Davida looked behind her after they passed Curzon. He was standing still, watching them, a brooding look on his face. A sense of foreboding filled her.
It was a sense that was fully justified as they continued down the indicated path. Ahead of them was the nymph fountain, and as they rounded it they came upon Monty, his back to them, deep in conversation with Elspeth and oblivious to their approach.
Gilbert swore softly; Davida couldn’t make out his words but fully entered into his feelings, for just then Monty took Elspeth’s hand, then jerked her into his arms and kissed her. Moments later he pushed her from him almost violently.
Davida stopped in her tracks, an unwilling audience to this meeting between Elspeth and Monty. What she saw and heard was not calculated to give comfort to his current fiancée.
***
When Pelham took Elspeth’s hand to shake it, she grasped his firmly, then suddenly tugged sharply on it, at the same time bringing her other arm up to curve around his neck. Caught off balance, Pelham had to grab her firmly to keep from falling.
Straining upward, she brought her lips to his. He registered her womanly curves and her warmth, and for an instant he held her, his mouth softening on hers. Then he pulled away, setting her firmly at arm’s length.
“Kiss me one more time, Monty,” she whispered. And then, louder, a harsh sound to her voice, “Kiss me the way you did that day in your library.”
Startled by her actions, Pelham stood motionless for a few moments. In a low voice he demanded, “What May Game is this? I told you . . .”
“Yes, I know.” Her voice grew louder. “You told me that you cannot let Davida cry off. As you said, it would be a shabby thing to do, no matter how much you wish it. Our love must go unrequited. But won’t you give me one last kiss?”
“We had our last kiss the day after you jilted Whitham. I told you then, and I tell you now—you must accept it. I am going to marry Davida, no matter . . .”
Pelham didn’t get a chance to continue, because suddenly Elspeth, who was positioned so that she could see the walkway, gasped, “Davida. How long have you been . . . Oh, dear. We were just . . . that is, we were just saying good-bye. Please don’t be upset at Monty.”
Pelham spun around to see Davida’s white, unhappy face as she stared at the pair. Just behind her stood Viscount Threlbourne, looking very indignant.
“I knew it. . . . I knew it. . . .” Davida began backing away.
“Wait, Davie, I can explain.”
“No, Monty, let her go. This has gone on long enough.” Gil took Davida by the shoulders and turned her, nudging her back down the garden walkway. “You and Elspeth have kissed and made up. Be done with it. Davida is better off with a broken engagement than an unhappy marriage.”
He blocked Pelham’s path while Davida fled up the walkway as if all the fiends of hell were on her heels. When Pelham tried to shake free of his friend, Elspeth grasped his arm, her small hands surprisingly strong as she clung to his coat. “Let her go, let her go. As Gil says, it’s for the best. Now she’ll cry off and we can be wed.”
People were staring at Monty and Elspeth, and at Davida’s hastily retreating figure. Pelham turned back and firmly detached Elspeth’s hands. “You are making a fool of yourself before all the ton, Lady Elspeth. Kindly don’t include me in your folly.”
“But it’s me you love. I know it is!”
He looked down at her and realized that he could quite honestly deny any love for her. All he felt was disgust with his former fiancée and concern about Davida. “No, Lady Elspeth. Any slight remnants of feelings I had for you have been quite completely destroyed by this charade. You knew Davida was listening, didn’t you? You deliberately gave her a false impression. Dishonest, cruel creature! I have done with you, once and for all!” He turned his back on her tears without a qualm.
Hearing this speech, Gilbert braced him by the arms while looking at him questioningly. “Get out of my way, Threlbourne.”
“Did you mean what you said to Elspeth just now?”
“With all my heart. Now move!”
Gilbert allowed himself to be thrust aside, and turned to soothe Elspeth’s tears.
As quickly as he could without attracting more attention, Pelham hurried up the walkway, frantically searching for Davida. But she had disappeared into the throngs, and his search was in vain.
