Chapter 11
When a knock sounded on the door of their rooms, Eloise did the sensible thing and held the hand towel she’d been folding up like a shield in front of her and stared at the door as if she’d never seen one before in her life.
Tuck had left early that morning to attend a lecture at City College, after which he was to attend a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. He had invited her along, but she wanted to take the opportunity to make a home of sorts of their rooms while he was out. It was incredible what she didn’t know about homemaking. Perhaps she could ask Annie for help in finding some books on the topic.
But all of this was to say Eloise was alone when the knock came at the door, and she felt suddenly exposed like she hadn’t since her wedding day the previous week. It was a strange thing, leaving one’s family and the only home one had known since their birth and shifting one’s entire life to a new place and a new kind of family.
The caller was forced to knock again while Eloise sorted her thoughts, and it was as though the second knock pulled her from them.
She strode to the door and only at the last moment recalled her wits and the need for caution as she was, indeed, alone. “Who is it?” she asked.
“It’s Gwennie, Eloise.”
Again Eloise stared at the door. A handful of seconds ticked by before she could remember how to unlock the thing and open it, and then?—
“Gwennie,” Eloise whispered, her shock a tangible thing as it spread through her body.
Standing there on her doorstep was the one person she had wished to speak to the most through this whole tumultuous thing, and for a moment Eloise couldn’t believe it was real. But it was. Gwen was there.
Eloise stepped forward and threw her arms around her sister, forgetting she should have invited her in and closed the door for privacy’s sake. But Eloise didn’t care a wit about privacy just then. She wanted to hug her sister.
Gwen’s arms were strong when they closed around her, and?—
Eloise pulled back ever so slightly. “Do you smell of hay?”
Gwen’s smile was quick. “Esmeralda decided to deliver just as I was about to leave, and I couldn’t leave the poor creature in a state like that.” Gwen extracted herself and waved at the door for Eloise to retreat back into their rooms. Gwen followed, still talking. “And after the debacle with Sugar Cane and Blue Belle last week, I couldn’t think of leaving Logan in such a state, so I popped over the fence and helped Hatrick with the delivery.” Gwen strode across the small space that was the kitchen, plucking her gloves from her hands one finger at a time, her eyes scanning the room quickly before turning about. “I was already in my traveling gown though, as you can imagine, and—” She shrugged. “Here we are.”
Father had married Gwen off to a sheep farmer at the beginning of the season, Logan Bender, the Earl of Gracey, and it was rather a pleasant surprise that the union turned out to be a love match. The pair had come to London for their introduction ball, and although Eloise had been preoccupied with her predicament of falling in love with the wrong man she hadn’t missed how much Gwen and Logan loved each other. She was happy for her sister. Even if she smelled of hay.
Gwen flicked her gloves around to indicate the room. “Is this really where you’re living?” Gwen turned a full circle, again taking in the space, and for one split second, Eloise felt shame creep up her neck. Gwen was a countess now after all, and she might have changed her standards since marrying Gracey. But then her sister turned back around, her smile brilliant. “How exciting.” She tossed aside the gloves as she took one of the two chairs at the scarred wooden table pushed into the corner. “Tell me. Are you really going with him to Spitsbergen?”
She laid her gloves and hat on the table and looked up expectantly, and Eloise wondered how she could ever doubt her sister’s loyalty even for a second.
Eloise slipped into the chair opposite Gwen. “I shall as long as he secures the funding he needs before the autumn.”
“Oh, I wish I had made it for the wedding, but Mother’s letter said it happened quickly.”
Eloise let the heat infuse her cheeks. “Yes, I’m afraid it did. Last week, in fact.” When Eloise met her sister’s gaze again, it was to see mirth in her eyes. “Gwennie, really,” Eloise scolded.
But Gwen only laughed. “Oh Eloise, you must admit it’s rather exciting. You were always the most dutiful one. The joy I got when I received Mother’s letter saying you were being married by special license to avoid scandal.” Gwen leaned across the table conspiratorially. “Just how much scandal was there to avoid?”
