Chapter 4 #2
Georgie entered, her brow furrowed. “Why is the door closed? What are you two whispering about?”
Lizzie feigned an expression of surprise. “We were hardly whispering.”
Georgie crossed her arms and frowned. “The two of you have been acting strangely for several days! Something is going on, isn’t it? Something you aren’t telling me!”
“Nothing is going on,” Lizzie said firmly. “Georgie, surely you wish to come with us! Surely you wish to elude that old toad, Peter Harold, before he proposes marriage to you! And you adore Dublin!”
Georgie’s full lips pursed and her eyes darkened. “I am worried about Mama’s health. There will be no one to take care of her, to make sure she rests and eats well, if I go with you and Anna. I simply cannot abandon Mama for several months.”
Lizzie realized that, once again, Georgie’s mind was made up. No one could be more stubborn. “But what if Mr. Harold proposes?”
Georgie crossed her arms. “He has been calling for months now. Maybe he also realizes that this is not the best match?”
“That is hardly an answer,” Lizzie pressed.
Georgie flushed. “What do you want me to say? That I will refuse him? If he proposes, I will have to think very carefully about my future. I doubt I will ever receive another offer of marriage. I am trying very hard to like him.”
Lizzie and Anna exchanged dismayed glances.
“I will be fine,” Georgie said softly to them both. “Besides, Mama is right, this will improve Lizzie’s chances of finding a beau.” She forced a smile and failed. “Now, let me help you both pack.”
Lizzie seized her elbow. “But I don’t want to marry anyone.”
Georgie’s brows raised. “That is only because you have yet to fall in love.”
Lizzie turned away, recalling Tyrell de Warenne’s smoldering eyes as he leaned on the wall, trapping her there, at the costume ball.
“Surely you are not dreaming about Tyrell de Warenne again?” Georgie cried, understanding her far too well.
Lizzie hesitated. She had never stopped dreaming about Tyrell, not for a single day in the past four months. “Of course not,” she said.
“Lizzie, I was with Mama when Sir James mentioned that the de Warennes have gone up to Wicklowe,” Georgie said.
Wicklowe was the de Warenne estate, not to be confused with the county Wicklow in which it was situated.
She hesitated. “Tyrell has been given a post in the Irish Exchequer, Lizzie, an important post.”
Lizzie felt herself falter while her heart lurched.
Tyrell would be in Dublin, in a position as a government official?
Oh! She could not manage this now, not when Anna’s crisis was such a huge, frightening burden.
“Georgie, do not be foolish,” she said. “I haven’t given him a thought since last October.
I have far more important matters on my mind.
” From the corner of her eye, she saw Anna pale.
Lizzie had no clue as to how she sounded so sensible and calm.
“Such as?” Georgie asked suspiciously.
Lizzie smiled firmly. “Such as saving you from a fate worse than death. Now, why don’t you help us? We have much to do and not very much time in which to do it.”
The Grand Canal Docks in Dublin were south of the River Liffey and but a few blocks from Merrion Square, a matter of convenience and coincidence.
The sisters had completed the trip by barge in a mere four days.
Now they stood on the docks, clutching their indispensables, as a crewman piled up their trunks and valises beside them.
Lizzie and Anna locked glances of growing dread.
Anna was as pale as the cleanest batch of laundry.
Lizzie knew she must be as equally white.
“She will never let us in, unexpected and uninvited like this,” Anna mumbled, her lips barely moving.
“Of course she will. We are her family,” Lizzie insisted, but her heart was pounding as if she had run a footrace. All she had to do was hail a hackney and in a matter of moments they would be on Eleanor’s doorstep. Lizzie realized she was shaking.
“She has never liked me,” Anna moaned. “And I have always known it!”
Lizzie looked at Anna in some surprise. “Of course she likes you. Come, you must not think the worst, not yet,” she said, taking Anna’s hand.
“At least we have a few pounds—enough for a room if we need to let one,” Anna cried.
“It will not come to that,” Lizzie said firmly, refusing to think otherwise.
Eleanor would not be pleased to see them, but beyond that, she could not fathom what would happen—except that she was fiercely determined to convince Eleanor to allow them to stay.
“I see a hackney! Wait here,” she cried, rushing down the pier.
The cab driver was only too happy to accept their fare and he cheerfully loaded up their trunks.
