“Then we shall just have to wait for him, shan’t we?” She smiled serenely up at him. “I mean to support my niece.”
“I believe we understand each other.” He smiled back.
“Gerry!” Ellen flew back down the stairs and caught both his hands while her eyes brightened with tears. “Gerry, I … Oh, my dear, dear friend, I cannot let you go without telling you again how very grateful I am for all you have done for me and for your friendship. I shall miss you so!”
“Ellie, Ellie, I meant it. I mean to run tame in this house if your aunt will let me. I’d not leave you until all is settled, my dear—word of a Deveraux,” he murmured softly.
“And—and—” She sniffed to hold back the flood of tears. “You will tell Alex how m-much I-I shall miss him, won’t you?”
“I swear it, Ellie. Come, ’tis not over yet.”
“And t-tell him I shall see him repaid for everything—I will.”
“All right, I’ll tell him anything you wish.”
“No. That’s it, Gerry. Oh …” She raised on her tiptoes and hastily gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good-bye, Gerry.” With that, she turned and fled.
“You aren’t in love with her yourself, are you?” Lady Sandbridge asked after Ellen had gone.
“No.” He reached for his cloak and fastened it around his shoulders before adding enigmatically, “I am excessively fond of Ellie, ma’am, but I believe I have interests in another quarter.”
Upstairs, Ellen threw herself across her bed to listen forlornly to the ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantel. She ought to be happy to be restored to at least part of her family, she told herself, but instead she felt infinitely saddened. She’d had such an adventure with Trent and his brother, an adventure that no one would believe. Others could speak of their shocking reputations and of their coldness, but she knew better. No, she’d done the right thing, she tried to convince herself: she’d saved them from the consequences of her scandal. Trent was now free to pursue his other interests.
“Ellie, are you quite all right?” Amy asked from the doorway.
“Oh, of course I am all right.” Ellen sat up and wiped her face before managing a tremulous smile. “I-I am so glad to be with you and Aunt Gussie.”
“You don’t look very happy,” her sister pointed out doubtfully.
“No, really, I …” Ellen could not finish before she buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Amy, I am the most miserable of creatures!” she burst out.
Later, when she cornered her aunt alone, Amy told of Ellen’s strange behavior. “Do you think all she has been through has affected her mind? I mean, Ellie’s never suffered from an excess of sensibilities in her life.”
“No, she’s head over heels for Trent, unless I’m very much mistaken in the matter, and she don’t want him to know it.”
“And you would not let me even tell her about his visit to Papa.”
“It’s his business to tell her, missy, and do not be forgetting it,” Augusta told her sternly.
“But what did Papa say?”
“Humph! What could he say? As much as it distresses me to say it, your father is a coward, and certainly no match for the likes of the Marquess of Trent. Wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway. His father was just such a one, Amy, and he stole Lady Caroline quite literally from her family and her betrothed, made off with her straight out of the house in front of everyone.”
“I wonder they survived the scandal.”
“Survived it? They thrived on it, child! He was such a scapegrace that it was almost taken for granted by everyone but her family, of course. By the time he brought her back, she was in the family way with Lord Trent, and what could they say then, anyway?”
17
AFTER ONLY TWO days in the house, Ellen could quite see what her aunt meant about John Farrell and Amy. They kept the place at sixes and sevens with his attempts to depress the girl’s natural liveliness despite Augusta Sandbridge’s best efforts to keep the peace. On this particular morning, they’d quarreled over his insistence that they should all take an extended tour of the city, and Amy had demurred. It was not so much that they did not wish to see everything, Amy had pointed out with wounding candor, but rather that she’d no wish to sit hours in a closed carriage listening to him expound on what he’d never seen before either. “For in spite of what you must believe, John,” she’d finished almost acidly, “we can read the guidebooks also.” The end result was that he had taken himself off to explore Paris by himself, and Amy and Augusta had gone shopping. Thankful for the peace, Ellen had pleaded a headache remain at to home with Jane Austen’s Emma.
