Chapter 3 #2
“And, pray, tell, my darling Miss Pershing,” Aunt Dinah spoke and sneered and turned around all at the same time, “how else would the man know a whit about the truth unless someone decided to tell him?”
Adelaide’s defenses rose, the familiar urge to rail at her aunt bubbling within her. She doused the desire with seasoned control. “It is not fair to all the men if we pretend to be what we are not.”
“We pretend nothing! We are every bit as genteel as they believe us to be.”
“Gentility of position is hardly the same as gentility of character, and I don’t believe running up a bill at every merchant in town makes us any bit better than the servants.”
Her aunt stalked closer, her earlier friendliness entirely replaced by disdain.
“You, of all people, have no right to besmirch the family’s character,” Aunt Dinah snarled.
Adelaide tightened her fists. “I have never put a foot wrong, not in Essex, not in London.”
“That is not enough to supplant the shame in your blood.”
“My father’s blood, you mean?” Adelaide blurted before her good sense could prevail. “The shameful secrets of a man who is your cousin by blood—and whom you wished had married you.”
Her aunt gripped her by the wrist, not hard enough to bruise, yet firmly enough to threaten.
“Shall I remind you, you ungrateful wench, that the greatest, most shameful secrets were your mother’s?”
“It was only because her husband—”
“Silence! I will not hear another word of slander against Exton.”
“You think you can ignore the truth, but you and I know—”
“And what had he ever done that was beyond his right by the laws of England?” Aunt Dinah’s eyes seemed to shimmer with both fire and disappointment.
It was the clearest indication that Adelaide had not been wrong about her spinster aunt’s marital aspirations.
Reminding her aunt about them might not have been the wisest course of action, but Adelaide knew the true source of Dinah Ravenstone’s resentment and willful denial.
“You believe your mother’s fanciful tales of woe.
You think yourself superior by refusing to engage the gentlemen’s attentions.
Well, let me tell you a few facts of reality, my little Miss Pershing.
” Aunt Dinah leaned forward until she’d trapped Adelaide between her tall frame and the ornate green wallpaper.
She snatched Adelaide’s chin and gripped it between her long, bony fingers.
“You are worthless—as worthless as your mother, as worthless as your precious Macy. The only thing you are ever good for is to use that pretty face of yours to lure yourself a wealthy husband—with an appropriate settlement in tow.”
Adelaide bit back the bile in her throat. “And if I refuse to marry?”
“Then you prove even more how entirely worthless you are.”
Aunt Dinah shoved her face to the side, huffed, and marched away.
Calling on Miss Ravenstone and Miss Pershing after the older woman’s display three days ago was not at all characteristic of Richard.
But a curious part of him allowed himself the deviation.
There was no denying that Miss Pershing’s chaperone was as shallow and cloying as the worst of London’s matchmaking mamas.
And yet, something in Miss Pershing’s demeanor—that hint of a quiet strength beneath the delicate facade—had drawn him in.
It drew him in enough to make him dismiss his concerns about Miss Ravenstone. It drew him in enough to set aside any accusations from his own conscience that he was attempting to replace Catherine with another human being.
Richard was a gentleman. And as long as he acted with honor, there was nothing the pair of women could ever say about him that he could not easily prove untrue.
His honor was tested within minutes of his knocking at the designated townhouse. For no sooner had Miss Ravenstone greeted him than she shoved her niece out the front door, bid her a good ride with Richard in the spacious Avington landau, and shut the door in both their faces.
Richard stood, surprised and a little bit speechless.
“I apologize for my aunt’s behavior,” said a soft voice beside him.
Richard turned and looked downwards at Miss Adelaide Pershing.
She was wearing a cream-colored dress today—her soft features rendered even prettier by her flattering, floral bonnet.
She didn’t look as much like Catherine up close.
Some features were similar, yes, but where Catherine’s face had always been touched with a hint of mischief, Miss Adelaide’s held nothing but serenity.
Where Catherine’s expressions seemed always on the verge of laughter, Miss Adelaide’s appeared soft and unperturbed.
It was, perhaps, a fitting difference between a girl that a boy admired in his youth—and a woman that a man appreciated after weathering a good portion of life’s storms.
Richard shook his head before he could wax poetic. His brother Harold was the artist, and Alfred, the eldest among them, the seasoned flirt in his day. As a soldier trained for action, Richard would rather not try his luck with flowery words.
“No apology is necessary,” he answered her earlier statement in as sincere a tone as he could convey. He offered what he hoped was a courteous smile. “Shall we proceed then, Miss Pershing?”
Her gaze turned to his landau, where his horses were currently being guided in place by one of the younger grooms from Avington House. She looked neither impressed nor eager, leaving Richard to guess at her thoughts.
A moment later, she sighed. “I suppose we should.”
“If you do not desire to make rounds in Hyde Park today, Miss Pershing, I could always return another day.”
She looked back at him, her gaze hopeful yet guarded. Her eyes swirled with untold depths. Since when could such a young person carry such an old soul?
Something behind him seemed to catch her eye, and Miss Adelaide’s breath hitched. Richard turned just in time to see a young girl, who looked about twelve years of age, whisked away from the window by some invisible force, leaving the curtain to flutter back down in her place.
He frowned. What secrets was this household nurturing? Suddenly, the straightforward fortune-hunter that was Miss Ravenstone did not appear quite as straightforward as he’d thought.
“I would appreciate a ride today,” said Miss Pershing, drawing Richard’s attention back towards her. A touch of resolve now covered her features. “If you would be so kind, Colonel.”
