by Julia Donner
Quiet dignity softened Lady Ravenswold’s request. “Please, Mrs. Shelton, a moment of your time.”
Elizabeth resumed her place, sitting straight and still. She stared out over the team’s back and nervously twitching ears.
Lady Ravenswold said, “Look at me, if you please, Mrs. Shelton. Thank you. I can see that I have made you angry. If I have done you a disservice, it is because I am spoiled and like to have my own way in all things. I confess that I was as taken-aback, just as you must have been, when Peregrine insisted on a public display of our friendship. I was suspicious when he asked me to befriend you—a request so stupid only a man would think of it!”
Elizabeth unbent slightly to say, “I must agree with you on that point.”
“Men will never comprehend a woman’s vanity. You see, I’m quite envious of you. You may stare, but it is true! Asterly and Harry have been gushing over me for so long that I’ve become as territorial as a barnyard dog. I was offended when I heard them sing the praises of another woman besides myself. And Harry, the swine, goes on and on about you, directly to my face. He rattles about you as if you were the Madonna reincarnated. My nose has been most deservingly put out of joint.”
Elizabeth glanced away and prayed for an end to this uncomfortable confession. “Your horses are growing restive.”
The countess brushed that aside with an impatient shake of her head. “They are not hot and standing like this is good training. Attend to me and not them. Now that I’ve met you, I see that I must beg your forgiveness, especially for my behavior today. Please, Mrs. Shelton, do give it to me. I would hate to lose Peregrine and Harry’s friendship, and thereby never be offered the honor of yours.”
Now feeling as low as a slug oozing away from the light of a newly lifted stone, Elizabeth sighed. How had this proud, stunning, managing female turned the tables so neatly? Lady Ravenswold had somehow molded her previously obnoxious behavior into a contrite tribute with the offer of friendship and a humbling request for forgiveness.
Elizabeth looked up from the horses and confronted the considerable charm of Cassandra Ravenswold’s feline eyes, now brimming with sincerity, hope, and contrition. There was no resisting her plea.
Elizabeth held out her hand. “Asterly calls me Eliza.”
The final blow to Elizabeth’s crumbling wall of defense came in the form of Lady Ravenswold’s dazzling smile, while her crushing handgrip removed all curiosity of how the countess controlled such a spirited team.
Elizabeth knew that she was irrevocably caught in this beautiful woman’s web. It was well known that Earl Ravenswold, a man of resolute character and rigid political beliefs, was her slave. Elizabeth basked in the glow of Lady Ravenswold’s genuine happiness and flexed her fingers when released.
“Eliza it is, then. I’ve heard Harry call you Lizzie, so I wasn’t sure what you preferred. I shall be Cass to you. That’s what Rave calls me. I’m so looking forward to the wedding. Peregrine needs to spend some time living, instead of grubbing around with stupid wars. I think you are the one to keep him at home with us. You must not hesitate to call on me for anything.”
“Thank you, Lady Ravenswold.”
“No more of that, Eliza. We are almost sisters now. And before we take leave of each other, I must tell you how much I admire the way you twitch your nose at the world. You didn’t know that we were kindred spirits, did you? But I do assure you, my new friend, that between the two of us, we shall make the snobs and nobs do our bidding. They want Harry and Freddy at their assemblies and won’t get’em without our say so. That’ll teach those nasty cats!”
Elizabeth had to laugh at that. She stepped down form the phaeton but didn’t immediately go inside. She stood on the steps and watched with appreciation and amazement as Lady Ravenswold drove the team to the end of the square and made a swift, precise turnabout. Elizabeth waved as the dashing countess flew by, barely catching the flashing reply of Lady Ravenswold’s saucy smile.
Bemused by the wholly unexpected gift of a new friend, Elizabeth went indoors. She peeled off her gloves and pondered the day’s events as she went upstairs to change.
