Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  “That is all in the past,” the dowager duchess said shortly. “These are more modern days.”

  “Three years later,” Mama muttered.

  The dowager ignored her. “Ella needs to have her options openly presented. A gel of such spirit cannot simply be parceled out like a box of confections. That’s where you come in, Saber.”

  His expression was bemused.

  “You will make a list of possible candidates. Then you will go over that list with Ella. By the way, Ella, have you developed any unsavory interests?”

  “Unbelievable,” Papa said clearly. “Incredible.”

  “Interests such as Justine took up,” the dowager continued. “Writing books for women on subjects they’ve got no right to explore. Anything of that nature?”

  Concentration had become difficult. “I wish I could think of something to write about,” Ella said. “But Mama has done the greatest possible service to women. So I’m told. I haven’t been allowed to read it yet, of course.”

  “You soon will be,” the dowager said, pretending not to hear Papa’s explosive laugh.

  “I hope to work with homeless children,” Ella said. “I have great hopes that I shall be able to make a difference to—”

  “Forget that nonsense,” the dowager said. “I’m glad I asked. Better to nip tendencies of that kind in the bud immediately. You will be a wife and a mother. A difficult task, I assure you. Difficult, consuming, and thankless.”

  “Yes, great-grandmama,” Ella said dutifully. “Good. That’s understood. Now to your part in this, Saber.”

  He inclined his head. “Always willing to serve, Grandmama.”

  “Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “We shall soon see. You will make your list, go over it with Ella, then present me with what we need.”

  “And what,” Saber asked, “do we need, exactly?”

  “A husband, of course! You, Saber, are to see to the business of selecting Ella’s husband!”

  Chapter Ten

  “T here you are,” the dowager duchess said, peering around at mementos of Saber’s travels.MMMM “Good evening, Grandmama,” Saber said, closing his sitting-room door. He was still recovering from her request of the previous afternoon. “I hadn’t expected—”

  “What can possibly be wrong with you, my boy?” the old lady interrupted him. “This is…It defies description.”

  He looked at Bigun, who had neglected to warn his master that his grandmother had arrived, accompanied by Viscount Hunsingore—and Ella. Bigun had neglected to warn Saber, or to ask if he wished to be foiled in his attempt to withdraw from Society once more.

  “Amazing room, Saber,” Struan remarked, walking between the collection of ivory, jade, and gold statues Saber had gathered in the Far East. “You don’t find it a little oppressive, though? Your man, here, said this is where you prefer to spend your evenings.”

  Saber felt pugnacious. “He’s right—if careless about his duties—I do prefer to spend my evenings here. Alone. And, no, I do not consider my salon in the least oppressive.” Ella wore a brown, fur-trimmed cloak over russet-colored silk. She hovered at the edge of his awareness. If he did not look at her directly, he might avoid finding her image even more clear in the hours after she left.

  He had already made more than one impulsive and ill-advised decision. The deliberate encounter at the Eagletons’ would never leave his mind. He’d given in to urges he had no right to own. Going to Hanover Square to assuage his guilt with some sort of apology had led to further difficulty—to this present difficulty.

  Ella must leave. They must all leave, quickly. He was tired from not having slept in almost three days. Saber feared the night to come when fighting sleep, yet dreading exhaustion, might throw him into the protracted nether state he had experienced on several occasions, and would never cease to dread.

  “Well, I do not find this room at all pleasing,” Grandmama announced, marching firmly around a golden goddess from Burma and taking up a post beside entwined jade snakes. She averted her face from their forked tongues. “A dismal, disquieting place. I repeat. What is the matter with you, my boy? I sent word that you were to join us at Pall Mall this evening. To consult with Ella.”

  Ella’s muffled exclamation captured Saber’s full attention. She held her bottom lip in her teeth, and her eyes shimmered too brightly.

