Chapter Sixteen #2
“Actually, Aunt, I believe I’ve taken on too much. I think I shall… scale back my charitable work for the remainder of the Season. Focus on the social engagements instead.”
“Very sensible.” Aunt Philippa nodded approvingly. “You have only a few weeks left to secure a match, after all. Speaking of which…” She set down her spoon with an expression of barely contained excitement. “I received the most interesting call this afternoon. From Mr Edmund Alcott’s mother.”
Eliza’s hand tightened on her own spoon.
“Oh?”
“Yes, indeed. She was most complimentary about you, dear. Said her son has spoken of you often since you met at the Worthington musicale. And she hinted, quite strongly, I might add, that we might expect a formal call from Mr Alcott himself in the coming days.”
The words landed like stones in the silent dining room.
“How wonderful,” she heard herself say, her voice coming from somewhere far away. “Mr Alcott is… a respectable gentleman.”
“Respectable, well-connected, and comfortably situated.” Aunt Philippa beamed.
“His family has interests in shipping, I believe, and very prudent ones. And as the second son of a viscount, he has consequence enough without the burden of a title.” She smiled, as though this settled everything.
“It would be an excellent match. Better than we had any right to hope for, really.”
“Yes,” Eliza agreed, because there was nothing else to say. “An excellent match.”
Beatrice watched her across the table, her expression troubled.
Later that evening, after their aunt had retired, she followed Eliza to her bedroom.
“You cannot marry Edmund Alcott.”
Eliza paused in the act of unpinning her hair. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t love him. Because you love…” Beatrice stopped, apparently unwilling to speak William’s name. “Because you love someone else.”
“Someone else made his feelings quite clear this morning.” Eliza removed another pin, watching her reflection in the mirror with detached interest. The woman staring back at her looked tired.
Old. Nothing like the bright-eyed girl who had arrived in London some weeks ago.
“I am not in a position to be particular, Beatrice. I have no dowry to speak of. No great beauty. No connections that might recommend me. If Edmund Alcott is willing to offer for me…”
“You would accept him? Truly? Spend the rest of your life with a man who bores you, bearing his children, sharing his bed?”
“Yes.” The word came out flat, final. “I would accept him. Because the alternative is returning home in disgrace, becoming a burden on my family, and spending the rest of my life as the spinster who made a fool of herself over a duke.”
Beatrice was silent for a long moment.
“You are punishing yourself.”
“I am being practical.” Eliza pulled the last pin from her hair, watching it tumble down around her shoulders. “Something I should have been from the start.”
***
The next few days passed in a fog of pretence and pain.
Eliza attended social engagements with the mechanical precision of a clockwork doll. She smiled when required. Made conversation when addressed. Danced when asked. She did everything that was expected of a young lady in her final weeks of the Season, and she felt nothing at all.
Inside, she was crumbling.
Every ballroom reminded her of William. Every waltz brought back the memory of his arms around her, his body moving against hers, the intensity in his grey eyes as he looked at her like she was the only woman in the world.
She saw him everywhere, in the turn of a dark-haired gentleman’s head, in the flash of grey eyes across a crowded room, in the particular way a man might smile.
He was never actually there, of course.
She heard through the gossip that he had returned to society, that he had been seen at his club and at various functions, conducting himself with his usual charm and ease.
The Duke of Hollowshade had returned to form, the whispers said.
Whatever had occupied him out of sight was apparently concluded.
Whatever had occupied him.
That was all she had been. An occupation. A temporary diversion from the tedium of London society.
The thought should have hurt more than it did. But Eliza was discovering that pain, like any sensation, could become familiar. Could become background noise, a constant throb beneath the surface that no longer registered as acute.
She was learning to live with it.
Edmund Alcott called on Thursday afternoon.
He was exactly as Eliza remembered, pleasant, respectable, thoroughly unremarkable. Brown hair, brown eyes, a face that was neither handsome nor plain. The sort of man who would never inspire poetry or scandal, who would never make a woman’s heart race or her breath catch.
