Eleanor stood suddenly, blushing a little at the reproof, and took one last look in the glass to be sure of herself. “I was just coming down.”
“And not a moment too soon. You know the glims downstairs were all lit long ago, and now all that remains is the arrival of your husband. He is a bit late too, is he not?”
Only then did Eleanor admit to herself the truth—she had lingered upstairs in the quiet hope that Miles’ arrival would be greeted by other people, without her present to facilitate and pretend. She was ashamed at this revelation and vowed to push such laziness from her mind in the future.
“It is no matter. Let us go downstairs now.”
Eleanor needn’t have worried too much at her own tardiness, for a full two hours drifted by with no sign of Miles anywhere. The guests, who had all been rather well-wishing and jovial when she first came downstairs, began to look towards the door.
“I don’t know where he can have got to,” she whispered to her mother. “People are beginning to grow nervous with the passing of time.”
“I don’t think so,” her mother said kindly enough, taking a sip of her tea. “People are having a good time.”
As if on cue, two tall gentlemen in officers’ garb approached Eleanor.
“Mrs Fitzroy, it is a pleasure to finally meet you.” The first, and youngest, of the two officers bowed. “I am Captain Branson, an acquaintance of your husband’s for many years now. We studied together before he was commissioned in the East India Company.”
“Ah,” Eleanor said, smiling and curtsying. “It is always so encouraging to meet Mr Fitzroy’s compatriots. I’m sure he will be delighted to see you this evening.”
“And this is Officer Ellis,” Branson said, nodding to the slightly older gentleman with twinkling eyes and a finely sprouted moustache. “For some time, I have considered Officer Ellis a dear friend, and I believe he served under Mr Fitzroy’s father for some time in the Royal Navy.”
“How fortuitous that you should all know one another.” Eleanor smiled. She was well acquainted with this sort of parlour conversation where people she hardly knew made a few light comments and then floated on to speak with people more familiar with their linguistics and history. These two gentlemen, however, seemed unwilling to let their conversation drift into such casual ground.
“When I think about Miles, old chap,” Officer Ellis said with a guffaw, “I think about him when he was a young lad running about this estate. His father let him run quite wild, you know, and he grew up spinning adventures on the lake and in the woods beyond, writing his own tales and inventing lands to travel to. I could hardly keep him focused on his studies when I was tutoring him for a brief time during my second leave back in England.”
No, in fact Eleanor hadn’t known that about Miles. She smiled prettily, though, and nodded as though his childhood was as familiar to her as her own. “It is such a fine estate,” she said.
“Aye, it is,” Captain Branson said with a wide smile, “but I assure you it wasn’t the turf alone that turned that man’s mind to adventure. Even in school he was a wild lad with a mind of his own, never tending to the teacher’s lesson but always thinking up clever ways to solve problems that hadn’t been put to him. You know how he can be.”
The smile was faltering a bit on Eleanor’s face, but she kept her calm. No, in truth, she didn’t know how her husband could be, and while normally such matters were quickly forgotten, today of all days it seemed to smart against her memory. These men spoke with her casually about her husband because they assumed a most basic fact: that he was known by his wife. And he was not.
“My husband will likely be happy to relive these moments upon his return,” she said, not sure at all if he would be. She curtsied then, just as Officer Ellis was entering into another bit of storytelling, and excused herself. She walked quickly across the room and poured herself a small cup of punch, sipping it delicately and treasuring a moment stolen away from her guests to catch a bit of air and steady her mind. She looked up gratefully to see her mother by her side.
“You look a bit pale, Eleanor,” she said kindly.
“I’m just wondering why he hasn’t arrived yet,” she said, more stiffly than she meant to.
Her mother must have misinterpreted her concern, for she quickly put out an arm and patted her daughter lightly on the arm. “Oh, you mustn’t fret, dear. He’s made it all the way across the ocean; I hardly think it likely that he will encounter trials out here on the road from London. I’m sure he will be here quite soon, and fully safe.”
Eleanor smiled weakly. “I am not so concerned about his safety as you think,” she said crisply. “I know that our roads are much safer than the wilds of India would ever be—no, I’m only annoyed that he cannot keep his engagements in a timely manner.” She looked around the room. “He has announced that he would be here this very day, and already the light is gone from the sky.”
“Evening events are hardly a travesty; they might even be considered the height of propriety.”
“Might, but not likely.”
“Eleanor,” Mrs Egerton turned to her daughter with genuine surprise in her eyes. “I would have thought you would be more excited about your husband’s return.”