Eloise swallowed. “Enough to have Mother taking a vow of silence should she ever find out about it.”
Gwen’s laugh then was contagious, and Eloise felt lighter than she had in days.
She snatched her sister’s hand from where it lay on the table. “Oh Gwennie, I’m so glad you’ve come.” Eloise paused, concern creeping into her joy. “Why are you here?”
Gwen’s smile faded. “It’s about Mother.”
Eloise let go of her sister’s hand and shrank back in her seat. “I’ve disappointed her.”
Gwen straightened and dropped her hands to her lap. “Well, that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about. I’m well aware of Mother’s intentions for you and Annie this season, and I can see how you might think Mother would be disappointed in your choice.” Gwen paused as if considering. “Especially given that your husband is the cousin of the gentleman Mother wished you to marry.”
“You can see how things were rather tricky this season,” Eloise muttered.
“Tricky indeed,” Gwen said, a little of the previous mirth coming to her lips. “I had wondered why you seemed to be absent even in your letters. Scandal explains a great deal.”
Eloise could only look at her hands as she picked at one of the scars on the tabletop. “I know, Gwennie. I promise I’ll apologize to Mother. There simply wasn’t time before the wedding and since then…” She gathered her courage and looked up. “Well, I haven’t exactly figured out how to do it. I’ve dashed all her dreams. If I had married Ardley, Mother would have had the coup of the season. Can you imagine how she would have lorded that over Viscountess Bowes?”
Gwen’s expression had grown more concerned through Eloise’s explanation, and Eloise couldn’t help but feel she’d been right about her mother’s disappointment.
“So that’s why you’ve come?” Eloise asked now. “To see that I make reparations for my behavior?”
Gwen appeared suddenly repulsed as though she’d unexpectedly inhaled the aroma of sheep dung. “Oh heavens, no. You didn’t drown a litter of puppies, Eloise. You only fell in love.”
“With the wrong man.” Eloise hissed the words as if saying them aloud would condemn her again.
“And who is to say who is the wrong man and the right one? I find myself married to a man I didn’t even know existed a short time ago, and I’m absolutely besotted with the idiot. How would one characterize such an occurrence?”
Eloise only blinked. She thought her sister to be in love, but besotted was another thing entirely.
Gwen reached out and stopped Eloise from splintering the table into pieces with her bare hands. “But that’s not why I’ve come. While you were preoccupied with your scandal, I learned something from Mother that I think you should know.”
“What is it?” For the first time since she’d heard the knock at the door, Eloise feared this might not be about her.
“Our mother wished for me to have a season,” Gwen stated plainly.
Eloise blinked. Again. “I’m sorry?”
“A season,” Gwen repeated. “Did you know as much? She wished for me to debut.”
Gwen was firmly on the shelf before marrying, having never had a season, when Father announced he’d arranged a marriage for her. Eloise had always assumed neither of her parents wished to put the eldest Bounds daughter through the torture cruel debutantes could inflict on one another during the social requirements of a season. Gwen was too much of a target with her smallpox scars.
“But I thought Mother and Father wished to protect you,” Eloise said.
“Father apparently did, but Mother wanted me to debut. According to Grandmother Bitsy, it’s the only thing Mother has ever relented on.”
“Huh,” Eloise muttered, thinking it over. “Why do you think Mother wished for you to debut?”
“According to Father, it was only after he promised Mother he’d find me a match a different way that Mother gave in.”
“I don’t understand,” Eloise said.
Gwen squeezed her hand then. “Can’t you see? It’s not that Mother wished for us to make good matches that would elevate our titles. She simply wanted us to be matched.”
Eloise wrinkled her brow. “I’m still confused.”
“If Father hadn’t promised to find me a husband, Mother never would have given in. She wanted to ensure I would have someone to share this life with, whoever that may be. The title didn’t matter to her. Not really. It was only that her daughters shouldn’t be alone.”
Eloise couldn’t believe her. She simply couldn’t. “But Mother wanted us to marry the dukes. To triumph over Viscountess Bowes.”
