Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice

by Heidi Ashworth

  His ship has docked. I shall put him off until evening.

  As ever,

  E.

  She then wrote to Mr. Cruikshank in care of the concierge at his lodgings and directed him to wait until she and her mother arrived to collect him just before dinner. She prayed that he would prefer waiting for her in favor of making his own arrangements which would prove to be both costly and inconvenient, though what he would do with himself all day as he waited, she knew not. She then returned to bed to sleep the few hours left to her before an early rising in order to have her letters posted at the earliest possible moment.

  After a long day that seemed to go on forever, she was in the salon entertaining callers, her nerves stretched to their very limit. As such, she nearly gasped with apprehension when the butler scratched at the door and entered with a silver salver bearing a single card. She dared not hope that it bore the name of Mr. Colin Lloyd-Jones but found that she utterly failed to do otherwise. As the butler strode in her direction, she felt her heart begin to hammer with the certitude that the man she loved waited not at some lodgings but under her very roof. When she saw that the card was indeed meant for her, she was assailed with trepidation. She wished she knew whether Mr. Lloyd-Jones, as the owner of the card surely must be, had already received her letter or if he came without the knowledge that Mr. Cruikshank had arrived on British soil. She took the card and handed it, without a word, to her mother.

  “Oh! Elizabeth,” her Mama breathed. “What a delightful surprise. You are most likely astonished to know that Mr. Lloyd-Jones pays us a visit,” she revealed to the nosy woman and her daughter who were seated on the sofa across from the Armisteads. “But, you must know, he and his sister are nearly family to us.”

  “Mama, I fear you overstate the case,” Elizabeth said faintly. Though the wide-eyed stares of their current guests were somewhat alarming, it was her anticipation of the guest not yet arrived that so discomposed her. She hoped that the fluttering of her stomach and the pounding of her heart that always occurred whenever she cast her gaze upon him would not be apparent to the tale bearing ladies who would doubtless choose to stay rooted to the spot in anticipation of Mr. Lloyd-Jones’ arrival.

  When he stepped into the room she saw directly that he had had her letter; the mirth that always lingered in his compelling eyes had fled and he did not smile. “Good day,” he said with a bow that took in all of the occupants of the room but the tragic cast of his features when he once again lifted his head was for Elizabeth alone.

  “Ladies,” her mother started, “I do believe I am meant to be elsewhere.”

  “No,” he said, throwing up a hand to forestall her, “pray do not inconvenience yourself on my account. Miss Armistead doubtless recalls that she is engaged to ride out in my carriage this afternoon.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said as she rose to acquire her bonnet and reticule. She had placed them in a chair in the far corner so that they would be handy should he appear and not on display if he did not. “I have been anticipating it with pleasure.”

  “You have said nothing of this to me, Elizabeth,” her mother insisted but her daughter paid her no heed as she took his arm and quit the room.

  As he led her down the stairs and out of the house, she admired his composure nearly as much as her own. Her stomach was in turmoil, her knees weak, and without his arm she would have tumbled down the stairs, thinking as she did on how these would be their last moments together before she became another man’s wife.

  Once they were safely perched in his curricle and her bonnet carefully tied against the breeze, he lost no time in whipping up the horses and hurtling down the road at a spanking pace. She thought, then, that he might be angry, and her trepidation grew. She found herself too breathless to speak and he spoke only once to ask if she were quite all right. She nodded that she was but wondered for how long it should be the case. The speed with which they moved felt dangerous, indeed, and then there was the question of when they would stop and where.

  At last, he veered off onto a deserted lane and they fetched up behind a sadly dilapidated church that faced out onto the other side of the square.

  He jumped out and ran round to take her hand and help her down. “There is a bench just the other side of that wall,” he said with a nod at what must have once been part of a cloister but was now mostly fallen stone and masonry. To her great astonishment he put his arm around her and held her tight against his side as they walked. The bench looked upon a garden that grew in abundance despite the ruin all around it. As they sat he kept his arm about her and, eventually, she recovered enough from her apprehension to settle her head against his shoulder.

