An Encounter at the Museum

by Claudia Dain

  “Very,” Elizabeth answered. “Oh, very.” She sighed and it hurt, her entire body ached just thinking of his face.

  “But he is not titled.”

  “No. He is not.” And that said it all, really. Her father would consider nothing less than a titled husband for either of them. He had worked too hard and acquired too much money not to see it put to good use in the purchase of a peerage for his grandchildren. “I shall never see him again. It was a sparkling, shimmering moment,” she said, a wry smile on her lips. “It shall not be repeated.”

  They drank their tea, saying nothing more. There was nothing more to say. Elizabeth changed her shoes, which were damp, and they went downstairs together to visit with Aunt Edwina and to listen to their father complain about the lack of callers. He was in the third chorus of his complaint when callers were announced.

  Lady Staverton and Mr. James Caversham.

  Oh, dear.

  Elena looked at her swiftly, Aunt Edwina noticed the look and narrowed her already narrow eyes, and then they were all rising to greet Lady Staverton and Jamie.

  Jamie. She should not think of him so. He was Mr. Caversham, only that.

  Lady Staverton was a stunning beauty of burnished red hair, milk white skin, and sparkling soft green eyes. She was turned out in a gown of sheerest muslin with a cunningly designed hat with ribbons woven onto the crown. She looked elegant, wealthy, and supremely confident. Wealthy, titled widows did tend to sport that precise look.

  Jamie looked exactly had he had done when she’d seen him at the museum. He had not so much as rearranged his cravat. His black hair looked windblown, in the most stylish and rakish way imaginable, and his cheeks were attractively ruddy. He looked a man about Town: elegant, wealthy, and supremely confident.

  Quite like Lady Staverton, in fact. They made quite a nice couple. Were they a couple?

  “Mr. Ardenzy,” Lady Staverton said, lifting her face as she lifted from her curtsey, “how nice of you to receive us. Mr. James Caversham and I share quite a long history. I think the two of you have quite a lot in common.” The men nodded their heads at one another.

  “You are a man of business, Mr. Caversham?” her father asked as they all took seats about the room. Elena pressed herself against Elizabeth on the settee near the hearth. Aunt Edwina narrowed her eyes.

  “I am not, Mr. Ardenzy,” Jamie answered. Jamie had chosen to sit in the chair next to Aunt Edwina. He was either very bold or very stupid. “I have a keen interest in business and in trade, but then I have a keen interest in many things to which I have not yet laid my hand.”

  Jamie’s gaze, so blue and so penetrating, swept over everyone in the room. She was not imagining that he let his gaze rest a second or two longer on her face as he said those words. Elena clasping her hand was the proof of that.

  Aunt Edwina did more than narrow her eyes; she scowled. Elizabeth eased her hand out of Elena’s and presented a bland expression in Jamie’s direction. Jamie slid his gaze back to her father, his own expression as bland as it was possible to be without falling dead asleep.

  “I urge you to lay your hand to the plow, as it were, and not look back,” Father said. “It does a man no good to spend his days considering and contemplating. Choose your field, sir, and take action.”

  “I take your meaning, Mr. Ardenzy,” Jamie said, his blue eyes sharply twinkling, his smile contained. “I have decided upon my course. I will act upon it.”

  “What field do you intend to plow, Mr. Caversham?” Lady Staverton asked with a cheery smile. Her expression seemed very carefully arranged to Elizabeth. Aunt Edwina sniffed at the question. Father’s eyes narrowed. When Father’s eyes narrowed, that was grim indeed.

  “Canadian fields,” Jamie said. “I plan to make my life in Canada.”

  “In timber, sir?” Father asked. “They are rich in timber and the supply is reputed to be endless.”

  “And the navy always in need of ships and ships always in need of timber,” Jamie said. “Yes, sir, I do think it shall be timber.”

  Canada. He was leaving England for Canada. Well, that was that. There had been no future for her that included James Caversham, she knew that, but she knew that even more now that he was going to be on an entirely different continent, the wide and wild Atlantic between them. No, no future. Of course not, but the point had been pressed home, right through her heart.

  “You have capital?” her father asked.

  “That is hardly our concern, Sebastian,” Aunt Edwina said stiffly, still giving Elizabeth a narrow look.

