Chapter 36 #2
“Elizabeth seeks your forgiveness. She desires to make amends so that she can remain close to you. I desire to remain close to her. In fact, I intend to marry her.”
“Marry her?” For a moment Rafe looked as if he might vault over his desk and hurl himself at James’s throat. “You’ve dragged my sister halfway across England and France, and you haven’t married her?”
“Not yet. Though for the sake of propriety, we have been traveling with false marriage papers.”
“You must be as mad as your father,” he growled. “I could kill you.”
“I’ve no doubt skewering me would render you enormous satisfaction. Let me assure you, however, it would be fleeting. I love Elizabeth and she loves me.”
Rafe shot a glance at Elizabeth, who had been standing next to James throughout this exchange. “Is this true?” he demanded.
She reached for James’s hand. His fingers closed around hers. “It is. If you intend to kill James, you might as well kill me. For that is what you will be doing, murdering any chance I might have for marriage and happiness.”
“How very dramatic,” Rafe said, but doubt was beginning to commingle with the anger in his voice.
James heard it and continued. “If you will not listen to Elizabeth, then listen to me. A moment ago, you spoke of madness, you compared me to my father. And he is mad, mad with grief. God knows my sister is becoming nearly as mad with anger at the hand life has dealt her. I had begun to believe I bore the seeds of madness, and that I might pass them along to my children. But now I see it is not madness, but bitterness we have all been carrying. It is destroying us. I will carry it no longer. I warn you, Moreham, do not pick it up—it will destroy your family’s happiness as well. ”
“And so, I should be happy at the prospect of seeing my sister wed to the likes of you?”
“In truth, it is not your happiness that concerns me, Moreham.” James drew Elizabeth closer to his side. “It is hers.”
“If you are so concerned with her happiness, Dinsmore, why haven’t you married her?”
“Oddly enough, Elizabeth desires your approval. Family is important to her—and she is important to me. I love her. So, I am here to ask for her hand in marriage.”
“And if I say no?”
“I came here as a courtesy to Elizabeth. If you say no, I will still marry her. And you can go to hell.”
“Did I say Elizabeth was visiting the Norcrofts of Hartsdale?” Madeleine sipped her tea, affecting an air of indifference. “I may have. Or I may have said the Harts of Nordale. English names, English faces—it is so difficult to keep them straight.”
“Perhaps.” Anne ran a finger around the red and gold rim of her teacup. “But then again, perhaps it is your stories you find so difficult to keep straight.”
“Lady Anne.” Alix stood up. “I believe it is time for you to leave.”
Louisa stood as well. “An excellent idea. A footman will see you to the door.”
Agatha looked up from her tea, bewildered. The conversation had passed too swiftly and too softly for her to understand. “Is it time for the tour of the gardens, then?”
Anne made no move to rise. “I believe the Harcrests have taken society on quite enough pretty tours. Why, between the lot of you, you’ve created a maze of lies large enough to rival the gardens at Hampton Court, and I promise you, by next season, everyone will see their way through them.
Rafe and his astute investments, heroically restoring the fortune that Louisa’s husband and his eldest son drank and squandered.
Astute investments,” she scoffed. “His Lordship has become nothing more than a merchant.” She looked at Alix.
“I wondered if he’d met you before you appeared in London.
Tell me, Lady Moreham, were you part of one of his trades? ”
“How dare you!” Alix’s hand clenched around a butter knife.
“Are you going to challenge me to a duel with the tea things? Slash me up as your beast of a husband did my brother?”
“I should. You deserve it. You, even more than James, are responsible for ruining Elizabeth.”
“I?” Anne’s voice was incredulous. “Elizabeth should have been taught about the risks a woman faces when she leaves a ballroom with a man. She should have been better chaperoned. And she would have been if Rafe had married me.” She rose, facing Alix across the tea table.
“At any rate, I suspect if it hadn’t been James, it would have been some other man. Elizabeth is a fool!”
Amidst the tension no one heard the drawing room door click open.
“It would not have been another man.” Elizabeth’s words carried clearly from the threshold of the drawing room.
The women at the table turned. Even Agatha, who realized something far more dramatic than a garden tour was being discussed, swiveled her head.
For a moment, the exchange of insults was forgotten, lost in the shock of seeing Elizabeth.