“Good-bye,” he said and roughly pulled her close to kiss her quiet. He waited for her to slap him. Instead, she gave him a thoughtful look. Her fingers stole up to her bruised lips, feeling their last kiss, the kiss he couldn’t help.
“You couldn’t kiss me like that if you didn’t love me a little.”
“There, you see?” He pounced. “Say what you will, everything will always devolve to that.”
His outburst shocked her. He retreated a pace. She stepped back, too, as if to see him more clearly. She stood under a skylight and he watched her expression shutter up into a tear-less, remote dignity. The disenchantment in her faraway eyes strengthened his resolve and sealed his lips. He couldn’t bear to be the cause of that expression time and again for the rest of their lives.
They stared at one another in silence until she backed away from him.
“As you wish. It will end by Twelfth Night, I hope that will be satisfactory.”
She hurried from the Dome Room and out of sight. He heard the murmur of Soane’s butler, the front door open and close and silence refill the cluttered, oppressive space.
Clun hardened his heart and let her go. He let her walk away because, like Hercules, saving her was his impossible task and to succeed he must turn to stone.
Chapter 30
In which doubts assail our heroine while a grub’s prayers are answered.
Christmastide was festive in most regards. In fact, consistently cold temperatures produced thick ice on the Serpentine ideal for skating parties. Sadly, Clun’s rejection dulled Elizabeth’s enjoyment of such pleasures.
She had to admit reluctantly that her intuition about Clun might be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time either. After all, she’d failed to make her father happy after twenty years of trying. She certainly didn’t relish the prospect of making another fruitless effort for the balance of her life. Perhaps, she conceded, Clun would be the second man she could never please. This tiny worm of doubt burrowed deep in her heart and left her expression wan with strain.
Constance remarked upon this alteration and suggested, or rather insisted, Elizabeth accompany her to Hyde Park for a skating party. Thus, on Christmas Eve, Viscount Speare and his friends provided carriages, rolls of warm, wool blankets, baskets filled with food, sweetmeats and insulated jugs of mulled wine and hot toddies to fortify the skaters while Constance, Lady Jane and Lady Iphigenia brought extra skating blades and their pretty friends.
The young ladies wore their warmest flannel petticoats, woolen gowns and pelisses, velvet bonnets, mittens and fur tippets around their necks.
Elizabeth found herself skating beside Lady Iphigenia, who burbled on and on about Lord Clun. The shy thing’s eyes sparkled as she spoke. And Elizabeth had to acknowledge that when the lady giggled, she was quite fetching.
“Lady Elizabeth, you are the envy of many, I must tell you. My very best wishes to you both,” Lady Iphigenia whispered. “Lord Clun is most gentlemanlike. Oh, he forbade me tell anyone, but I may speak plain with you, for you of all people know his sweetness. He may put on the airs of a misanthrope, but it will no longer wash. His true character is known and many ladies are green with envy that you comprehended his true nature first. Lord Holmsbury, my particular friend, is the tiniest bit jealous of my enthusiasm for your lord. I think it does one good to feel the pinch of jealousy, don’t you?”
“What? Oh, yes, certainly. Though there’s only a pinch where there’s love in the first place,” Elizabeth whispered.
Lady Iphigenia did not attend to Elizabeth’s last comment because Lady Jane teased her about Lord Holmsbury’s absence from the party.
“He has the grippe,” Lady Iphigenia said to Lady Jane with a laugh, “and I shall make him sad to have missed our sport when next I see him.”
The skaters drew the admiration of pedestrians and riders in the park. It was a picturesque scene to be sure. Handsome young men in colorful, wool redingotes and tall beaver hats, hands clasped behind their backs, circled the ice. The young ladies, bundled in furs and woolens, glided more cautiously in pairs and threesomes with their hands linked. They laughing aloud for the joy of it.
One man riding by the scene brought his hired hack to a standstill and stared fixedly once he recognized Lady Elizabeth on the ice.
Of the young ladies in her party, she seemed oddly out of spirits, smiling only when another turned her way. When no one looked, she was sober and her eyes downcast. Her wind-chapped cheeks had the only healthy color in her complexion.