Within moments, they were upon Merrion Square, home to the most fashionable of Dublin’s residents.
Lizzie and Anna held hands as their coach halted before Eleanor’s home, a huge limestone mansion on the north side of the park.
Corinthian columns graced the wide entrance, above which was a towering temple pediment.
The house was four stories with several terraces and balconies overlooking the square.
The park itself was filled with manicured lawns, blooming gardens and a maze of pebbled paths, but Lizzie did not see any of it.
She stared up at the house, consumed with fear and dread.
“Ladies? I got your bags down for you,” the cab driver said from the sidewalk where he stood.
Lizzie realized he had opened the coach door. She stepped down with his help, Anna following, and quickly handed him the fare they had agreed upon. As the hackney drove off, she and Anna simply stared at each other in real dismay.
Lizzie bit her lip. “Well, this is it, then. Smile, Anna, as if nothing is wrong, as if we are here on a tour of the city and merely calling on a beloved aunt.”
Anna voiced Lizzie’s very own thoughts when she whispered with some desperation, “But what if she does not even allow us inside?”
“She will have to,” Lizzie said briskly, “as I refuse to take no for an answer.”
“You have become so brave,” Anna said, looking ready to cry.
Lizzie took Anna’s hand, hoping to be reassuring, although she was as afraid as her sister. “You look as frightened as a Frenchman on his way to the guillotine,” she said. “And that will not do.”
Anna nodded, appearing miserable.
The trunks on the street, the two sisters walked up the high front steps, past a pair of imposing, life-size lion statues, and across the portico to the front door where a liveried doorman stood.
He nodded at them and opened the carved oak door.
Lizzie realized she still held Anna’s hand, a sure sign of her own state of anxiety, and she released it as they stepped into a circular foyer with black-and-white marble floors and a huge gold-and-crystal chandelier.
A curving staircase faced them. A servant appeared and Lizzie handed him a calling card.
“Good day, Leclerc,” Lizzie said with a slight smile.
“Please tell our aunt that we are here.” And even as she spoke, she could hear the high, rather strident tones of her aunt speaking in a nearby salon, and the warm laughter of a gentleman as well.
“Certainly, mademoiselle,” the butler said, bowing as he left.
“Aunt Eleanor has callers,” Anna whispered nervously.
“Then she will have to mind her manners,” Lizzie returned, knowing that Eleanor never minded her manners. She was so wealthy that she could say and do anything that she pleased. The fact that she had never named an heir had hardly hurt her, either. Such an odd choice entertained society to no end.
Eleanor’s voice rose in sharp protest, breaking their silence. “I do say…What? My nieces are here? My nieces are here? Which nieces, Leclerc?”
Lizzie and Anna exchanged worried glances.
“I have not invited any relations,” Eleanor cried. “Send them away! Send them away this instant!”
Lizzie gasped in abject disbelief. She would not even see them?
But moments later, she heard her aunt’s heels clicking on the floors as she approached, and Eleanor appeared through one of the arched entryways in the foyer, her expression filled with anger and disbelief.
Lizzie’s heart sank, but she quickly rearranged her own expression, hoping to make it a pleasant one.
Then she realized that a tall, darkly blond gentleman was with her.
Eleanor entered the foyer with the tawny-haired gentleman. “What is this display?” she demanded.
Lizzie stepped bravely forward and curtsied, aware that she was trembling. “Good day, Aunt Eleanor. We have come to town for a spring tour and Mama asked us to call on you. We hope you are well?”
“Well? A spring tour? What nonsense is this?” Eleanor snapped, now flushed with her anger but still clearly taken aback.
She was a very small, slender woman with iron-gray curls and brilliant blue eyes.
She wore an exquisite black velvet dress with an equally exquisite diamond necklace.
Eleanor had never come out of mourning for her husband, Lord de Barry, although he had died a decade ago.
Before Lizzie could respond, the gentleman stepped forward, taking Eleanor’s arm firmly in his own.
He was in his twenties, a very handsome man with a twinkle in his eyes, and Lizzie would have thought him a rogue, except he wore the plainest of clothes—a dark blue jacket and tan trousers.
“My dear Eleanor,” he said, sounding very amused, “is this any way to greet relatives who dare to call upon you?”
Eleanor gave him a rude glance. “I have not asked for your opinion, Rory, although, I know you shall give it.”