“What library? What the deuce are you on about?”
Sebastian growled. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I haven’t the first idea to what you’re referring, honestly.” With a hand to his heart, Drake said, “I assure you the last thing I would want is to provoke you. I invited you as my guest, you’ll recall. While the rest of us are enjoying our lives as gentlemen should, you’re holed up in your pile of ruins. I thought a few evenings of merriment would do you some good. I don’t know what you’re on about, and I don’t appreciate being threatened.”
Following a long pause, Drake took a deep breath and lightened his tone. “If you get your head out of your arse, perhaps you would be so good as to accompany me to visit Lady Collingwood and her two beautiful and wealthy nieces. If not, that’s your prerogative and to my advantage. And I assure you, I do plan to take advantage.”
Drake stalked off in the direction of Lady Kissinger, leaving Sebastian to wonder about the odds of coincidences and to reflect on his churlish behavior at dinner.
Chapter 6
The drawing room at Lady Collingwood’s London townhome was a neo-classical delight. Stucco walls, wall niches with statues, Chippendale furniture, a rug designed to complement the pastel shades and plasterwork reliefs of the ceiling. A mythology inspired motif repeated throughout the room in the border, the furniture, and even the carved frieze above the fireplace.
“I’ve always loathed this room,” said Aunt Hazel two days after the fancy dress ball.
“Auntie!” Charlotte sat across from her, stroking a cockatoo perched on her forearm. “You chose the design!”
“I know, but I loathe it all the same. I chose it to be fashionable, and I hardly know why. I’d rather this room be pink.”
Lizbeth sat at the writing desk finishing a few letters for her father who left most of his correspondences to her way with words.
Charlotte returned Captain Henry to his tree. “Do you think he’ll come today?”
“One should hope, my dear.” Aunt Hazel reassured Charlotte. “I returned the card yesterday, so he could visit any day. We can assume he has other engagements, but I dare say he won’t stay away for long.”
The Duke of Annick’s calling card arrived the day after the ball. Only this morning had the squeals of delight between Hazel and Charlotte subsided. Liz, on the other hand, was less than thrilled. She wasn’t sure his intentions for calling, but she hoped he meant to rekindle his friendship with Walter rather than harass her or Charlotte. She could at least defend herself against the likes of him, unlike Charlotte—too young, too impressionable, and too in love with each beau who paid her a compliment or sent flowers.
Oddly, Liz too had received flowers after the masquerade, but thankfully, no callers. At least five bouquets arrived for her, all from names she barely recognized, no doubt gentlemen who witnessed her dance with a duke and then an earl. Such associations might give the impression she was a catch despite her age, not to mention on the market.
In anticipation of the duke’s arrival, Hazel insisted they set up camp in the formal drawing room, at the ready with embroidery and chitchat so they would appear occupied, at ease, and at their best. Although he had yet to appear, they spent the time entertaining a steady stream of callers, mostly friends of Hazel’s, a few friends of Charlotte’s, and several potential suitors also for Charlotte.
Lizbeth joined the conversation, quill poised above paper. “We certainly shouldn’t expect him until after Parliament, should he even call, which is unlikely.” She returned the quill to its stand, dusted the freshly inked address, folded and sealed the last letter, and walked over to the duo. “I wouldn’t sit around waiting for him if I were you.”
“Oh, but Lizbeth. He’s a duke, and he’s so handsome and clever. Did you know that he’s friends with Prinny? I’m so taken with him,” Charlotte cooed.
Just as Lizbeth rolled her eyes, the butler opened the door, earning the attention of all three ladies. “His Grace the Duke of Annick.”
Charlotte rushed to her seat and grabbed her embroidery as the duke entered the room, his multi-caped riding coat swishing behind him. He wore tan buckskin that left little to the imagination and Hessian boots curved just below the knee with a v notch and a gold tassel.