She was quite absorbed in enjoying Miss Austen’s social observations and missed the sound of the knocker until she heard his voice in the hall. Panic seized her momentarily and she cast about wildly for the means to escape, not because she did not wish to see him desperately, but because she knew she could not maintain her composure. To her horror, she could hear the butler directing him to her.
He walked in and gently shut the door behind him. Her heart skipped a beat and then began to flutter wildly as the blood pounded in her temples. When she could bring herself to look up, he was” standing before her. Without speaking, he reached into his coat and drew out a document wrapped in oil paper.
“I’ve brought you a gift that you can accept this time, Ellie,” he told her quietly as he laid it in her trembling hands. “It’s already in the papers, I am afraid. I couldn’t quash the story because it had to be a matter of public record.” He watched her open it up and read it silently, her lips moving soundlessly as her eyes traveled down the page. “I am sorry, my dear. I tried.”
“Sorry?” She looked up finally. “How can you be sorry, my lord, when you have given me my freedom?”
“At a price, you know. There is much talk, and not all of it is sympathetic to you.”
“I don’t care what they say, Alex. I am free of him, and Aunt Gussie will support me against Papa—and—and I owe it all to you. I can never thank you sufficiently for all you have done for me. I know I have been a said trial to you, my lord, and I shall always be grateful. I-I will never forget your kindnesses.”
“Ellie, we are not done yet.” He moved to stand so close that his leg brushed against her bent knee. She looked up and sucked in her breath at the intensity mirrored in those blue eyes. “Do you remember what I said to you that first day we were on our way to York?”
“I remember that we said quite a few things to each other then,” she reminded him nervously.
“Ellie, listen to me, hear me out, will you? I said we’d be in the basket over this, and we are. But the thing is I do not mind at all, Ellie.” He reached to grip her cold fingers. “Wed me and Brockhaven will not dare to tell the story no matter how great the outcry. Do you understand me, my dear? I am asking you to accept the protection of my name. I offer you what I’ve never offered to anyone. I know I am not the man you would have—God knows I am not proud of what I have been—but I can give you greater protection from the scandal than any man I know.”
“Please, Alex …” She twisted her hand away and wrenched her body out of the chair to turn away from him. “There is no need, my lord. I assure you there is no need. I-I cannot accept your generous offer, but believe me that I am grateful for it.”
“Ellie, turn around and look at me,” he ordered even as he grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me! You have to wed me, my dear, you have to! Whether you will it or not, we are scandal bound to marry.”
“No.” She shook her head as he turned her around to face him. Her throat ached from the effort of maintaining her composure, and her voice was hollow. “Alex, I am free, and that is all that matters, my friend. There is no need for either of us to do anything we do not wish to do.”
Mistaking her meaning, he dropped his hands. “I see.” Exhaling slowly to hide his bitter disappointment, he stepped back and managed to ask quietly, “You decline, then?” She nodded mutely. “Well, the
n there is not much else I can say, is there? It appears I have mistaken the matter, and I would not distress you for the world, Ellie, by pressing a suit I can see is distasteful to you.” He turned to walk away.
“Alex,” she wrenched out miserably, “please—”
“It is all right, Ellie, I understand, I think. Good-bye, my dear.”
Numbly, she watched him go, his footsteps echoing on the floor. For a brief moment, she wanted to run after him, to tell him she’d take whatever he could offer, but in the end, she could not. No, he did not understand at all, he could not even guess the pain she felt knowing she probably would never see him again. As she heard the front door slam shut, she flung herself on a nearby settee and gave in to an overwhelming need to cry. No, she could not hold him, she sobbed, and she had to accept that she would get over him easier now than if she had to see him spend his evenings with one mistress after another. He would come to regret his nobility in offering for her and she could not bear that. Why should he be the one to suffer for having the misfortune to catch her beneath Brockhaven’s window? But, oh, it was so very hard to let him walk out of her life. Great, painful, convulsive sobs racked her body until she had no breath, and then subsided into a pitiful sniffling. She had no idea how long she lay there in her misery, hours perhaps, for it was not until she heard her aunt and her sister come in that she even tried to compose herself.
