Caversham's Bride (The Caversham Chronicles - Book One)

by Raven, Sandy

  “There you are.” Elise heard a female voice address the two young men. “Come inside, gentlemen. The dancing is about to start again and the numbers are uneven for a reel. We really need you both.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” her brother said.

  “Yes, mother,” Michael replied.

  Both young men left the terrace to rejoin the festivities and Elise felt an incredibly superb idea hatch in her brain. She would have to marry eventually, and so would Lord Brightman. He might be an appropriate match for her, she would have to check. Certainly he was a gentleman with a title and was connected to an earl somehow. And just last week when discussing her own father’s upcoming marriage to Lady Amelia with her governess, the dour-faced old woman tried to instill in Elise the importance of marrying within the proper bloodlines.

  Elise didn’t care about bloodlines, except in the case of the horses in her father’s stables.

  All she knew was that listening to Michael just now proved to her that they were perfect for each other. As she listened to him list the attributes he looked for in a bride, she realized she fit each and every one of his criteria.

  Before the week-long wedding celebration was over, she would convince one Michael Brightman that they belong together and should marry. Their situations were so very similar, as neither was ready to marry. Why, she had to wait at least four more years because she heard Catriona in the kitchen say she was fourteen when she married James the under-gardener. Elise heard this just the other day when the staff was talking about how young her new step-mama was, and how she was soon to present her papa with another babe.

  She had to get to her room to think out a plan. As she saw it, the situation was very similar to what Old Ned taught her about horse training. Elise didn’t see a difference. She needed to make the horse want do her bidding, as the old man always said. And to do that she needed a plan before she climbed onto the horse’s back.

  “But first I have to get out of this tree,” she said to herself. She looked down and decided it was a too high to jump down, even with the green limb bending low under her weight. She also might hit the branch beneath her, and that would hurt something fierce. No, she had to get to the trunk and climb her way back down the way she came. Reaching for a limb over her head to hold onto for balance, she stretched up an arm while at the same time holding fast to the branch on which she sat.

  “Oh, fiddle-faddle. Come here.” Elise reached out again, this time grasping a cluster of new leaves and then the branch. She felt the seam under her arm tear and swore again. “Maisy will be angry now that I’ve torn my dress.” She’d never hear the end of it from her maid. And if her father found out.... Oh, heaven. She’d likely be punished, and that was after she got spanked.

  She tried to keep her hold of the branch over her head while she scooted toward the trunk, but she was unable to do so without ruining the dress further. Grabbing the branch over her head with both hands now, she tried to pull herself up when she heard a crack and felt herself falling, only to have her skirts snag on a branch, stopping her descent.

  In the blink of an eye, Elise both thought she would die and realized she wouldn’t. She almost wished for death when she realized she wasn’t alone. On the terrace, fanning herself, was one of her father’s guests, Lord Brightman’s mother, Lady Richard. And here Elise was hanging by her skirts from a branch in an oak tree. She supposed it was a good thing that it was her and not a male guest witnessing her humiliation.

  The sound of fabric tearing echoed throughout the side garden. Just as Lady Richard reached her, Elise felt the material give and she squealed as she fell the rest of the way down, landing in the arms of the woman, sending both of them falling to the ground.

  Elise rushed to get off Lady Richard, hoping she hadn’t killed her. When she didn’t move, Elise knelt beside her and took her gloved hand in her ungloved ones and pat it, as it was what she saw the housekeeper do whenever a housemaid fainted. She then began to pray as she hadn’t prayed since the last time she was about to get caught at something she wasn’t supposed to do.

  Lady Richard groaned and moved, and Elise heaved a sigh. As soon as the woman opened her eyes, Elise knelt over her and began to apologize profusely.

  “Ma’am, I am so very sorry. Please do not.... my father will be so very angry.”