She couldn’t help noticing the sheen with which his hair glistened in all its artfully arranged dishevelment. He looked like a frightened owl. The cravat at his neck was truly dandified with a complex knot, lace edging, and sparkling diamonds peeking out of the folds.
So frivolous. Liz tutted.
They stood and curtsied in greeting.
“I’ve walked into a painting of goddesses!” Annick exclaimed.
“Your Grace, join us. You may sit wherever best suits you. Cecil will return with a tea tray shortly,” Aunt Hazel crooned.
Squawk.
All eyes turned to Captain Henry perched on his tree.
Before sitting, the duke walked towards the bird. Captain Henry raised his crest, a fan of yellow and white, and spread his wings, bowing and bobbing to the newcomer.
Squawk ha ha ha ha squawk.
“I’ve only come to see you, my darling.” Annick flirted with the cockatoo who replied with more bowing and squawking, shadowing Annick’s movements with aggressive enthusiasm. “Shall we take a ride in the park together, you magnificent bird?”
Charlotte chortled behind her hand as the duke courted the bird.
“If you’re this enthusiastic about me,” he continued to say to the bird, “why don’t we skip courtship and go straight for the wedding? What’s your name, beautiful angel?”
Lizbeth intervened, hoping to save the cockatoo from undue stress. “His name is Captain Henry, and he’s trying to intimidate you to discourage a potential rival.”
Charlotte’s muffled laughter could be heard throughout the room.
The butler re-entered with a tray of tea, sandwiches, scones, and sweets, far more than any of them could eat in one brief visit.
Aunt Hazel promptly began readying the tea. “Milk, Your Grace?”
“Yes, please, and sugar.” He moved away from the upset cockatoo and took his seat with a flourish. “I thought we had dispensed of the formalities. Nothing would delight me more than for you to call me Annick, your ladyship.”
His coat still on, teacup in hand, he explained he hadn’t come for a lengthy social call, rather to invite them all for a ride in Hyde Park. The door opened, then, and Walter and Papa Cuthbert tumbled into the room, affecting nonchalance and surprise to find the Duke of Annick present. Never had eavesdropping been more obvious.
The clock on the mantel ticked slow seconds as everyone chatted before Walter and Papa whisked away the duke for a cheroot in the study. Would she ever be rid of his company? Courtesy dictated he leave after half an hour, yet three quarters of an hour had passed. And now to think of enduring a ride with him in Hyde Park? Unbearable. Inconceivable. Ludicrous!
Lizbeth’s nerves frayed during the wait between the invitation and the ride, especially when Hazel spent the time exclaiming how her machinations were coming to fruition at last, and that one of her nieces would snare a duke. Her aunt even offered unsolicited advice on what to say during the drive, how to behave, and how to accidentally initiate physical contact.
By the time Annick returned to take them for the drive, Lizbeth could stand it no longer. She hadn’t enjoyed a single moment’s peace since the masquerade, and this was all too much, especially when the duke was an ever-present reminder of Lord Roddam and the dinner debacle.
To the surprise of all in the room, Lizbeth announced when the duke returned, “As tempting as the ride is, Your Grace, I must decline. I am suffering the migraines and must retire. Please accept my apologies.”
As soon as they left for the park, she informed the butler to tell visitors she was from home until
her aunt and sister returned.
She inelegantly flopped into a chair in the drawing room to relax. The tea tray with now cold tea still boasted more sandwiches and treats than could feed an army. She stuffed a sandwich in her mouth and fell into despair.
Lord Roddam haunted her thoughts.
After a lifetime of feeling out of place, she finally met someone cut from the same cloth. But then it all crumbled. He was exactly the sort of man she wanted to avoid: moody, incommunicative, forbidding.
For a brief time during their dance and dinner, she had entertained the possibility of a future with him, of romance, imagining the two of them sharing their days together talking about anything and everything, two people who understood each other. Not quite ready to cast aside her fears of an unhappy marriage or her plans for employment, she had nonetheless casually entertained possibilities.