Mr. Wilder decided to wait nearby. Anyone not stone deaf had heard the rumors about her foundering betrothal. And he wished to see if at last the strain of gossip and uncertainty would goad her to seek solace in a new courtship. Fate rarely offered one such an opportunity, he thought with complacency.
He had not long to wait. The group left the ice to have hot refreshments on the bank. Liveried footmen had their hands full, offering blankets and pouring mulled wine. Mr. Wilder approached Lady Elizabeth as she clambered onto the frozen bank. Her skate blades hindered her so when he offered her his hand, she took it without looking.
When she did glance up, she said, “Mr. Wilder, I did not see you there. Thank you.”
“At your service as always, Lady Elizabeth. You made a charming picture on the ice.”
“Hardly. I hobbled along on my ankles, towed by others who are far more adept than I. Still, it was refreshing to be sure.”
“Yet you look less than refreshed by your exercise.” He gave her a meaningful look before proceeding. “I must speak as a friend, for I pray you consider me at least your friend.” Mr. Wilder cast a glance about and drew her away from the others. “I am alarmed.”
“Alarmed, whyever for, sir?”
“Are you well?”
“Quite well.”
“Yet every day for these past weeks I have seen more of your vivacity fade as if you suffered some malady. I beg you put my mind at ease.”
“I have told you, sir, I am well.”
“Then why is it this is the first time in too long I see a bloom in your cheeks and the cause of it is cold air?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“If I am ridiculous, it’s only a consequence of my concern. As each evening passes, there is less sparkle in your eyes as if something, or dare I say someone, is weighing on your spirits.”
“Nothing disturbs my spirits, Mr. Wilder. I wish you would school your features into something other than dismal apprehension, I am not wasting away from disease or low spirits, thank you.” She stepped away to leave him, but he stayed her with his hand.
“The symptoms I see I would attribute to heartache. Has Clun really withdrawn from you as I’ve heard?” He watched her flinch as his question hit home. “The cad, I would whip him if you asked me.”
Elizabeth laughed at this absurdity, her first genuine amusement in days. Her levity did not amuse Mr. Wilder in the least. “No, he has not,” she reassured him. “Clun is ever the gentleman.”
“I fear he attempts to force your hand by subtler means then. It’s common knowledge the alliance has not—” he stopped, seeing Lady Elizabeth’s cross expression. “Well, I’d rather not say.”
“Oh, do not hesitate to be explicit,” she snapped. “What is said about our betrothal behind my back?”
“My dear, I would not hurt you for the world. Let us talk of pleasanter things, shall we?”
“No, let’s not. You shall tell me what you meant to say.”
Mr. Wilder looked at her. Even the cold-induced flush was fading from her cheeks. He timed his hesitation carefully, looked deep into her guarded eyes and murmured, “It’s said the match has not prospered. There is an unmistakable aloofness on his part and a growing desperation on yours.”
“Desperation!”
“I meant to keep this from you, but I cannot remain a silent witness to your distress,” he said with a regretful air. “You alone can bring your torment to an end. Clun seems reconciled to that event
uality, with so many ambitious mamas thrusting daughters at him. When I knew him, he wasn’t much for the social whirl. Yet, he basks in his popularity now that he’s decided to marry. Always was a man of purpose. He sets his mind to a task and sees it done. Makes him quite effective in a battle, and perhaps a bit heartless in a drawing room.”
“You know him well, Mr. Wilder? I’d heard otherwise.”
“We were never friends,” he admitted. “We’ve been acquainted for many years. Both of us fought with the Blues.”
“I’ve heard men suffer broken hearts in war. They fall in love with an exotic miss and have to leave her behind on campaign.”
“Not Clun. Famously immune. Whilst the rest of us lost our heads in calf love with some dark-eyed señorita, he remained unaffected.” Satisfied by her increasing pallor, Wilder concluded sweetly, “But then, one cannot expect honey from a stone, Lady Elizabeth.”
Constance came up to interrupt their tête-à-tête, saying, “Lizzy, you look chilled to the bone, hurry while the drinks are hot!”
Elizabeth bade Mr. Wilder good-bye and let Constance return her to their party.