  “When do you leave our shores, Mr. Caversham?” Elena asked.

  “As soon as I have finished my business in England, Miss Ardenzy,” he said. His eyes twinkled like blue stars, cold and distant. Did Elena feel their chill fire as she did?

  “Do you not think you shall miss England?” Elizabeth asked.

  Jamie looked at her. Did no one else feel the intensity of that stare? “I will take with me all that I cherish from England, Miss Elizabeth, rest assured. I am eager to begin anew, on a new continent, the old world behind me, the new world under my feet. I shall make my life there, a new life for a new century.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” she said, her voice coming out hardly more than a whisper. “A new life. A new world.”

  He stared at her and she returned his stare. The room and all its occupants, even her father, faded into mist. The only firm thing in the room was Jamie and the electric bond that shimmered between them.

  “I take it you are not married,” Aunt Edwina said, throwing herself into the middle of them, breaking the bond. “A good English wife might find such a move difficult.”

  “I am not married. Not yet,” Jamie said. “But I soon will be.”

  And before Elizabeth’s heart could break yet again, he looked at her and she knew, she simply knew that he meant to marry her.

  She quivered in her seat. Elena reached out and laid a hand upon her knee, pressing down. Pressing down, yes, or she would fly across the room to Jamie instantly, throwing herself into his arms and into his plans.

  She did not know him, not really, yet she knew him better than she knew Lord Redding. And she did not want Lord Redding. She wanted James Caversham. She wanted Jamie, and if Jamie wanted Canada, then she wanted Canada as well.

  “I would think that a good English wife would follow her husband anywhere, quite happily,” Lady Staverton said. As Lady Staverton had been married twice, and widowed twice, she was far more of an authority on wifely behavior than Aunt Edwina who had never married at all. Considering her opinions about a good English wife, Elizabeth thought the reason for her spinsterhood self-explanatory. “Or perhaps I am romanticizing it. What do you believe, Miss Elizabeth?”

  “I believe,” she said, laying a hand over Elena’s, ignoring her father and aunt, “that a good wife of any continent or nation walks wherever her husband wills, and that what he loves, she loves.”

  “And what she loves, he loves,” Jamie said, his eyes blazing.

  “So their love is made perfect, in harmony and in unity,” she said.

  “As their bodies are made one, so are their lives,” he said.

  It was a vow. It was very nearly a wedding vow.

  “Elizabeth was reading Romeo and Juliet earlier today,” Elena said, breaking into the moment, and once she had, Elizabeth realized that the tension in the room had grown thick upon the recitation of their ‘vows.’

  “A heart-rending tale of love gained and lost,” Lady Staverton said.

  “If only they had moved, the loss could have been easily avoided,” Jamie said, his eyes touching her face before looking fully at Lady Staverton.

  “And lived on what?” Aunt Edwina said. “Children marry as they must, not as they will.”

  “A parent may smooth the way or hinder it,” Elena said. “Do you not agree, Father?”

  “I am not familiar with the play,” he said, neatly closing the subject.

  Lady Staverton looked at
the clock upon the mantel with a subtle flicker of her eyes. The time for their visit was spent, the time for Jamie to walk out of her house upon her. She could not bear it, yet what could she do to stop it? He was for Canada and she was for Lord Redding. Elizabeth clasped her hands in her lap and tried to stop staring at Jamie. She was entirely unsuccessful.

  Lady Staverton was just rising to her feet, Jamie slowly following her lead, when another caller was announced.

  “The Marquis of Dutton is calling, Mr. Ardenzy,” the butler said.

  Lady Staverton barked a laugh. Jamie shook his head. Aunt Edwina narrowed her eyes and straightened her lace collar. Elena leaned toward Elizabeth and whispered, “Was he in the Reading Room, too?”

  Before Elizabeth could answer, Lord Dutton was admitted to the drawing room.

  “Lord Dutton,” Ardenzy said, “what a pleasure. It is delightful to meet you at last.”

  Ardenzy was a narrow man, narrow of frame and of face. He looked eternally hungry, which was likely a very apt description of his state of mind. Ardenzy introduced his twin daughters, identical beauties of blond hair and blue eyes, except that they were not identical, not to Jamie.