Behind Lady Ravenswold’s astounding beauty was a fascinating person full of mischief and surprising vulnerability. As unexpected and unbelievable as it seemed, Asterly’s Cass was going to become the bosom friend Elizabeth had always longed to have.
On the heels of that realization, she wished she’d had such a stalwart friend at seminary. Perhaps her fears and attitude about the peerage would be different if she’d had someone like Cass by her side. She hoped Cass would be with her when it was time to breach London society.
Chapter 24
Asterly heard the downstairs door slam as he reached for a fresh neckcloth. He was due at Horse Guards in the next hour for another meeting that would probably last until dawn. He hoped to find a few hours of sleep before escorting Elizabeth to church the following morning. He didn’t want to think of the impression he’d make falling asleep during the sermon.
He heard distant footsteps and a heavy tread in the hall as he draped the triangular piece of starched cloth around his shirt points. Facing the mirror, he shifted his attention from his reflection to Harry coming through the bedroom door.
“Good of you to come, Harry. I’m almost finished. Sit down. There’s port in the decanter.”
“Where’s Cranston?”
“I sent him on an errand. It won’t hurt your style to pour for yourself, you know.”
Harry curbed his irritation, choosing not to acknowledge his brother’s condescension. He would neither sit nor accept the offer of refreshment and sauntered to the bed. He leaned a shoulder against the bedpost to watch his stubborn twin hastily tie the neckcloth. Harry looked down to hide a smile, recalling the full hour he and his valet spent discussing the knotting arrangement and executing the perfect folds of the starched cloth. Perry whisked through the unassuming arrangement he never varied. The simple knot and folded cloth was always held in place with a gold pin topped with an ivory button carved with the family crest. A nice touch but uninspired. Everything about Peregrine’s life was simple and expedient.
Harry glanced around the cramped room. The poky lodging had been chosen because of its nearness to Horse Guards and the Foreign Office.
Dear, tedious Perry did everything simply, cleanly, and quickly. How inexpressibly dreary and depressing.
“Perry, I do hope you don’t make love as boringly as you live. If so, it would be doing a great service to womankind to never marry or keep a mistress.”
His brother responded with a noncommittal grunt. Perry never talked about private matters any more. Not since they were in school. Not since…Althea.
Harry straightened the carpet fringe with the toe of his boot, wishing again that there would come a day when they could drop their pride and be twins once more. They needed to talk about their unspoken estrangement, but neither seemed able to breach a wall that grew higher and more uncomfortable as the years passed. He wanted to help his brother financially, but with the way things stood between them, extending an offer was impossible.
Harry scowled at his brother in the mirror. Perry’s eyebrows lifted in a silent question, and Harry decided to just come out with it.
“I saw Cass and Elizabeth in the park not long ago. Lizzie’s nose was tweaked about something. Not like her to be out of sorts. You haven’t been mauling her before the knot is tied, have you?”
“Don’t be an ass, Harry!” Perry glared in the glass then reached for a hairbrush, dragging it through his sandy waves. “It’s more likely that Cass said something to set her back up. You know how abrupt she can be without meaning anything.”
“Yes. And I suppose you primed the playing field for a fight by telling Elizabeth how much you admire the most beautiful woman in England. Then you stupidly went on and on about how much your friendship with her means to you.”
When his brother stilled and stared into the mirror, Harry burst out, “Oh, for pi
ty’s sake, you didn’t! Tell me you didn’t do something so—oh, Perry, you did! You fool! Have you no idea of the rudiments of female sentiment? Never, ever compliment one female to another. It’s no wonder her eyes were spitting fire. And to think that I spent ten minutes in her company—within striking distance—and she let me live.”
Astounded, Peregrine set down the brush and turned around. “By gad, Harry, you could be right. I never thought about it, but I might have done as you said. You don’t think Elizabeth would construe my friendship with Cass to be something other than it ought to be?”
