Chapter Five
Eliza had plenty of time to calm herself as she waited, sipping a hot cup of rum-laced cider Hermia had brought. Redver had been everything she’d expected him to be—haughty, concerned chiefly with his own needs, and considerably skilled at manipulation.
But she hadn’t been prepared for him to be both terrifyingly tempting and curiously compelling as well. They’d never been introduced. They’d barely conversed. And yet, she felt as if she knew him.
As if, with time and experience, they could mean more to one another. Which was absurd. She hated him. And yet, when he’d tasted her, she’d felt delicious. Could one feel delicious?
One must be able to feel delicious.
He’d been as succulent as a nectar-plumped plum, as juicy as the apple slice bobbing slowly in the rum. Even now, the phantom experience of his touch ran rampant over her skin. Every breath she drew renewed the aching tenderness in her lips.
She held a hand to her cheek.
At least she’d had the presence of mind to insist he cover his eyes. Her presence here must be kept secret, or she would never be able to mend her reputation, let alone give her sisters a second chance.
Such a discovery was—she reassured herself—an unlikely event, given that she and her sisters had been sent to bed an hour before she’d left and were never disturbed by servants or her godmother’s family at night.
Still—she’d dallied with Harbury’s friend, and she’d liked the dalliance.
She had to subdue the part of her that desperately wanted to see him again.
As soon as the door latch clicked, Eliza stood, hastily straightening her dress. She had been looking forward to meeting the infamous proprietress, but the woman who entered was not at all what she expected.
Though beautifully attired, she was, as Eliza had been earlier this evening, fully veiled. Hers, however, was no makeshift production furnished out of a fichu, but a swathe of fine, black net hanging from a stylish, equally black hat.
In fact, every inch of her clothing was the color of coal. Even the beads glittering on her bodice were jet.
“As the night, I understand, has been a trying one for you,” the woman said darkly, “I will forgive your intrusion. This time.”
Eliza suppressed a shiver.
“Next time you wish to meet with me, Elizabeth Wainwright, you will make an appointment.”
“How do you know who I am?” Eliza demanded. “I’ve told no one.”
“I make it my business to know everyone who comes and goes beneath my roof.”
Eliza frowned. “Even so, how did you know I wasn’t Cassandra? My own godmother sometimes confuses us.”
“Please sit.” The widow extended her black-gloved hand to the chair.
Eliza did as she was bid.
“I cannot speak to what your godmother can and cannot see. Only to what I know.” She folded her hands against the desk.
“Miss Wainwright and Miss Cassandra Wainwright made their debut at Almack’s this evening.
Miss Cassandra was drawn into a waltz, possibly against her will, and both girls were then banished. ”
The Black Widow’s veil moved with her breath in a manner so disorienting, Eliza failed to summon a response to her terse summary.
“A chit meek enough to allow Harbury to draw her into a waltz rather than stamp smartly on his slipper would hardly have the temerity to sneak into a gaming hell in the middle of the night, would she?”
That brought Eliza back to her senses. “Cassandra’s gentle nature is not at fault for our predicament.”
“Perhaps. But am I wrong about your nature?”
“No,” Eliza conceded. “Only I would not have been so obvious as to tread on Harbury’s shoe. I would have used the stick pin I keep tucked in my glove—”
The Black Widow’s chuckle made Eliza start.
She resumed, “I gather, however, that word of our disgrace already spread?”
“Your sister’s name—linked to Harbury’s—appears in a significant number of entries in tonight’s betting book.”
“Animals,” Eliza spat.
“Men are, aren’t they?” She studied Eliza for a long, speculative moment. “Vicious beneath their glossy exterior. Difficult to…manage, unless you’ve the right blend of qualities…”
How odd it was to converse with someone without being able to see them! Eliza had no means to discern the woman’s sentiments, no way to tell if she was gaining favor with the woman or not.
“Before we discuss your reasons for covertly entering the Den, I would first like to know how you came to seek me out.”
Eliza reached into the pocket hidden within her skirt and pulled out several papers. She slid them across the desk.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon moved the candle closer and carefully unfolded the notes. Then, she poured over the contents as if she’d all the time in the world.
As if the night and Society’s vultures weren’t already closing in.
For the most part, silence weighted the air. At one section, however, Mrs. Dove-Lyon inhaled sharply, and at another, she paused to look away before resuming her study. Finally, she carefully refolded the packet and returned it to Eliza.
