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Historical Trio 2012-01

Page 51

by Carole Mortimer


  ‘Such perfect white buds,’ Elizabeth continued.

  White roses? Tennant had sent Elizabeth white roses? As a sign of the purity with which he regarded her, perhaps? Good God, whoever would have guessed that Tennant was a romantic?

  Nathaniel could not even remember the last time he had sent a woman flowers. Or, indeed, if he ever had; women tended to take things like that completely out of context, to read emotions into such gestures that simply did not exist.

  That Elizabeth had taken those blooms up to the privacy of her bedchamber would seem to indicate that she was not immune to such a gesture, either, even if that gesture had been made by an old stick-in-the-mud like Tennant.

  ‘I believe your aunt is signalling that it is time for you to escort her in to dinner, Osbourne,’ that stick-in-the-mud informed him loftily at the same time as he offered Elizabeth his own arm.

  Leaving Nathaniel with no other choice but to respond to his aunt’s tacit request that he do the same for her. But not quite yet… ‘My aunt tells me there is to be dancing after dinner. I trust you will save the first set of dances for me, Miss Thompson?’

  Elizabeth frowned up at Lord Thorne, knowing from the challenging glitter in those amber-brown eyes that he was being deliberately irritating. Something he seemed to take delight in being whenever he happened to be in her company! ‘I am sure that Miss Rutledge would appreciate that honour far more than I, sir.’

  The earl gave a wolfish grin at the same time as those gorgeous eyes laughed down at her. ‘The honour will be all mine, I do assure you, Miss Thompson.’

  ‘But are you sure that your ribs will be able to stand the exercise, my lord?’ she came back with that same saccharine sweetness with which she had thanked Sir Rufus for his flowers.

  ‘I will ensure that they are.’ That warm gaze continued to laugh at Elizabeth.

  ‘Then I will claim the second set,’ Sir Rufus put in impatiently.

  ‘If Miss Thompson is not too fatigued from our own…dancing,’ Nathaniel taunted.

  ‘I am sure I will not be, Sir Rufus.’ She glared her displeasure at the earl as she answered the other man, a look Nathaniel returned with mocking amusement.

  ‘Until later, then, Miss Thompson.’ Nathaniel bent his head over her hand, then bowed tersely to Sir Rufus before he joined his increasingly impatient aunt and offered her his arm.

  Elizabeth gazed after him in frustration, that irritation deepening as she saw that every other woman in the room was also watching the tall and rakishly handsome nephew of their hostess, some from behind the discretion of their fans, others openly admiring of the dashing figure he cut in the perfectly tailored evening clothes that emphasised the muscled strength of his shoulders.

  Elizabeth gave a winsome sigh, knowing that as a mere companion to Mrs Wilson—worse, to Mrs Wilson’s dog—she took altogether far too much interest in the arrogant Earl of Osbourne.

  ‘Miss Thompson?’

  And obviously not enough interest in the impatient man standing beside her with his arm still extended to escort her into dinner!

  ‘Thank you.’ She placed her hand upon Sir Rufus’s arm, her face slightly flushed from the disapproval she read in the austereness of his features as they joined the line of guests moving slowly through to the dining room.

  As might be expected from her lowly position in this household, Elizabeth was seated far down the middle of the table, well away from the host and hostess. Mrs Wilson, aware of the roses that had arrived for Elizabeth yesterday, had placed Sir Rufus on Elizabeth’s left side, with the slightly deaf and ancient Mr Amory, the local vicar, on her right.

  The only consolation she could see to this arrangement was that as the host Nathaniel Thorne was seated at the head of the table, with the ‘sensible’ Miss Rutledge on his left, and the elder of the ‘silly’ Miss Millers to his right!

  ‘I truly believed, after two hours spent in Tennant’s company, that you were about to fall asleep in the sorbet!’ Nathaniel grinned at Elizabeth as they later danced the first set together in the small candlelit ballroom at Hepworth Manor, the music provided by four musicians placed up in the gallery.

  She looked at him with innocently wide eyes. ‘You are mistaken, my lord; I very much enjoyed Sir Rufus’s conversation. He was explaining to me the best way to grow roses.’

