by Lucy Muir
News of the invitation improved Elisabeth’s spirits immediately. Surely the invitation was a sign the viscount was relenting? Perhaps he was even sorry he had ended the betrothal. “I shall look forward to it. Is there any book you wish me to purchase for you, Lady Parker?”
“If you should chance to see Thomas Peacock’s Headlong Hall I would enjoy having that volume. I have heard it is a short but amusing work of fiction and I have no time at the present to peruse longer works.”
“I shall search for it,” Elisabeth promised.
The next morning Elisabeth dressed carefully for the outing to the bookshop, choosing a flattering pleated walking dress of lilac, white and yellow. Molly had persuaded her mistress to try a new high-crowned bonnet and as Elisabeth viewed herself in the cheval glass she was satisfied she looked both neat and smart.
The admiring look in Lord Sherbourne’s eyes when he called for her boosted Elisabeth’s confidence and she felt encouraged for the first time in days. All was not lost! Surely if they had a pleasant outing today Lord Sherbourne might reconsider his decision to end their betrothal. Buoyed with hope, Elisabeth allowed herself to be helped into the tilbury and they set off on their outing.
The new bookshop proved to be a treasure trove of volumes and Elisabeth and Lord Sherbourne spent two exceedingly pleasant hours browsing through the stock. Elisabeth found several volumes for herself and for Jane and did not forget to set aside a copy of Headlong Hall for Lady Parker.
Lord Sherbourne noted the novel as Elisabeth placed it beside her other selections.
“I thought you did not read novels, Miss Ashwood,” he commented with a smile.
“It is for Lady Parker,” Elisabeth explained. “But I must confess I am rather curious to look at it myself after having met Mr. Peacock at Mr. Hunt’s that afternoon.”
“While Mr. Peacock’s novel is sharp and satirical and rather amusing, I think I might find a novel you would prefer,” Lord Sherbourne suggested. “If you will allow me?” he finished interrogatively.
Elisabeth, delighted with the return of their old ease for the first time in weeks, acquiesced prettily and Lord Sherbourne pulled a volume from the shelves, offering it for her inspection.
“Sense and Sensibility,” Elisabeth read the title. “I have heard of Miss Austen’s works. I believe the Prince Regent is partial to them.”
“Yes, I have heard that myself. Whatever else one might say about the Prince, he admires, recognizes and supports great talent.
“When you read it, take particular note of the character of Elinor,” Lord Sherbourne commented. “I find you not unlike her.”
“I shall note her character in particular,” Elisabeth promised demurely, earning a quizzical look from Lord Sherbourne. Suddenly they both laughed, quickly stifling their merriment as other shop patrons looked askance at them.
“Miss Ashwood…”
“Yes, Lord Sherbourne?”
“I would like to have the opportunity to speak to you alone, perhaps this evening at my sister’s town house?”
“Of course, Lord Sherbourne,” Elisabeth agreed, her heart pounding. There was no mistaking the viscount’s tone of voice. Elisabeth knew instinctively that Sherbourne regretted their estrangement as much as she did and that he wished to discuss a reconciliation. Her whole demeanor lightened and she smiled in sheer joy. A matching smile appeared on Sherbourne’s tanned face as he picked up their book selections and Elisabeth felt she wished to dance from the bookshop she was so very happy.
In mutual satisfaction at the success of their outing, Lord Sherbourne and Elisabeth returned to Lady Parker’s.
“I purchased the volume you desired, Lady Parker,” Elisabeth said as she and Lord Sherbourne joined the viscount’s sister in the drawing room. “It is in the parcel with the others. What a delightful shop it was. There were so many books on a great many topics and all bound so beautifully.”
Elisabeth stopped, noting that Lady Parker was not responding to her happy chatter and, in fact, had a most sober look on her face.
“Is anything amiss?” Elisabeth asked, concerned.
“I fear so,” Lady Parker said slowly. “I must ask you and you also, Richard, to attend to me most carefully, for we have an unfortunate situation upon us.”
Elisabeth and Lord Sherbourne, after a wondering glance at each other, took seats on the low-backed mahogany chairs and waited for Lady Parker to elucidate.