  “Move aside,” said the woman with gray streaks in her ruined coif as she sat up. Elise handed Lady Richard the pearl-encrusted comb that fell from her once artfully-arranged hair, then rose and stretched out a hand. She ignored Elise’s offer of assistance and rose on her own, then began to dust off her backside. The lady’s aqua colored dress was now in disarray and probably stained as well. Elise apologized again for her behavior, and prayed Lady Richard didn’t want retribution for Elise ruining her dress and mussing her hair.

  Lord Brightman’s mother looked down her nose at Elise, who stood almost as tall as she, and asked, “Who are you, and what were you doing spying on the guests in the house.”

  “I am Elise Halden and I wasn’t spying because I was in the tree before my brother and his friend came outside.”

  Elise watched as Lady Richard rearranged her bodice, and wondered if she should mention the rip in the back. She decided against it. If the woman was this mad and she didn’t know about the tear, imagine how angry she’d be if she did.

  “Just what were you doing in that tree, Elise?”

  She’d come to the tree to escape the taunts from some of the older girls during the feast, then Michael and Ren had come outside to puff their cheroots and she was trapped aloft. Elise smiled as she remembered the qualities Michael listed when he described the woman he wanted as a wife. The instant she heard them, she knew he was describing her, and that they would marry one day because they were perfect for each other. She gathered her ripped skirts and held them in her hands, as she looked up to the limb from which she just fallen to see if she’d left any material behind.

  Smiling, she turned to the woman who softened her landing, and replied, “Falling in love, I think.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  London, May 1822

  “Have you heard the news?”

  Lady Elise Halden shot her dearest friend in the whole world a stern gaze and tightened her lips. Unable to move for fear the dressmaker’s pins might come out of place, she hoped her friend would catch her expression and hold her tongue. Lady Beverly Hepplewhite’s eyes widened as she continued into Elise’s room and hopped onto her bed.

  Elise looked down to the stitchers working on the hem of her gown. “Excuse me,” she said. Holding a rose-colored ribbon in place on her sleeve, she stepped off the stool and addressed her maid and the seamstresses. “Bridget, Madame, will you give us a few minutes please? I’ll ring when I’m ready to continue.”

  Adding a straight pin to the ribbon before leaving, Madame Fuichard and her two assistants quit the room. But not her maid, Bridget. She looked directly at Elise and her friend. “You’re due to come out in five days,” said the red-headed maid, just a few years older than Elise. “If you do something foolish now, His Grace’ll banish ye for sure. An’ because I don’t have a fondness for the Grampians in winter, I won’t be going with ye.”

  Once the door shut behind her maid, Beverly said, “I was wondering why he didn’t come for breakfast. Now I hear he’s gone to Woodhenge to make arrangements.”

  Elise lifted her hands, showing Beverly her inability to hold them steady. “I have never in my life been so nervous as I am now. These horrid butterflies are the result of the entire ton believing Michael, my Michael, is in need of a bride now simply because his uncle has died and he’s ascended to the title.”

  “You can’t say it took you by surprise. We all knew this day would come as the old earl has been on his deathbed for the past year,” Beverly quipped. “Heaven knows the new Earl of Camden has a responsibility to all those women in his family. After all, he’s now the only male and will need to see to an heir very soon.”

  “Hi
s mother and older sister have been pressuring him to take a bride for the past year. Now he must wait three months.” Elise sighed. “My heart wants to believe he’s been waiting for me, but my brain says it’s unlikely.”

  “I’ve always wondered why the old earl never married,” Beverly said. “Was he... you know, light in the instep?”

  Elise shook her head. “Heavens, no! It’s not common knowledge, but—” Elise checked to make sure Bridget hadn’t come back into the room, and continued, “The old earl had a scandalous marriage many years ago. He’d fallen in love with, and married, a young lady who was unfaithful while he was in India on the Crown’s business. She then became with child by her lover. Both mother and babe died in childbirth. And the earl, as you know, never remarried.” Elise’s mind raced at what she could do now to benefit her cause. “This does not help my chances.”