  “Your Grace,” Struan said, approaching the old lady with measured steps. “You did not mention that you had invited Saber to Pall Mall. You said—”

  “I know what I said.” She settled herself in an ebony chair with gold feet shaped like eagle’s claws and with spread golden wings painted upon the back. “I have responsibilities here. Something others seem capable of forgetting all too easily.”

  Struan frowned down at her. “Under the circumstances, that hardly excuses—”

  “It excuses whatever I say it excuses.”

  “Great-Grandmama did not mention that you had been invited to Pall Mall,” Ella said to Saber in a small voice. “I’m sure she forgot. Papa and I thought you had invited us here. We shall leave you alone at once.”

  Saber stood by the fireplace. He watched Ella’s discomfort with mounting agitation. She should not suffer, not again after suffering so much already. He should stop it. “Ella—”

  “Silence,” Grandmama ordered. “You would not come to us. So we had no choice but to come to you.”

  Struan was oddly silent, an observer. But there was no doubt that he thought a great deal. Saber’s sense of dread mounted at the prospect of a sudden outpouring of Struan’s anger. Saber feared that anger because he doubted his ability to control his own.

  “We did not agree that I would do what you asked me to do,” he said to Grandmama. He could not, would not, help find another man to be with Ella in a manner he could not contemplate.

  “Pish, posh,” Grandmama said. She sent Bigun a ferocious glare. “Does your man always insinuate himself into family discussions?”

  Bigun bowed and moved to the center of the room. “Is this the moment, my lord?”

  Saber frowned at his old friend and servant. “You said you would instruct me on the matter of responding. In good time, you said, my lord.”

  “Responding?”

  From beneath his multihued silk tunic, Bigun produced a painted leather pouch. From this he took a handful of envelopes and cards. “Very strange, the English,” he said, rif-fling the papers. “They call. They call a great deal. And all at the same time of day. So very odd.”

  “Is there a point, Bigun?” Saber and his servant had an un-spoken vow of mutual respect. They owed too much, one to the other, for the expected relationship between master and servant.

  Bigun made much of producing wire-rimmed spectacles. These he perched upon his thin-bridged nose before reading: “The pleasure of your company. Yes, yes, yes. At Carlton House on, yes, yes, yes.” He replaced the card in the pouch. “Then there is this one. A musicale for Lady Johanna Bunkum. There are so many, my lord. We really must respond. I have it on good authority that the English set great store by these little social annoyances.”

  Saber could feel his guests’ bemusement. “Thank you, Bigun. But we don’t really have to deal with this right now.”

  “Well, my lord. At least in the matter of the proposals of matrimony I thought we might make some reply. Where I come from, people would shudder at the thought of making such a suggestion by messenger, but—”

  “Matrimony?” Grandmama said loudly. “Proposals of matrimony? Who have you proposed to, boy?”

  “No, no, Your Grace,” Bigun said serenely. “These are proposals made to the earl, not by the earl.” He spoke slowly, as if Grandmama might be either hard of hearing or somewhat light of brain.

  Resolving to get to the bottom of Bigun’s preposterous behavior—later—he sent a warning glance, at which the servant inclined his head and closed the pouch.

  “As I have already asked you, Saber, does your man always assume he is welcome at family gath
erings?”

  “I have not yet dismissed him.” Neither would Saber do so until he could send his visitors with him.

  “Dismiss him, then. How dare he prattle about nonsensical invitations at such a time.”

  “Great-Grandmama,” Ella said. “Please.”

  “Please. One wonders what exactly you are begging me for. Since I doubt you will explain, I shall have to guess that you wish me to hurry. I shall do so—as quickly as pleases me. Why does this man of yours dress in such an outlandish fashion, Saber?”

  Bigun bowed to the duchess, his expression showing nothing. “I am from a province in India, Your Grace.”

  “I hardly think that excuses—”

  “Great-Grandmama!” Ella rushed to the dowager’s side. “This is appalling. Outrageous. We cannot possibly intrude upon Saber’s privacy in this manner. And we cannot presume to criticize—”

  “I can criticize whatever I please,” Grandmama said, but she raised the hood of her cloak over her bonnet. “However, since the two of you must work together, it’s as well you seem to agree on all this privacy nonsense. And upon your disapproval of me. Well, I wish you joy in it. Come along, Struan. We shall leave them to the task.”