When Davida had last seen her parents, they were in the card room nearest the ballroom. With unseemly haste she pushed her way through the crowd and hurried to them. “Take me home,” she gasped.
“Why, Davida, darling, what is it?” Her mother, alarmed, rose from the table.
“Take me home now. Please, Papa, before I disgrace us all!”
The look on her face convinced her father. He stood, excusing himself, and began escorting the two women toward the front of the mansion. “But what of Lord Pelham?” he asked.
“He will find his own way home. Doubtless Lady Elspeth will take him up.” Her pain and grief were in her face. The bitterness in her tone caused the Greshams to exchange alarmed glances.
Once they were settled in their carriage and under way, Davida stammered out a tearful account of what she had seen and heard in the garden. “He jerked her into his arms and kissed her. I heard her saying he wouldn’t let me cry off because it was a shabby thing to do. He didn’t deny it. He just told her she must accept it.”
Her mother’s response was ready sympathy. She put her arms around her sobbing daughter and rocked her like a baby.
Her father sat back in the carriage, his face stony and unreadable in the dim light. When Davida had cried out her first rush of grief, she lifted her head.
“I can’t marry him now, Papa, you do see that. It is as I feared all along. He still loves her. He regrets proposing to me. Shabby. Shabby! He won’t let me cry off because it wouldn’t be proper. But he would always regret it. Oh, Papa, don’t you see. He’ll be miserable, and so will I.”
At last her father spoke. “She is a schemer. I believe she arranged for you to see them together.”
“Yes,” Davida admitted. “I expect she did plan it. She knew I was meeting him there. But it was clear that she was repeating what he had said to her. And I saw him take her into his arms. I saw him kiss her. Perhaps they planned it together.”
“I can’t believe that of Lord Pelham,” her father growled.
Lady Elizabeth sighed. “Nor can I. He seems too honorable a man for that.”
“You’re right, of course. He is. He is also too honorable to break off with me now, no matter how much he may want to. But I can and I will. I won’t be married to a man who loves another woman.”
“Careful, daughter. We haven’t heard from him yet. I would like to hear his explanation first.”
Near hysterics, Davida shrieked, “I heard all I needed to hear tonight. I won’t marry him.”
“Calm yourself, Davida. Your father won’t force you . . .”
“Madam, please do not speak for me. I will do what is best in the long run for my daughter, not give in to feminine hysterics. An engagement broken four days before the wedding will be an embarrassment to Lord Pelham, but he will overcome it. But Davida, we are not high enough in the ton to flaunt its standards. You’ll never recover from it. Your hopes of a good marriage—perhaps any marriage at all—will be dashed.”
“I’d rather not marry, then.”
“And I am convinced Pelham will make you a good husband in spite of . . .”
“No!”
“And you care deeply for him. Deny it if you can.”
“I do love him. Which is why I won’t marry him.”
Angrily father and daughter faced each other across the carriage.
“You’ll do as I say, daughter.”
“Papa!”
“Charles, please . . .”
“Quiet! Let’s not share this with the servants.” The carnage had stopped and the footman was opening the door.
Silently the three t
rooped into the entryway. “Go to bed, Davida. We will talk more of this tomorrow.” Her father’s face was so set and stern that Davida felt her spirits sink completely.
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered, stumbling up the steps until her mother joined her and put a steadying arm around her. She barely heard her mother’s soothing words. There had been something implacable in her father’s face.
She allowed herself to be undressed and put to bed like a doll. But after the candle had been extinguished, Davida lay sleepless, her mind as busy as her body was still. Endlessly she went over her relationship with Montgomery Villars, seeking any hint that he might truly care for her, but finding nothing that could convince her. She found, to her intense dismay, plenty of evidence of lust, but that was not love.
Painfully she faced the fact that time and time again she had looked the other way, refusing to see the evidence of her eyes and ears, refusing to face the truth of her own instincts, because she wanted to stay engaged to Pelham.
