by Edith Layton
Elizabeth looked downward again. This constant need for dissembling was making her very weary and heartsick. She had the wildest impulse to be done with the pretense and blurt out, “No, I cannot travel farther than Miss Scott’s shop. I cannot afford a twopenny ticket to any place on earth. And even the clothes I stand up in were paid for by selling off all the family’s china.” And only by so saying, she thought, could she ever be able to look him fully in the face as an equal. Instead she said meekly, “No. There is no gentleman in Tuxford. It is not,” she essayed weakly, “such a fast place as London.”
“That puts me in my place.” The Earl laughed, while Elizabeth sought to correct her statement. But he rose, and seeing her consternation, told her that it was only that they had talked the morning away and he was sure his guests would be now all awake and looking for their absent host.
“For,” he said as they made their way back to the front of Lyonshall, “it will never do if they discover Simon’s garden is my refuge. That shall be our secret,” he assured her. This only served to make Elizabeth feel even worse about her deception, and she walked along with him in silence with her eyes downcast again.
Amazing, the Earl thought. Kitty used to look at me directly with her great dark eyes innocent and wide as she spewed out the most intricate lies. And this chit, he mused, does it the other way round. You have only to ask her a direct question about herself and she will look anywhere but at you and then tell what are probably the most appalling untruths. It is the lies which depress her spirit. For when she is being truthful, she is radiant. She is, he thought, looking down at her shining hair as she trudged beside him with bent head, obviously a very bad liar. But she is a liar. I seem to attract them, he thought on a sigh, both the good and bad ones, with uncanny ease.
Lady Isabel was waiting for them, standing poised prettily beneath her sunshade, as they turned toward the house.
“Oh, fie, Morgan,” she pouted as he drew near. “You’ve gone for a lovely walk about the grounds, and left me to languish alone.”
“But, Isabel, my dear,” the Earl said, “it would be most improper of me to roust you from your bed at dawn. Elizabeth here wakes with the sun, and we just happened to meet. But she, no doubt, would be glad of your company for another stroll. Alas, I’ve just been complaining to her that my poor limb has been acting up. It has been an abominable nuisance today and I must go inside for a brief rest. But,” he said, holding up one hand, “don’t let me detain you. We’ll all meet again at luncheon.”
He smiled and bowed and gave Elizabeth one last long lingering smile. That, he thought, looking into her surprised eyes, is how one goes about lying, my dear. And vastly amused, he limped painfully up the stairs and left a puzzled Elizabeth and a fuming Isabel to their own devices.
The next few days dawned fair and balmy in a display of ideal spring weather that few had seen so temperate. The Earl’s house guests amused themselves publicly and fretted privately about the impression they were making upon their host. Their noble host was subjected to a succession of daily flirts with Lady Isabel, coupled with interminable stories about what clever thing little Owen had lately said to his nurse. Richard Courtney addressed his daily three sentences to his host, and then, relieved, stumbled off to some deserted part of the house where he was thought to be variously brooding, writing, or sleeping. Anthony Courtney adopted a breezy camaraderie with the Earl, but spent the better part of his days with Lord Beverly. And Elizabeth DeLisle occupied herself each morning with a private chat with the Earl, secure and safe with him in his lost brother Simon’s Shakespearean garden. Each morning they met as if by accident, and each morning they feigned surprise. And each morning they spoke of many things fluently and with delight. Elizabeth was careful never to mention a word of her existence previous to her appearance at Lyonshall, and the Earl took special care to watch her ill-concealed dismay whenever he attempted to bring the conversation to a more personal level.
But the fair weather could not last, and no one truly expected that it would.
When the rain came that Wednesday morning, the Earl had taken refuge in his study. He was poring over some papers having to do with a disgruntled tenant’s demand for more grazing land when a soft tap came upon his door.
He noted with relief that it was only the butler. Peering past his shoulder, he could see no hovering relative, so he grinned and asked what it was that had caused the fellow to look so grim.
“Luncheon will be late today,” the butler said in tones that signaled the end of the world as he knew it. “Unavoidably, your lordship, we shall have to set the hour back. We shall have to serve at two, rather than at one.”
