Chapter Eighteen
While Adrian and Eliza successfully prevented a potentially disastrous meeting between Harbury and Lady Pennington, Adrian’s much more important conversation with Eliza had been cut short.
Worse still, as Harbury, at the insistence of his sister, Lady Sarah, had since been drawn into the preparations for the Harbury ball. Without Harbury, Adrian had been unable to come up with an excuse to see Eliza, let alone speak privately with her.
She’d kissed him, yes. She’d agreed to be friends with him. But he’d no way of knowing if she was developing a fondness for him, as he was for her.
But Adrian had, just today, gleaned from Emily that Eliza planned to join her sisters at D’Acre house, finally bringing his excruciating week of vacillating between the agonies of uncertainty and the pleasures of possibility to an end.
Following the sound of girlish laughter—a sound alien to the home he remembered—he made his way through in the entry hall of D’Acre house.
He’d lived beneath this roof half a lifetime ago. Then, the house had served as a stage for his father’s fits rage and for his mother’s occasionally vulgar, taunting retorts.
Not the most auspicious memories to have when contemplating the matrimonial state.
He stopped just outside the rear salon, whose eastern and western portions had been combined so that, together, they functioned as a ballroom.
Inside, an oh-so-patient-as-to-be-indulgent dance master called the steps to a tune played on an ornate Broadfield pianoforte dating from his grandfather’s tenure.
Six ladies—Caroline, Emily, and four Wainwrights—formed two lines, three in each. Of the three girls taking the male role, one—Miss Lenora—had tied a fichu about her neck like a cravat and was mimicking the movements of a corseted dandy, much to delight of the others.
His eyes came to rest on the eldest Wainwright in the group. Disappointment seized him as he realized she was not, as he first assumed, Eliza.
He leaned forward, searching the ballroom.
“She’s not in the house at the moment.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. Lady Asquith was making her way through the hall.
“Lady Asquith,” he greeted.
“Lord Redver,” Lady Asquith nodded back. “I’ve been hoping for an opportunity to converse privately.”
Had she? “How may I help you?”
She stood by his side, her posture regal, her expression imperious. “You can start by explaining to me the precise nature of your game. What do you wish to accomplish by inserting yourself into the midst of Harbury’s courtship?”
He studied the dowager.
Would Lady Asquith would prove friend or foe in his pursuit of Eliza? So far, she’d been friend. But he decided to let her reveal her expectations first, before revealing his own.
“Harbury is a close confidant,” he hedged. “We are often together.”
“Tut. Too late for coy. Your courtship, so far, has been audacious.” She lifted a brow. “And know this, should my conjecture be correct, I am not…out of sympathy with you. But let me warn you—I don’t care for lies. You did not set out to win my goddaughter’s hand, did you?”
“I’ll admit to having recently realized that I’ve neglected the public portion of my duty to Emily.”
“That much, I had already assumed.”
“My sister is precious to me.” His gaze followed Emily. “I would see her happily settled. Or…” His voice trailed.
He’d no idea how one went about becoming happily settled. But he was willing to try.
“As happily settled as possible, given our family history.”
“Yes. History.” She adjusted her shawl. “I’ll come to the point. Have your sentiments undergone a change? Are you now truly interested in Eliza?”
He paused to consider his words. “I’ve come to genuinely admire Miss Wainwright.”
“Do you?” she asked, sounding intrigued. “I should inform you, then, you are not the only gentleman in pursuit of my eldest goddaughter.”
He pushed off the column and turned to face her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I sent her driving with Mr. Vane almost an hour ago. For the second time.”
Vane. He frowned. Why was that name familiar?
Vane—finally he placed the name. Vane was that upstart who’d been haunting him at the Den since the fall. Absently, he scratched his thigh.
She’d gone riding with Vane.
Twice.
Last week, Eliza had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him. Today, she’d gone riding with another man. He scratched harder. Was Vane the man, then? The one waiting for her answer?
I said her price was marriage. I did not say she wished to marry you.
“Lord Redver?” Lady Asquith’s startled gaze dropped to his thigh and back. “Are you well?”
He splayed his hand. Dammit. The tisane had been suppressing the itch. What had happened to overpower the tisane’s effect?
“Perfectly,” he lied.
A commotion inside the salon saved him from further inquiry. Emily, he deduced, had missed a step and stumbled over her partner—Miss Lenora, the one with the fake cravat.
Miss Lenora’s back stiffened, and she raised a fake quizzing glass.
“Where did you take your lessons, Miss D’Acre?” she asked, in deep voice.
