CHAPTER ONE
ELKINGTON HALL
Miss Eliza Wingfield had been lurking in a quiet corner of the Elkington Midsummer Ball, sipping a glass of orgeat and watching the comings and goings in the ballroom for several minutes, talking with Lady Matilda Calthorpe in low tones when a frisson of murmurs ran through the crowd.
The Duchess of Elkington was proclaiming loudly that she expected Lord D’Asti to propose to her daughter, Lady Catherine Stewart, that very night.
Everyone was gossiping about that fact when Eliza spotted her sister, Susan, in the entrance hall with Matilda’s sister, Lady Eugenia, who looked quite stricken, and as if she was considering bolting from the party at the Duchess of Elkington’s words, until Susan gripped her arm and gently propelled her forward, murmuring something in her ear that made Lady Eugenia take a deep breath and nod.
Lady Matilda leaned over and gently prodded Eliza in the ribs.
“Do you think Her Grace is talking that loudly about Lord D’Asti’s expected proposal because she saw my sister and wants to send the message that he’s taken?”
Eliza darted a guarded glance around them, trying to make sure that no one was paying them undue attention over Matilda’s words.
When she replied, her words were measured and careful because the Duchess’ daughter, Lady Catherine, was actually quite close to them, delicately plucking a glass of orgeat off the refreshment table, and might very well hear them.
“Perhaps so, but I wouldn’t concern myself with such things if I were you. I think you and I should just be grateful that we have the luxury of living outside the spotlight. There are benefits to being a wallflower, after all, and chief among them is that no one notices us.”
Lady Matilda laughed and nodded, the candles’ glow casting a warm golden hue in her dark mahogany-brown hair.
“Right you are. I’m deeply grateful to be the quiet one that hardly anybody ever notices, especially after how difficult things were for poor Eugenia after The Society Reporter eviscerated her in that awful article after Lady Duncan’s Ball this past March.
It was terrible. I’d hate to be put in that position. ”
Eliza hummed her agreement as the two of them watched Eugenia and Susan, hovering close to the entrance hall.
Curiosity burned in Eliza’s veins, but she knew that all would be revealed in due time if they simply waited and watched.
No sooner had Eliza thought it, than the two started across the room, then, on their way to the refreshment table.
Suddenly, Susan and Eugenia paused as they came across Miss Lydia Errington, who curtsied stiffly when she saw them, her lips pinched as if she’d just tasted something unpleasant.
Eliza and Lady Matilda sucked in a gasp in unison, both waiting to see how this little encounter might play out in light of what they’d heard of recent events.
They held their breath, not even blinking and straining to hear what might pass between the two.
Lady Eugenia took a deep breath and returned Lydia’s curtsey with a graceful one of her own before stepping close to Lydia and speaking so quietly that only Lydia and Susan could hear her, much to Eliza’s disappointment.
She would have loved to hear whatever Eugenia had just said.
Whatever Eugenia had said, it must have struck a nerve, because Miss Errington turned positively grey and began trembling.
Eugenia gave the girl a placid, victorious smile as she brushed past her to retrieve a glass of orgeat.
She and Susan both grabbed glasses and nodded to Lady Matilda and Eliza before rushing back over to hover beside the entrance once again.
Eliza grimaced, nodding at their sisters’ retreating backs.
“I’d much rather be invisible than have a target on my back.
Our poor sisters have both been through such unfortunate drama on their respective paths to happiness — though it seems that Eugenia’s still hangs in the balance at this very moment — that it almost makes me wary of ever pursuing matrimony if one must run such an awful gauntlet on the way to the altar. ”
Lady Matilda’s eyebrows shot up at that, her blue eyes rounded with shock as she surveyed Eliza.
“Are you saying you don’t want to get married at all?”
“Not necessarily.” Eliza’s cheeks heated with a blush as she gestured at herself.
“I want a family and children, of course, but I fear I have quite the different outlook on matrimony than most of our peers. So many girls only care about status and money. Most of them fling themselves at a man for his rank and wealth, regardless of his personality, and I can’t bring myself to be that way.
When I marry, I want it to be because I love the man I’m marrying, and he loves me.
However, I must admit that I find the idea of a man falling in love with me rather far-fetched when I am more than a stone heavier than is considered fashionable, and there are plenty of lean, pretty girls who will have better prospects than I do, simply based on the fact that they have beautiful faces and waifish, delicate bodies. ”
“You have a beautiful face, too!”
Lady Matilda’s protest was both vehement and heartfelt, but Eliza had a hard time imagining any man pursuing her, with her more than ample curves and cherubic, round face.
“You are too kind.”
Eliza’s voice was soft, maybe a little misty at the edges from her friend’s sweet proclamation, and she looked around the ballroom in search of a reason to change the subject.
On the other side of the room, the Duke of Elkington stood beside his mother, a pained expression etched into his handsome face as the Duchess all but shoved a thin, well-bred young lady at him.
She had perfectly coiffed raven-black hair, which was the exact same colour as his, and big, dark eyes.
