Chapter Sixteen
A fter his disturbed night, Jack began the following day with every intention of steering well clear of Arlington Street and the intriguing Miss Wetherby. However, by the afternoon, this resolve had softened and he found his feet taking him there all by themselves when he’d really been intending to visit White’s.
He knocked on the door and was admitted by Hemmings. “I’m afraid Lady Dandridge is not at home, my lord,” he said in reply to Jack’s initial enquiry.
Jack’s spirits rose a notch. It would be nice to see Elenora alone without her chaperone’s constant attendance. “Then perhaps you could let Miss Wetherby know that I have called?”
Hemmings showed Jack into the empty drawing room, and departed on his mission to find Miss Wetherby.
Impatient and fidgety, Jack wandered over to the window. Arlington Street, being a lesser thoroughfare, was not nearly so busy as Portland Place. A few gentlemen walking, canes swinging and a jaunty air about them, a woman selling some out of season red roses—he could have bought some for Elenora had he not been so preoccupied when he passed the seller. And standing only half visible on the corner of the street, his pipe smoke rising skywards, a man who could be the spitting image of the one he’d seen in the shadows last night.
In fact, he felt almost sure it was the exact same man he’d seen last night outside his own house. Or maybe he was getting paranoid due to lack of sleep. If he thought about it sensibly, London abounded with men propping up walls and smoking pipes. Most of them… well, a good number of them at any rate… probably for no nefarious reason whatsoever. And this man was probably nothing to do with last night’s man and was one of the many innocent individuals abroad.
However… he glanced back toward the door. If he ran downstairs now, he might be able to catch the fellow and demand of him what he was doing following him around. That wasn’t the behavior of a regular burglar, surely, or even a would-be pickpocket. They spotted their mark, did their work, and were gone before the mark even noticed. But if he did that, what would Elenora think if she came in here and found him gone?
He turned back to the window. The man had vanished. Well, that absolved him from precipitous action, at any rate, and probably indicated that his presence in Arlington Street was just by chance.
He rubbed his eyes. Had he imagined him there after last night? Was thinking about Elenora sending him mad? No, the man couldn’t have been the same man as last night.
The door opened and the object of his thoughts came bouncing in. Elenora, that was, not the mysterious watching man. She appeared to be as full of vital life as if she’d not been out until all hours this morning and then pleaded a megrim in order to return home.
“Jack!”
At least she sounded pleased to see him. And she looked it, too. Which must mean she truly was, as she couldn’t lie.
Putting thoughts of the strange man out of his head, Jack strode across the room to meet her, his hands held out.
She ground to a halt, eyes fixed on his hands, and too late he remembered how little she liked to be touched. Back to square one on that front.
He let his hands drop. “I’m sorry.”
She drew her bottom lip in under her teeth and gave herself a little shake. “That is quite all right. I’m not offended at all. I know it takes people a long time to accustom themselves to my quirks.”
“I wouldn’t say it was just a quirk.” He put his hands behind his back lest they stray toward her again, as a longing to feel her hands in his had arisen. “Tell me, Elenora, if you can, why it is you are so against being touched? It’s something I would give anything to understand.”
She frowned, her own hands laced together in front of her, and looked down. “In truth, my lord, I couldn’t tell you, but I’ve always been like this. I believe it’s all a part of my makeup and I can do nothing to change it.”
He smiled at her. “Don’t call me ‘my lord,’ Elenora, when you’ve been calling me Jack these last few days. We are engaged, after all.”
She looked up, her eyes alive with sudden mischief. “And I rather doubt we should be alone together despite our engagement, but I assured Agatha, she’s my maid, that I didn’t need her as a stand in chaperone while my aunt is absent. Nor Petunia, who is at the piano in the music room in a temper again.” She chuckled. “I think that had my aunt known you would call, she would not have gone out visiting herself. She wanted me to accompany her, but I made the excuse of my megrim to stay in bed, then got up the moment she’d departed. Days are too short as it is to languish idle in bed.”