  “Michael will be in mourning for three months, Elise,” Beverly stated. “He’ll not start a bride hunt until after that. That’s when you need to worry about competition.”

  “In three months I won’t have you here to help me think things through because your Papa will be back any day now. Won’t he?” When her friend nodded, Elise sighed, feeling as though the whole world was conspiring against her.

  “I won’t be moving to Land’s End, Elise. I’ll only be a few blocks away.”

  She nodded as she caught her reflection in the mirror. “I had so hoped to win him over gradually during this season. Now I shall have to contend with every mother of a marriageable-age daughter, and the daughters themselves, all pursuing Michael for his new title and wealth.” Elise studied the dress pinned onto her with a disapproving eye, and sighed with double frustration. “You would think that Michael being my brother’s life-long friend would give me an advantage,” she muttered. “He’ll likely not wish to be in the same room as me.”

  She stamped her foot, her complete annoyance giving rise to a flourish of unladylike manners. “Damn his uncle for dying last night!”

  Beverly gasped at Elise’s invective. “The man couldn’t very well plan the time of his departure from this world, Elise.”

  She sat at her dressing table, her shoulders slumping in dejection. “I’m sorry for my selfish tirade. The old earl really was a dear man.” A pin stuck her in the waist and she pulled the offensive thing from the dress.

  Beverly nodded, “You know, that dress has turned out better than we originally thought.” Her friend eyed it closely. “But, something is still missing.” She shook her head. “Perhaps after you have your jewels and your mother’s tiara on, it will complete the effect.”

  Elise contemplated her friend’s words. The as-yet unfinished dress she planned to wear Saturday was completely conventional, and the latest fashion among her set. It gave her the appearance of a proper young lady. The lady her brother wanted her to be. She did want to please him—all of them really—and make he, Lia and Grandmother proud of her on her special night.

  The skirt was crushed white silk with rows of narrow rose-colored satin ribbons ringing the skirt up to the knee. The same colored ribbons ringed the puffed white silk sleeves at the edge. The bodice of rose-colored silk ended just below her less than acceptable bust line. It successfully created the desired effect of a more abundant cleavage than God had provided. A wide band of silk rosettes, precisely three shades lighter than the ribbons, intertwined with satin greenery at the hem of the floor-length creation. More of those same rosettes were sewn into the folds of ribbon gathered on the sleeve, and on the same material gathered between her breasts.

  Looking at herself in the mirror with a critical eye, she realized that the dress she once adored, she now hated. The exquisite, one of a kind creation from Madame Fuichard made her look just like all the other girls out on the marriage mart this season. She would be unremarkable among the herd of other chits being paraded about by anxious mamas.

  “What am I going to do, Beverly? How ever will I get him to notice me?” She stamped her foot again. “You more than anyone know I have the worst luck where Michael is concerned. Now to be forced to catch his eye while all the other unmarried ladies out there do likewise.... Why, I could never compare! I am not as pretty as they are.”

  “You are so,” Beverly argued.

  Elise cut her off, “Not to mention that he remembers every misdeed and prank I’ve executed on him since I was ten.”

  “He doesn’t know about Attila,” Beverly said with a confident smile.

  Elise remembered seeing Michael at Tattersalls that day three years ago and laughed. “No! He doesn’t know that was us, and it’s best left that way.” She began to pull pins from the dress, removing all the rosettes as her imagination began to wander. “I knew Attila was perfect for Michael when I started him under saddle. And I was right, for Michael loves that horse.” She smiled as she pulled pins from a ribbon and tossed it onto the table. “To this day, the man has no idea I was the one who trained him.”

  They were silent a moment as Elise continued removing adornments from the unfinished dress. Their eyes met in the mirror, and Beverly asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve been fretting over this for the last hour.” Elise pointed at the pile of rosettes and the ribbon from the hem she’d just pulled. “There is far too much frippery on this dress. It isn’t what I normally wear, so why pretend I like it?” Their eyes met in the mirror again. “I need a dress that reflects me. The old me and the new me. Who I have always been, and who I am today.”