Two meetings weren’t enough to break her heart, but she felt heartbroken all the same. Not so much over him, rather the idea of him. If she could sketch her perfect man, he would be Lord Roddam—the one man who could change her view of relationships. Before meeting him, she had yet to genuinely enjoy speaking with a man not her relation.
All she wanted was someone with whom she could talk for hours, someone with whom she could share her thoughts. She wanted someone who inspired her and excited her, someone who didn’t give a fig about society’s expectations and preferred reflection to socialization, someone who would speak honestly and include her in his life.
For the briefest of times, she believed him to be that someone. Having the ideal dashed was more heartbreaking than spending a dinner ignored. While they hadn’t entirely lapsed into silence, they might as well have, for the remainder of the meal, he had replied only with curt answers. By the time dessert was served, she had turned her attentions to the person to her other side for a polite discussion about the weather.
What had she done wrong? The conversation repeated through her mind, but no matter how she dissected the dialogue, she couldn’t see how she had said something offensive or ruffled his feathers.
This was such a typical male reaction. Instead of being forthright, he ceased communication altogether when all could be resolved through honest conversation. His behavior validated her decision never to marry.
Her father’s property may be entailed to Cousin Walter, but that didn’t mean she had to resign herself to an unhappy marriage. After all, the money earned from her father’s tin mine was his and his alone. Only the estate was entailed. If she desired, she could live without employment, but such an idle life would leave her restless. She need not sacrifice her independence for a marriage because society deemed it a respectable way of life.
For her, marriage would be love or nothing. She couldn’t love a man who refused to communicate. She could never love a man who shut her out to live his separate life while she sat at home and knitted by the fire.
She vowed at an early age that she would marry for love or remain a spinster. Love meant communication, mutual understanding, shared views, a shared life. Her parents married for love, as had Aunt Hazel, so she knew what life could be like between two loving people, and that’s the life she wanted. That or nothing.
Wedding after wedding, she witnessed her friends married off to caretakers, essentially. She refused to allow that to happen. Her greatest fear was being at the mercy of a man. Despite society’s view of women and the laws of entailment, she still felt she had alternatives.
Life as a lady’s companion seemed a perfect choice. She would earn her own income, have her own roof over her head, and enjoy the company of an older woman, a widow perhaps, who loved to be read to or go for long walks. At the very least, she could be a governess, a schoolteacher, or any other position that might offer freedom of choice, pay, and leisure time for her personal studies.
She refused to have a man tell her what to read, what to wear, and what to do. Just as she had said to Roddam during their first meeting, she didn’t believe in victims. People made their own choices and etched their own futures and were never merely victims of circumstance or happenstance.
No, she would forge her own future. Romance be dashed.
Two meetings with the ideal man shouldn’t upset her since they were a subtle reminder that the ideal man didn’t exist.
“Am I intruding?”
Lizbeth looked up from her mental diatribe, realizing she had been staring at her hands this whole time, a half-eaten sandwich soggy between her fingers. Walter peered at her from the doorway. “No, of course not. Join me.”
“I would say I’m surprised you’re not with Mama and Charlotte, but I know you too well to be shocked.” He sat across from her and reached for a sandwich.
“Should I ring for fresh tea?”
He shook his head and nibbled at the edges to pull out the cucumbers. “Mama tells me you danced with Annick’s cousin, Roddam.”
“Yes. And your point?” she snapped.
“No need to be snippy. She said you made a handsome couple. I suspect she heard wedding bells through the whole dance.” He grinned playfully.
“I’m most certainly not interested in marrying him. It was only one dance for crying in a tea cup,” Lizbeth replied tight-lipped.
Walter stared at his sandwich, lost in thought, before taking another bite.
After swallowing, he admitted, “She’s been hounding me, as well. About marriage that is. She means well. She always does. I’m just not ready is all. I want to be married and have a houseful of little ones, but... All the responsibilities of this title are weighing on my shoulders, Lizzie. I’m barely out of Oxford, yet here I am a baron. Sometimes I just want to run away from it all. Move to Wales and live in a cottage on a hill.”