Looking at his master’s puzzled face, the butler went on with distinct unease, “Cook’s in a state, your lordship. She’s been carrying on and tossing things about. She’s in a rare taking and there’s none of us can calm her down.”
The Earl rose to his feet and took up his walking stick. “Mrs. Turner? But it must be cataclysmic. She’s normally the most benign soul on earth. I’ll just go and have a word with her.”
“Oh, no!” the butler forgot himself so much as to cry in an agitated tone. “Never, your lordship. If you were to go down to the kitchens, she’d never forgive herself. Please, do wait here and I’ll fetch her to you.”
“Really, Weathering,” the Earl sighed, “I am mobile. I can fetch myself the few steps to the kitchens. No need to summon her when I can just nip down and have a word—”
“No,” the butler insisted, aghast at the sight of his master making his way toward the door. “Really, your lordship. Please, sir. She’ll never get over it, your having to come to her. Please, just wait a moment.”
And before the Earl could remonstrate with him again, the butler made his hurried way out.
The Earl sat heavily back into his chair. The way his staff cosseted him and regarded him, as though he were still an invalid, depressed him. So his expression was one of exasperation and grim tolerance when the butler showed an agitated Mrs. Turner into the study.
“Oh, sir…” Mrs. Turner quivered, her hands wrung against her ample chest. “Oh, sir,” she breathed, her wide and shining face set in lines so dolorous she resembled a troubled basset hound. “To think that I’ve disturbed you. Why, I’d cut off my right arm, I would, before I’d set you at sixes and sevens. To think that you was coming down to the kitchens to see why luncheon was late. I’m that ashamed,” she wept, “and I promise it won’t happen again.”
“Mrs. Turner,” the Earl said softly, coming over to her and taking her hands in his, “I wasn’t coming to see why luncheon was delayed. That didn’t cross my mind at all. I only wondered what it was that had so overset you. Truly.” He smiled at her, the way he had when he was a boy and begged some baked treats. “Now, come, sit and tell me what’s untoward. For I won’t have you so upset.”
But Mrs. Turner, who had high standards for herself, refused to sit where the Earl had indicated. Instead, she tucked her hands beneath her apron and sniffed and nodded her head till her gray curls bobbed.
“It’s only that boy. That lad has disturbed me something fierce, he has. And as I know my place, I can’t be rude to him, as he’s your guest. And your relative too. But I can’t take it much more, your lordship. That I can’t. I hold it in till it fair smothers me. And this morning just beat all,” she said with misty eyes.
“Why, Owen, is it?” The Earl laughed. “The boy has a fierce appetite, I know, Mrs. Turner. But if he’s in your way, just show him the door. We’re not precisely starving him at table, and I’m sure he can somehow contrive to make it from meal to meal without coming down to the kitchens and cutting up your peace.”
“Owen?” Mrs. Turner cried. “That dear little lamb? That sweet little poppet? No, it’s not Owen. He’s a lovely little fellow, and the way he chats and holds himself, just like a little man, he is.” Mrs. Turner beamed, as the Earl repressed a grimace.
“No, it’s not that dear little lamb. It’
s that Anthony lad. I know he’s your cousin, your lordship. But I can’t take it much more. That I can’t,” she protested.
“Out with it, Mrs. Turner,” the Earl encouraged her, “for you’ll feel much better once you’ve had it off your chest.”
The Earl watched in fascination as Mrs. Turner took a deep breath, inflating the aforementioned majestic portion of her anatomy, and then she began to unburden herself.
“It’s the way he’s been lounging about the kitchen, taking a snippet of this and a speck of that. Not ’cause he’s hungry, ’cause I see he ain’t. But as an excuse to talk me and the girls up. First, he was just asking questions all the time. Having to do with what was none of his business. About how much it cost to run the house. How much went to waste. How dear sugar was, and how pricey chocolate, like he was your lordship. But I put up with it. Then he began to ask about my wages. My wages! As if he paid them. And asking Millie and Jenny how much they gets per quarter.”