  He said nothing for what seemed an age whilst she fretted over what her first words should be. Finally, she dared to ask what she already knew to be true. “You have had my letter?”

  He tightened his arm about her and looked off into the distance despite the lack of a view. “I thank you for your kindness in sending it. And yet, its contents,” he said, his breath catching in his throat, “conveyed a message I find I cannot like. Am I correct to conclude that our outings together are now at an end?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes and closed her throat so that she was only able to render a tiny nod.

  “I have thought and thought again how to say the words,” he said, a bit savagely, “but I cannot. If we are to part, it must be at your word. I shall not bid you goodbye.”

  “I comprehend that it must be myself,” she said, forcing the words from her trembling mouth “to make it clear who I am to be to you from here on out. I have knowingly encouraged your attentions and for that I must beg your pardon, for I mean to marry Mr. Cruikshank. That is something I am every bit as determined to do as I was before we met.”

  “Say only that you wish it far less than you once did,” he said, his breath heaving in his chest. “It shall be the smallest of concessions for you but the greatest of gifts to me. And when you say it,” he said as he shifted to face her, “let me see the truth of it in your eyes.”

  She turned towards him as the tears spilled down her cheeks. She felt his fingers as they ran along her neck until they caught in the ribbons of her bonnet and pulled them loose. Slowly, she pushed the bonnet from her head but she could not bear to meet his gaze. “I wish it far less,” she whispered.

  He put his hand to her wet cheek and so gently drew her face to meet his that she did not comprehend it. When she lifted her gaze and was met with the sight of him looking down upon her, and with such tenderness, her heart turned over.

  “Elizabeth. Say that you will not go through with it. Say that you will marry me.”

  She attempted to turn her head away, but he had taken her face in both of his hands so she could not. Her only defense was to close her eyes, but his next question brought them fully open with alarm.

  “Did Miss Hale speak true when she claimed you have rarely been kissed?”

  Her heart took up its hammering again and she found that her gaze had fastened onto his well-shaped lips. To her dismay she was powerless to look away. “Only by Mr. Cruikshank,” she whispered, “and only the once.”

  “In that case, might I ask if it is judicious to state that you have never been kissed by the man you love?”

  She looked up, then, into his impossibly light gray eyes, and found it pointless to dissemble. “Yes, most judicious,” she said weakly.

  “In that case, my adored Miss Armistead, you shall know, before it is too late, what it feels like to be kissed by the man you love nearly as well as he loves you.”

  Why such a statement should cause her such misgiving, she could not say. “But how shall I know,” she asked as she put her hand to his chest to prevent his drawing too near, “that he is not like the others who have professed to love me, and all for the sake of what they feel when they look at me?”

  “How can one not love you for the pleasure of gazing upon eyes the color of a field glowing in the sun after a hard rain or the feel of
one of your curls as it clings to his skin?” he asked as he lifted a trembling finger from her face and stretched it far enough to touch a ringlet. “And yet, you deserve to be loved so much more for your flawless perception, limitless patience and compassion, lively temperament, faultless integrity and your so cherished virtue. He who perceives these qualities in spite of the sound of your laughter and the perfume of your skin,” he breathed as he leaned closer, regardless of her hand to his chest, to brush his nose along her cheek, “deserves to be best loved by you.”

  Suddenly, she felt faint with an exquisite need to feel his lips against hers but his attention was wholly taken up in rubbing his nose in circles along her cheek. It brought his mouth in and out of tantalizing proximity, causing her lungs to squeeze and her breath to come in fits and starts. When he finally dropped his hands from her face to gather her near, she was so bold as to align her mouth with his. The unanticipated motion sent his bottom lip skimming along the top of hers and it continued on up to hover against her temple for so long she feared he had thought better of kissing her altogether. The notion pained her past bearing and, determined to seize this last means of divulging all she could not say, she turned her face once more in pursuit of his mouth.