The rather pleasing image of Elenora in her nightgown tucked up in bed leapt into Jack’s head, and warmth rose to his cheeks. What was this sudden aversion to thinking improper thoughts about a young lady? He’d never had this trouble before. In fact, he’d always found it entertaining. “I’m grateful your aunt has gone out, and that you deem me safe enough to talk to unchaperoned. I had hoped for a few minutes alone with you, if I’m honest. We are, after all, meant to be having a long engagement so we can get to know one another better.”
Her cheeks colored, and, as if to distract him from this, she flounced past him and settled herself on the chaise longue, hands folded demurely in her lap, only the continual lacing of her fingers betraying her lack of equilibrium. Might it, dare he hope, be due to his presence? Or was it all a part of her character… her quirks?
He came and sat beside her. It would have been more proper to have taken one of the other seats, but he wanted to be close to her, and the fact that she’d chosen a seat with space for two made him want to believe she wanted him there.
She shuffled away from him a fraction.
He resisted the impulse to edge closer and take one of her hands in his. Temptation was a fickle thing. “Perhaps you might try and explain to me how it makes you feel when you’re touched? To better help me understand.”
Her face took on a thoughtful expression, as no doubt she struggled to formulate an answer. She opened her mouth as though about to speak once or twice without saying a word, only to close it again and give a little shake of her head.
“If I were to touch you… like this…” He set an outstretched finger on the back of her hand. “How does that feel to you?”
She snatched her hand back as though she’d been stung. “Like a pencil on slate. It sets my teeth jangling.” She paused. “I never could use a slate and slate pencil in the schoolroom and got into trouble all the time with my governess.”
A good description he could relate to. “And how does it feel if you touch me in the same way?” He offered his hand.
Her brow furrowed, but, her eyes curious, she laid her fingertip on his, her touch as delicate as gossamer. She raised wide eyes to his face. “Different. Not so… scratchy.”
He burst out laughing, and after a moment, she joined in. “Do you know, I’ve reached the age of nineteen without ever noticing that it’s worse to be touched than to touch. How extraordinary.” She gazed down at her hands as though in awe.
Jack returned his hand to his lap. “Edward was asking about you this morning at breakfast.”
She looked up again, eyes full of interest for his son, if not for him. “He was? He’s such a charming boy. I very much enjoyed recreating the Battle of Hastings with him on the occasion of our meeting. For one so young he has an intimate knowledge of the battle and its commanders. He reminds me a little of me.”
This was safe ground. “He asked if you might come to Portland Place to see him again. He’s anxious to talk to you about the battle of Stamford Bridge. And I suspect he wishes to coerce you into recreating it with him.” And it was also grounds on which to induce her to visit, even if the prime reason she had was to play with his son.
“It’s so interesting to meet a young boy with an academic bent,” she said, her voice serious. “I have despaired of my family. None of them seem keen to set their minds to loftier pursuits than having fun. That is my brothers, I should say, both of whom have had the privilege to go up to Oxford and study, and both of whom have wasted the opportunity. Although it’s perfectly possible to both study and have fun—as I do.” She wrinkled her delightful nose. “Tell me. Were you up at Oxford, or perhaps Cambridge?”
He shook his head. “I was keen to… enjoy myself in a different way.” He’d nearly said to sow his wild oats, but she would no doubt have known what that meant and might have been shocked. She seemed to be the sort of girl who picked up information like blotting paper, as she sailed through life. “I set up my own establishment in Town soon after I left Harrow.” He smiled. “My mother wasn’t all that keen for me to do so, but my father overrode her.”
“But you will let Edward go to Oxford? He seems to me the sort of boy who would do well there. Better than my scapegrace brothers, at any rate.”
Would he? Not everything he’d heard about university life had sounded praiseworthy, but Edward was not his father, and nor was he Elenora’s brothers. “Perhaps. What about your sisters? I gather you have more than the two I met.”