The expression on the Duchess of Elkington’s face was determined — hungry, even — and Eliza thought that she might have heard the Duchess mention something about a fine match, and the Duke’s duty to marry and have children.
She cringed and nodded in his direction.
“Look at the poor Duke, being reminded that he has a duty to marry and reproduce, all while the well-meaning Duchess — who surely only wants the absolute best for her beloved son — shoves a girl he couldn’t be more disinterested in, at him.
The girl has likely been picked for her good looks, good breeding, and her rank, among other things, I’m sure.
It all sounds rather awfully transactional, doesn’t it?
I feel sorry for the man, to be so constantly bombarded by women who probably don’t care one whit who he is or how he feels.
All they care about is the prospect of becoming a Duchess and the power and security that might afford them. It’s positively abhorrent.”
“That’s the way the world works, Eliza, whether we like it or not.”
Lady Matilda sighed, shaking her head.
“All I’m saying is that I hope the Duke is afforded the opportunity to find true love and real companionship in whomever he marries. There is hardly a woman in the world who would say no if he were to propose to them, but would they stop to consider his happiness, his wants and needs, at all?”
Lady Matilda opened her mouth, as if to refute what Eliza was saying, but subsequently snapped it shut with a small shake of her head and curiosity glittering in her blue eyes. Finally, she cleared her throat and spoke.
“Do you believe in true love?”
“I’d certainly like to.” Eliza murmured, and smoothed the front of her pale champagne-coloured dress. “I could never agree to marry a man unless I believed that we were truly in love with each other, which is why I am most assuredly going to end up a spinster.”
Lady Catherine Stewart stood stock-still, shamelessly eavesdropping on the two self-proclaimed wallflowers hovering by the refreshment table.
She could hardly help it, especially since they were discussing her beloved older brother, the Duke of Elkington.
She had expected, of course, to hear the two of them both longing for Raphe to ask them to dance, much the same way that every other single girl in the ballroom did, so the course of their conversation caught Catherine very much off-guard.
She nearly choked on her orgeat when the rather plump blonde declared that she felt sorry for the poor Duke.
Catherine had never heard anyone speak as candidly as that young lady.
More than that, the girl was the first one that Catherine had ever heard have any concern at all for her brother’s wants and feelings.
It was utterly refreshing, to say the least.
With a sly smile, Lady Catherine placed her now-empty glass on a passing footman’s tray and determinedly wound her way through the crowded ballroom to Raphe’s side, where he’d just signed his name on the black-haired girl’s dance card, to appease their mother.
Catherine looped her arm through Raphe’s and offered the girl a bright smile.
“I beg your pardon, but I have need of my brother for a moment.” Without waiting for a response, Catherine all but dragged Raphe away from their sweet but far-too-meddlesome mother, tugging insistently on his arm until they were in a quiet alcove well away from everyone else in the ballroom, and most certainly out of earshot of their mother and the waiting young lady whose gaze had never once left Raphe, despite Catherine dragging him away.
“I know you do not appreciate being meddled with, brother, which is half the reason I just dragged you away from Mama.”
Raphe cocked one of his thick, dark eyebrows at her.
“And the other half?”
Catherine bit her lip for a second and tried not to look guilty.
“Based on what I just had the absolute pleasure of overhearing at the refreshment table, I came to tell you that I think you should ask the blonde girl, who is currently trying her best to melt into the woodwork and make herself invisible, to dance.”
Raphe’s gaze flicked around the ballroom until he spotted the girl Catherine was referring to, then turned his attention back to his sister with a frown.
“She looks as if she’s trying her hardest not to be noticed at all. Why should I not respect those wishes, Catherine?”
Catherine grinned at her brother and patted him on the cheek, a glint of mischief dancing in her green eyes.
“That, my dear brother, is for me to know and you to discover for yourself. Just promise me that you’ll do it. Ask her to dance.”
Raphe frowned harder, narrowing his piercing blue eyes at Catherine suspiciously.
“Are you trying to force me to make a scene to distract mother from trying to throw you at Lord D’Asti again? What do you have against the man, anyway? He seems a perfectly decent fellow.”
Catherine huffed a sigh and rolled her eyes, praying that her brother did not see a visible blush in her heating cheeks.
“I am simply not interested in Lord D’Asti, perfectly decent fellow or not. And I’m not trying to force you to make a scene. Just… trust me and ask the girl to dance.”
Raphe crossed his arms and eyed his younger sister, his suspicion growing with every moment that passed.
“You are behaving even more strangely than you usually do, Catherine, and that is saying something. What are you up to? You aren’t trying to play some kind of cruel joke on the poor girl, are you?”
His gaze snapped back to the voluptuous blonde across the room from them.
She kept her gaze determinedly averted from everyone who passed her by, her attention mostly on the other girl she was speaking with as the two hovered together, well away from the dance floor.
The pair seemed perfectly happy to be wallflowers, from what Raphe could see.
“It most certainly is not a cruel joke!” Catherine snapped, planting her hands on her hips as she glared up at him. “Are you going to ask her to dance or not?”
Continued….