Eleanor bit her tongue, wanting to ask her mother exactly why, after how quickly the whole marriage had gone through, the connection with her father’s death, and the two years of separation that followed, she should be feeling excitement, but she remembered herself and knew better than to pour her troubles on her mother. Mrs Egerton, if she saw her daughter’s distress, didn’t show it. She simply smiled benevolently and went on defending the missing guest.
“I’m certain that his absence is not a personal affront, my dear,” she said. “After all, Mr Fitzroy is returning from quite the adventure, and I cannot imagine that the laymen in India are particularly punctual—”
At that moment, as though the universe itself was siding with Mrs Egerton, a footman appeared in the doorway and, with a practiced bow and a ceremonial deepening of the voice, intoned, “May I present to you the long absent Mr Miles Fitzroy, recently returned, and his companion—” here there was a considerable clearing of the throat and a stumbling over the foreign name, “Mr Ajit Maharaj.”
Chapter 3
Eleanor turned to greet her husband of two years with her heart in her throat. She had hardly registered the strange-sounding name of Miles so-called companion, so interested was she in the name that had preceded it in the announcement, but it was the companion who first stepped into the room, and thus Eleanor was forced to focus first on him.
Mr Ajit Maharaj was a tall, elegant Indian man with skin like creamed cocoa and a dazzlingly white smile. He was rather slender and had dark eyes that seemed to take in the heart of the room all at once; he drew the eyes of all, too, for he was dressed head to toe in a rather confounding costume.
He wore fitted gold pants and an overcoat of sorts out of scarlet material that was buttoned to the chin and fell well past his knees. The fabric was a fine brocade, and this matched well the little cap he wore atop his jet-black hair. There was a glinting, sparkling effect about him, from his shining eyes to his curved shoes, and everyone in the room looked at him in amazement.
It was Eleanor who first noticed the smaller man standing just behind the tall Indian gentleman; dishevelled, road-weary, and so different from the man she had married two years ago that she at first didn’t realize he was Miles Fitzroy. He was shorter than the Indian, although not small by any degree, and looked strong and fit beneath his triple-caped great coat.
His brown hair was long and pulled back at the nape of his head. He had a beard, which was almost as startling as his companion in such a proper and clean-shaven room; his skin was tanned and wind-roughed, and his eyes were a deep, startling green that shone out from his face even across the room from Eleanor. He was disarmingly handsome, and before she had allowed herself to recognize that fact, he was turning a crooked half-smile in her d
irection.
Her heart galloped for a moment, and she smiled tentatively at him. Then, at the next moment, the room of astonished guests leapt into movement, noise, and an overwhelming array of congratulations and questions.
“Miles, old chap—” Branson was saying, having apparently deserted his proper titles completely in pursuit of his old schoolboy friendship. “You must come over here at once and tell us everything.”
A group of older women Eleanor knew as acquaintances of the now departed Mrs Fitzroy formed a circle around Miles, asking questions, laughing, smiling, and prodding. Eleanor watched, momentarily frozen, and it was her mother who reminded her of her duty.
“Go greet your husband, dear girl,” she said kindly, taking Eleanor’s punch cup and nudging her forward.
Eleanor nodded, smiled gently, and walked across the room. The people parted around her, and she came to stand in front of her husband with a little curtsy.
“I trust your journey was uneventful?”
He turned and looked at her again with those steady green eyes. “Uneventful it was not, but it brought me safely home and thus served its purpose.” Up close, his beard and weathered skin were even more imposing. She felt he was a character from one of the seafaring oil paintings that was at present so fashionable in London, wild and windblown, dressed in fine but dishevelled clothing. She hardly knew him.
“I would like to introduce Ajit to you myself,” he said calmly, maintaining the same even tone and reaching out his hand to his Indian companion.”
“Ah.” She curtsied, hardly knowing what to expect from the sparkling smile of the other man. “Mr Maharaj. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our home for this visit.”
“My Lady,” he answered in perfect, although delicately accented, English, “I know that it is common among the English to rely on surnames in proper discourse, but I don’t view my name thusly. If you will please call me Ajit, I will be more than grateful to you.”
“Whatever you desire,” she said, blushing furiously. Despite her measured response, Eleanor was a little astounded that she should be expected, in front of all these people, to refer to a man by his primary name without any knowledge of him or acquaintance. “And, how long will you be staying in the area?” she asked, trying to cover her embarrassment.
“Ajit will be staying with us as long as he desires,” Miles interjected calmly, looking away from Eleanor dismissively. “I told him as much, and he has agreed.”
