Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance)
Page 13
“I’d be a fright,” Maggie gushed. “Imagine all those people. They’ll be throngs outside St. Thomas’s. I heard they’ll be putting extra police out just for that. Can you imagine? I don’t expect anyone to be hanging about when I get married. If I get married.” Maggie gave a rare frown but nearly instantly recovered. “Have you heard from the duke lately? The last you told he was in Washington.”
Elizabeth examined her gloves. “He’s in New York now. Staying at the Waldorf, of course. He’s written fairly regularly and sent some lovely postcards. He’s been very thoughtful.” She let out a sigh. “Have you heard from Lord Hollings?”
Maggie smiled. “Why ever would I?”
“It seemed to me you spent quite a bit of time together in Newport. I thought perhaps you had found yourself an earl and we could be neighbors. Two Americans taking those English by storm. I was hoping, secretly.”
“Lord Hollings and I had an agreement,” Maggie said laughing. “He would stay by my side to dissuade those Wright boys from hounding me, and I would stay by his side to get those marriage-minded mothers away from him. My mother is beside herself, of course. I think she was already trying to think of ways to get me to Europe to buy my trousseau. It was fabulous fun at the time, but poor Mama. I think she truly is heartbroken and I feel a bit guilty. More than a bit, really.”
Elizabeth gave her friend a friendly smack on her arm. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me about this. It would have been such fun.”
“You were a bit preoccupied this summer, if you remember.”
“Just a bit,” Elizabeth said, as the carriage pulled over to the side of Broadway. “We’re here. It shouldn’t take long to fetch the pen, and then we’re on our own.” The footman helped the women down from the carriage and into the throng of Christmas shoppers. “Look, Maggie, it’s begun to snow. How wonderful if it keeps up.”
“Enough to cover St. Thomas’s and close down the city?” Maggie suggested.
“Mother would find a way to clear every speck of snow from the streets, so such a wish would be futile,” she grumbled. “Look,” Elizabeth said, pointing to the famous clock above Tiffany’s entrance. “It’s only half past nine. We have hours and hours before I have to be home. We’re having a small dinner tonight. Only fifty people or so,” Elizabeth said, laughing. “And His Grace will be there as well. I am quite nervous about the entire thing.”
Maggie linked arms with Elizabeth as they crossed the street. “You shall be fine. This snow is a good omen, you’ll see.”
The two girls entered Tiffany’s smiling widely at the scene before them. It seemed every New York male was in the store buying some trinket for their wives and daughters. They all had similar looks of desperation on their faces, for Christmas was only two days away.
Elizabeth found a clerk and asked him to find her mother’s order.
“Oh, Miss Cummings,” the clerk gushed.
Maggie held a finger to her mouth and shushed the blushing young man. “We’re here incognito,” she whispered, smiling mischievously. “No one is to know. No one. It certainly wouldn’t do for the duke to know his Christmas present ahead of time, would it.”
The clerk straightened. “No, miss. I’ll be right back,” he said furtively.
“Thank you, Maggie. I can’t tell you how weary I am of all this attention. You can go look at those rings, I’ll wait here. The fewer people who see me, the better.”
Maggie wandered off, attracted by the beautiful necklaces on display for the Christmas season, and Elizabeth examined the case of fine fountain pens in front of her. Her mother’s gift was a good idea, she thought as she took in the intricate designs on the pens, though she wished she knew the duke well enough to have come up with something a bit more personal.
“Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth stiffened, her heart felt as if it stopped, and the blood seemed to drain from her head in a rush. She’d know that voice anywhere, that smooth, cultured wonderful voice. Henry.
“My God, it is you. My God,” he said, and Elizabeth tried desperately to school her features into something less joyful.
She swallowed and turned, afraid she might faint. “Henry.” She hadn’t thought to ever see him again, but there he was, standing in front of her, looking so dear, so sad and disheveled, with a bit of melting snow still clinging to the shoulders of his overcoat. She’d forgotten how simply seeing him could affect her, how her heart would race. She’d truly thought she would never see him again, and yet here he was in Tiffany’s staring at her as if she were the most precious thing on earth.
“Oh, my dear, I’ve been looking for you forever it seems,” he said in a happy rush. “I didn’t dare try to visit you. Every time I’ve been out in town, it seemed you had just left or hadn’t yet arrived. The Oelrich affair. I was there, but you had gone. I’ve been going quite insane.”
“Henry,” Elizabeth said, ending on a bit of hysterical laughter. “I got your rose. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I couldn’t bear to leave without sending you a token of my love. You have no idea how difficult it was to leave you. But your father was quite adamant, you see. Oh, here.” He reached into his overcoat and pulled out a small envelope. “I’ve been carrying this around with me for weeks, hoping I would see you. Oh, Elizabeth, I’ve been going mad without you.”
It was on the tip of Elizabeth’s tongue to ask why he’d so easily been persuaded by her father, but she stopped herself, for he looked so incredibly distraught. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be talking with me,” she said instead. An unexpected surge of anger hit her, shocking her a bit, for as long as she’d known Henry she’d never been even a little bit angry with him. But how dare he come to her the day before her wedding and tear her apart this way. She’d thought she’d finally gotten over him, but seeing Henry again left her feeling raw and wounded and terribly confused.