Emily’s shoulders dropped.
He took a step closer, thinking his sister’s feelings had been hurt. Then, however, he realized she’d simply doubled over with giggles.
“Unseemly display,” Miss Lenora continued in a gentleman’s voice.
Emily laughed even harder.
She was fine, he reassured himself.
Amused. Not insulted.
“You will not be able to protect Miss D’Acre from every slight, you know.”
“I am more than aware of how closely she will be watched.”
Lady Asquith hesitated. “But if you married, Miss D’Acre would also gain the protection of your wife’s family—a precious resource when one must be presented.” She sent him a significant glance. “I know a thing or two about these things.”
“Are you implying you would consider an offer from me for Miss Wainwright’s hand, should I have the temerity to make one?”
“If—and only if—my goddaughter returns your…admiration.” Her gaze ran up and down his person. “To be honest, title or no, you weren’t what I had hoped for Eliza. But I daresay one could a kind of providence. Were you aware Poppy and Olivia were once close confidantes?”
He frowned. “I assume the Olivia in question is my mother. But Poppy?”
“Penelope. Eliza’s mother.” Lady Asquith’s smile suggested she had, temporarily, lost herself in memory.
“I can still see the two of them clear as day…sitting on the bench in the back garden of Asquith House, Poppy with her long, chestnut hair, your mother, fair and blonde. You favor your father. But Emily…”
Yes. He knew. Emily was the picture of their mother. Tall, fair, and with the brightest of blue eyes, a complete contrast to his own sharp, dark features.
“I wasn’t aware you were close to Miss Wainwright’s family.”
“To her grandparents, yes. Perhaps I should remind you my husband was heir presumptive. Over the years, I developed a certain fondness for her mother, too. And yours.”
Adrian compressed his lips. Apart from the Black Widow, he had never heard his mother spoken of in terms of affection.
The unexpected kindness in Lady Asquith’s tone both touched and confused him.
He had the sensation he was standing on a precipice he didn’t understand and couldn’t see. He’d no doubt Lady Asquith was trying to communicate something to him, but he couldn’t fathom her aim.
“Poppy was so unhappy. As was your mother before she left for the continent. Poppy always looked forward to letters from Olivia. They exchanged letters throughout their lives, you know.”
That made him turn.
After the crim. con. case and his parents’ subsequent divorce, his mother, as far as he knew, had only ever exchanged letters with Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
“The letters stopped, though, about a year before Poppy’s death. That would have been, let’s see, three years ago?”
He swallowed. “I did not keep in touch with my mother.”
Lady Asquith held his gaze. “Didn’t you?”
“No,” he said.
Lady Asquith sighed. “You were the apple of Olivia’s eye, at least until Emily was born. Although Poppy said Olivia eventually found some happiness, I never forgave your father for separating mother from daughter.”
And that hadn’t been the worst of his father’s sins. If Lady Asquith only knew…
Dissonant, the light-spirited music chimed from the pianoforte. The itch he’d been startled into ignoring again grew insistent.
“If you pardon, Lady Asquith. I…” He’d no explanation for his sudden need to be gone from the conversation…from the very house. “If you’ll excuse me…” He turned around and headed blindly for the door.
His heels made a satisfying clacking noise against the marble of the passageway. The temporary relief evaporated as entered the main hall with its myriad of mirrors in every direction.
In himself, he saw his father. In his mind’s eye, his mother—not haranguing his father, but weeping.
Although Poppy said Olivia eventually found some happiness…
He quickened his step, but his escape was arrested by the door opening.
The afternoon sun silhouetted two figures standing on the threshold—a man and a woman. The woman stepped forward into focus, her hair of darkest chestnut.
Just like the Blackbird’s…
He frowned at the outlandishness of his own imagination.
What a ridiculous thought!
A mere coincidence, that Eliza and the Blackbird shared the same rich shade of hair…
After having removed his hat, the man came into the house as well. At once, he recognized Mr. Vane.
Although Vane had been attempting to deepen their acquaintance since they’d first been introduced, Adrian had never truly studied him. Now, he noticed Mr. Vane had pale, blond hair and vibrantly blue eyes.
A sense of cold recognition seized Adrian.
“Lord Redver.” Mr. Vane bowed. “I’m delighted to see you.”
Adrian continued to stare. Vane had always been irritatingly ingratiating. Too encroaching.
Perhaps that was why Adrian had never noticed such a familiar blond. Or perhaps he’d never noticed because most of the times he’d seen the man had been in the dark confines of the Lyon’s Den?