“We have a most serious state of affairs that has developed,” Lady Parker began. “Mrs. Abbott called upon me early this afternoon and imparted unhappy news. It would seem that her neighbor, Lady Walburton, was walking in Upper St. James Park yesterday when the raised voice of a woman attracted her attention. She looked in the direction of the disturbance and saw someone who looked like you, Miss Ashwood, speaking with Mrs. Shelley in unguarded tones.
“I told Mrs. Abbott that her neighbor must have been mistaken, that I had not given permission for you to walk in the Park yesterday, but I must ask you, Miss Ashwood, did you do so?”
Elisabeth had been listening to Lady Parker in growing dismay. Oh why did someone have to see her with the Shelleys now? She could feel the cold silence from Lord Sherbourne and knew that nothing worse could have happened at this time—the viscount would never believe she had not gone to the Park to see the Mr. Shelley and the ease between them that had reappeared at the bookshop would be destroyed.
“Mrs. Shelley asked me to meet them at Upper St. James as they were in town for the day, Lady Parker,” Elisabeth confessed miserably. “Neither you nor Lord Sherbourne were at hand to accompany me, and as Mr. Earlywine happened by, I asked him if he would escort me. I did not go alone, I assure you.”
“I knew I should not have allowed you to persuade me into allowing that unfortunate acquaintance, Richard!” Lady Parker exclaimed, rising from her chair in agitation.
“And you, Miss Ashwood. I am excessively disappointed in you as well,” Lady Parker added sternly, her expression uncannily reflecting her brother’s normally severe visage. “You knew I did not wish you to encourage the acquaintance and yet you met the Shelleys without my permission, in Upper St. James yet, during the height of the Season! There is no knowing how many others observed you in the Shelleys’ presence!”
Elisabeth sat silent, wretchedly aware she deserved the dressing down.
“Charlotte, I find I must beg your pardon, as you have been proven to have had the right of it from the beginning,” Lord Sherbourne said in a carefully controlled tone. “I should not have allowed the acquaintance to continue after the initial meeting at Hunt’s. However, nothing can undo what has been done. We must think best how to proceed from this moment.”
“I cannot think what to do, Richard,” Lady Parker said, dropping back into her chair with a defeated slump of her shoulders. “If others did see Miss Ashwood, if this gets out—we could lose our vouchers to Almack’s.”
“I should not miss them,” Elisabeth offered timidly.
“You do not understand, Miss Ashwood,” Lady Parker said severely. “To lose vouchers that have been awarded…it is a disgrace! If we had not had the misfortune of attracting the attention of the patronesses and did not have tickets to Almack’s we might have been able to withstand the gossip. But we should not be able to weather the disgrace of losing them. Your reputation would be destroyed, Miss Ashwood, and while under my care!”
The shame of possibly having such a thing occur to a young woman under her care overwhelmed Lady Parker and Elisabeth was disturbed to see tears swimming in the older woman’s dark eyes.
“Oh please do not distress yourself, Lady Parker,” Elisabeth begged. “It may not happen. And you were not at fault in any of this. The fault was mine entirely—I have not acted with discretion. Oh please forgive me! I promise I shall not meet the Shelleys ever again!”
“Indeed you will not,” Lord Sherbourne agreed with a black look at Elisabeth. “I must ask your word that you will go nowhere at any time with
anyone unless it is in my company or that of Lady Parker.”
“I give you my solemn word, Lord Sherbourne, Lady Parker,” Elisabeth promised.
The viscount turned to his sister. “We must hope for the best, Charlotte. Perhaps if we are fortunate Lady Walburton was the only one who observed Miss Ashwood and will not bruit it about.”
While Lord Sherbourne and his sister discussed possible outcomes of the disaster, tears rolled silently down Elisabeth’s face at the ruin of all her hopes of reconciliation with Lord Sherbourne. There was no hope now. He would never forgive her. Never.
