CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
Elizabeth forbore to tell her that she had not met that large a number of people in her seventeen secluded years.
Part of her wanted to warn her in her innocence that, in the end, she would find her ‘god’ had feet of clay, and yet there was nothing that she could think of that might occasion Carbrooke doing what Henry Freshford had done to her.
Had she been this ecstatic? Looking back, she thought that just before it all fell apart, she had.
Initially, she had been healthily sceptical of the attention paid to her by gentlemen.
After all, what they professed could be proved false by deed and time.
However, Henry Freshford had got under her guard, a guard she had thought unbreakable, and once he did, then she had become as uncritical as Amelia was now about the Viscount Carbrooke.
She had let herself be swept away on hope and anticipation, casting the voice of experience into the shadows, and paid the penalty for her folly.
She would not, could not do so again, could she?
‘And he says that they make pyramids of riders, and they ride six horses abreast.’
Elizabeth realised she had let Amelia’s conversation flow over her, and that ‘what Lord Carbrooke says’ was now going to replace ‘what Mama says’ as Amelia’s watchword in every circumstance.
260‘Oh.’
‘I am sure you will want to come, since there are so many horses involved. You will want to come, won’t you, Elizabeth?’
The pleading note in Amelia’s voice was childlike, and just as it would seem cruel to withhold a treat from a child once it had seen what it was, so Elizabeth knew that she could not deny her cousin.
‘Of course. I am to be the sop to chaperonage, am I?’
‘No.’ Amelia dimpled. ‘Well, not entirely. I think Julia’s brother is coming down from Oxford next week and he could come with us, with Julia, I mean.’
It did not strike Elizabeth that her evening would be one of unalloyed delight.
‘Elizabeth?’
‘Sorry.’
‘If he, if Lord Carbrooke were to … Papa would not refuse him, do you think? Mama was not quite pleased when we got home, was she? If I was told I might never speak, or correspond with him again, I think I might just … die.’
‘That, Amelia, is histrionic.’ Elizabeth sounded suddenly unflinching.
‘You would no doubt be rather miserable for a while, but you would not die, nor go into a decline, nor any other of those things that only happen within the covers of lurid romances. This I promise you.’ She saw the desolation upon her cousin’s face and softened.
‘But it is nonsensical to speak of such a thing. Your parents will, I am sure, be most receptive if Lord Carbrooke makes an offer for your hand. They only want the best for you.’
‘He is the best for me.’
261It was a simple statement, said softly, but Amelia meant it honestly and completely. Elizabeth squeezed her hand.
‘Indeed. Now, do not be a goose and shed tears, but rather look your best and most dignified for dinner. You do not want your papa to think you tardy and silly, and your mama did say he was dining at home tonight.’
Elizabeth was almost monosyllabic through dinner.
She had tried to be logical and sort her thoughts whilst she washed her hands and face, and changed her gown, but it was too serious a process to do with Ditcham fussing about her, and Ditcham had fussed, sensing something untoward, yet not being able to ask outright what it might be.
She responded to everything as if there was a delay before her mind could process what was said, and her eyes held trouble.
Well, from Ditcham’s long experience, that meant some man had upset her, but if that was the case, why was she neither distraught nor angry, more puzzled?
Lord Chalford was in a good humour, and in a mood to be pleased.
His daughter fulfilled his wish, rattling on about the expedition and how enjoyable it had been, and if he might wonder, at one point, if she had even seen a horse beyond the ones pulling the barouche, he did not make overmuch of the degree to which Lord Carbrooke figured in her narrative.
His wife, who had indeed recovered enough to come down for dinner when reminded that the chef was preparing turbot, was more thoughtful than usual, and he anticipated her seeking him out once he had enjoyed his port in lonely state.
He thought that Elizabeth should have had an excellent day, and indeed she did assure him that 262this was so, and that Azor had proved a worthy winner, but thereafter she looked at her plate in the manner of one struggling, unsuccessfully, with the quarterly accounts.
When the ladies withdrew he knew the urge to make a bolt to his club, thereby avoiding anything that smacked of a ‘scene’, but reluctantly admitted to himself that he had a duty as head of the house, and thus appeared in the drawing room whilst his lady was extolling the virtues of Lord Nuneaton in a half-hearted manner.
‘Good enough fellow, Nuneaton,’ he announced, adding his mite to the conversation, ‘though he can be a dull dog, and snores. You should hear him in the club after a good luncheon.’
Lady Chalford threw him a look indicative of disapprobation.
It had been hard enough to sound enthusiastic after Lord Nuneaton’s performance at Epsom, but this was hardly likely to make Amelia think of him in a better light.
She had consoled herself during her rest with the idea that Nuneaton might still offer for Amelia, and that if she could be prevailed upon to be obedient to her parents’ greater wisdom, she might accept him.
This was a fiction born of desperation, as Amelia’s dinner conversation had shown, but she stuck resolutely to her plan.
Elizabeth let it flow over her. She could not think properly, yet needed to do so, desperately. It was a relief when the tea tray was brought in and she could shortly afterwards retire. Only lying in the dark, alone at last, could she give herself up entirely to the knots within her thoughts.
She had enjoyed her day, so very much. Had she enjoyed it simply because of the thrill of watching fleet thoroughbreds 263and exciting finishes, or had most of that enjoyment been because Lucius Radstock had been at her side?
Her cynical head told her that it was the former.
Her treacherous heart, however, insisted that it was his particular being there that had transformed the expedition, and she was inclined to believe it.
So why had this man, with whom she had frequently argued, been accepted by her heart as, at the very least, a friend?
She knew a deep-seated longing to trust him, and let herself give in at last to the part of her that said ‘love him’.
Yet that was what she had done before, given in, loved, though her feelings for Henry Freshford had been far less intense, and the result had that time been desertion and heartbreak.
She was no longer teetering on the edge, she knew it, and there was nothing to save her.
Sleep, when it came, was interlaced with weird dreams of falling, and the wry smile of Lucius Radstock, which metamorphosed into a sneer.