The sort of man she should have wanted from the beginning.
“Miss Hayfield.” He bowed over her hand in the drawing room, his smile warm and genuine. “How lovely to see you again.”
“Mr Alcott.” She curtsied, noting how her aunt and Beatrice had arranged themselves at a discreet distance, close enough for propriety, far enough for private conversation. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“I hope not unwelcome?”
“Not at all.”
They sat, and tea was brought, and conversation proceeded along its predictable lines. The weather. The Season. The upcoming events that would mark its final weeks. Edmund spoke easily, pleasantly, about nothing that mattered at all.
And Eliza responded automatically, saying what was expected, playing the role she had been raised to play.
This is what your life will be, she thought. Pleasant conversation about pleasant things with a pleasant man who will never make you feel anything at all.
It was so much safer than what she had felt with William.
“Miss Hayfield,” Edmund leaned forward slightly, his expression shifting to something more serious, “I wonder if I might speak frankly.”
“Of course.”
“I have admired you since we first met. Your intelligence, your wit, your genuine kindness, they struck me immediately as qualities I value highly in a companion.” He paused, seeming to gather himself.
“I am aware that you may have… other admirers. Men of higher rank, perhaps, or greater fortune. But I want you to know that my regard for you is sincere, and my intentions are entirely honourable.”
Eliza’s heart clenched.
Other admirers.
So he had understood. He had seen enough that day to know, or at least to guess, and was choosing not to name it outright.
“I am… flattered by your regard, Mr Alcott.”
“Edmund. Please.”
“Edmund.” The name felt strange on her tongue, wrong in some fundamental way. “I am not certain I deserve such high praise.”
“You deserve far more than I could ever offer.” His smile was self-deprecating, almost charming in its sincerity. “But I hope you might allow me to try.”
She should say yes.
The practical part of her brain, the part that had been screaming warnings for weeks while she ignored them, was insisting that this was the obvious choice.
Edmund Alcott was respectable, kind, and dependable.
He would give her a comfortable life, a secure position in society, children who would want for nothing.
He would never break her heart, because she would never give it to him.
“I need time,” she heard herself say. “To consider. The Season is ending soon, and there is much to think about.”
“Of course.” Edmund did not seem surprised or disappointed. If anything, he seemed to have expected this response. “Take all the time you need. I will be here when you are ready.”
He rose to take his leave, bowing over her hand with perfect courtesy.
“Until we meet again, Miss Hayfield.”
“Until then, Mr Alcott.”
She watched him go, feeling nothing at all.
That night, Beatrice found her standing at her bedroom window, staring out at the London street below.
“You’re going to accept him,” Beatrice said. Not a question.
“Probably.”
“Even though you don’t love him.”
“Love is a luxury I can no longer afford.” Eliza pressed her forehead against the cool glass. “I had my chance at love. It ended badly. Now I must be practical.”
“You’re twenty-one years old. You are not yet past hope of happiness. And you are going to spend your life with a man who makes you feel nothing?”
“Feeling nothing is better than feeling this.” Eliza’s voice cracked despite her efforts at control. “Feeling nothing is safer.”
Beatrice was silent for a long moment.
“He destroyed you,” she said finally. “That wretched man actually destroyed you.”
Eliza did not deny it.
What was there to deny? William had taken everything she had, her trust, her innocence, her belief in the possibility of love, and he had crushed it without a second thought. He had made her feel like the most important woman in the world, and then he had told her she meant nothing at all.
She was destroyed.
What remained was simply the process of putting the pieces back together into something functional, something that could move through the world without falling apart entirely.
“I’ll survive,” she said quietly. “I always do.”
“Surviving isn’t the same as living.”
“It will have to be enough.”
She turned from the window and began preparing for bed, signalling that the conversation was over.
Beatrice lingered in the doorway for a moment longer, her expression troubled. Then she shook her head and withdrew, closing the door softly behind her.
Eliza lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, and tried not to think about grey eyes and wicked smiles and the way William’s arms had felt around her in the night.
She failed.