“Here,” he said, putting the envelope into her numb hand. Her entire body felt numb.
“What…”
He looked around as if fearful they would be caught. “Just take it, my dear.” Elizabeth curled her hand around the paper, searching his eyes for some clue as to what the envelope contained.
“Elizabeth?” Maggie asked, coming up beside her, her voice brittle. Maggie did not bother hiding her displeasure at seeing Henry. “Are you all right?”
“Merry Christmas, Miss Cummings,” Henry said, ignoring Maggie and giving the hand that held the small package a shake, silently beseeching her to remain silent about the gift.
“Yes,” Elizabeth muttered. “Good-bye.”
And then he was gone, melting away into the crowd, leaving Elizabeth standing in Tiffany’s among a throng of men and women, swaying on her feet. Maggie grasped her arm.
“Elizabeth, what did he say to you?”
She hadn’t seen. Maggie hadn’t seen Henry give her the package. She didn’t know. For some reason, Elizabeth secreted the envelope in her reticule, and forcefully brought herself out of the shock Henry left her in.
“He wanted to wish me well,” she said, staring blindly at the crush of people around them. If even one of them recognized her or Henry, her mother was certain to hear of it.
“He should have left you alone,” Maggie said fiercely. “The very last thing you need right before your wedding is Henry coming to talk to you.”
No, Elizabeth thought, the very last thing she needed was to marry a stranger, a man she didn’t love. “You’re right,” she said instead. “He shouldn’t have. But I’m fine. Really I am,” Elizabeth insisted when Maggie gave her a frown.
“Miss Cummings, your purchase,” the clerk said, handing her a beautiful rosewood box with intricate inlay that contained her future husband’s wedding gift. Oh, God, she felt as if she were going to explode from all the feelings coursing through her. “Would you care to examine it before we wrap it for you?”
“That’s not necessary,” Elizabeth said absently. “Please just wrap it.”
“Come on,” Elizabeth said cheerfully after she’d tucked the duke’s gift into her reticule beside Henry’s package. “We’ve all kinds of time. Where do we go next?”
Maggie gave her a long look, but she smiled at Elizabeth. They walked from Tiffany’s arm in arm, both pretending to be far happier than they were, and both thinking they were fooling each other. And themselves.
It was not only a letter, though that would have been more than enough to crush her. Inside the sturdy little envelope, well-worn and a bit tattered from staying inside Henry’s overcoat all those weeks, was a small diamond heart centered by a tiny pearl dangling from a long, delicate chain. Elizabeth had waited in near agony for the privacy to open the letter. She’d arrived home and gone directly up to her room only to find her maid busily preparing the gown she was supposed to wear that very evening when the duke arrived for dinner. It seemed a lifetime before she bobbed a curtsy and left. Elizabeth carefully opened the envelope, as if even that were a precious thing, knowing even as she did so how foolish she was being.
My Dearest Beloved,
I cannot tell you how my heart aches at the thought of you being forced into a loveless match. I want you to know that you are loved, even if from afar. Wear this heart against you, keep it with you forever, as I will keep your heart with me. If I only see you from afar, I will know that you hold my heart. It is only a token, a promise that some day we will be together. Even if it is a sin, isn’t it more of a sin that we have been torn from each other? Do what you must to deceive and be safe, pretend anything to get you through the months ahead and know that I will always know the truth: that you love me alone.
Until we can be together, my darling,
H
Elizabeth felt as if she were being torn in two. She was angry with Henry to write such words, to suggest such a sordid thing as adultery. And yet…when she had seen him, she’d been so happy for that small instant before she remembered her life had been inalterably changed. She stared at her reflection in her vanity mirror, asking the frightened, confused girl staring back at her what she should do. She knew what she should do with the letter, with the necklace. She knew, she knew. Even as she placed the delicate chain around her neck, she knew. Even as she put the letter between the pages of her address book. She knew.
But she didn’t.
Because this was one thing she could do that was her own. All her life she’d been told what to eat, wear, say. She’d been told who her friends ought to be, who she could like, love. Marry. She told herself she didn’t put that chain around her neck for any other reason than that she could, that no one would know about this small rebellion, that no one but her could know its significance, could know that somewhere inside her, another Elizabeth lived, a far braver girl who could thwart her mother and marry the man she loved. The girl in the mirror could do all that. But the real one, the one sitting in her darkened room was getting married tomorrow to a man she hardly knew and certainly did not love.
Chapter 14
If Elizabeth had been nervous before her outing with Maggie, now she was completely unhinged. She couldn’t bear to see the duke, she couldn’t bear to do anything but sleep. And that is where her mother found her not twenty minutes before the guests began arriving.
“Elizabeth, are you ill? Please tell me you are not. It doesn’t matter, we’ll carry on, even if I have to wheel you into the church. Get up,” she shouted when her tirade produced nothing but a groan from the sleeping lump on her daughter’s bed. Nothing could get her out of this bed and dressed and ready to see fifty guests. Nothing could make her smile and pretend she was the giddy, happy bride-to-be.