  Beverly’s eyes grew wide with excitement. She smiled and nodded. “More important than a just a dress, what you need is to come up with a plan for making him take notice of you. Though nothing like you did when you were fifteen. That little act nearly got you killed and it was over a year before Michael returned to Haldenwood.”

  “I did not nearly get killed. I was barely scratched. And I never would have fallen off that trellis if it wasn’t rotted to begin with.” Elise remembered all too well how fabulous Michael looked when stripped to the waist, baring that magnificently muscled chest and back of his. She had stared, mouth agape at the beauty of him. As she felt the vines ripping away from the stone, and the remnants of the ancient trellis crumbling beneath her, her friend screamed, alerting him to her presence as she dangled from his balcony. He’d come running to the rail and looked down just in time to see her land flat on her back in the freshly weeded flower beds below.

  “Perhaps it was a little embarrassing for him, but I was duly punished.... after father ascertained I was indeed well and truly alive.” Elise closed her eyes and sighed. “I remember thinking I’d died and gone to heaven.” Meeting her friend’s blue-eyed stare, she added, “That was before I fell!”

  Beverly threw her arms up and flopped back on the mattress. “You’ve been falling for him since you were ten. One day I’m afraid you might fall too far and get hurt.” Her friend turned a worried expression to her and said, “you must, I implore you, endeavor to restrain yourself. The consequences are too severe for us now.”

  “I shall, I promise, but I need your help devising some way to make him notice the new grown-up me, and not remember the irritating little brat I was.” Elise clasped her hands together in a praying fashion and brought them to her breast. “I so desperately want him to realize that I have waited for him all these years, and I am already his.”

  “What we need is a plan,” Beverly said.

  “Yes, you’ve said that.” Elise stared at her short, mousy-brown hair in the mirror, now wishing her hair were longer, her face prettier, her features more feminine, and her nearly non-existent bosom, more full and lush. Anything so he would see her as a beautiful, desirable woman. Michael was so perfect in her eyes that he deserved a charming, ladylike wife. Granted, she could do nothing about her actual looks, but what about her clothes? Could her clothing help portray her in a more desirable light? A tighter fit to the bodice? A dropped waist perhaps?

  But more important than her looks and clothing, she
understood it was her behavior that must be tempered. To that end, she vowed to continue to work on that part of her personality. It often felt like a sisyphian task she undertook, with the hope that one day Michael might think her worthy.

  After several minutes of complete silence while both girls contemplated the problem, Beverly leaped from the bed, startling Elise. “I’ve got it! Or, at least, I think I do.”

  Eyes closed, Beverly paced the long hand-tied Turkey rug, rubbing the bridge of her delicate nose with the thumb and forefinger. “What we want is for Michael to see you for the woman you’ve become, and not as the girl you were. Right?”

  “Yes, of course. You said as much a few minutes ago.”

  “You know me, Elise, everything has to be mapped out, the goal identified and a plan put into motion to accomplish the task.”

  “Yes, yes, you have always been the planner. But what have you come up with?” God, she hoped it wasn’t too unorthodox. With her brother overseeing every move she made, she’d never get away with anything outrageous. If she even tried, Bridget was right, he’d send her to that box of rocks he used as a hunting lodge up in Scotland for sure.

  “You must not only behave differently, but look different as well,” she said. “Stand up.”

  Elise did. Beverly walked around her. “You look just like every other chit at every other ball we’ve been to this past month.”

  Elise resisted rolling her eyes. She knew that. Hadn’t she just been thinking it all morning? Beverly tugged at Elise’s short, straight locks. “Granted, your hair is shorter than the other girls’, but it is very much the trend now that you and your sister-in-law started the fashion. Why every woman with a backbone is liberating herself of the nuisance of long hair.”

  Elise smiled at her best friend. “Yes but my hair just sits there, where your hair is fabulous, curling like it does.”