Eleanor blinked, hoping that her smile was still plastered on with the same amount of ease, for she felt her annoyance growing with each passing moment. She couldn’t connect the physical appearance of the man in front of her with the pale, clean-shaven man she’d married all those years ago, but this slightly condescending and aloof attitude she quite remembered.
It was hard for her to imagine that, after all she’d endured the past few years, and all that she’d done in recent weeks to prepare for Miles’ arrival, he would thrust an uninvited guest on her good graces without even the courtesy of a request. He was clearly not asking, only commanding.
She dipped her head to Ajit and smiled as graciously as she could. “You will of course be welcome as long as you desire to stay.”
“The English have thus far proven themselves a charming and hospitable people,” was Ajit’s courteous response. “I am glad to see it echoed here as well in the person and manner of Mr Fitzroy’s wife.”
Ah. So Miles was to be called by his surname, and Ajit was not? Nevertheless, Eleanor was impressed by the charming and mannered response of this exotic guest. She felt strangely surprised that someone who had grown up in such a foreign place should be able to conduct themselves so easily in the customs of English society, but then her very next thought was to wonder at her own surprise. She didn’t really know what life was like in India.
Aside from the periodicals she read and the scientific journals her father used to quote, she had very little knowledge about anything outside of her own country, and it wasn’t as though her husband had done anything to remedy the situation during his long tour away from home. In fact, his absence had only distanced her from other worlds; it had not drawn her nearer.
“I am glad that you are here in the springtime,” she said, searching for further conversation as her husband seemed for the moment to be engaged in conversation elsewhere. “I think you will find we have some very fine walks in the vicinity, and when the rains are abating, the grass is quite green and the scenery quite fresh.”
“’Though marble halls shall all amaze, and conversation sparkle still, I shall prefer the garden haze and the creek below the hill,” the man said softly, his particular accent lending a mystique to his words.
“That is poetry,” Eleanor said in mild surprise. “Who wrote it?”
“I did,” the man answered with a smile, as though it was the most expected thing in the world for an Indian, poetry-writing man named Ajit to walk into English parlours and quote his work to refined young women.
“Well, it’s very fine,” Eleanor said with a smile. “You should share some of your work at our readings. We have them on occasion in the county; a dinner party and then a bit of music and poetry. Mostly it’s Longfellow and Milton and the like, and occasionally a progressive soul will quote a bit of Blake, but if you’ll bring your original work, I’m certain it will be well-received.”
The man bowed his head humbly and said nothing. Eleanor would have expected almost anyone else to answer her suggestion with either an agreement or a quick protest, but somehow the silences this man employed were as effective as his words. She smiled, uncertain how to continue.
“My son!” An exclamation came from the direction of the doorway, where the elder Mr Fitzroy had just arrived, unfashionably tardy just as his son was. The lieutenant was taller than his son, although age had bent him so that they both stood at about the same height when they embraced. “My, you look quite the man now. What is this nonsense?” He took his son’s beard between his fingers and tugged at it teasingly. Eleanor was a little surprised. Even with her own father, for whom she’d felt a degree of serious affection, she had never had such an obvious friendship.
Miles’ face had brightened at the sound of his father’s voice, and he embraced the other man openly despite the social gathering. “Ah, you look well, Father. I would not have expected you to look so good without the sea beneath your feet, but then I’m only getting my land legs back myself.”
“You seem sturdy enough. And who is this charming gentleman you have brought along with yourself?”
“Ajit, Father, Ajit Maharaj. He is a companion of mine from India, and I hope that you two shall grow well-acquainted during his stay here.”
The lieutenant turned so that he was speaking only to Miles, and Eleanor knew that she was likely the only one able to eavesdrop on the conversation. “Your little wife must be so happy to have you back, and I trust that you enquired after her health, and whether or not this gentleman is a welcome guest?”
Eleanor smiled to herself, charmed that at least one of the Fitzroy men had thought of propriety, but in the next moment her smile froze when she heard Miles answer in a weary tone, “Well, I was not consulted about a roomful of people waiting on my doorstep when all I wanted was peace and civility, so I think it should all even out with time.”
Eleanor kept her head turned to the side, pretending to listen to a conversation between Branson and her mother, but she was actually relieved when the father and son moved out of earshot to finish their conversation.
“He looks well, though a bit brown,” Captain Branson was saying to his friend when Eleanor finally began to pay attention again, “and I’m surprised at him for bringing one of them back.”
“Well, he always was a wild one, though he hid it well enough when he was at school.”
“What do you think, Mrs Fitzroy?” Captain Branson asked kindly, turning a mischievous gaze in her direction. “Are you excited to learn more about your exotic guest
?”
A Baron Worth Loving: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 30