She made a moue. “Oh, they are quite boring but very sweet. All they think about is preparing themselves for the marriage mart. Even the younger two who are only eleven and twelve—and covered in spots at this very moment, I suppose. None of them are keen to improve themselves with education beyond that which our governess, Miss Maggs, was able to provide. I had to do all my important learning by myself. Papa says I am an auto-didact, which means I have taught myself most things. Mama disapproves, of course.”
“I know what it means. I suppose you could say that I’m one as well, for I’ve learned more from the books in my father’s library than I ever did at school. In fact, I’m not sure I will even send Edward away to school for fear it changes him. I like him too well to thrust him into the charnel house that is Harrow or Eton and see him either the victim of a bully or turn into one.”
She nodded, enthusiasm shining from her face. “Indeed I fear you might be right, and I’m sure you know from your own time there.” Her eyes narrowed. “Although you yourself have no air about you of either the bullied or the bully, which is puzzling. On such small acquaintance with Edward as I’ve had so far, I divined a thirst for learning comparable with my own. He seems to me to be a child to be nurtured and brought on like a hothouse flower, not exposed to the common rabble in the outdoor flowerbeds.”
Jack burst out laughing. “I have to say that you are a very opinionated young lady.”
She frowned. “Is that a bad thing? I cannot tell when you say things like that to me whether you mean them as criticism or praise.” She sighed. “I cannot tell a lot of things, in truth, with other people too. I find it most frustrating when we’ve had visitors at Penworthy and Mama or my sisters point out one of them was sad, or out of sorts, and it’s completely passed me by. It makes me feel guilty that I don’t see those things, no matter how hard I try to learn from Mama and my sisters.”
On an impulse, Jack reached out a hand to cover her clasped ones. For a moment she resisted, but he kept his hand in place and she gave up. “Please. Never change, Elenora, for it would be a bad thing indeed if you were to curb your nature to please others. You are very charming the way you are right now.”
Color flushed her cheeks most becomingly, and her blue eyes met his, a question in them. “Are you telling me you like me being like this? Being odd? The things others want to change in me? The things Mama says are to be hidden?”
He nodded, swallowing down a lump in his throat. What was this? Emotion choking him? A hitherto unheard of feeling for Jack Deveril, that was certain. “I do. I like you very much.”
Her eyes widened further, she licked her lips, bit the bottom one, looked down at her hands where his covered them and then raised her eyes to meet his again. “And I like you.”
For some reason, Jack could think of nothing to say. She liked him, and she was gazing at him out of wondering blue eyes he could drown in. If he were to lean forward… he might press his lips to hers and steal a kiss… And she might not dislike it. Or she might leap up and run away and never want to see him again.
He released her hands and got to his feet in a hurry, pretending an inclination to walk to the long window and look out into the street. No sign of the man from earlier. “I came to enquire, on behalf of Edward, rest assured, if you would like to come to my house for tea this afternoon. Come back with me, that is, and take tea with Edward. And me. At my house.” Good God, he was gabbling. He’d not done that in front of a girl since he’d been a lusty schoolboy at Harrow with his first conquest.
Elenora’s serious expression melted into a smile. “I would love to, but I have no chaperone, and, nice as it is to sit and talk to you alone, I fear I cannot parade around the streets of London with only you and no chaperone, for all to see.” She paused. “Well, I really believe I could, as what on earth could you do to me in broad daylight in public? But I know, because Mama has told me so on numerous occasions until it’s engraved into my heart, that I should not be alone with a gentleman in that way. Silly as that rule is. And ridiculous as it is that here in the drawing room I’m probably in more danger than I would be if we were walking to your house. If you see what I mean.”
Was she gabbling too? Dare he hope that the cause of this gabbling matched the cause of his gabbling? And why on earth was he thinking like this when it could lead to nothing, as neither of them wanted it to. Probably. No, definitely.
“What about bringing your maid?”
Her eyes lit up. “Of course! An excellent idea. Agatha can chaperone me. I’ll go straight up to my room, and she can fetch my pelisse and bonnet and gloves.” She bounded to her feet. “I am so looking forward to seeing Edward again.” And with that she was gone in a maelstrom of impetuosity.