Sherbourne left his sister’s town house in a state of rage such as he had rarely experienced. And to think this very morning he had actually been thinking that he had made a mistake in telling Miss Ashwood they should agree not to become betrothed! What a very narrow escape he had had! Truly Miss Thibeau had the right of it, for Miss Ashwood appeared to have a fatal inclination for the company of dissolute poets. What was it about Shelley that was so attractive to women? In his own opinion he considered the poet rather effeminate. Intelligent, yes, talented, yes, but rather weak in body and morals. Perhaps Miss Ashwood simply preferred tall, stooping, pale poets with high voices, long dark locks and no coat. If so, he would never suit for his muscular strength, fair hair and skin tanned from years in the tropics made him the antithesis of Shelley.
Back at his own town house Lord Sherbourne called for a bottle of claret and sat nursing his anger as the shadows lengthened.
“What has brought on such a fit of the blue devils, Sherbourne?” Earlywine asked as he entered the drawing room unannounced, the informality a custom between the lifelong friends.
“A pickle into which I should have had the sense not to get myself,” Sherbourne replied. “Care for a glass, Earlywine?”
“With pleasure,” Earlywine accepted, helping himself to a glass of claret and settling into an overstuffed chair across from his friend’s. “Is there aught I can help you with?”
Sherbourne sighed. “It appears that Miss Ashwood was seen conversing with Mrs. Shelley on the day you accompanied her to Upper St. James.”
“I say, that was unfortunate! I hope I did not overstep the bounds but Miss Ashwood asked me to escort her to the Park and I did not like to refuse a direct request from a lady.”
“No, you did not overstep the bounds. I fear it is Miss Ashwood who did that,” Sherbourne said tiredly. “She appears to have a fascination with the poet. It would seem that your advice that day in January was correct, Earlywine. Emotions are not always governable, much as one might wish they were.
“I fear I made an error, a great error,” Sherbourne continued. “I find that a betrothal between Miss Ashwood and myself is not possible.”
“Why is that?” Earlywine asked bluntly. “You cannot be that unforgiving of a small indiscretion. I was present at the Park and I assure you that all Miss Ashwood did was stroll about with Mrs. Shelley. She did not even speak to Shelley himself beyond a courteous greeting and leave-taking.”
“If it were only the walk I could forgive it,” Sherbourne admitted. “But I cannot help observing that Miss Ashwood is more inclined to gentlemen—if I may use the term loosely—of an artistic persuasion. I do not believe she would be happy wed to a viscount whose interests must lie with running his estate.”
“Bosh,” Earlywine contradicted his friend. “Miss Ashwood has lived in the country all of her years and undoubtedly understands the duties attendant on such a life. All women must swoon over the poets. It means nothing—think of the hubbub over Byron. Every woman adored him.”
“Every woman may have adored him but every woman did not allow Byron to kiss them.”
Earlywine started. “Miss Ashwood allowed Shelley to kiss her? How do you know this?”
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Sherbourne said bitterly. “On the sailboat.”
“The sailboat?” Earlywine repeated in confusion. “But I was on the sailboat as well and I saw nothing.”
“It was when you were at the helm and Miss Ashwood and Shelley were at the bow. I saw them kiss as I came up from below.”
“Then it could only have been the briefest of kisses,” Earlywine protested. “I was constantly scanning the horizon and I would have seen any lasting embrace. Perhaps Shelley caught Miss Ashwood unaware. You know how he is with women. I think you have given the incident more importance than it had.”
Unwilling to admit there might be any truth to his friend’s arguments, Lord Sherbourne did not reply but sat silently nursing his glass of claret.
“I say,” Earlywine ventured after a few moments of silence had passed, “you have not formed an attachment elsewhere, have you? Is that why you wish to be free of Miss Ashwood?”
Sherbourne looked up in surprise. “An attachment elsewhere? Whatever do you mean by that?”
“With Miss Thibeau?” Earlywine suggested. “You cannot have helped but notice how flirtatious her manner with us was at that first sitting, and one must admit she is of surpassing beauty.”
“One cannot deny Miss Thibeau’s attractions,” Sherbourne admitted, “but I doubt most strongly that the artist would be any happier than Miss Ashwood being the wife of a viscount who intends to reside at his estate eleven out of twelve months of the year.”
“I am relieved to hear it,” Earlywine said cryptically.
