Chapter Ten #2
For too long, she’d been allowing Asquith and her formidable godmother to make decisions on behalf of all the Wainwright sisters. Eliza felt as if she’d finally been jolted out of a haze of bewildered grief. Tonight, she’d found the conviction she’d been missing for the past two years.
Nothing had been solid or reliable since their parents died mere months apart.
Immediately following their father’s death, Lady Asquith had summoned them here.
As executor of her father’s estate, Asquith had come up with a plan to sell Willowhurst and plump their dowries—after deliberating amongst themselves, they’d all agreed.
Sometimes Eliza wondered if they’d been too hasty.
But Cassie and Annette had been thrilled by the possibility a London Season, Lenora was content to be anywhere she might run into Asquith, and Eliza had felt a responsibility to facilitate her sisters’ happiness.
So, after the appropriate period of mourning, Asquith’s mother had launched the eldest sisters into Society, with plans for the younger three to come out in subsequent years.
In other words, Eliza had allowed the Asquiths’ good intentions and her sisters’ dreams of enviable marital matches to navigate. Now, she would take matters into her own hands.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon had helped her mother’s friend survive a terrible scandal—she must trust the Black Widow to help her do the same.
She just hoped she found Mr. Jonathan Vane tolerable.
And as kissable as Lord Redver had been.
Would she and Vane share a similar camaraderie? She hoped so. She’d enjoyed that part of her meeting with the marquess, too.
Exhausted, and yet pleased with her efforts, she slipped out of her shoes.
“Where,” came a furious whisper, “have you been?”
“I’m sorry to have worried you, Cassie.”
Cassie moved silently in the faint light of dawn, helping Eliza out of her dress. She climbed between the sheets in her shift. She could sense Cassie’s anger in her silence. And waited the inevitable interruption.
“How dare you leave without a word to me where you were going or what you had planned! Hadn’t I been through enough last night?”
“Had I known Godmama would force you to rouse yourself from devastation—”
“Hold on, there! Mocking my tears is mean.”
Eliza hesitated. “I know, Cass.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. You know I must make a jest of everything.”
Cassie sniffed. “I had good reason to be devastated. I had such plans! I was going to save us all by making a brilliant match.”
“You can still make a brilliant match,” Eliza responded consolingly. “Who needs Almack’s to find a husband anyway?”
“Wednesday night assemblies at Almack’s are the place a young lady is most likely to be introduced a proper gentleman. Everyone goes to Almack’s.”
Eliza snorted, stifling a giggle. “We don’t. Not anymore.”
“You’re beastly, Eliza,” Cassandra retorted. But she still chuckled, albeit half-heartedly. “How could you laugh at our misfortunes?”
“Oh!” Eliza clapped her hand against her forehead. “I’ve gone a little mad, I think.”
Madness was the only thing that could make sense out of the night.
Oh, she was perfectly content with her decision to seek out Mrs. Dove-Lyon…but now that she had climbed into bed and was resting against the pillows, she was starting to understand her other decision’s unanticipated consequences.
Consequences like knowing what it was to have a man’s full, undivided attention. Consequences like seeing Redver’s face every time she closed her eyes.
“I had everything worked out perfectly,” Cassie mourned. “You, Millicent, Lenora, and Annette could have all come to live with me. Now, it is all ruined!”
Eliza side-eyed her sister with a smile. “Would your fictitious husband have had anything to say in your plan to house all four of your sisters?”
Cassie huffed and turned away. “I wouldn’t have chosen a man who would begrudge me such a small request. You’re being deliberately contrary…as usual.”
Eliza couldn’t argue. She was always contrary. Especially when she thought she might be in the wrong. And, no matter how overly dramatic Cassie sounded, truth was, they were all still in a terrible fix. She’d a plan, yes. But the plan’s fulfillment was far from certain.
Tentatively, she rubbed Cassie’s lower back. “Again, I’m sorry, love.”
Cassie grunted. “It doesn’t matter, now. I no longer have a choice—it’ll be Harbury or no one. If Harbury will even come up to scratch. I can’t imagine how I am going to smile and curtsey and pretend I’m not appalled by his stupid face—possibly for the rest of my life.”