Jack stood beside the empty chaise longue feeling a little shell-shocked. She’d admitted she liked him, but had she meant it in the way he had? In many ways, she was such a child, yet in others, like an old professor. Would he call her a bluestocking? Perhaps, only her charm outweighed that rather pejorative description. Her enthusiasm for meeting Edward again both endeared her to him and engendered a hint of resentment. Was he jealous? Of his seven-year-old son? Surely not.
“We are going to Portland Place, to visit Lord Broxbourne,” Elenora told Agatha when she’d responded to the urgent tug Elenora had given the bell pull. “I need my warmest pelisse as it’s so cold outside. And you are to come with me as Aunt Penelope is out. I suppose I had better leave her a note of explanation or she’ll think I’ve done something improper. I’ll tell her you’re with me, then she’ll know everything is perfectly above board.”
While Agatha sorted out the necessary warm clothing, Elenora wrote the note to her aunt.
Dear Aunt Penelope, I have gone to visit Lord Broxbourne and taken Agatha with me so you have no need to worry about the Propriety of my visit. We are to take tea together and no doubt he will escort me home. As I have Agatha with me, you may rest Assured that I will come to no harm. And besides, he is my Betrothed so that makes this acceptable. Mama will not object, I am certain.
Your obedient Elenora
Possibly a little longer and more convoluted than necessary, but she wanted to be clear so her aunt would understand she was safe. With it clutched in her hand, and with a warmly wrapped Agatha trailing behind her, she descended to the drawing room again, passing the music room from which the sound of Petunia’s rather aggressive piano playing emanated. She found Jack pacing up and down by the window. “I’m ready,” she called from the door.
He turned toward her, a slightly worried frown on his forehead. Had he changed his mind? Her heart, which had been doing a bit of pounding that had nothing to do with rushing about to get ready, sank a little.
But when he saw her, his worried expression dissipated and he strode over, as happy as he’d seemed, or so she thought, when she’d raced off upstairs. The small worry that her racing off had bothered him, rather than decorously walking as advised by Mama and Aunt Penelope, arose. Did he think her terribly fast? Was that even what being fast was? So literal? She had no idea.
They went downstairs together with Agatha following behind, and Elenora gave her hastily scribbled note to Hemmings before he opened the front door for them. Beside her, Jack paused, seeming to be skimming his gaze over the people on the street. As if he’d set his mind at rest about something, he held out his arm to her. She took a deep breath and slipped her hand into the crook of it, feeling his muscles beneath the good wool cloth of his coat and noting how touching him no longer felt so scratchy and off-putting. How strong he must be. Her treacherous heart gave another lurch at the thought as she remembered his arms around her at the ball. Whatever was it doing that for? He was only a man, after all.
The walk to Portland Place didn’t take long, as Elenora liked to walk briskly due to the cold, and Jack seemed happy to measure his longer stride to match hers. She did catch him once or twice looking back over his shoulder. After the third time he did it, she decided to ask him about it. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Peering back over your shoulder. Do you think Agatha might fall behind or get lost? She’s used to walking at Penworthy. I walk a lot down there and she’s usually with me.”
“I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
“Oh.” She peered over her own shoulder at Agatha, whose rosy cheeks had blossomed even redder in the cold.
“I’m sorry. I’ll stop doing it.”
She smiled. “It’s quite all right. I’m sure she’s flattered that you’re worrying about her.” Or was he? She took another look over her shoulder, peering past Agatha’s sturdy form, but nothing untoward caught her eye.
At the house in Portland Place, Elenora dispatched Agatha to the servants’ hall with a haughty wave of her hand. “I shall be perfectly all right by myself now we are here and no one can see what I’m doing.” The import of these words sank in. She chuckled. “Not, of course, that I intend to do anything you or my aunt or my mama would disapprove of. You may go and take tea and cakes with Lord Broxbourne’s servants and have a gossip, as I know that’s what you like to do.”