  He had known Elizabeth from Elena from the moment he entered the room. Yes, they looked alike in that they were both beautiful, blond, blue-eyed, but Elizabeth was Elizabeth. It was the difference between a woman and a portrait of her. He wanted the woman.

  Getting the woman would not be easy. Her father, he of the lean and hungry look, was a man who had made a fortune and wanted what a fortune could buy, namely, a titled husband. When a man had a fortune and beautiful daughters, certain truths were entirely self-evident.

  An aunt to the girls was introduced to Dutton, Ardenzy’s unmarried sister. Dutton nodded and dismissed her instantly, something which the aunt did not enjoy. Jamie would have thought Dutton a fool for that, but Dutton cared nothing for the Ardenzy’s. All his attention was for Anne Staverton. Anne glittered in response.

  The occupants of the room shuffled as they stood to make their greetings and Dutton arranged to find a seat next to Anne, the aunt seated next to Elena, Ardenzy seated on the other side of Dutton, and he seated next to Elizabeth. Jamie was where he wanted to be. He kept an eye on Anne, not forgetting how he was to help her in her quest to enrage Dutton. An arrangement that grew more burdensome as the minutes passed. How was he to aid Anne without offending Elizabeth?

  “I was not aware you knew Mr. Ardenzy, Lord Dutton,” Anne said, her voice carrying easily throughout the room. “Your field of acquaintance is impressive.”

  “I am delighted that I have impressed you, Lady Staverton,” Dutton replied. Ardenzy was staring at the Marquis of Dutton; Jamie could almost feel the man’s hunger that the marquis pay attention to his daughters. Elizabeth shifted her weight and leaned forward. Her aunt glared at her and she leaned back again. “I know how difficult that is to do,” Dutton said to Anne.

  “You make me sound quite daunting, Lord Dutton,” Anne said. “How refreshing. I have rarely been thought daunting in my life. It is quite invigorating to have grown into such a condition.”

  The air sparked between them. It fairly shimmered. Jamie wondered if the Ardenzy family could see it, and what they thought of it if they did. It did not bode well for match-making. It did bode well for releasing him from his pledge of aid to Anne. She did not need him if Dutton continued to behave so completely in thrall to her.

  “I was not aware that women sought to be daunting in this new age,” Miss Edwina Ardenzy said in clipped tones. She thought herself a dragon. She did not have Aldreth for a father, that was certain. Jamie had been schooled in harsher salons than this. “It does not sound at all desirable.” She cast a glance at Elizabeth, in warning, most certainly.

  Elizabeth stirred her tea silently, her eyes lowered. Her shoulders and back, however, were straight. Jamie did think that must mean something.

  “It must depend upon the man,” Dutton said.

  “Not the woman?” Anne responded. “How disappointing.”

  “I do not believe you could disappoint anyone, Lady Staverton,” Jamie said, his legs thrust out before him, crossed at the ankles.

  It was a simple thing, that one sentence of aid. He did hope that no more was required of him. A call was only a small thing, a tiny wedge of time; he could not stay plopped down upon the Ardenzy couch all afternoon. It was already past time that he and Anne should have made their farewells. But he would not leave without some sort of arrangement with Elizabeth. And Anne would not leave until she had skewered Dutton. They were both determined to stay well past their appointed time, not that Mr. Ardenzy seemed eager for their departure. The aunt, however, did seem precisely that.

  “You and Lady Staverton are well-acquainted?” Ardenzy asked him.

  “Old and good friends,” Jamie said, looking at Dutton with a lazy smile. “Going back years, is that not so, Lady Staverton?”

  “Quite so,” Anne said, handing her cup over to the aunt to be freshened.

  But not intimate friends. And he wanted that known. He wanted to help Anne without hurting Elizabeth. That he could hurt Elizabeth he did not question.

  He was in love. A fool, therefore, and a willing fool, yet he did not bemoan his state. He had seen Aldreth love Zoe for all his life and if love made a man a fool, it also made him better. Perhaps being a fool for love was the highest state a man could attain. He was in no position to think otherwise.