Mrs. Turner panted in growing outrage, “Imagine asking that layabout wench Jenny how much her wages is, when she don’t stir herself enough to earn the roof over her head. And then today, to top it all, he comes lounging in, all smarmy and friendly, and starts to tell, me—me!—about how I’m an exploited female. Me, who has as good a reputation as any female in the Kingdom. ‘Exploited,’ he says. And fairly soon he’s got a crowd about him, Millie and Jenny and young William, and even Old Tom from the stables in for his tea, and he’s going on about feudals and serfs and what-alls. But the way he was talking about you, sir, that I could not stomach.”
“Me?” the Earl asked, an arrested look in his eye.
“Aye. Well, he didn’t name you, sir, that he didn’t have the gall to do, else he would not be about now to tell the tale, guest or not,” Mrs. Turner said with a militant look. “But the Gentry, he said. He said as to how the whole lot was parasites and worse. I forget the words exactly, your lordship. But between ruining my reputation by calling me an exploited woman and nagging Jenny to unshackle herself, when she isn’t even walking out with any fellow, and tossing about unhealthy words like ‘parasite’ and, yes, ‘bloodsuckers,’ it fair made my blood boil.”
“I see,” the Earl murmured, with a look of unholy amusement in his eyes that he quickly lowered his lashes over when he gazed with sincerity at his cook. “Do not worry, Mrs. Turner. I’ll have a word with the fellow. And I promise you he’ll not trouble you again. Now, take a little time to compose yourself, have a cup of tea, and forget the entire matter. Put it out of your mind. I’ll have a word with him and he’ll not trouble you again. That’s a promise,” he said.
“I am that ashamed of myself for bothering you, sir,” Mrs. Turner said, “but it cannot go on. I have only so much control.”
“No,” the Earl agreed, “it cannot.”
*
“It cannot go on,” Elizabeth cried in vexation. “I tell you, Anthony, I am at my wits’ end. It’s no good.”
“I don’t see what you’re making such a pother about,” Anthony said, seated at his writing desk and watching Elizabeth prowl up and down his carpet.
“Well, of course you don’t,” Elizabeth said angrily, “for you’re gone to heaven knows where half the day, or off with Lord Beverly the other. I don’t think you’ve exchanged two words with the Earl. But I have. I speak with him most mornings. When the weather holds fair, I see him early out-of-doors, or if it’s raining, I meet him at breakfast. And in the evenings, I play at cards with him or discuss the news of the day. And I tell you, I feel a fool every time he asks me about home. Or Mother, or Uncle, for that matter. What a tissue of lies I have been telling. And he is no fool, Anthony. Each time I spin some taradiddle about not riding because I never took to it, when in truth Uncle never had the funds for feeding a mouse, much less a horse, or simpering that I cannot play the piano well enough to make a guest endure it, when you well know we had to sell the pianoforte in order to repair the roof when I was ten, I feel like a cheat. It will not do.”
“You don’t have to see him in the morning,” Anthony said reasonably. “You could sleep late, you know.”
Elizabeth knew that, and also knew that the past few mornings had been the greatest delights of her young life, but she merely shrugged her shoulders and went on, “And, Anthony, just think. Nothing is as Uncle had thought. Auden is no doddering old recluse, and we are not here only to attend his last wishes. Heaven knows how long we shall have to stay on here, for no one has said a word about our leaving and it would not do for us just to take off without a word, before anything is decided. I could keep up such a deception for a few more days. But weeks? Never. I cannot.”
“There’s no need to,” Anthony said. “I quite agree with you, Elizabeth. There are times when I'd like to make a clean breast of it with Bev, too. He’s a good sort of fellow, and I know he wouldn’t mind a jot. He’s got no social conscience,” Anthony mused, “but he’s a fair-minded fellow.”
“It’s not Lord Beverly that’s looking for an heir, Anthony,” Elizabeth said in exasperation.
“I think you should tell him the truth, then,” Anthony said calmly.
“And just think, I live in dread, Anthony, of the look in his eyes if he ever discovers our pretense. For I work at a rather public place, and one never knows who might have chanced by my shop. And Lady Isabel, I am sure she knows something of the truth, for she questions me so closely that…” Elizabeth broke off as Anthony’s words finally registered with her. She turned to stare at him.
