CHAPTER FIVE #2
‘Even James could not shake him awake.’
‘Given the chance, I would have shaken him harder, but I was banished from my own bedchamber.’
‘He was very contrite next morning.’ Amelia grinned.
‘He was very hungover.’
‘And you do not normally eat such a full breakfast, Cousin. He did look decidedly unwell at the sight of your plate.’
‘He did, did he not.’ Elizabeth’s eyes glittered.
Both young ladies then collapsed laughing, and Elizabeth only regained her composure when Amelia returned to the subject of the previous evening.
‘So, do tell me, Elizabeth, what Mr Escott said to you that put you in such a temper. I overheard Lord Templecombe say you looked so fierce that he did not dare approach you.’
‘Then some good at least came of the encounter. Lord 71Templecombe is such a bore, and thinks himself highly amusing.’
‘But Mr Escott?’
‘Oh Amelia, he really did call me “goddess”, to my face.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘He did, I promise you. And he speaks with the most weird emphases in his speech, as if trying out each phrase for use in a stanza. Fortunately, at the point where I might have had to “accidentally” throw a glass of wine over him, he suddenly had inspiration for a poem and walked away, without so much as a bow or word of valediction.’
‘How rude of him.’
‘I was just glad he went. He had me all on edge, and then—’
‘Then what?’ Amelia’s curiosity made her interrupt again.
‘Oh, it is nothing. I went in search of Helen Godmanchester. Lord Godmanchester spoke to me, and he had Sir Lucius Radstock by him. They had clearly seen everything, and thought it funny. Sir Lucius’ – Elizabeth nearly ground her teeth – ‘was particularly entertained. Perhaps I should have sold tickets.’
‘He is rather intimidating.’
‘No such thing, Amelia. You must not be afraid of men who simply like to act clever.’
‘I am not sure that it is an act.’
‘Hmm.’ Whilst she would not admit such a thing, Elizabeth knew that Amelia was right.
There was no danger of Sir Lucius being slow to get one’s hidden meaning.
If only he did not seem to mock with those grey eyes of his, and that slight smile.
She felt at a disadvantage with him, 72and Elizabeth was most unwilling to be in that position with any gentleman.
‘Elizabeth?’
‘I am sorry?’
‘I asked if Lady Godmanchester would be remaining in London for the whole Season, in view of her condition. Mama said she is increasing.’
‘I do not know, Amelia. It is hardly my place to enquire. I suppose it will depend upon what advice she is given by her doctor, and upon Lord Godmanchester.’
‘Ah yes, of course. They will know best.’ Amelia nodded sagely.
Elizabeth blinked at her cousin’s blithe and total acceptance of male superiority, and opened her mouth to speak, but thought the better of it.
It was incomprehensible to her, and yet she knew her aunt believed the same and was perfectly happy in that belief.
To disabuse Amelia might be to make her life less comfortable.
‘I expect Lady Godmanchester will be glad to get back to the country, and her little boy. It is so much nicer and less fraught.’ Amelia sighed.
‘I thought you could not wait for your come-out? Are you disillusioned already, Amelia?’
‘No, not disillusioned. It is terribly good fun, but … I think it will be very tiring after a while, and London is getting hot and stuffy.’
‘It is nice if you walk in the mornings. The afternoon promenade is far more fatiguing.’
‘But getting up early is difficult. I nearly fell asleep again this morning, and last night we were not even at a ball, so I had not been dancing all evening.’
73‘Yet you did not seek your bed when we arrived home this afternoon.’
‘Oh no. I do not feel the least tired now. It is just in the mornings that I feel the perfect sluggard.’
‘You ought to meet my horse, though on second thoughts he never ceases to feel the sluggard. If it were but a morning malaise I could ride properly in the afternoons.’
‘I prefer to be driven, then one may converse without worry.’
‘Worry?’
‘Horses are unpredictable. The coachman is far more capable of keeping them under control from his box than I am sitting upon one.’ She looked at Elizabeth’s incomprehension. ‘I know you think me a sad, weak creature not to enjoy riding, but there you are.’
‘I am sorry, Cousin. I accept it is merely a difference of opinion, but I cannot understand it. Yet you must not think that I condemn you as weak because of it. Now …’
At this moment the butler entered with a missive, delivered, he said, by Mr Escott.
‘He did not ask to see me, did he, Ribston?’ Elizabeth eyed the butler with concern.
‘No, miss. He merely requested that it be brought to you. No response is, I believe, required.’
Elizabeth took the note with rising apprehension, and broke the wafer. She groaned.
‘Bad news, Elizabeth?’
‘In a sense, yes. Here is the result of last night’s inspiration. Good grief, there are six stanzas of it.’
‘Ooh, how exciting.’
74‘Not at all. He has added a note at the end.’ She paused.
‘He says that this kept him up until “Aurora’s advent”, but that he thinks it is one of his best and wishes me to see it before he, oh no, reads it at a “poetic gathering” tomorrow night at Lady Cowper’s.
We have invitations for that. I can feel my sick headache coming on already, Amelia.
You are warned. He …’ She paused, and then, to Amelia’s surprise, began to read the poem aloud.
It was greeted by stunned silence. Elizabeth continued to read silently to the end of the missive, her cheeks gradually becoming suffused with colour, and she did not make any further comment.
With unusual tact, Amelia did not pry, thinking the verses simply too awful.
They were, but were not Elizabeth’s primary concern, and she left her cousin almost immediately, her brow furrowed.
In the privacy of her room, Elizabeth unfolded the letter again. The verses were bad, and that annoyed and embarrassed her, but what was worse was Mr Escott’s conclusion.
The difference that your Pulchritudinous Presence has made, even in so Swift a time, to my works, inclines me strongly to the belief that you were Sent by the Omnipotent to Inspire Me in all my Doings.
You Must know already, how I revere You, most excellent Maiden.
I am Convinced that You will not only be the Ideal Helpmeet, but the Lydia to my Horace, and a Fount of Felicity.
Be Assured that it shall not be long before I Reveal All, Offer All, and Anticipate your Acceptance with Joy.
75Elizabeth sat upon her bed heavily. It was, of course, quite ridiculous.
No man could fall in love with a woman upon the basis of two public encounters, and indeed Mr Escott did not mention ‘love’ at all.
He had simply decided she enabled him to write better poetry – though on the evidence of the stanzas before her she doubted this – and therefore assumed she would be pleased to marry him to advance his ‘career’.
Were it not so appalling it would be laughable.
Her first thought was to cry off from any evening parties that she thought he might attend, but common sense told her that to do so would be impossible, and that it might even encourage him, thinking her overwhelmed by the honour he did her.
That she despised him, and that until the next month she was underage and could only enter into an engagement with her uncle’s permission, had clearly not occurred to him.
His self-belief was total. Well, he was in for a shock.
Elizabeth looked grim. He would find his plans overset, and that his ‘goddess’ was the sort who was quite capable of launching thunderbolts.