The friends lapsed into silence, each lost in his respective thoughts as night stole into the drawing room on Curzon Street. The bottle of claret was emptied and Sherbourne’s ever-vigilant butler replaced it with a new one.
Chapter Eleven
Elisabeth wallowed in unabated misery for several days after learning she had been observed in the park with Mary Shelley, feeling that she had lost everything, even the affection and respect of Lady Parker. How had it all happened? She had never intended to do wrong or distress anyone—quite the contrary, for she had originally agreed to the betrothal to save her brother’s patrimony and please her parents. Yet look at the consequence. The worst part was that she could see nothing she might do to mend matters.
Elisabeth attended two balls during the rest of the week, closely chaperoned by Lord Sherbourne and his sister, but she had no pleasure in either. She did not dare venture far from Lady Parker and danced only with those gentlemen Lady Parker approved. At least she had partners, which Elisabeth had feared she would not. Apparently word had not yet spread through the ton about her indiscreet behavior.
Elisabeth began to long to return to Thornhill, where she might at least have some hope of forgetting the pain of the past months in the environs of her family home. Thornhill, at least, would be secure, for she knew Lord Sherbourne would keep his word regarding her family.
The next Monday morning as Elisabeth waited for callers in the drawing room, Lady Parker sorted through invitations with a slight frown marring her face. “I do not know what invitations to risk accepting,” she confessed to Elisabeth. “More balls would not be a good choice, for if word has now spread regarding your indiscretion you might not be asked to stand up with any gentlemen. Perhaps a rout,” she continued, looking through the pile once again. “I believe I saw an invitation to a rout at the Earlywine’s—that would be ideal, for there is no dancing nor anything much but walking around in crowded rooms.”
Although she did not particularly enjoy routs, Elisabeth offered no objections and two evenings hence found Lady Parker, the viscount and Elisabeth on their way to the Earlywines’ rout.
“I have hopes that we may yet escape serious damage to Miss Ashwood’s reputation,” Lady Parker confided to her brother as the carriage rattled down the street. “I have observed some strange looks when among company but no one has yet given us the cut direct.”
“Perhaps we may, although it is early days yet,” Sherbourne cautioned his sister.
The carriage rolled to a stop before the Earlywines’ townhome, ending their conversation. They descended from the carriage and moved slowly along with the crowd as it
filtered into the Earlywines’ townhome and through the open rooms, greeting acquaintances as they moved slowly along.
“Bonne soirée, Lady Parker, Lord Sherbourne, Mademoiselle Ashwood,” Evonne Thibeau greeted them, her voluptuous form suddenly materializing out of the throng. “How charming you appear in white, Miss Ashwood,” she continued, smiling at Elisabeth.
“Thank you, Miss Thibeau,” Elisabeth acknowledged, immediately feeling she was dressed in far too young a fashion for her age. “You look exceedingly well yourself,” she added honestly, for Miss Thibeau, as always, had dressed with an unerring sense of what flattered her looks. This evening the Frenchwoman had chosen a lavender silk with darker fabric roses and a net overskirt. The neckline of the bodice was filled in with the same pale lavender net but the covering had the effect of drawing attention to Miss Thibeau’s generous bosom rather than hiding it.
“Lady Parker, it is you I have come to speak with,” Evonne explained. “Lord Sherbourne, he has told you of his arrangements for the portrait of the Revati chat, yes?”
“Yes, Miss Thibeau, my brother did explain to me that he has arranged for you to do a portrait of my cat as a gift for my birthday. You are welcome to come to my town house at any time you might find the light adequate.”
“Thank you, Lady Parker. I shall come soon then, yes? Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle Ashwood, I shall hope to see you as well.”
With that, Miss Thibeau left in a rustle of lavender silk, leaving Elisabeth feeling that she was fated to see the charming artist wherever she went and to always be outshone by her. She was relieved when they finished circulating through the rooms and were able to return home.
Early Tuesday morning Earlywine made his way to the home of the Comtesse de Fleurille, remembering that although the time was not acceptable for formal calls, Miss Thibeau preferred early hours for portrait sittings.