“It only makes sense. Use your head, Coz,” Anthony said lightly. “The thing is plain to see. Our lack of money won’t make as big a difference as Uncle thought. For whom else would Morgan name as heir? That Friday-faced fellow Richard? A man would sooner leave his fortune to an undertaker. Or that little stoat Owen? The little chap would eat up half the fortune before he reached his majority. No, it’s plain that I shall be the one. Why,” Anthony said to the disbelieving look on Elizabeth’s face, “he even hinted that he might soon go over the accounts of the estate with me.”
This was true, so far as it went, but what had actually been said in full, in an offhand but firm manner this very day, was that Anthony should not go about asking the staff about their wages and working conditions. If he was that curious, the Earl had said in a knowing fashion, he would be glad to go over the accounts with him himself.
But this, understandably, was a subject Anthony did not wish to go into with Elizabeth. Or, for that matter, with the Earl. So Anthony smiled complacently and went on quickly, “And as you say, Morgan is not yet at the brink of the grave, and someone’s bound to find out the truth sooner or later. So it would be better if you were the one to tell him, now.”
Elizabeth could scarcely believe this reasonable creature was Anthony, and she stared at him in wonder.
“I don’t know why you’re eyeing me like that.” Anthony yawned. “Uncle wouldn’t mind a small change in plan. And I think Morgan would be loath to let his heir live in penury whilst he lorded it here in style. It would look bad and the gentry don’t care for that. So it is better if you let the cat out of the bag, Coz.”
Elizabeth stared at her cousin. It was late, she was extremely tired and should in fact have been fast asleep at this hour. But she had undressed, gotten into her night rail, and she had lain upon her bed in an agony of remorse. Until finally she had leaped up, thrown on a wrapper, and gone to hunt Anthony down.
Again, she had crept into his quarter of the house to have it out with him. She had envisioned telling the Earl of their true circumstances as a noble thing, and now Anthony had reduced it to sound mercenary practice. It was strange how in doing the right thing at last, he had made it seem as devious as the wrong thing had been.
She stood irresolute, her long gleaming hair tumbled about her shoulders, her hand at the neck of her long white wrapper.
“I think I’ll leave you now, Anthony,” she said primly. “I just wanted you to know how things stood.”
“Things couldn’t be better,” he said blithely, seeing her to his door. “You worry too much, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth paused and gave Anthony a last long worried look, and then, clutching her wrapper about her, she slipped off down the hall.
*
“Well,” said the Earl in a strange tone, as Anthony’s door closed behind Elizabeth’s retreating form, “I did not know our country cousins were in the habit of nightly conference. I wonder, does Miss Elizabeth think our Anthony in need of being tucked in each night?”
“Devil take it, Morgan,” Lord Beverly answered in a worried voice as he saw the expression of distaste upon his friend’s face, “must you read impropriety into everything a female does? They’re cousins, after all.”
But the Earl, from the vantage point of the door to Lord Beverly’s room, where he had been bidding his friend a good night, only stood and watched Elizabeth, in her nightclothes, her long hair flowing behind her, disappearing into the gloom as she traced her way back to her quarters.
“Cousins, yes,” he said slowly, “but kissing cousins, my dear?”
“That’s a monstrous thing to say,” Lord Beverly gasped.
“Indeed it is,” the Earl said wearily, passing his hand over his eyes. “Disregard it, old friend. I cannot help what I think. Or that I wonder at what transpires at such tender nightly devotions. But you are right, it is a monstrous thing…at least, to say.”
8
There was no doubt, Elizabeth sighed to herself, that they made a striking pair. The Earl, in a russet riding coat, atop his high black horse, and Lady Isabel, all in cream and white to match the delicate mare she rode. When they saw Elizabeth making her aimless way back toward the house after her lonely hours spent in Simon’s deserted Shakespearean garden, the Earl lifted his riding crop in salute, and then bent his head toward his companion to whisper something to the white plume that trembled above her ear. Lady Isabel laughed and smiled brightly toward Elizabeth, but since they were too far for words to carry, Elizabeth had to content herself with pantomiming a greeting and trying valiantly to exhibit a convincing smile as well. It hardly mattered, she thought a moment later, for they waved again and then turned and cantered off together toward the wide woods that surrounded Lyonshall. A lovely couple, Elizabeth sighed again, and she scolded herself: there was no reason that the sight of such a pretty pair should blot the sun from the sky and ruin the morning for her.