Again and again her mind returned to the scene in the Malcolm’s garden. It had haunted her since it happened. To remember that deep, intimate kiss always filled her with contradictory emotions, a fiery tingling, and yet a shuddering, shivery sensation, too. She didn’t know how to interpret what it made her feel, except that she wanted to feel that way again.
But tonight as she thought of it, she cringed with shame and self-disgust. She had let him kiss her that way and hadn’t even protested. She had let him press himself against her and had wanted more. And all the time he was doubtless wishing it was Elspeth he held, Elspeth he kissed.
As she recalled what had been said in the Raleighs’ garden tonight, she realized that he had admitted to kissing Elspeth on the very day he had assured her that his love for Elspeth was gone. It had been that very evening that he had kissed Davida so intimately in the Malcolms’ garden.
It had seemed right to her because she loved him. But to him it must have been merely an expression of lust and, yes, of mastery. He knew his power over her. Anytime she expressed her misgivings, he seemed to kiss them away.
Davida thought of all the gossip she had heard about affairs among members of the ton. Perhaps Pelham thought he could have both of them. Perhaps he planned to make Elspeth his lover as soon as they all were safely wed. That kind of marriage seemed to be what Curzon had been hinting at in the garden. The very thought of it filled her with revulsion. Somehow she had to escape this doomed marriage that would make them both miserable.
For a long while her thoughts went in circles, but suddenly, somewhere in that ambiguous hour just before dawn, the solution came to her.
She knew her father’s fears that she’d never make another match half so good were justified. Nor did she truly want any husband but Pelham. But the only way her father would permit her to cry off was if she had a better match.
Unknown to him, she’d already been offered a better match, in the worldly sense, at least. Her mind went back to the day she and Sarah had modeled two of their new gowns for Sarah’s father, on the eve of their departure for London.
As she had twirled about for the duke, her jonquil yellow sprigged muslin flaring out from its high waist, he had stared, seemingly stunned. When she stopped to look up into his face quizzically, he had seemed almost to shake himself before drawling in his ironical way, “You’ve become a lovely woman, Davida. I’ve a mind to marry you myself. If you don’t find a suitable husband in London, remember that you have a devoted suitor, right here in your home county.”
Davida had laughed and blushed and had thought little of it. But Sarah, reminding her of it after the breakup with Curzon, had said she thought her father was serious. He would be lonely when Sarah married, and he’d want a woman to run his household, too, wouldn’t he?
What was it he had said at her come-out ball? Oh, yes. He had agreed that he was relieved not to have to marry her. But had there had been something in his manner, in his eyes . . .? And hadn’t he told Pelham how fortunate he was?
Almost forty, the duke would surely not be looking for anything from a wife but companionship. That Davida could offer him. And her father certainly couldn’t complain if she were to become a duchess!
But the Duke of Harwood had returned to his country estate the day following the ball. He couldn’t stand to remain in the town mansion where his wife had died one second longer than necessary. Somehow, she would have to get Harwood Court if she was to ask him to marry her.
As dawn crept slowly into the sky, Davida rose from her bed, dressed in a sensible carriage dress, packed a portmanteau, and retrieved what remained of her quarter’s allowance from the top drawer of her dressing table.
From her jewelry box she took a few small items that might supplement her money in case of an emergency, trying not to look at the box containing the Pelham emeralds which she had donned so proudly last night. They could be returned later, she thought as she locked the jewelry box again. Doubtless they would be perfect to set off Elspeth’s green eyes!
She silently slipped down the stairs. Muted sounds told her the servants had begun their day’s work in the kitchen, but none were in view as she padded as quietly as possible to the front door, threw the bolt, and let herself out.
Chapter Twenty
“Gone? Where?” Lord Pelham stood aghast in the Greshams’ morning room, facing her anxious parents. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. He had tried unsuccessfully to catch up to Davida when she fled from him, and by the time he had been able to arrange transportation from the ball, the Greshams’ home was dark. He had decided to wait until morning to go to Davida and explain.
