the Ashtons’ closest friends, the marchioness sat Daniel beside Eliza, to Eliza’s infinite relief.

  The gentleman to Eliza’s left was a kind-eyed clergyman. Daniel whispered to her that he was the vicar of Curzon Chapel, who would marry them. When it was time for her to turn to the vicar for conversation, her tense muscles eased as he spoke amiably with her. With this bubble of protection around her, she relaxed into the good food, and pretended to not notice the stares of several of the other guests, or their low-voiced murmurs.

  Daniel’s older brother sat at the foot of the table. He watched the company with an expressionless, sharp-featured face, speaking little. The close-cropped Caesar cut of his pale hair was precise to a strand, his side-whiskers tightly sculpted. His eyes were so light a blue they appeared almost colorless. He was dressed impeccably in dark blue, his white cravat in a deceptively simple knot. His manners were precise, his restraint perfect, and he appeared unaffected by anything around him.

  The Marquess of Kentworth was the epitome of controlled, well-bred nobility: intimidatingly handsome, regal of bearing, and utterly unapproachable.

  So far, Eliza had avoided being alone with the man.

  But despite the lack of expression in his cold eyes, Eliza felt scrutinized, weighed, and measured. She second-guessed every movement she made, compared herself to his exactness. She must be the same. Perfection in her manners and comportment was paramount.

  Eliza wished she had what the marquess had. If she had had half of his bearing, perhaps she would not have been targeted by an unscrupulous rake. She would have been able to stare the earl down and intimidate any naysayers. But instead, she had been vulnerable. She didn’t want to be vulnerable ever again.

  She supposed the title and position had something to do with the marquess’s quelling presence. Florentia sat to his right and entertained that end of the table with her light vivacity. She wasn’t intimidated by her brother’s silence.

  Daniel had told her his brother intended to announce their engagement at dinner, but watching him, she couldn’t imagine it. How could the marquess willingly accept another scandal in his household?

  She recalled that Lady Cassandra had worn him down, had gained her unladylike desire to breed horses. He must not be an impenetrable fortress, despite appearances.

  The marquess stood. The company silenced. He raised a toast to Florentia on her come-out, and the guests answered heartily with raised glasses.

  As the sound died, the marquess turned his sharp, pale eyes toward Eliza and Daniel. Her lungs seized, her muscles tensed. She half expected him to denounce her in front of the company and throw her out into the street.

  “I would also like to announce the engagement of my brother, Lord Daniel, to Miss Eliza Moore.”

  He had done it.

  He paused. Eliza braced for outraged cries from the dinner guests.

  Several gasps came, but the rest of the guests were hushed and expectant.

  “I call for the happiest felicitations and congratulations on their upcoming
union. I wish them all the best.”

  Eliza kept her face smooth and forced a small upturn of her lips. She kept her eyes on Daniel, could not force herself to look at the reactions of the guests around them, but she picked up several murmurs over the roaring of blood in her ears.

  Daniel gave a pleased-looking half-smile, and sent a challenging gaze around the table, as if daring anyone to say nay.

  “To their union!” the marquess called. The answering “Hear hear!” was not as full-throated as the toast to Lady Florentia, but Eliza saw glasses lifted out of the corners of her eyes. No one at the table snubbed them entirely.

  She took a sip from her wine glass with a shaking hand. A wave of dizziness rolled over her. She set the glass down, and forced herself not to collapse into her chair back, keeping herself steady through quivering stomach muscles.

  It was done then. They were officially announced and sanctioned.

  Daniel took her hand under the table and squeezed it. He gave her a small, warm smile, his eyes crinkling. Her body let go of some of its tension.

  After the dinner, she entered the ballroom on Daniel’s arm, immensely grateful she would not need to stand in the reception line. The dowager marchioness and her step-son, the marquess, stood with Lady Florentia and greeted guests as they arrived.

  Daniel stayed by her side, as he’d promised.

  He introduced her to several of his officer friends. They were gracious and jovial, ribbing Daniel on his upcoming leg-shackling. Several of their wives, however, smiled tightly and left quickly.

  The news of their engagement traveled through the ballroom. Eliza was almost able to chart its progress as whispers and gazes turned their way. But she focused on the officers conversing around them, clung to Daniel’s arm, and ignored the leering eyes. Her head ached.

  They stayed carefully on the other side of the ballroom from where Lady Florentia held court, surrounded by other young ladies her age and their mamas. An impressive number of eligible young men vied for her attention.

  Daniel led Eliza out for the first set, a traditional minuet. Eliza went through the motions, and ignored the sharp looks of the ladies on either side of her, and how they gave her more space than the dance warranted.