  Those blasted roses again!

  Amusement twinkled in those clear blue eyes as she continued, ‘It would appear that it involves rather a lot of horse…manure.’

  Nathaniel’s shout of laughter was completely spontaneous, and drew several interested glances their way, glances that Nathaniel chose to ignore as he looked down at Elizabeth. ‘He really is the most boorish of men,’ Nathaniel said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Elizabeth shot Sir Rufus a slightly guilty glance as he glowered in their direction from the edge of the dance floor. ‘We are being unkind…’

  ‘In my opinion, one cannot be unkind enough about a man who spends two hours in the company of a beautiful young woman and can only think to discuss horse manure,’ Nathaniel drawled.

  The flush that warmed her cheeks was not entirely due to the exertion of the dance. The Earl of Osbourne, a man every woman in the room eyed so covetously, had just called her beautiful…

  And what if he had? Admittedly she had so far received few compliments in her young life, but no doubt the earl had spoken just so to dozens…hundreds of other young women before her! ‘I am sure that Miss Miller and Miss Rutledge did not suffer the same fate in your own company,’ she retorted waspishly, having been aware, as she listened politely to the drone of Sir Rufus’s voice—he had proved to be a man who did so love the sound of his own voice—of the giggles and simpering of those two young ladies at dinner.

  ‘Let us hope not,’ Nathaniel teased as they came together again in the dance. ‘I do have something of a reputation to uphold, you know.’

  Of course he did, Elizabeth reminded herself firmly. A disreputable and womanising reputation that he had no doubt enjoyed earning. The fact that she had become totally aware of the wretched man throughout the course of the dance, of the warmth of his hand through her glove whenever it clasped hers, the heated masculinity of his body when they came together, along with the slumbering sensuality in that dark brown gaze as he looked down at her, was of absolutely no import when she also considered how long and in whose company he had been nurturing that rakish reputation.

  She lowered her dark lashes as she rose from her curtsy at the end of the set. ‘No doubt you are intending to ask Letitia to dance the next set, my lord?’

  It had not so much as occurred to Nathaniel to dance with his aunt’s cousin, a woman aged in her mid-fifties, and whom he knew did not enjoy having attention drawn to her, which it surely would be if he were to invite her to dance. ‘And why would I wish to do that?’

  Elizabeth gave him a pained frown. ‘Possibly because Mrs Wilson looked rather displeased when we stood up together for the first set of the evening.’

  ‘Ah.’ Nathaniel glanced across to where his aunt sat with several other older ladies, knowing by the fixed smile upon Aunt Gertrude’s face that she was not listening to their conversation, her steely gaze fixed upon himself and Elizabeth as they stepped from the dance floor. ‘I believe it might be more…politic to ask my aunt herself rather than Letitia.’

  Elizabeth gave a gracious nod of her head. ‘I am sure she will be most gratified.’

  He bowed. ‘As no doubt you will enjoy dancing the next set with Tennant. Perhaps he might even offer advice on how to grow tulips or daffodils next.’

  ‘Oh, very droll, my lord.’ She sniffed, her frown turning to a gracious smile as Sir Rufus arrived to claim the next set.

  ‘Osbourne,’ he clipped abruptly.

  Nathaniel raised haughty brows at the obvious dismissal, looking every inch the superior Earl of Osbourne as his stern gaze raked mercilessly over the older man. ‘Have a care, Tennant,’ he growled softly.

 
Sir Rufus gave a start. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  The earl eased the tension from his shoulders as he affected a charming smile. ‘I was advising you to have a care for Miss Thompson’s feet; I am afraid I may have inadvertently stepped upon one of them during the latter part of the set.’ The two men continued to look at each other, eyes of pale and glittering blue and hard unblinking brown, neither man, it seemed, willing to yield in that silent battle of wills.

  ‘I am feeling a little thirsty, Sir Rufus—perhaps we might find some refreshment before we dance?’ Elizabeth’s calm request broke into that tension. ‘And I believe you were about to ask your aunt to dance the next set, my lord?’ she added firmly.

  What Nathaniel had been about to do, and what he now wished to do, were two entirely different things—especially as the one involved planting a firm right hook on the pompous chin of one of his aunt’s guests!