  She had moved merely a fraction before his lips met her own with a speed and intensity that robbed her of breath and sent her senses spinning so that she found she must put her arms about his neck to steady herself. He tightened his hold on her and his mouth pressed against her such that she experienced wondrous sensations that were entirely new to her. She had not known that a kiss could be so full, last so long, and bring to life so many sensibilities of which she had previously been thoroughly unaware. It occurred to her that, as long as his mouth was pressed to hers, she would have no need of food or drink, rest or sleep. There was nothing that came to mind that mattered in the least compared to the feel of his arms around her, the sound of his ragged breathing, the scent of his skin, and the taste of his lips.

  He left off kissing her mouth in order to trail kisses along her jaw and down her neck when, without the slightest warning, he pulled away to gaze at her, his eyes bruised with pain. “I had counted on having a better command of myself than that. I must beg your pardon for taking liberties neither of us intended.”

  “I did not perceive them as liberties,” she murmured even as she acknowledged that the one dry kiss Duncan had bestowed on her now seemed as unwelcome as if he were a stranger who had forced himself upon her.

  In reply, Colin drew her close against his chest. “I am the man you love, but you will be his wife. If only I could find a means to be both, one that did not compromise your principles, I would be the happiest of men.”

  She rubbed her cheek against his coat to distract herself from the desire to cry when suddenly she recalled what she had brought with her. Pulling away, she reached into her reticule and drew out a tiny pair of scissors and two small bags made of silk. She took a lock of his hair in her fingers and looked to him to apprehend if he objected. He gave her a slow, sad smile such that she felt no hesitation in clipping a curly lock from its brothers. She wrapped it round her finger and was about to place it in one of the bags when he stayed her hand and kissed the dusky lock. She gave him a tremulous smile and tucked the curl safely away before passing to him the scissors.

  Though his fingers trembled, he took care to find a small ringlet at the nape of her neck that would not be missed and snipped it quickly before she could think to regret it. He gave it to her to kiss, and then he kissed it, as well, before he slid it into the remaining silk bag and secreted it in the inside breast pocket of his coat. “I shall keep this by me always, never doubting.”

  “And I shall do the same. I shall have it made into a brooch and wear it every moment of the day.” It was not as if her husband would see it and take offense and she found that the truth of it caused her to break into earnest tears.

  He pulled her once more against his chest and stroked her hair. “Elizabeth, why must you endure this pain? You have the power to end it all forever by crying off. There is not a man or woman in all of England who should blame you.”

  “Save him,” she said, sitting up and drying her tears. “You and I, we would be happy, but he would be heartbroken, bereft and nearly alone.” She did not add that he would be unable to support himself through work or even throughout the hours of a single day.

  “But you needn’t sacrifice your happiness for him. You needn’t sacrifice ours. There are other women in the world, a fact I have gladly learned. As have I, he is very likely to meet one who truly loves him in ways you do not.”

  “I think not. It is too romantic a notion for this world. Perhaps that is all it is to me, as well. But I have made a promise and I cannot go back on it. I cannot! I pray, do not press me further.”

  “I will not, I swear it,” he insisted, taking her hands in his. “I wish for your happiness far more than my own. If only I might know that you will indeed be happy.”

  Elizabeth had no satisfactory reply to this. “I must return,” she said as she removed her hands from his, retrieved her bonnet and placed it on her head. “I shall be forever grateful that you have come today,” she said, her voice wavering, “but it is time for me to begin my new life.”

  He stood, with no word at all, and held out his hand to help her to her feet. As they returned to the carriage, he did not put his arm about her as before and stayed far enough distant that she could not link her arm through his. He handed her up into the curricle and when she had taken her seat he gave her the smile that was meant only for her, the one that seemed to melt her bones and that she feared she would never again behold. Then he took his place beside her, taking such care to keep his distance that her heart broke, and drove so sedately that there was no chance that she might jostle against him. It was a far more peaceful ride than the one prior and she was grateful for the time it gave her to cool her face and gain her composure. And yet she could not help but mourn what she had lost.

