Chapter Five
Ava was running down the stairs, pulling on her gloves preparatory for her morning ride, when the front doorbell rang and Creighton, their excellent butler, opened the door to reveal the Marquess of Ravenshaw.
She stuttered to a halt on the stairs, halfway down, her heart lurching and thudding at the sight of him.
He was clad in a driving coat with multiple capes over a blue jacket and fawn breeches, with spotless, white-topped boots. As always, his dress was understated, fashionably elegant, and precise to a pin.
“Good morning, Creighton, is the duke at home?” he asked, surrendering his hat and coat.
Taking the garments, Creighton said, “For you, he is, my lord. In the breakfast parlor.”
At that point, Ravenshaw looked up and saw Ava on the stairs. His incredibly blue eyes held hers for a breathless moment, before he smiled with practiced ease.
She continued down the stairs to the hall, saying, “Ravenshaw, what brings you to us so early?”
“I’m leaving town for a spell. Just calling to bid you all farewell.”
Leaving? He was leaving. Now? It was the beginning of the season. “Where are you going?”
“Northumberland. My estates are sadly neglected. It is time I set them to rights.”
“Oh?” Her voice sounded hollow. “What brought this on? I thought you hated the place.”
“My circumstances are about to change,” he said with an air of seriousness she had never seen in him before. Her stomach dropped at the implication. The countess . . .
“So, it’s true? You’re going to marry the countess?
” she asked, her voice raspy with shock.
I was right—about everything! I was always, and always will be, a child to him!
It felt like another life in which he had kissed her passionately that night at Lady Bellingham’s ball.
Never by word or look since had she gleaned that he wished to repeat the experience.
“I’ve asked her,” he said. “I’m hopeful of receiving a positive reply upon my return.”
Ava blinked, her throat tight. An annihilating humiliation hit her in the solar plexus. This was worse than Devonshire House, worse than the Bellingham ball. Her dreams were finally and irrevocably shattered. Pride made her stiffen and reel in her emotions. He must not see how devastated I am.
“How could you not?” she said stiffly, her lips numb.
“I understand I’m to wish you happy as well,” he said. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes like his smiles usually did.
She laughed, and it had a slightly hysterical edge to it that she hoped he didn’t notice.
“Why yes, though nothing is official yet. Did Robert tell you?”
“He did.” He took her hand and kissed it.
“I do most sincerely hope you will be happy Ava; Haldane is a good man.” He kissed her cheek and walked past her to the stairs.
She turned and watched him mount them with his usual casual grace.
He didn’t look back, and she swallowed, watching him through a mist of tears. My heart is breaking.
*
Two days later
“Rey, what am I going to do?” Ava said in despair.
“There isn’t a lot you can do, my poppet” said Reynard Fairbanks, the Earl of Lannister, seating himself beside Ava on the garden bench, wither they had fled from Lady Allworthy’s ballroom. “If the die is truly cast . . .”
“She hasn’t accepted him yet, but why would she refuse him?”
Lannister looked slightly amused and said, “If a man knew what a woman’s motivations for anything were, he would be wise indeed.”
“Oh, do be serious!” she begged, slapping his arm. “I have cried myself sick for two days! The only reason I am here is to see you.”
Sobering he said, “Yes, I thought you weren’t looking your best. But if she hasn’t accepted, then all is not lost yet.”
“It hardly makes a difference; my dreams are shattered. I hoped after he kissed me at Lady Bellingham’s ball that what he felt for me was stronger than affection and liking.
I thought I had time to convince him I was grown up and to see me differently.
I realize now that I was wrong. I feel so humiliated. ”
“Ah—no.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I’ve seen the way he follows you with his eyes. The look in them. That is not the look of indifference”
“What then?”
“The kind of passion that will drive a man to sacrifice everything for the woman he loves, even his own life.” Something in Lannister’s tone made the words believable. As if he knew what he was talking about.
Ava’s heart leaped at these words. “You are giving me hope when I had convinced myself to have none. It is cruel!” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “He has offered for the countess.”
Lannister clasped her hand tightly. “I am telling you what I have seen. I am not mistaken.”
“But if that is true, why has he asked the countess to marry him? If he has changed his mind about marrying, why hasn’t he approached me? Told me how he feels? He must know how much I care for him. I never made a secret of it.”
Lannister shrugged. “I don’t know his reasons for holding off.
He obviously thinks they are sufficient.
But as for him knowing your feelings—my dear, you are an incorrigible flirt.
He is accustomed to seeing you play one suitor against another over the past year.
How is he to know what is real and what is not, when half the men in the ton are dazzled by you? ”
“But he must know he is different; I don’t flirt with him.” Even if he gave me the chance.
“No and you are not friends with him either, as you are with me.”
“We used to be,” she said wistfully. “Then everything changed after Devonshire House, when he made it clear I was just a little girl to him. And it got even worse after the Bellingham ball.” She sighed.