  Instead he turned and took one of Elizabeth’s gloved hands in his. ‘I will seek you out again later in the evening,’ he promised as he raised that gloved hand to place the warmth of his lips against it.

  Elizabeth snatched her hand out of the earl’s grasp as soon as she was able to do so without being overly obvious and watched him beneath lowered lashes as he left them to stroll across the room to talk to his aunt. Her palm burned beneath the lace of her glove from the touch of his fingers, the back of her hand aflame from the feel of those lips so close to her skin.

  She knew that the intimacy had occurred only as a direct result of an irritating need on the earl’s part to annoy Sir Rufus, but that did not make her own response any more acceptable as she sternly reminded herself that Nathaniel Thorne was a practised rake and a bounder, and his flirtatiousness in regard to herself—for whatever reason—was not to be tolerated.

  She turned to smile at the glowering Sir Rufus. ‘What a tedious young man the earl is, to be sure!’

  That glower instantly faded as he returned her smile. ‘I am relieved to hear you share my own opinion in that regard.’ They strolled out to where refreshments were being served in the spacious hallway.

  Elizabeth accepted the glass of punch he handed her, taking a sip to cool the guilty blush from her cheeks before answering him. ‘Tell me again how you managed to produce that beautiful white bloom you have named Purity.’

  ‘Ah.’ He brightened considerably. ‘Well, there…’

  Elizabeth once again gave thanks for her sister Caroline’s advice as Sir Rufus launched into a repeated explanation of how his obsession with growing roses had encouraged him to produce a hitherto-unknown bloom, and in doing so allowing Elizabeth to smile and nod on occasion without any real need to listen for a second time this evening.

  The dance with Sir Rufus was not to be completely avoided, however, and they joined in the third dance of the set, Sir Rufus proving to be an adept dancer, if not a particularly graceful one. That the dance involved her twirling from partner to partner, with the elegantly graceful Lord Thorne as one of those, did not help the other man’s cause.

  Consequently Elizabeth was relieved when the set came to an end and she was claimed for the next by Mr Amory, followed by Viscount Rutledge, the latter an exceedingly charming widower of perhaps fifty or so years, his conversation, on the local area and his role as magistrate, proving to be of far more interest than Sir Rufus’s roses. An interest for which Elizabeth was grateful when she saw Nathaniel Thorne take to the dance floor with Miss Rutledge on his arm and Sir Rufus with Mrs Wilson, fortunately in a dance in which the partners remained together rather than not—Elizabeth had suffered quite enough of the earl’s and Sir Rufus’s company for one evening!

  Indeed, Elizabeth was so taken with the viscount’s undemanding company that once the set came to an end she readily accepted his invitation, and his arm, to step out into the hallway for further refreshment.

  ‘It would seem that you have captured the admiration of yet another middle-aged suitor.’

  Elizabeth stood to one side of the hallway awaiting Viscount Rutledge’s return with the glasses of punch, closing her eyes now as the annoying Earl of Osbourne spoke softly behind her.

  Very close behind her if the way the warmth of his breath stirred the curls at her nape was any indication…

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, a smile fixed on her lips as she turned to face the earl standing so confidently in the hallway behind her. ‘I am sure that Viscount Rutledge’s attentions to me are nothing but a politeness on his part, my lord,’ she dismissed coolly.

  Nathaniel did not miss the unspoken implication that ‘politeness’ was a trait Elizabeth did not feel he, personally, possessed!

  ‘Nor would I consider Sir Rufus to be middle-aged,’ she continued.

  But she would consider him to be an admirer…?

  Quite rightly so, Nathaniel acknowledged with a frown. The other man was only eight and thirty, and passably wealthy. Observation of Tennant had also shown him to have been watching Elizabeth constantly throughout the evening, often with an intensity that bordered on rudeness. ‘Do you not consider it a little greedy on your part, when there are several other single young ladies here this evening, to have so obviously bewitched all the single gentlemen present?’ he rasped.

  Her sapphire gaze swept over him dismissively. ‘Not all, my lord.’

  Nathaniel was not as convinced of that as she appeared to be; certainly he had found he had been watching her more this evening than was necessary—or wise—too.