“Ellie, only fancy!” Amy waltzed into the room in high spirits and then stopped suddenly at the sight of Ellen’s tear-ravaged face. “Ellie, what is it? What is the matter, love?” her voice dropped in concern, and she knelt by the settee.
“Well, my dear,” Augusta murmured as she came through the doorway, “you were wise to stay home. I vow I am exhausted. Oh, dear!” she drew up short. “Oh, my dear,” she clucked sympathetically, “it cannot be that bad. Amy, fetch some brandy, child, and a bowl of lavender water.” Moving to sit at Ellen’s feet on the settee, she patted her consolingly.
“Oh, Aunt Gussie,” Ellen wailed miserably, “Trent was here!”
“But whatever did he do to overset you so, love?”
“He—he came because he thinks himself o-obliged to marry me. He thinks he has to p-protect me from the sc-scandal!” She turned her head into the soft leather and sobbed anew.
“He cannot have said that,” Augusta was positive.
“Yes, he did, and I-I refused him!”
“You cannot have heard him aright, child.”
“I did! He—he said we were scandal bound to marry, if you want the whole.”
“Surely he spoke of his regard for you, or said something else, Ellen.”
“No,” she sniffed, “he did not, I swear. Aunt Gussie, it was a bl-bloodless offer!”
“The noddy,” Lady Sandbridge muttered succinctly under her breath. “And so you have refused his suit?”
Ellen straightened up and nodded as she dabbed at her face with a thoroughly soaked kerchief. “I had to, Aunt. I could not force him into a distasteful marriage, could I?”
“No, no, of course you could not, dearest,” Augusta soothed while mentally consigning the marquess to perdition. “Here …” She looked up to where Amy was coming in with the requested brandy and lavender water. “Let me pour you a sip of brandy, love, and after you have drunk it, we’ll wash your face to make you feel better.”
“Aunt Gussie, what happened?” Amy demanded as she handed over the tray.
“Lord Trent bungled his offer,” was the terse reply.
“But he has such address! I mean, that is—never say she refused him!”
“Of course she refused him, child!” Augusta snapped with unwonted temper. “How could she not when he said he was obliged to offer?”
“But surely—”
“Amy,” her aunt cut her short, “we will talk no more of it just now. She will partake of the brandy and then we will help her to her bed. You will read the rest of her book to her this afternoon, and then, when she feels better, she will bathe and dress and come with us to the embassy reception tonight. If she is to recover from her disappointment, she must put it behind her.” She patted Ellen again. “You must not think me unfeeling, child, but I know what is best.”
Augusta waited until her program for Ellen’s afternoon was well underway before sending a tersely worded letter to the marquess. After all the effort and care he’d put into arranging things for Ellen, she knew quite well that he was in love with the girl. She certainly meant to speak her mind to him and give him some advice, whether he wanted to hear it or not. How so very like a man, she reflected in disgust, never at a loss for some inane compliment for a bit of fluff but unable to offer for a respectable female.
It did not take him long to respond to her summons, and when he arrived, Augusta’s heart almost went out to him. Had it not been for her niece’s own unnecessary suffering, she could have cried for his. Instead, she greeted him crisply and pulled him into the small parlor to complain, “My dear Trent, in all of her twenty three years, I cannot say I have ever known Ellen to suffer from an excess of sensibilities, but she is prostrate in her bed now. What on earth did you say to the girl?” she demanded.
He ran his fingers distractedly through the thick, unruly waves of black hair and shook his head ruefully. “I did not say much at all, madam, for she would not let me say my piece. I offered for her, of course, and my suit distressed her so that I had to leave.”
“Yes, I heard how you offered, my lord,” Augusta noted dryly, “and I own that I had expected you to have more address in the matter. She believes now that you merely felt obliged to save her from the scandal.”
“Obliged?” he repeated in dawning horror. “No! ’Twas not my meaning.”