Richard had questions, many questions. But seeing no better chance to ask them than during the privacy of a ride, he extended his arm to Miss Pershing. “Shall we take a round near St. James’s Park instead? It might prove quieter than Rotten Row.”
Her eyes turned grateful. And for the first time, Richard caught sight of what he believed to be a hint of a real smile.
“Thank you, Colonel Avington.”
“My pleasure, Miss Pershing.”
The crisp London air whipped across her face as they weaved through the streets.
They were hardly rushing, but the brisk pace that the colonel set for their ride was remarkably more efficient than the slow-paced meandering Adelaide’s other suitors preferred.
Then again, perhaps it was the company that made her feel differently.
She hardly knew the colonel. She hardly knew anyone in all of London.
But unlike the other men Aunt Dinah wanted Adelaide to entertain, the colonel embodied everything one might expect of an actual gentleman.
His clothes were impeccable, his manners at ease.
And, perhaps most importantly, he did not make Adelaide feel as if she were always a hair’s breadth away from an unwanted leer or touch.
The man had appeared reluctant to take her on a ride when Aunt Dinah first suggested it. And he’d appeared almost consternated when they were asked to leave without a chaperone today.
As much as she was beginning to enjoy the excursion, Adelaide hoped she wasn’t being a burden on the man.
“I hope the seat is comfortable for you, Miss Pershing,” he inquired kindly as they approached St. James’s Park.
Adelaide looked sideways at him. She knew, from the snippets of information Aunt Dinah had gathered, that the colonel was at least a decade her senior.
His tall, lean build and the lines in the corner of his eyes said as much.
Yet there was also something youthful about him, an energy that did not exist with Mr. Bamburst and his ilk.
Then again, perhaps it was his goodness, rather than youthfulness, that provided the sense of competence and trustworthiness that seemed to emanate off his person.
“It is very comfortable, thank you,” she answered demurely.
Aunt Dinah’s harsh reminders that Adelaide must engage the colonel’s interest barked at the back of her mind.
Adelaide wished she could shut them up by shutting her eyes, but it would be abominably rude to the kind man beside her.
“Do you ride about London often, Colonel?”
“Not as often as I used to, I admit,” he said gently. He turned his eyes back to the road, allowing Adelaide to do the same. “In our heyday, the Avington brothers turned eyes everywhere we went.”
“What happened?”
He chuckled, though it appeared tired, the sort of laugh a man sported at the end of a difficult day.
“The natural courses of life happened. My eldest three brothers married—one to a viscount’s daughter, one to his artist’s muse, and one to a terrifying little woman who finally turned him from his roguish ways.
And then, last summer, my younger brother married as well. ”
“You are a large family.”
“Yes, and constantly growing larger still.” He sent another gentle look her way. “And you, Miss Pershing? Do you have any siblings?”
Adelaide’s hands clenched on her lap. He couldn’t know, could he? Aunt Dinah would die before she let anyone know about the Pershings’ tainted family history. It would ruin all of the woman’s plans to gain monetary advantage by marrying Adelaide off.
“I was my father and mother’s only surviving child,” she said quietly.
“My apologies for asking. It must be doubly difficult for you to face their loss alone.”
Did the man have to be so affable? It made Aunt Dinah’s assignment to capture his hand sound even more heartless.
Adelaide nodded. “It was difficult, yes.”
“And have you no other relations to aid you—that is, apart from Miss Ravenstone?”
“My father had cousins in London, but we have never had any true ties to them.”
“Ah,” he said. It was only a single word, but it sounded very knowing despite its brevity.
“Are you acquainted with my other Pershing cousins?”
“We used to attend the same circles, yes.” Was that a wry smile, or a wistful one, on the colonel’s face?
“Then you must know them more than I.”
“Do you never cross paths with them? Surely, if they were to be made aware of your current predicament without a protector in London, one or the other would take it upon themselves to assist you.”
Adelaide fought back tears. Just how was she to explain to a man who seemed to represent everything good and noble about the reprobate ways of her father? It was no wonder the late Exton Pershing’s own family had deserted him. No one wanted to be related to such a brute.
“They were estranged. I have never met any of my Pershing relatives, only my Ravenstone ones.”
“Ah.” There was that brief word again, weighted down with what sounded rather a lot like disappointment.
It was almost as if the chances of her ever gaining the colonel’s good opinion were slipping away, one revelation at a time.
Aunt Dinah would be furious, although Adelaide could not bring herself to lie to the man beside her just to fool him into thinking her connections to be any better than they were.
She refused to marry Mr. Bamburst or any of his horrid associates, but that didn’t mean she had to deceive the first decent man she’d ever known in London—or in England, for that matter.
They drove on in silence for a few more moments. The knot in Adelaide’s stomach, born initially over her anxiety that the ride might prove torturous, evolved into a vague disappointment over the fact that she had let the colonel down. Then again, perhaps it was best this way.
If Colonel Avington had expected Adelaide to be anything like her distant, fancy London cousins—with good breeding and warm, amiable families—then the disappointment was inevitable.
Perhaps it was best for the disillusionment, on both their parts, to happen sooner rather than later.
“Would you fancy another turn?” he offered a good five minutes later. “Or would you prefer to return sooner?”
And perhaps because she felt him slipping away before she’d ever even truly had the chance to know him, Adelaide chose to be selfish, just this once, and answered, “If you would not mind the effort, Colonel, I would appreciate another turn.”
At least he was gentlemanly enough to avoid looking unhappy at her response.