  Young women of Elizabeth Thompson’s station in life, whilst perhaps suitable for marriage to a man of lower rank, were completely unsuitable for any role in an earl’s life other than as his mistress; there was an air of independence about this young lady that said she would be totally averse to such a suggestion, from him or any other gentleman.

  Which posed a serious question for Nathaniel as to what he was to do about his rapidly growing attraction towards her…

  ‘Warm evening, is it not, Osbourne?’ Viscount Rutledge returned to present Elizabeth with a glass of punch, a rotund man who invariably beamed good humour—even so, Nathaniel had heard, when the man was sending some poor devil off to be incarcerated in prison for several years!

  ‘Very warm, sir.’ Nathaniel replied.

  ‘Perhaps you would care to take my punch and I will go back for another?’ The older man offered him the second glass.

  ‘Not at all,’ Nathaniel refused evenly as he gave an inward shudder at the thought of drinking such a sweet concoction. ‘I merely came over to secure Miss Thompson for the next set of dances.’

  ‘Good for you.’ The older man beamed. ‘You will not regret it; I do not think I have met a partner so light on her feet for many a year.’

  Elizabeth blushed, both at the obviously well-meaning compliment and the fact that Lord Thorne had not asked her to dance at all, but instead now placed her in the position of having to stand up with him for the next set or name him the liar he had earlier called her!

  It was not that she did not find the earl an exciting man to dance with—he was possibly far too exciting—but she was unhappy about the fact that she had been so totally aware of him as they’d danced together earlier. She had also found herself watching him rather too closely as he’d danced with others. Elizabeth thought perhaps it was best for her peace of mind if she did not dance with him again this evening…

  Her saviour came in an unexpected—but not necessarily unwelcome—form.

  ‘Our dance, I believe, Miss Thompson?’ Sir Rufus announced firmly as he joined their group.

  Elizabeth had only said she would dance with him again later in the evening if there was time. ‘Of course, Sir Rufus. If you will excuse us, gentlemen?’ She handed her empty punch glass to the scowling earl before leaving on Sir Rufus’s arm.

  ‘Intelligent as well as pretty gel, that,’ Giles Rutledge murmured as Nathaniel was left holding an empty punch glass rather than Elizabeth.

  His mouth tightened as his
narrowed gaze followed her progress back into the ballroom. ‘So it would seem.’

  Giles chuckled. ‘Has she worked in your aunt’s household for very long?’

  For far too long in Nathaniel’s frustrated opinion. In fact, it might have been better for all concerned if she had never come to work for his aunt at all.

  ‘You really should tell Mrs Wilson if young Osbourne’s attentions are becoming a nuisance.’

  Elizabeth glanced sharply up at Sir Rufus as they danced. ‘I have no idea what you mean, sir.’ But, of course, she did. And no doubt Mrs Wilson would have something to say to her, either later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, concerning her nephew’s marked attentions towards her. The matter was not currently helped by the fact that Lord Thorne and Viscount Rutledge had returned to the ballroom and the former was once again watching her from beneath hooded lids.

  Elizabeth had been invited to join the party this evening to make up the numbers, not, as Nathaniel Thorne had pointed out so mockingly earlier, to find herself engaging the attentions of every single gentleman present.

  Although it was rather a pleasant feeling to be so popular, Elizabeth acknowledged ruefully, after years of being secluded in the country, where there was only her father, Squire Castle or his son Malcolm that her father had considered as suitable partners for his daughters to stand up with at the local Assemblies.

  ‘That man is becoming a damned irritant,’ Sir Rufus grumbled as he obviously also noted the younger man’s presence. ‘Every time I turn around, there he is at your elbow.’

  Elizabeth doubted that too many people—most especially the women—would consider the Earl of Osbourne’s attentions as an ‘irritant’! Nor did she welcome the almost possessive tone she had heard in Sir Rufus’s voice.

  ‘I am sure he is just being kind.’ Elizabeth kept her lashes lowered so that this pompously autocratic man should not see the anger glittering in her eyes; her role of humble companion, she had found, was becoming more and more difficult to maintain in a room full of her peers.

 

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