  Avoiding Saber’s eyes, Struan bowed and offered the dowager his arm. “A good notion. We’ll return later.”

  “Later?” Ella said. “It is already past eight.”

  The dowager raised her lorgnette to peruse first Ella, then Saber. “I hardly think either of you is too frail to spend an evening hour or two on a project of extreme urgency.”

  They were going to leave—without taking Ella with them! “When should you like to discuss your social calendar, my lord?” Bigun asked. “Clearly you have become a man in great demand.”

  Saber shook his head. “Leave the cards, if you please, Bigun.”

  “Amazing behavior,” Grandmama said. “Come, Struan.”

  Saber stepped away from the fireplace. “May I point out, Grandmama, that Ella does not have a chaperon?”

  The old lady paused in her regal progress toward the door and tapped Bigun sharply on the back of his hand. “You will chaperon Miss Rossmara. Is that understood?”

  For once Bigun did not produce an instant response. Struan looked grave. “After all, Saber, you’re a member of the family. You should feel some responsibility to help out in this matter. Your man here will be answerable to me for Ella’s safety and reputation. D’you understand, Bigun?”

  “The young lady’s safety and reputation?” Bigun repeated. “Exactly,” Struan said. “Purely a formality. Just in case there should be any question. We’ll send a coach for Ella at ten. Is that agreeable with you, Saber?”

  He felt the intensity of her gaze. “Yes,” he said shortly. How could he deny her in front of others?

  Bigun left to show Struan and Grandmama out. “I do not believe this!” Ella said. “She lied. Papa accepted the lie, and left me here as if it were the most normal thing in the world. They’ll send a coach for me in two hours? Your male servant is to be my chaperon? How bizarre.”

  Saber regarded her. He could not look away now even if he tried. She captivated him. Mesmerized him. Terrified him.

  “Say something,” she demanded. “What do you make of their behavior?”

  “It is your behavior that interests me more. Only a short while ago you were using any possible means to force your way into this house—or to pester me at my club—yet now that you are all but thrust upon me by the family, you complain. What is it, Ella? Does the fruit become less desirable once it ceases to be forbidden?” He was cruel, but honest. “Or did the sight of me by day finally convince you that I am no longer the stuff of your childhood dreams?”

  Ella said, “You are petty. And mean-spirited.”

  “I am direct. I do not say pretty words to hide the ugliness beneath.”

  She lowered her eyelids. “And your directness brings you many invitations. And proposals of marriage? I have never heard of such a thing.”

  Neither had Saber. Bigun should answer for that piece of fiction. “Are you jealous that I should be invited about?”

  “Why should I be jealous? I, too, have many invitations.”

  “No doubt. Perhaps that is why you are suddenly so uninterested in your little charade with me.”

  “You have made it plain that you want no part of me, Saber.”

  “And now you are ready to accept this?” He should feel grateful.

  “I am not ready to accept it. We should prepare to spend the next two hours together.”

  Two hours together. Alone. Saber fiddled with a fob on his watch chain. He must be vigilant. Any slight drifting in concentration might be disastrous. He did not know exactly what he was capable of when the darkness overtook him.

  Surely he would never do Ella harm… . No, he was not certain of that. Yet there was no evidence that he had ever actually…

  “Saber. Oh, I am so out of patience. What I want is of no matter to anyone.”

  “It certainly matters to you,” he remarked. His voice did not sound at all like his own.

  She placed her hands on her hips beneath the cloak and approached him. “I suppose that’s the best I can expect from a man who regards me as a joke.”

  “I do not regard you as a joke.”

  “No, no,” she murmured. “You are right. Not as a joke, but as one to be taken, but not taken seriously.”