“Of course, she does! What a colossal blockhead you are. Women get those ideas every time a fellow tips his hat or offers a polite bow. And then off you go, blabbing about a friendship with pretty competition. Upon my soul, Perry, how can you be so bright about some things and such a slow-top about others? You’ve spent so much time at war that you’ve lost all your manners. I’m astounded she hasn’t sent ‘round a note telling you to drown yourself in the Thames. Never, never compliment another female to the woman you love.”
“Enough, Harry. You’ve made your point.”
“You do care about her, don’t you? I hope this isn’t just for the blunt.”
Peregrine swallowed the insult and turned back to confronting his brother’s reflection in the mirror. He answered his brother’s freezing blue glare that so eloquently flashed disgust. “That, my dear Harry, is a question unworthy of an answer.”
Undaunted, Harry snarled, “You had better treat her with respect. All of society is whispering about the way you look at her. Are you in so much of a hurry to get under her skirts to forget that everyone will be counting their fingers?”
Peregrine stopped fiddling with the badly knotted linen. “Be careful where you tread.”
Harry threw up his hands in mock terror. “Oh, no, a challenge from the great war hero! I shall expire from fear.”
“Cut line, Harry! Just say what you’ve come to say.”
Harry’s perfect features hardened, molding into a forbidding mask that made them for once truly look like twins. “Perry, I’m warning you. I will not have Lizzie used and humiliated while you run off to chase that common, little Corsican. She wasn’t born and bred into a class that marries for social advancement. She doesn’t understand the rules.”
“I have no intention of hurting her and won’t back out of the wedding so you can have her.”
That jerked Harry out of his snit.
“Good God, I don’t think of her that way!”
“Excellent!” Peregrine snapped, unable to let his brother know how this conversation tied his insides into knots.
He undid and retied the neckcloth, distracted from the worry of Elizabeth making comparisons with his brother. He felt interminably weary from so many conflicting emotions and almost out of his mind from wanting her. A woman with Elizabeth’s financial independence and talents might suddenly see beyond the dashing spy and buck about town he attempted to portray to the broken-down warhorse that he was. How could she not compare him to his glib, handsome brother? Harry stood behind him, his reflection one of elegance and perfection.
Peregrine returned his attention to his own image in the glass. War had roughened his manners and ruined his address. He had no patience left for the fripperies and gushing attention women seemed to crave nowadays. Eliza seemed above that nonsense, always bright, poised, and considerate.
She was too good for him. Too rich for him. Even with his limited knowledge of Prussian royalty, he knew that she could claim a connection with princes and kings. All she had to do was take her money and move to Paris. She would be the rage in a matter of weeks—have a salon that would rival Versailles and take Vienna by storm at the pianoforte.
As he made another try with the neckcloth, he remembered again that he would have to leave her on their wedding night. A wave of loneliness washed through him. Heaviness settled on his heart. Before, he’d gone off to war without a worry about those left behind. He had Harry for the succession, who would make a better baron.
Peregrine glanced at his brother in the mirror. Harry still scowled, bristling like a hound protecting a meaty bone, but now, his gaze held a vague confusion. Had he discerned Peregrine’s distress—a twin’s strange, shared communication? Or did the twinge arise from his own regret?
Peregrine cast aside the confusing emotions and lifted a vest from a chair. “Let us put our differences aside, Harry. I called you here to ask a favor.”
“Me?” he repeated, openly surprised. “You want to ask me a favor?”
“Elizabeth has no living relatives. She has asked if you would escort her to the wedding and act as her family.”
Harry felt his heart turn over. He stared at his brother’s broad back and white shirt being covered by a vest. The request came as a shock and a confusing one at that. He still licked the wound Perry had dealt him by not revealing the exact wedding arrangements. Harry heard through Cass that Ravenswold had been asked to be a part of the bridal party, when and where the ceremony was to take place. It had been one more hurt added to a string of injuries silently endured.
When Harry finally met his twin’s intended, he knew at a glance that he would always be devoted to her. There was so much about Elizabeth that reminded him of their mother. He wondered if Perry saw the profound similarities. Perhaps Perry didn’t want to make a comparison. They’d been competitive about their mother, too.