She felt her bed dip as her mother sat down beside her. “Are you ill?” she asked again, this time with real concern in her voice.
“I think I am,” Elizabeth muttered.
“Have you a fever? I’m certain it is just nerves. You should have seen me the night of my wedding. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I was scared to death at what I had started. But, see, it’s all worked out.”
“I can’t go down, Mother. Please understand.”
“Elizabeth. There will be many, many times in your life when you do not feel like carrying on. But you must carry on. You must. This is one of those times. You cannot leave our guests waiting for you. They won’t believe it if I tell them you are ill. And what of His Grace? He hasn’t seen you in months. What is he to think?”
“I don’t care.”
“Elizabeth,” her mother said sternly. “Sit up.”
Groaning, she did. And then her mother slapped her face. “You silly, stupid girl. Get dressed immediately. And smile. And see that Millie fixes your face.”
Her mother marched from the room fully expecting her daughter to comply. With one hand on her burning cheek, the other drifted to the chain around her neck and her small bit of rebellion. If this was all she had, it would have to be enough. At that moment wearing it had less to do with Henry than it did as a sign of her independence, as pathetic as that was.
Within moments, Millie appeared in her room and began pulling her things from her wardrobe she needed for the evening. “We haven’t much time,” she said. “I’ll do your hair in a simple topknot this evening. That will make tomorrow seem so much better, don’t you think, Miss?”
“That’s fine, Millie,” Elizabeth said, heaving herself out of bed. Despite her mother’s slap, she still felt groggy and not quite herself. She looked in the mirror dreading seeing a handprint on her cheek, but was relieved to see it was simply a livid pink. If Millie made the other side as red, she’d end up looking like a clown. After donning her gown, Millie got a pot of rouge out but Elizabeth stopped her. “It’s not so noticeable now,” she said.
“But your mother—” Millie stopped abruptly, apparently seeing something in Elizabeth’s gaze that halted her argument. “Perhaps if you just give the right cheek a bit of a pinch,” she suggested as she picked up a brush. Millie made short work of her hair and Elizabeth found herself ready to greet guests a full five minutes before she was needed. She looked at her reflection quickly, checking only to see if the thin chain could be seen beneath the thick rope of pearls she wore.
Rand had been dreading this night for weeks. Soon after he’d left with Edward on his extended tour of the states, he realized it had been a mistake. At the time they’d planned it, the trip seemed like the perfect thing to do: see the girl, determine if she suited, propose, leave, marry, and go home. Now, he found himself a besotted idiot looking forward to seeing a girl he knew was probably not looking forward to seeing him. At least not to this degree. About one month into their tour, he suggested to Edward they could go to New York early, get to know the great city before they returned home. It was unlikely he would ever return to America, he explained. Edward’s reaction was predictable. He accused Rand of being a lovesick calf, which Rand immediately denied, even though, damn it all, that was exactly what he’d become.
He’d been gone too long. The fledgling bond he had shared with Elizabeth was sure to be diminished, if not erased all together, and they would face each other at the altar as the complete strangers he’d thought he wanted them to be. He tried to tell himself not to stare when he first saw her, but when he saw her come into the Grand Salon on her father’s arm it was as if some one took a hammer to his stomach.
How had she become so beautiful? Her color was un usually high, her hair swept up in a simple style, piles and piles of it that he found he couldn’t wait to take down and drown in.
Beside him, Edward nudged him and gave a soft “moo.” It took him perhaps three seconds to realize his friend was calling him a lovesick calf. He gave him a sardonic
grin, before turning back to Elizabeth, his heart full with the knowledge that in a mere twenty-four hours they would be alone, and very probably not nearly as fully clothed as they were at the moment.
“Your Grace,” she said, dipping a curtsy. She didn’t meet his eyes and instead rested her gaze on his tie.
“Miss Cummings.”
Another curtsy. “Lord Hollings.”
“Miss Cummings.”
And then she moved on, greeting the other guests with the same warmth—or lack thereof—she’d shown him. He’d been standing there in near rapture at the sight of her and she’d greeted him as if he were one of her father’s friends—and one she didn’t know very well.
He looked over to Edward and shrugged when his friend raised a telling eyebrow.
“Is that your heart she just stepped on?” Edward asked lightly.
“No. My dignity.”
Edward laughed. “What did you expect, her to rush into your arms in greeting? Never in my life have I seen a more proper girl. I daresay she wouldn’t sneeze unless given permission.”
“She has far more gumption than that,” Rand said, looking at Elizabeth and missing the telling look Edward gave him.
“I wonder if her friend will be here tonight,” Edward said.
“The talkative one? I haven’t seen her.”
“I shall be bored, then,” he said, already sounding exceedingly bored. “I wonder what you shall do without me when you go on your honeymoon. Must you drag me about with you every time you go somewhere? These dinners are interminable.”
Rand smiled at his friend’s common complaint. “It is nearly over. You may take the first steamer to England after the wedding. Besides, what would you have done these past months? This was a grand adventure and you know it. Far better than being at home with your stepaunt and her overly large brood. You very well may benefit from all we learned.”