Lizbeth nodded, glad to have a candid conversation.
“I do have a confession.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “I enjoyed the dance with Roddam. A great deal more than I wanted to.”
Walter met her confession with raised eyebrows.
“Oh? Are you interested in him? He hasn’t sent his card, I’m sure, or Mama would have mentioned it.” Walter dusted the crumbs off his shirt before reaching for a sweet.
“I’m not interested in him, Not in the least,” huffed Lizbeth. She paused to watch him stuff the entire sweet in his mouth then struggle to chew. “I mean, I might have been interested, at one time, but not anymore.”
Walter’s eyebrows raised a little higher as he gestured for her to continue, his cheeks full of the sweet.
“We have a good deal in common, he and I. At least I think we do. We seem to. We haven’t talked at great length, but the little bit we have talked has been titillating. No, I don’t mean that. I mean, oh, I don’t know what I mean.” She slumped against the chairback.
“Woth th thothem?” He mumbled, mouth full. Pausing, a finger raised, he chewed then swallowed. “What’s the problem?”
“Well, we were talking at supper, and he became agitated with me for no discernable reason. I’ve gone through the conversation a hundred times in my head but can’t make sense of what upset him. I shouldn’t be overwrought, but I did favor him, if we’re being honest.” Liz smoothed the ribbon under her bosom with one hand then the other.
“Hmm. I don’t know much about Roddam. I know Annick from Oxford, of course, but Roddam didn’t arrive until two years later. He wasn’t remotely interested in joining our club. All I recall is Annick getting him out of a few scrapes with other lads. I’m sorry to say my memories are a few years old, Liz. He was a trouble maker, is all I remember. No one much liked him. Sorry I can’t offer more insight to his character.”
Another savored sweet later, Walter amended, “I do know he’s considered a hermit by peers. Maybe that’s not the right word, but he doesn’t venture into society much, never has. He takes his House of Lords duties seriously, one of the more vocal speakers, but otherwise, no one sees him,
not even at Whites. Maybe he was feeling out of his element at dinner? It could be nothing you said and all to do with him.”
“I wish I knew what he was thinking. I’m sure I said something to anger him.” Lizbeth reached for another sandwich.
“Maybe he’s just a cur. Ever thought about that? It’s also possible, and I’m strictly speaking as a man and not as a representative of the mind of Roddam, that you inadvertently said something you weren’t even aware of that brought back a bad memory.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t believe we’ll speak again, and I’m not sure I would want to if given the opportunity.” Lizbeth bit into the sandwich, not the least hungry.
“I think you should give him a taste of his own medicine,” Walter concluded. “If I were a cur, I would know I could take advantage of your gullibility if you were sweetness after I had behaved so abominably. But if you bite back, it shows you have a strong backbone and won’t tolerate boorishness. On second thought, if you hurt his pride, maybe that advice isn’t the best course of action. I know if my feelings had been hurt, I wouldn’t want you to rub it in my face.” He shrugged.
“That’s terrible advice. I couldn’t possibly know which way to behave and could make matters worse. You’re barred from giving advice.”
“How is that bad advice? I rather think I’ve solved all of your problems.” Walter stood up to offer a napping Captain Henry a piece of a scone. When the bird only eyed him from over a wing, Walter left the bite in the food bowl.
“Your advice is terrible because you give me two choices dependent upon the motivation of his actions, which neither of us know. Either I ignore him, or I engage him in conversation, but I shouldn’t choose unwisely. That offers no decisive direction,” Lizbeth said with exasperation.
Before he could reply, Aunt Hazel and Charlotte bustled into the room, a flurry of noise, excitement, laughter, and chatter, both flushed with broad smiles. Captain Henry squawked and stretched his wings, curious by the ruckus.
The Earl and The Enchantress (An Enchantress Novel Book 1) Page 5