Agatha, a little nonplussed, departed toward the kitchen with alacrity.
“Now,” Elenora said with satisfaction at having rid herself of her chaperone so easily. Far more easily than she could have been rid of Aunt Penelope with her ridiculous notions of responsibility for her. “Can we go up and find Edward please?”
Three flights of stairs brought them to the nursery floor, where they discovered Edward playing with his young nurse in attendance. He jumped to his feet when he saw Elenora and ran to make a neat little bow to her. “You came, Miss Wetherby. I was so hoping you would so we could fight another battle. Miss Douglas has been teaching me about what poor King Harold had to do before Duke William’s invasion of England. I refuse to call him king, as for me, Harold was the true king and William just a usurper. Only I wouldn’t call him French—he was Norman and they have their origins in Scandinavia. Miss Douglas told me that this morning.”
“Goodness, you’re the most well-informed boy I’ve ever met,” Elenora said. “And I notice you do like to side with the kings who were usurped. My brothers were both dunces compared to you. I’ve never been able to get them the least bit interested in history other than to play at being knights in armor so they could fight each other.”
Edward’s face took on a slightly guilty expression. “If I had a brother to play with, I think I’d like to play at knights in armor too. But I don’t. Unless… you and I might do so one day? I mean… just with wooden swords, not real ones. In case we hurt each other.”
So he could be a playful small boy as well as a little intellectual. Elenora burst out laughing. “I should warn you that I often bested my brother Matthew who is only one year older than me. But yes, if your papa can provide us with wooden swords, then we can fight.”
“And shields,” Jack said.
Edward nodded with vigor. “Yes, shields too. With coats of arms on them.”
Jack laughed. “Just as you command, my liege lord.”
Edward clapped his small hands together.
Elenora joined in their laughter. “And yes, I would love to reenact a battle with you again. I believe your papa said you were most interested in the battle of Stamford Bridge, which came before Hastings if I remember correctly.”
He jumped up and down on the spot, still only an excited little boy. “Yes, oh yes. That’s just what I want to do. Miss Douglas has told me all about it.” He turned to Jack. “Will you play with us too, Papa?”
Jack was still smiling. “I suppose I could. So long as you don’t make me be the baddie again. You do have a habit of picking the winning side every time.”
Edward fairly crowed with delight. “If you like then, you can be Harold Godwinson and the Anglo Saxons, and I will be Harold Hardrada. Miss Wetherby can be Tostig Godwinson, who is very meanly fighting against his brother on the side of Hardrada. You don’t mind being such a turncoat, do you Miss Wetherby?”
Elenora burst out laughing. “Not one bit, but do call me Elenora, as calling me Miss Wetherby all the time makes me feel as though I’m about a hundred.”
Edward beamed. “I don’t think you’re that old. I’ll go and get my soldiers. Meg made me tidy them away yesterday.” He shot a glare at the nursery maid, who was again employed in mending his clothing. With two older brothers, Elenora well knew how boys the world over could get holes in their clothes at the drop of a hat. Girls too, if she was honest.
She dropped to her knees on the rug, and peeked up at Jack. “Come on then, Harold Godwinson. You must get down on the rug with your opponents and try to beat us. Be warned, that as your treacherous brother Tostig, I shall play dirty and try to change the course of history by winning.”
Edward came back with some of his soldiers clutched to his chest and tossed them in a rather cavalier fashion onto the rug. “Norwegians, I think. Those’re mine and Elenora’s. I’ll get you some Anglo Saxons, Papa.”
“They look more like French soldiers to me with those blue coats,” Jack remarked as he too got down onto his knees and picked up one of the small warriors. His comment went ignored. Edward must have an excellent imagination.
Elenora watched Edward as he went back for more soldiers, of which he seemed in possession of a good supply, a warm feeling she wasn’t quite used to welling up into her heart. A feeling of being included, of belonging, of fitting in. Not something she’d ever felt within her family, not even with Papa. She was going to enjoy this afternoon.