“I thought he finally saw me as a woman when he kissed me. But ever since then, he has been positively avoiding me.”
“He doesn’t look at you like he thinks you are a little girl, I can assure you of that.”
“But why must he marry that woman now? He has always maintained such a set against marriage.”
“I suspect because of your imminent engagement to Haldane.”
“But I’m not going to be engaged to Haldane! I told Robert I would think about it, meaning to let him down gently. I should have refused outright! Rob must have taken that as my consent and told Ravenshaw it was settled.”
“Presumably, yes.”
“So, he was laboring under a misapprehension when he asked her?”
“It would seem so.”
“Then I must tell him it is not so! Oh, why did I lead him to think it was settled when I spoke to him before? My stupid pride! My only instinct was to cover up my humiliation!” She clasped her hands. “If only he had not already left London! He must be almost in Northumberland by now.”
“You could write to him?”
“I suppose . . .” She chewed her lip and shook her head. “No. Things have progressed so far with the countess that he will feel he cannot back out now. I know such things are of importance to gentlemen, and Ravenshaw is every inch a gentleman. I must see him in person to persuade him.”
“Then you will have to wait until he returns.”
Ava sprang up agitated. “It may be too late by then! The countess may write to him giving her consent. I must go to Northumberland and see him.”
“Ava, you can’t do that!” Lannister eyes widened in shock.
She shrugged. “I can ride. It will take me what, three days?”
“Are you mad? You can’t ride all the way to Northumberland on your own!”
“I can. I am perfectly capable of doing that.” Ava jutted her chin stubbornly. She was an excellent horsewoman, Jerome had always said so, and no better judge of horse riding could be found than the Marquess of Ravenshaw. He was a bruising rider and a member of the Four Horse Club.
“But think of the scandal, my dear girl! Troubridge would have an apoplexy! And rightly so.” If even Lannister thinks my scheme too wild . . . She sank down on the seat beside him again, momentarily defeated.
“It is too dangerous by far for you to make a such a journey on your own. Particularly on horseback.” Lannister went on.
“Urgh!” Ava drummed her heels in irritation. “It is so frustrating to be a female!”
“Now promise me you won’t do something so harebrained!”
She wriggled uncomfortably under his minatory gaze. Rey was seldom serious, but when he was, one got the feeling he could do things one would regret. He confirmed that with the next words. “If you do, I will tell your brother.”
“You wouldn’t! He would shoot you!”
Lannister’s lips twitched. “I am almost tempted, just to see him try. He has been threatening to shoot me for two years.”
“Oh, do be serious. You wouldn’t betray me to Rob.”
“If you attempt to go off on your own, I will be forced to, for your own safety; or go after you myself.”
“Would you?”
“Of course I would!” he said roughly.
“Oh Rey, you’re so sweet!” She played with her handkerchief a moment, her thoughts a jumbled mess. Then an idea struck her. Sitting up, she fixed him with an anxious stare. “If you won’t let me go on my own, would you escort me?”
“Good God, that’s just as bad, Ava! It’s a three-day trip at minimum, probably four by coach—”
“We wouldn’t go by coach. We could take your curricle, couldn’t we?”
“No, not for a journey of that distance,” he said firmly.
“Oh, very well . . .”
“And how would we explain ourselves? I’m known on the North Road, Ava. I would be recognized.”
“I could wear a veil so no one shall see my face. It would not be out of character for you to be seen with a veiled female, would it?”
“No,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Well then—” She placed a hand on his arm and leaned in pleadingly. “Please Rey! My happiness depends upon it!”
“But what happens when we get there? Even if your brother doesn’t murder me, Ravenshaw will. If we’re caught, you’d have to marry me, not Ravenshaw, you realize that?”
“We won’t be caught,” she insisted. “And if we were, I should just refuse. Rob can’t make me marry you.”
“Well thank you my sweet, but you’re overlooking a minor point of honor. I would be obliged to marry you whether we liked it or not. And as much as I adore you, I’d rather not be forced into marriage at gunpoint. Even with your enchanting self.”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “For I won’t have Haldane now. How dare Rob set it about I had already accepted him! I’m so furious with him. It will serve him right to be worried about me when I vanish.”
“You don’t mean to tell him where you are going?”
“Of course not. He would come after me and stop me. I must reach Ravenshaw before he does so.”
“If he figures out we are both missing, he is likely to think we have eloped. You do realize that?”
“Oh yes, that would be famous, for it will put him off the scent!”
“Ava, you are incorrigible.”
“Yes, I know,” she said smugly. She felt much better now she had a plan of action.
She would make this one last effort to secure her future happiness, and if it failed—her heart quailed at the notion—if it failed, she would know she had tried.
But she had to believe it would succeed, for if it didn’t, her life would not be worth living anyway.