  He did not know her, had barely met her, yet she called to something in him, some wild, untamed part of him. In truth, most of him was comprised of that untamed part. It was why Aldreth encouraged his flight to Canada. He needed more space and fewer rules. Less civilization and more opportunity. He had not thought he wanted a wife, not now, but that was before he had seen Elizabeth.

  No, he did not know her, had barely met her, but she would be his wife. He would contemplate no other outcome.

  Jamie cast a quick glance at Dutton, wondering how he was interpreting the exchange regarding Anne. What he saw left him feeling sorry for Anne. Anne might think she could taunt Dutton with him, but it was a wasted effort. Jamie could feel awareness, a shivering energy, shimmering between them. If Anne thought to taunt Dutton with a dalliance with him, she required a new strategy immediately. As did he, with Elizabeth. He had been introduced to her family, fine, well and good, but it brought him but a scant inch closer to asking for her hand. The hungry look Ardenzy gave Dutton, the titled man in their midst, told him it would be a wasted effort.

  “And how did you become acquainted with Mr. Ardenzy, Lord Dutton?” Jamie asked, simply for something to say. He had to get the room talking so that he could work his way toward Elizabeth and something resembling a plan.

  “Mr. Ardenzy was kind enough to help me with a developing project at Redworth,” Dutton said. “I have been busy bringing Redworth into this century. My father left much neglected.” As he was cup shot more often than not, Jamie finished for him. Aldreth had been close to the elder Dutton once, according to Zoe. He had ceased the connection long ago.

  “It was little enough. A bit of information,” Ardenzy said, lifting his chin proudly.

  “Sometimes little bits of information can be decisive,” Jamie said, looking briefly at Elizabeth.

  “True enough,” Dutton said, looking longingly at Anne.

  Anne, in response, said, “I’m afraid we must leave. We have other calls to make, is that not so, Mr. Caversham?” Anne stood. Jamie, as etiquette demanded, stood. Dutton, his eyes gleaming, stood. Everyone stood. “Thank you for entertaining us so beautifully, Mr. Ardenzy, Miss Ardenzy. Your daughters are quite the loveliest women of the Season. I’m certain they’ll do brilliantly.”

  “Indeed. Thank you for saying so, Lady Staverton,” Ardenzy said, puffing his chest out a bit. As he was quite narrow of frame, it did not do a thing for him.

  “Lord Dutton,” Anne said, “a pleasure, as always.”

  “Until we meet again, Lady Stav
erton,” Dutton said, his look so blatantly carnal that Elena Ardenzy sighed in either dismissal or arousal. He was inclined to think the former. Elizabeth’s response to Dutton’s remark was to stare at him with longing and confusion and a mute appeal for him to do something.

  He must do something. It was only that he was not sure what.

  Inspiration having deserted him, he and Anne found themselves back on the street. His hat on, her spencer buttoned, and nothing gained beyond an introduction to a man who would refuse any suit he could offer. And all he could offer was a life of adventure and risk in Canada.

  “What now?” he breathed, offering his arm to Anne.

  She took it, her body rigid with control. It was fruitless; he could feel her tremors. Of rage or passion, he was hardly the proper judge. They walked away from the Aldreth’s, from Elizabeth; every step was as if he were walking on nails. He was leaving her. He would never attain her. He could not take a deep breath without feeling the pain of it.

  “It did not go as I expected,” Anne said.

  “Nor I.”

  “I have nothing further to offer you. I am not adept at these sorts of manipulations.”

  “Nor I.”

  They continued on for a few steps, each step slower than the one before it, more hesitantly taken.

  “Shall we admit defeat?” she asked.

  “No.” Never that. Slowed, but not stopped. Shaken, but not destroyed.

  A few more steps. A few more breaths that clawed at his heart like claws.

  “Shall we go where we will find solutions?”

  “Where we shall find the way to our heart’s desire?” he added.

  “My heart’s desire? Is he?” Anne said.

  Jamie smiled with one corner of his mouth. “Isn’t he?”

  “Is she?”

  “Yes. All my heart. All my desire,” he answered instantly.

  There was no shame in love. How that Anne did not understand that? If Dutton was the man she loved, embrace it and him and all.

  Anne did not respond to his words with an answering vow. She did not smile. She did not frown. She simply walked, one step after another, her steps brisk where his were leaden. Women were not fashioned in the same way as men, that much was clear.