  “This is pointless.” As far as he knew, he had never, even in the throes of one of his worst attacks, inflicted harm on another.

  As far as he knew. There were those—the only ones who knew of his affliction—who would not tell Saber about the lost minutes, or hours, for fear of sending him further into the abyss.

  Ella swung away from him. “So, we are to sit here—you, Mr. Bigun, and I, and pretend for two hours?”

  “Bigun,” Saber said. “He does not care to be called ‘Mr.’ ”

  “Ooh.” She stomped toward him once more. “Silliness. Little things. And at a time when my life holds no sign of light.”

  “And mine does?” Slowly, he undid her cloak and swung it from her shoulders. The strings of her bonnet fell undone at a touch and he removed the wide-brimmed velvet confection. She neither helped nor resisted. “Do you find this room unpleasant?” he asked.

  “I find it unusual,” she said promptly, studying it with narrowed eyes. “I confess that I might rearrange your treasures. And they are indeed treasures. But, no, I do not find it unpleasant. In fact, I find it fascinating.”

  “You can be comfortable here while we await your coach?” Her answer was to settle herself on a low, green-leather-covered hassock, tuck her reticule into her lap, and hold her hands toward the fire.

  The small, exquisite gold and diamond reticule he had sent to her. He had not noticed she carried it until now.

  Ella took the bag between her hands. “A beautiful thing. You were generous to give me such a gift.”

  He had wanted to give her something. Even as he’d told Bigun to deliver the message that was supposed to dampen her interest in him, Saber had reveled in the thought of her owning something he’d intended to give her anyway. The bag and the ruby were only two of many treasures Saber had looked forward to showering upon Ella … before their worlds had spun away from each other.

  “Well, then”—he took the chair his grandmother had vacated—“it’s good that you’re comfortable. How shall we proceed, I wonder?”

  “We shall not proceed. Mr. Bigun is taking a long time.”

  “Bigun.”

  Her breath blew out noisily. “He will not return.”

  Ella looked at him sharply. “Of course he will return. Papa instructed him to chaperon me.”

  “Bigun will return when I signal for him to do so. He has other duties to perform. He will be in attendance when the coach comes. Struan said Bigun was to assume responsibility for your reputation and safety. He does not have to be in this room to do so. Perhaps I should write down the na
mes of possible suitors.”

  “Tell me about India.”

  He deliberately relaxed his hands on the arms of the chair. “Nothing to tell.”

  “How did it happen? Your injury?”

  “We shall make a list.” He got up and went to a black-lacquer secretaire that had once belonged to a Chinese prince. “Stay by the fire. It is cool over here. I’ll write. If you have any suggestions—”

  “Don’t waste your time.”

  “Tell me if you have any suggestions.”

  “I suggest you speak to me about India. About the reason you went back a second time when you’d already been wounded.”

  He pulled paper in front of him and dipped a pen into the standish. “Sir Knowlton Carstairs is a fairly innocuous fellow.”

  “A glowing recommendation!”

  Saber wrote the name. “Someone who will please you—”

  “There is no one!” He heard her move behind him. “You know there can be no one but you.”

  “Ella, please.”

  “Why would Grandmama think you should help me find a husband?”

  “She does not always make her thoughts plain. But Struan led a quiet life until he left the priesthood and married Justine.”

  “He was not a priest. He never took his final vows.”

  “Nevertheless,” Saber said patiently. “He was a priest, in all but his final vows. And he did not spend a great deal of time going about in Society. Now he and Justine are happy with their quiet life in Scotland, and with their family. Am I not correct?”

  “Yes,” she told him, standing at his back now. “And I have told them that is where we should return.”

  Saber drew a deep breath. “I believe Grandmama asked me to assist in this matter because she thinks I am better acquainted with those men who might make you a suitable husband.”

  She rested a hand on his shoulder. “This is a sham, dear one,” she said softly. “By all means, write names upon your paper. They will satisfy the dowager. She wants only the best for me, I know. She has always championed me—even though she knows I am nobody.”