The letters had not been franked but clandestinely exchanged with her mother, and they’d been signed only with an O, leaving much unknown about their source. Eliza had hoped Mrs. Dove-Lyon would give her a clue to the identity of the author.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon did not satisfy Eliza’s curiosity.
She simply asked, “Was your mother’s unhappiness, as confirmed in these letters, a surprise to you?”
“No. We saw little enough of my father, but little was more than sufficient for me to form an understanding of his true character.”
Her father, publicly beloved squire, Parliament’s premier orator, ready to lend a hand to all was, in private, petty, vindictive, and cruel. And the object of his greatest fury was the aristocratic wife who failed to provide him with an heir.
“My mother paid the price of her father’s choice for her husband.”
The Black Widow nodded. “In her shoes, would you have exposed his character?”
“I wish it had been in my power,” Eliza answered bitterly.
“And if—” the widow templed her fingers and leaned forward—“your mother had left him, would you have understood?”
Her question should have shocked Eliza. But the authoress of the letters she’d read had clearly made such a decision.
Eliza considered. She had always been frustrated by the acquiescent way her mother submitted to her father’s demands. But, if her mother had left her father, only a fool would have expected her to take along her five, young girls.
Would Eliza have forgiven her mother if she’d left them all behind?
Her eyes smarted.
“We would have all been ruined.”
They’d been ruined anyway.
“But surely,” Eliza continued, “it is not right to be condemned to perpetual unhappiness for a single, poor choice, especially if you had little say in the matter? I can’t—I won’t—have Cassandra sentenced to the same kind of union—a union as she’d have with Harbury.”
Never mind that Cassandra wouldn’t survive marriage to a man like that—a man who would see his wife only as the conduit for an heir.
Their mother hadn’t.
“Understandable,” the Black Widow said. “Admirable, even. But finding a solution won’t be easy.”
Eliza’s already wretched heart sunk further.
The Black Widow folded her hands on the desk.
“You have not yet reached your majority. Therefore, you cannot simply run away from your troubles. Besides, the only profitable lines of work available to you would sink your family into further disgrace. You’ve four younger sisters whose welfare hangs in the balance. So, that leaves marriage.”
Eliza swallowed through a too-dry throat. “I was afraid that might be the case.”
“You’ve stated you do not wish Cassandra to be forced into a union with Harbury. But what of your own ambitions? To save your sister, would you be willing to sacrifice yourself on the marital altar?”
“Not indiscriminately,” Eliza carefully replied. “However, if I could find a man unlike my father, Harbury, and their ilk in every way, a man who was also willing to make an arrangement with me, I would consider marriage an acceptable solution.”
The image of the Marquess of Redver danced in front of her eyes. She shuttered that thought. Harbury’s friend was the last man on earth she would agree to marry.
The Black Widow inclined her head. “I have been known to facilitate such matches. In in every case, I’ve found exactly the type of man the lady preferred. I assume you’ve given the matter more thought than your father?”
She hadn’t.
Cassandra, Lenora, and Annette had always been the ones nattering on about choosing their perfect beau. She and Millicent had been more likely to be found trailing the gamekeeper than sitting inside, quietly playing “lady of the house.”
Only, after kissing Redver, she had to admit that men were able to provide at least one useful service. Her back touched the chair at the point Redver’s hand had touched her waist. Instinctively her own hand rose to her throat, mimicking the brush of his lips against her nape.
No.
That had been…cavorting, not marriage.
What was marriage?
An intermittent, restless presence in a crumbling country manor. A malicious troll that—at random times—appeared, took command, and then reordered everything to his liking, even down to relegating his own children to the nursery because what good were girls anyway?
All she knew of marriage was that it made a sad house into an intolerable, chaotic one.
Or that’s what Eliza had seen of the only marriage she’d had a chance to study at length.
She stared directly at the veil. “If I must marry, I’d only accept a man I can influence. I man who would take not only my needs, but my opinions, into account. I don’t intend to be an easy wife.”
“I never expected that you would.” The widow sounded as if she were smiling. “I’m certain, I could find you such a man. There is, however, the matter of payment.”
“Payment,” Eliza repeated.
She glanced down at the ruby cluster passed down to her by her grandmother.