Chapter 31
In which all hell breaks loose.
During the Haverford Christmas Eve ball, Elizabeth gracefully fobbed off what Clun referred to as ‘her fops and fribbles’ with light banter. In reality, she was heartsick and unsure what to do. The man she loved would not meet her gaze.
As the evening dragged on, her doubts compounded.
Elizabeth attended the ball on her father’s arm. Unfortunately, Constance and Lady Petra had not come, so Elizabeth wasn’t able to confide in her friend. She felt pressure building as time ran out on her betrothal. The day after Christmas, the earl would send her to Devonshire, where she would remain until the fuss fizzled. And Clun would be off to make merry in Shropshire.
As was often the case, Mr. Wilder hovered nearby. Again, he expressed his concern for her with gentle sympathy and offered his assistance as her friend unto death. While their heads were together, Elizabeth spied a stormy-eyed Clun glare at her and stalk away. He might keep his filthy looks to himself.
When next she spotted the baron, he was dancing with a petite, fair-haired girl who was Elizabeth’s opposite in every way. Adding to Elizabeth’s misery, Lady Clun sidled up to point out that her son’s dance partner was none other than Miss Horatia Mangold.
“They make an attractive pair,” Lady Clun murmured.
In fact, Elizabeth thought the two of them looked like a carnival act of freak opposites so extreme as to be morbidly entertaining, but she refrained from expressing her opinion. While she stared, Clun led the girl off the dance floor in an overly-solicitous manner that disgusted her. She excused herself to follow the retreating pair.
If only she’d turned to look, Elizabeth might’ve seen how Lady Clun’s eyes danced and suspected mischief.
Even before Elizabeth stormed after Lord Clun, this ball promised to be the talk of the ton for weeks to come. Lord and Lady Haverford succeeded in attracting numerous notables, including all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. No one would’ve guessed three of the Horsemen, the Duke of Ainsworth, Mr. Percy and Lord Seelye, only attended to keep an eye on their fourth, Lord Clun. This was the Duchess of Ainsworth’s doing.
On several occasions, Her Grace overheard Lady Clun wholesaling rumors about the end of her son’s betrothal. So Prudence invoked Woman’s Intuition and insisted Ainsworth rally the troops to Clun who was, she predicted, in trouble.
When the duchess noticed Elizabeth and the baroness, she sensed something malicious afoot. While her husband and his friends muttered about how insupportable such to-do’s could be, Prudence caught a glimpse of Clun escorting a little blonde through a doorway with Elizabeth in pursuit. Her Grace excused herself to go to the withdrawing room and followed them. She overtook Elizabeth in the hallway, where she stood stiffly by a door left ajar. Before Prudence could say a word of greeting, Elizabeth rushed away.
The duchess peered through the gap.
Inside the room, Clun hovered over Miss Mangold, who obviously feigned illness in order to cling to him. The former apothecary knew perfectly well no fainting female had such healthy color or so tenacious a grip.
* * *
Christmas Eve was an unmitigated disaster from Clun’s perspective. He went to the Haverford ball in the hope that Elizabeth suffered a sudden bout of amnesia, forgot his refusal and would grant him his waltz.
She remembered. And she preferred the company of Wilder and her other brainless diddlebugs. Her being of sound mind soured his mood. Next, his mother introduced him to the Hon. Horatia Mangold, her own candidate for the next Lady Clun, and maneuvered him into dancing with her. This curdled his sour mood further.
It wasn’t the girl’s fault, he reminded himself, so he did the pretty with good grace.
Clun soon discovered Miss Mangold was like so many females in Society. Those well-born young ladies sought an advantageous connection with unemotional, single-minded focus. Love mattered little when a title and satisfactory income was in the offing. Miss Mangold was exactly the sort, in other words, that he’d thought to marry at one time. That was before Elizabeth. Now, Miss Mangold reminded him of no one so much as his mother, which left a bad taste in his mouth to complement his sour, curdled mood.
He danced face to face with what might have been his fate if not for unaccustomed good fortune and Elizabeth. He’d dodged a bullet. He practically felt it whistle past his ear as the quadrille went on. He could not sink indifferently into a tepid, sensible marriage. Not now.