Gwen smiled. “Of course, she would want that. But do you really think she’d be upset that you fell in love?”
“How do you know it’s love?” Eloise whispered, somehow afraid she’d been caught stealing hair ribbons from her mother’s dressing table.
Gwen laughed. “We all know it’s love, little sister. It’s rather obvious. You were found in a broom cupboard with him.”
“Does Mother know it’s love?” Somehow this idea was worse than disappointing her mother in the first place.
“I would wager she does.” Gwen squeezed her hand once more. “It will make it easier for you to talk to her now, don’t you think? Now that you understand she already knows you fell in love?”
Eloise shook her head. “You’re making a lot of assumptions, Gwennie.”
“They’re not assumptions when they’re based on facts.” She squeezed Eloise’s hand one more time before getting to her feet. “I asked Mother to arrange a dinner while I’m in town. You and Tuck will come, yes?”
It was a moment before Eloise realized her sister had asked a question. “Yes, yes, of course,” she said, not really understanding what she was agreeing to.
“Good.” Gwen gathered her hat and gloves. “I’d like to see my sisters and these new husbands they’ve acquired while I’ve been off in Yorkshire.”
Gwen was halfway to the door before Eloise remembered to stand and show her sister out.
Eloise opened the door, but Gwen stalled, turning back to her.
“Tell Mother you love him, Eloise. She’ll understand.” Her sister paused, concern writ across her brow. “Eloise, you’re happy, aren’t you? With what’s happened?”
Eloise looked at her sister then, and it was as though she’d been pulled directly from the fog of her thoughts. “Of course, I am. Why would you even ask that?”
Gwen’s eyes drifted to the room over Eloise’s shoulder. “It’s just that you’ve chosen a life that’s so different from the one you grew up in. The one you were told to expect to live. I hope you’re ready for what lies ahead.”
In an instant Eloise was back in the courtyard that night when she’d first met Tuck, when everything had begun, and just as clearly as she could picture that night, she could remember how she had felt.
Trapped.
All the things she had ever wished for were suddenly gone when the expectations of reality had descended upon her. But all of that had changed now. Changed because she’d made a different choice, one for only herself.
She smiled. “I’ve been waiting for this the whole of my life.”
Gwen laughed, kissed her sister on the cheek and left, calling behind her, “Don’t forget dinner.”
* * *
Tuck had toldEloise he had a meeting at the Royal Astronomical Society, but that was, in fact, a lie.
One week married, and he was already lying to his wife. Did that foreshadow terrible things to come? He thought not. Especially because the lie had everything to do with their future and securing their happiness.
It was odd having to knock on his cousin’s door. He was always so used to walking in, feeling as though the place were his home too. But that no longer felt right. Instead, he felt like a trespasser.
“Do not tell me you do me the disservice of knocking on the door, cousin?”
Tuck looked around as if his thoughts had somehow materialized, but when he turned about he found Liam standing at the bottom of the stairs behind him.
“Cousin,” he said, but Liam’s scowl didn’t lessen.
“Are you knocking on my door or are you not?”
Tuck straightened his shoulders and said what he’d come here to say. “I’ve come to apologize for stealing your wife. If you wish to never speak to me again, I shall understand.”
Of all the things he expected Liam to do, what he did do was not one of them.
He laughed.
He laughed so much Tuck feared he’d have a stroke and die right there on the pavement. He laughed so much he doubled over, a hand to his stomach. He laughed so much tears came to his eyes.
Tuck stared. “Is my apology so amusing to you then?”
When Liam finally managed to wipe away his tears with the back of his hand, he climbed the stairs two at a time. “You’d better come inside,” he said, sailing past his cousin.
Tuck felt mildly relieved when he realized it did feel like coming home, stepping inside the foyer of Ardley House. The familiar marble floors contrasting with the dark woodworking felt like a cocoon ready to pull him in, and for a second, he forgot his cousin’s unusual response to his apology.
For only a second though.
Liam strode directly through the house to the study at the back where he tossed aside his riding gloves and hat before going to the bell pull in the corner.