“Perhaps you won’t have to. We don’t yet know what passed between Asquith and Harbury.”
“Godmama told me—when I was pretending to be you—that she has it all arranged.”
“I heard from Millicent that you lied for me—but that Godmama wouldn’t tell you everything. Was Millie wrong? Did he agree to marry you? Or just to court you?”
“I don’t know yet. But what could ‘all arranged’ mean but courtship and a possible marriage?”
“You can’t marry a man like Father.”
“I don’t want to marry a man like Father.”
“You won’t have to, I swear.”
“What are you going to do? You didn’t disappear into the night to find me a husband, did you?”
“No. I disappeared into the night to find myself one.”
Cassie’s breath hitched. “What do you mean?”
“You asked me where I was. Well, I went to the address we found in the packet of letters. The packet hidden amongst Mama’s things.”
“You didn’t! You went to the Lyon’s Den? On your own? What were you thinking?”
“I am not sure I was. Not clearly, anyway.”
“I can’t believe you. I told you those letters were better left unread.”
Eliza shook her head. “And I told you ignoring the existence of a secret doesn’t protect you from suffering that secret’s consequences.”
Cassie harrumphed. “Well? What happened, then?”
Eliza hesitated. She’d never lied to Cassandra.
Ever. “I can’t tell you everything,” she said carefully.
“I made a…mistake when I first got there, but the mistake isn’t the important part—my agreement with the proprietress is what matters.
She is going to arrange an introduction to a man I selected. ”
“You selected?”
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon assures me Mr. Vane is nothing like Father. He is the kind of man who can be influenced by a wife.”
Cassie was silent for a full minute. Then, she exclaimed, “I can’t like it! My own twin, forced to marry a man she will barely know.”
“Not forced. Choosing to marry a man she can manage rather than allowing her sister to be forced to marry a man she despises.”
“I don’t despise Harbury. How could I? I hardly know him. I’m merely angry with the dismissive way he treated me. Angrier than I’ve ever been.” She paused. “But I don’t want you to wed someone you do not love any more than I wish to be forced on Harbury. How can allow you to make such a sacrifice?”
“Listen.” She placed her hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “For me, a practical match isn’t a sacrifice. I have never dreamt of a love match.”
“Tarradiddle and Bilgewater.”
Eliza groaned. “Let’s stop using that expression, shall we?”
“Why?” Cassie rolled back over. “You say twaddle, I say taradiddle. It has always made us laugh.”
“I—ah—do not find it funny anymore.”
She’d disguised her voice as much as she was able, speaking in a lower tone and with her governess’s perfect elocution, but she had let that one, verbal eccentricity slip.
She doubted he’d forget the unusual use of bilgewater.
What other mistakes had she made?
“You’ve lost your mind,” remarked Cassie.
“Possibly,” Eliza concurred.
The sisters again fell into silence. Dawn slowly brightened the room until she could make out every detail of the perfectly celestial, proper angels carved into the tester. Eliza frowned. Even they appeared to be gazing down in judgment.
Had she been foolish? Or had she valiantly seized opportunity?
Maybe, like every other contradiction she’d been contemplating, both could be true.
“You didn’t like to play married,” Cassandra broke into the silence, “but surely you’ve done some dreaming about your future spouse.”
“I haven’t.” Although she very much feared she was going to dream of Redver tonight. “I’m not like you that way.”
“You’re more like me than you pretend to be. Whenever Harbury brings along that friend of his—the one with the dark hair and menacing expression—I’ve noticed you studying him.”
Eliza’s heart thumped. “Twaddle!”
Cassandra laughed half-heartedly. “Taradiddle! So, it’s the only bilgewater you suddenly find objectionable?”
“Go to sleep, Cassie.” Eliza reached out and tugged the bedcurtains closed, shutting out the daylight. “We’ll get this sorted. You will have your love match, I will find a tolerable husband, and Millicent, Lenora, and Annette will have choices we can’t even imagine at present.”
She willed her words to come true, as if she were casting a spell for the future. Only when she tried to picture that future, the gentleman she saw was Redver.