As they danced, Clun caught sight of his mother and Lady Presteigne, heads together watching them avidly. Then, oddly enough, they both waved their fans at them.
Without warning, Miss Mangold felt overcome by the heat and required immediate assistance to a quiet place in which to recover. (The only females more detestable than weepers, he grimaced, were fainters.) Nevertheless, he helped her down a hallway to the first available room, an adequately lit saloon, where he intended to deposit her on the nearest upholstered surface and find a footman to sort her out.
Instead, the chit took his lapels in a death grip and moaned, “Please don’t leave me. I feel so weak.”
He grappled as gently as he could to disentangle himself when he heard a sound that sent icy shivers down his spine.
The door creaked open.
Clun felt only numbing, cold dread. Caught alone with Miss Mangold in such compromising circumstances, Viscount Presteigne would demand he marry the girl. Elizabeth would throw him over in a heartbeat. All was lost. Damn, damn, damn, he repeated to himself. Thus, he cursed himself and his fate, without bothering to look over his shoulder, until whoever-it-was spoke up in a crisp voice behind him.
“Clun, is she unwell?”
It couldn’t be.
The fainting chit let him go in surprise when Her Grace, the Duchess of Ainsworth, threw the door wide open and swept into the room. Ever the apothecary, she plunked herself down beside Miss Mangold and in her no-nonsense way offered “to slap her back to health and good sense.”
At this, the fainter revived miraculously.
The duke strode in shortly after, alarmed by his wife’s precipitous departure for the withdrawing room.
Seelye and Percy jammed themselves up in the doorway, gabbling over one another, “The Fury…Lady Presteigne…Coming this way!”
Leave it to his friends to add the final quelque chose to the drawing room farce underway.
“Clun,” the duchess pointed out, “you must take care from now on. In a few months, I won’t fit through a doorway to come to your aid.”
“But I— ” quavered Miss Mangold.
“Hush dear,” Prudence cautioned, “or I shall administer treatment.”
Lady Clun preceded the gleeful viscountess into the room with a triumphant “Well, well.” Finding a crowd where she expected to find her son alone with Miss Mangold, her eyes narrowed. “What have we here?”
The duke assumed the cold hauteur of his rank, drawling, “Clun, would you be so kind?”
The baron made the introductions. The baffled viscountess dipped a curtsey with alacrity; the Fury, not one easily subdued, curtseyed albeit stiffly.
“Your daughter suffered a fainting spell. Luckily, I was here to help and she is better now, are you not?” The duchess asked Miss Mangold in a steely tone. The girl nodded slowly, looking from Her Grace to her mother.
“Ainsworth,” Prudence said and lifted her hand, “may we go? I have a last-minute errand that cannot wait.” The duke helped her to her feet and led her from the room.
The viscountess thanked Clun awkwardly for his assistance, waved her daughter to her side and shrugged at Lady Clun on the way out. The room soon emptied, leaving Clun with his mother.
“I recognize your hand in this,” he said and stalked out.
She called after him in a low voice, “It’s too late, Clun. She’s going to cry off. She will not have you.”
“We’ll see about that,” he growled back at her.
This was another aspect of de Sayre bad luck apparently: that a man born to the name only knew what to do about a female after the opportunity to act was lost. Or in his case, he was blinded by enlightenment only after he’d refused his heart’s desire for fear of falling short.
Finally, Clun recognized his pessimism for what it was, abject fear parading around in fearsome disguise. He was a coward who hid behind gloom rather than dare hope and have his hopes dashed to bits. Just as Elizabeth had said. The Fury would choke on her own tongue if she knew she’d authored this epiphany with her unsubtle trap.
Clun searched everywhere for Elizabeth. She had gone.
If it hadn’t been well past midnight and indecently early for a morning call, Clun would’ve instructed his coachman to drive directly to No. 1 Damogan Square. As it was, he decided to sleep a few hours. It wouldn’t do to match wits with his betrothed when only half of his functioned.
The Baron’s Betrothal: An On-Again, Off-Again, On-Again Regency Romance (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series) Page 26