“I think we should have sustenance for this. Have you broken your fast?” He turned back to Tuck after giving the cord a pull. “I can have something more substantial brought up.”
Tuck could only shake his head, unsure of what was happening. He’d come here to apologize, and his cousin offered him breakfast.
“I’m fine. Liam, I hope you don’t think I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done.”
Liam’s eyebrows knitted together in a look of wary concentration Tuck had never seen on his cousin’s face before. He almost looked…guilty.
“Say nothing of it, cousin,” Liam said, going over to his desk to discard his jacket and then?—
Dear Lord, Liam rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Just what exactly did he plan to have transpire here?
“You should take a seat,” Liam said.
Tuck sat. He was lucky a sofa was behind him because just then he really wasn’t looking. He could only stare at his cousin.
Liam made his way over and sat next to him on the sofa, and for one absurd moment, Tuck felt as though he’d left his body. For surely he must have. He still wore his hat and coat, but he was far closer to a debutante just then waiting for her beau to ask for permission to write her. This entire thing was madness.
“Tuck, you know I think of you as family,” Liam began.
“I’m your cousin,” Tuck muttered.
Liam waved this off. “You know what I mean. I think of you as a brother.” He paused, but Tuck knew not to cut in. Liam was only gathering steam. “And as your honorary brother, it is my responsibility to ensure your future happiness and health.”
“What in the name of Zeus are you talking about?”
“I meddled.”
At first, Tuck couldn’t understand what his cousin had just said. Liam had all but murmured the words, but even then, Tuck couldn’t make sense of them.
“You meddled?”
“I did. But I want you to know it was for your own good.” Liam held up a finger as if to enumerate his points, but instead, he said, “If you wish for me to apologize, I shall, but I want you to know I would commit the same actions again.” He cast his eyes toward the ceiling as if thinking it over. “Actually I would have done it better. I can see now where missteps were made.” He dropped his gaze. “But some things happened in a spectacular fashion I never could have counted on. Like that incident with the dog? Splendid. Had no idea it would occur.” He shook his head, his eyes wide, a satisfied grin plastered across his face.
“Liam, I think you’d better explain.”
Liam’s expression faded. “I never intended to marry Lady Eloise.”
Tuck surged to his feet, his shock propelling him off the sofa. “You what?”
Liam stood too, holding out his hands as if in surrender. “I never intended to marry Eloise. I apologize for misleading you, but I couldn’t think of another way to force you to act.”
“Force me to act?” Tuck made to run his hand through his hair when it connected with his hat, sending the thing flying. He didn’t stop to pick it up. “What are you talking about, Liam? I didn’t come to London for a wife.”
“I know. That’s precisely the problem.” Liam spoke so softly it had the fire burning inside of Tuck cooling. His cousin only used that tone when he was truly serious.
“What do you mean by that?” Tuck asked.
But Liam was prevented from speaking by the arrival of a maid with a tea cart. She paused ever so slightly just over the threshold as if she could sense the tension in the room. Liam smiled and bade her enter. She remained skeptical the entire time she laid out the tea on the low table in front of the sofa.
The moment the door closed behind her, Tuck rounded on his cousin. “Explain yourself.”
Liam sat and began to pour tea as if he hadn’t just revealed that it was, in fact, he who was the betraying cousin.
“I would just like to point out that Lady Eloise was at the top of my list for potential suitors.” Liam looked up from where he was shoveling sugar into his own cup. “You must admit she would have made a remarkable duchess.”
“Must I?” Tuck all but growled.
It looked as if Liam couldn’t stop his smile. “Ah, I see. I am once more glad I meddled.”
“Get on with it, cousin,” Tuck prodded.
“Right, of course.” He went back to shoveling sugar. “I had intentions of learning more about Lady Eloise Bounds as she did meet many of my criteria for a wife, and I thought she would make an excellent duchess and companion.” He held out another cup of tea to Tuck, but Tuck shook his head. Liam frowned. “You must, cousin. You’ve had a shock, and your body will appreciate the sugar.”