Napoleon’s recent escape from Elba had Harry worrying that his brother would revert to his former habit of rashly leaping into war without any thought for the suffering of those who loved him. Their mother had been devastated when he chose the military. Harry had been left to support their mother’s horror every time her son was brought home on a litter, wounded, ragged, and furiously impatient to get back to war.
That was not going to happen to Elizabeth. He would make sure that his brother went through with the wedding, as planned, war or no war. He’d just been given the most perfect sister in the world and was not about to lose her to his twin’s infernal selfishness.
His brother interrupted Harry’s turbulent thoughts by demanding, “Well, Harry, what do you say? Eliza thinks the sun and moon set at your word. Will you disappoint her?”
“I shall be honored to escort her.”
“Please tell her so. She has no family here. There are relatives on the Continent, but she prefers not to encourage those connections.”
“What became of that delightful baggage that’s her companion?”
“Mrs. Weston had plans to remarry—an elopement, actually, but was called to an invalid friend’s bedside. Elizabeth decided to make a settlement on Mrs. Weston before she left. She was more of a permanent house guest than a companion, in any event, and twice delayed her wedding plans for Elizabeth’s sake.”
Peregrine studied Harry’s expressions in the mirror. His reflection revealed the thoughts flashing through his mind. Harry had their mother’s smooth, expressive face. Peregrine resembled their stern father.
He reached for his coat and shrugged into the garment, an impossible accomplishment if fitted by Harry’s tailor. He straightened the cuffs of the Devonshire brown coat and looked around for his gloves. His glance skimmed over and then returned to the open door of the clothespress. His recently delivered wedding clothes hung there, waiting to be packed.
Peregrine’s stomach knotted. By this time Tuesday he would be married. Elizabeth would be his. Finally. The familiar ache and burn for her flared. He abruptly closed the clothespress and searched for the missing gloves. Finding them folded on a chair under his hat, he turned and found his brother watching in brooding silence. He wished he knew how to tear down the barrier between them but couldn’t think how. He took the easy road of saying nothing and went to the door.
As they left the small bedchamber, Harry asked, “Will you resume your former command?”
“No. This time I’ll be alone and not assigned anywhere specific.”
“
In other words, you can’t tell me.”
“No, Harry, the truth is that I don’t yet know. Everything is being left to the last minute. I’ll be harder to track down that way, by you, and those I don’t want finding me. I was scheduled to leave the day after we heard of Boney’s escape, but I refused.”
“Because of Lizzie?”
“Yes. After the ceremony, I’ll see her safely installed at Marshfield. I’ll leave from there. Her yacht will meet me on the coast Wednesday morning before dawn. She will stay in Kent until I return. The newlyweds taking time alone and all that.”
“And what is Elizabeth to do in that decaying pile all by herself?”
“That’s where I’m depending on you, Harry.”
Harry masked his surprise by pinching his lips to keep silent. He’d assumed the previous request for a favor was something trivial. His brother never asked for anything. Over the years, Harry had been forced to stand by in aching silence and watch his proud brother slowly sink into financial ruin. The choice of a military career had been one of youthful enthusiasm and one that damaged Marshfield from neglect. He’d watched it all happen and worse—his brother being sent home near dead from disease and wounds, their mother’s heart and health damaged from constant worry. Perry’s obstinate pride refused to hear a word on the subject of money, which made this offhanded request for help a shock.
Pretending that the request was nothing out of the ordinary, Harry carefully hid the hurts nursed for so many years, since Perry had run off to war, and before that, school days. The brother he admired so much cared so little about his feelings. And now, without a trace of his usual pride, Perry had asked for help—not only to act as escort for Elizabeth—but also to assist with dangerous intrigue.
Harry listened as his twin explained the details. Part of him was outraged that Elizabeth was involved, while feeling proud of her willingness to be of use to her country.