“But did you not say you were obliged?” she persisted.
“I don’t remember—perhaps. But she should have known—”
“My niece is an intelligent girl, Trent, but she ain’t clairvoyant. To put it bluntly, sir, she described it as a bloodless offer. I could scarce believe my ears after all the trouble you’ve been to to get the chit,” she told him flatly with the tone of a barrister resting his case.
“I’ve got to speak to her, Lady Augusta. Surely I can make her understand—” He stopped and shook his head. “No, she would not believe me now, would she? She’d think you read me a peal and brought me to heel, I suppose. But she has to know I obtained her annulment for her with the express intent that we should marry.”
“But did you tell her that?”
“No, I wanted her free to accept me before I said anything. You are certain she cares for me?”
“She is besotted! But do not be looking to me to do your courting for you, my lord. It was outside of enough that I had to endure bringing Lavinia and Sir Basil together, after all. But I will tell you this much: nothing short of drastic action will remedy the situation.”
“I see. You do not think perhaps I should try for another interview with her?”
“No, for you will have her turning into a watering pot again. However, I mean to take her to the affair at the embassy tonight whether she wishes to go or not. And,” she added conspiratorially, “I am sure you will be able to obtain a card, won’t you?”
“Lady Sandbridge, you may depend on it. And I hope I do not shock you too much with what I mean to do.”
18
AS SHE LOOKED around the crowded room, Ellen noted the hushed whisperings and the furtive nods in her direction, and devoutly wished she had not come. While no one gave her the cut direct, there was a certain reserved curiosity about her. Well, she braced herself, she was made of stern stuff, and she would muddle through whatever came her way. At her side, her sister made polite small talk with a couple of well-favored young gentlemen.
“Look, Ellie!” Amy turned around suddenly and drew her attention to an extraordinarily beautiful, vivacious woman entering the room amid a crowd of admiring men. “I vow ’tis the Mantini herself!”
Ellen craned her neck for a better look at T
rent’s mistress, and her determined smile froze on her face as she took in the raven hair, dark eyes, perfect skin, and exquisite figure of the other woman. And it was apparent that Sophia Mantini meant to display her charms, for her red silk dress was cut so low that it nearly exposed full, creamy breasts, and so tight that it was obvious that she wore not even a pair of pantalettes beneath the clinging skirt.
“Hallo, Ellie.”
Ellen spun around and nearly stumbled into him. “Trent! Oh, you startled me!”
“I thought you might be here, my dear, and I would come offer my support.” He smiled easily. When she just stared, he nodded at the card that hung from her wrist. “If there is dancing, I believe I should like to put my name there unless you already have a full card.”
“No, there is no one on it, my lord. You would be the only one brave enough to stand up with Brockhaven’s castaway.”
“I feared as much, Ellie, but I daresay I can remedy the situation.”
“No, pray do not trouble yourself, Alex,” she put in hastily. “If you are determined, I shall stand up with you, but I don’t think I could face the prospect of trying to converse politely with anyone else.”
“Not even Gerry?”
“Well, maybe the two of you, but pray do not try to force anyone else to stand up with me.”
“Poor Ellie,” he sighed, “still determined to be selfish with her scandal.”
He signed her card in four places—two more than was polite or acceptable—and then moved on to pay his respects to the ambassador and several members of the mission. Try as she would, she could not help following him with her eyes as he crossed the room, his tall, well-proportioned frame dominating those around him. He would have been remarked in any crowd, she was certain, for she could think of no more attractive man in the world. And he was dressed even finer than she had ever seen him, so elegantly correct in a perfectly tailored dark-blue jacket, burgundy velvet waistcoat, and buff trousers. Even his neckcloth was understated, tied in an Oriental rather than one of the more intricate styles. Other men might have to resort to ridiculously high starched neck points and fancy cravats, but Trent could set the fashion merely by being himself. It was rumored that Stultz, tailor to the Beau himself, had said he ought to pay Trent for wearing his clothes.
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