Racing up the steps to the Gresham town house long before the fashionable hour, he had been astonished to find the door open and the servants standing about like lost souls. Perry had finally noticed him and stepped forward. “Miss Davida . . . isn’t below, my lord. Shall I direct you to her parents?”
Now he stood shocked in the Greshams’ morning room, where a red-eyed Lady Elizabeth dabbed at her nose while Sir Charles held a sheet of paper out to him.
“She didn’t leave us a note, but she left one for you. I took the liberty of opening it. I felt my daughter’s safety demanded it.”
“Yes, of course.” Pelham hastily opened the folded sheet and read its contents.
Dear Lord Pelham:
It is as I feared. You are obviously still very much in love with Lady Elspeth. Our engagement has become an obstacle to your happiness.
As my father does not seem likely to permit me to withdraw quietly from the match, I have decided to terminate it in a way he won’t refuse—by contracting a more favorable match as soon as may be.
I wish you and your lady all happiness and hope we may remain friends.
Your Obedient and Humble etc.
Davida Gresham
Pelham cleared his emotion-choked throat. “What does she mean, a more favorable match? Was there another offer she was considering?”
Sir Charles shook his head. “The only suitor I know of that she was seriously considering was Mr. Curzon. But she took him in dislike at the end. Other offers there were, but none that were both suitable and acceptable to Davida.”
“Perhaps she went to Curzon, then.” Pelham frowned at the thought.
“I think mayhap she has. I’ve ordered my carriage around.”
“May I accompany you, sir?”
“Indeed, I hope you will. Or . . . I say, do you wish the match to be broken off?”
“Certainly not.”
“You’re not so hen-hearted as to marry out of a sense of honor, if you truly love another woman? I hope you will be honest with us, for Davida’s sake as well as your own.”
“I do believe at this late date it would be dishonorable to cry off.” Pelham ran a hand distractedly through his auburn hair. “Still, I wouldn’t marry Davida if it were really Elspeth I wanted. I swear to you it’s not. As for last night, far from realizing that I still love her, I have seen her revealed as
a person of very low character, in addition to having a temperament I never could endure.”
“Ah! I suspected as much. But Davida must have it that you were consumed with love for her, and simply couldn’t honorably break the engagement.”
“Consumed with fury, more like! The bit—excuse me, Lady Elizabeth, the jade! What Davida saw and overheard last night was a deliberate plot on Elspeth’s part to drive my fiancée to cry off.”
“We’d guessed as much,” Lady Elizabeth said. “But Davida simply couldn’t bear the thought of making you unhappy.”
Just then Perry’s round face appeared in the doorway. “The carriage is at the ready, sir.”
“Good. Wait here, m’dear, we should know something soon.” Sir Charles patted his wife on the shoulder before leaving with Pelham.
***
Harrison Curzon stood before his early morning visitors in his dressing gown, as astonished as he was disheveled.
“Davida, here? What’s happened?” Curzon’s sleepy countenance became enlivened with a certain ironic amusement. “Never say she’s jilted you. Becoming quite the thing this season, jilting Baron Pelham.”
Too concerned to pay attention to the jibe, Pelham kept on as if he hadn’t heard. “I hope we can rely upon your discretion, Harry.” Sir Charles paced nervously as he listened. “Elspeth played a bit of a trick on us last night, and now Davida’s gone missing. Her note said something about making an acceptable match elsewhere, and we thought perhaps . . .”
“Good God, no! Even if she had come here, I wouldn’t want second place in her life any more than she wants it in yours. Can’t say I blame her. Damn all, Pelham. You should never have offered for her. Now you’ve hurt her. I should call you out for this!”
Angrily Pelham retorted, “I am at your service! Speaking of hurting her, perhaps you would like to explain why she trembles with fear whenever she comes near you?”
June Calvin Page 17