Tuck knew him to be right, but he didn’t like it. Taking the cup, he sat none too gently on an opposite chair and reclined, ready to glower his cousin to death.
“Now then. I had vetted Lady Eloise as I had the rest of the candidates.” He looked up from where he was selecting biscuits from a bone China plate. “You do understand that is common practice? I shan’t wish you to think I considered your wife to be something of a piece of horseflesh.”
Tuck merely waved for him to go on.
“But that first night after you arrived when we attended the Thornton ball—” He stopped in his selection of cream tarts to look at Tuck. “You may not realize this, but while Lady Eloise was being introduced I was actually watching you. The moment she appeared behind her mother you went preternaturally still. I worried you were having a medical issue it was so unnatural. But no. I was wrong. It wasn’t medical. It was romantic. You recognized Lady Eloise.” Liam sat back on the sofa with his array of sweets. “Care to tell me how it is you knew a lady of the ton at your first social function in London?”
Tuck took a long sip of his tea, letting it burn its way down his throat. He had come to Ardley House that morning ready to tell all, but this wasn’t quite what he had meant by such thinking.
“I accidentally came upon her the night before that ball,” he said, finding his voice catching on the last word, knowing it to be not quite the truth.
Liam paused with a petit four halfway to his mouth. “And how exactly did that occur?”
Tuck nodded in the direction of the windows that overlooked the shared courtyard. “Just out there actually. I’d gone out to test my stargazing spectacles.”
Liam leaned forward, setting down his petit four unfinished. “Stargazing?” He looked about as if he’d lost something. “Well, I should think stargazing might occur at quite a later hour. Did you say it was evening when you encountered Lady Eloise?”
Tuck pushed the hair off his forehead. “Well, it might have been later than that, yes.”
“How much later?” Liam’s tone remained unchanged.
“Middle of the night perhaps.” Tuck took some pleasure in watching Liam try to remain composed.
“Middle of the—” Liam was forced to stop and clear his throat. Likely the laughter he was attempting to contain was getting in the way of his speech. “Middle of the night? How interesting. I say, what was a lady like Eloise doing out in the courtyard in the middle of the night?”
“I couldn’t say,” Tuck replied.
Liam shrugged. “Well, I suppose that was an unusually romantic way to meet a person for the first time.”
“She thought I was a ghoul.”
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “A what?”
“A ghoul.” Tuck tapped a finger to his temple. “I had the railway spectacles on. The ones I had outfitted with red glass.”
Liam’s tone was dire. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
His cousin pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Then it is lucky I intervened.”
Tuck sat up, remembering he was not the one on trial here. “Speaking of which, how exactly did you intervene?”
Liam dropped his hand and met Tuck’s gaze. “If you think it was I who locked you two in that broom cupboard, there’s something I must admit.” Tuck waited, holding his breath. “I’m utterly annoyed it wasn’t me who thought of it.” He slapped his thigh with one hand. “What a damn fine idea. Wish I had come up with it myself.” Tuck could only frown. Liam gyrated his eyebrows annoyingly. “It really did the trick, which was good because I was running out of excuses to get the two of you together.” He shook his head and returned to his petit fours. “You’re a difficult man to convince of his own happiness, Tuck. I was reaching depletion.”
Tuck frowned. “Trust me when I say I was well aware of it. It was only my loyalty to you that got in the way.”
Liam swallowed the bit of sweet. “Loyalty to me? God, what had that to do with it?”
Tuck leaned forward, elbows to knees. “I thought you were going to marry her. What we did—” He stopped, realizing what he had been about to reveal in his annoyance. “It was betrayal, Liam. I’ve been carrying that around for months now. I probably have a stomach ailment.” He rubbed at his stomach for greater effect.
Liam only laughed. “Is that what was holding you back?” He slapped his thigh again. “Damn. I wish I had known. Would have saved me a great deal of trouble.” He reached for the plate of eclairs and held it up. “Can I offer you an eclair as recompense?”
“You’re lucky I care a great deal for you,” Tuck muttered.
Liam smiled. “It’s almost like we’re family.”