  When they arrived, he held out his hand to help her down from the curricle. She stood and looked down at it, fully aware that it was the last time that they would touch. She felt dizzy with grief but willed herself not to swoon. To her great astonishment, he put his hands to her waist, lifted her from the carriage and slowly lowered her to the ground, all the while his gaze locked with hers. They stood perilously close to one another and just as she decided she would put her hand to his cheek one last time, the front door opened and Katherine came tripping down the steps.

  “Mr. Lloyd-Jones!” she cried as if he weren’t a mere foot away. “I should be most grateful for a turn in your curricle, as well.”

  With great reluctance, he tore his gaze away from Elizabeth and backed away in order to sketch a brief bow for the benefit of both ladies. “I regret that I have other matters to which I must attend. Some other afternoon, perhaps.” Quickly, he mounted the steps and took up the reins and, with a savage flick of the reins, drove away without a backwards glance.

  “Well, that was very lowering, indeed,” Katherine insisted. “I only wished to ride in his curricle, not marry him.”

  “Oh?” Elizabeth said more testily than she wished but far less than she felt. “Do you not? And what of Mr. Cruikshank? I suppose you have no wish to marry him, either!”

  “I . . My papa has forbidden it,” Katherine replied, her eyes wide.

  “Therefore, you now want another man you cannot have,” Elizabeth snapped as she marched up the steps to the front door. It was opened by a footman whose expression of alarm widened with the door.

  “Who is to say I can’t have him?” Katherine demanded. “Do you have the final word as to who is to marry your tossed-aside suitors?”

  “Do not be childish, Kate. It doesn’t suit you.” Elizabeth swept through the door and went directly to the staircase, Katherine just behind her. “Please,” Elizabeth begged, “I have the headache and wish to go to my room.”

  “Then you are not to m
arry Mr. Lloyd-Jones?” Katherine demanded.

  “Why should anyone think I would marry Mr. Lloyd-Jones?” Elizabeth picked up her skirts and hastened her steps up the staircase.

  “It is not as if I were the only to notice; the two of you are forever smelling of April and May.”

  Elizabeth stopped and turned to give Katherine her full attention. “What is it that you wish me to say? That I love him? That he loves me? It is of no consequence. I am to drive out to Mr. Cruikshank’s lodgings with Mama to bring him hither, the notice of our engagement is to be posted in the newspaper and the banns read, at which time we shall be married. Is this not why I have come to England?”

  “But, if that is how you want it, Elizabeth, why should I not marry Mr. Lloyd-Jones?”

  Elizabeth only just refrained from stamping her foot. “Because it is beholden on you to wait for him to offer and he never shall!” she insisted before turning to stomp up the remaining stairs.

  His heart was broken over Miss Ponsonby,” Katherine said as she picked up her own skirts and hastened after Elizabeth, “and yet, here he is, madly in love with you. Who is to say that he shan’t be quite ready to fall in love with me a fortnight from now, as well?”

  Elizabeth felt as if her head would split in two. “I couldn’t say, Katherine, I suppose he might.” Tears started in her eyes and she ran across the landing to her chamber door. “I intend to lie down for a while before I dress for dinner. I shall see you when we have returned from fetching Duncan.” She put her hand to the latch and stood, her lungs heaving, facing the door until Katherine swept by.

  The moment Elizabeth was certain Katherine would not turn about and renew the argument Elizabeth entered her room, shut the door and pulled the bolt. Fast falling tears obscured her vision as she stumbled towards the bed and sank down, leaned her head against a post and gave vent to her feelings. She was finally sobered by the realization that she used the little silk bag with the precious lock of hair to stem her tears. Staring at it for some moments, she finally concluded that a proper hiding place must be found for it, one that kept it by her always.