Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice (21 page)

“Will you take my arm then, Miss Elizabeth?” Colin asked through his surprise at this return of her equilibrium.

“I think not,” she demurred as she untied the ribbons of her bonnet and retied them in what Colin could only assume to be a more expertly placed bow, whereupon she stepped round him, still refusing to meet his gaze, and led the way back to the others.

“How I dislike it so when she gets in one of her moods,” Miss Katherine asserted as they followed along. “It is as if she believes herself to be the only one entitled to her own opinion whilst the rest of us must agree or be forever in the wrong.”

“Have you ever known her to be mistaken, Miss Katherine?” Colin asked, his heart twisting within his chest with apprehension.

“Why? Do you question her choice of husband?” she asked with another of her coy smiles. “It isn’t as if you are the only one to do so. No one is happy about it, least of all she. It was said that her father was enraged when he learned of their betrothal, that Mr. Cruikshank was only after her money, that he had rather see her married to a native than to one such as Mr. Cruikshank.”

Colin slowed his pace so as to put more distance between Elizabeth and his words. “Pray tell, what sort of man might Mr. Cruikshank be? I must confess I have been yearning to know this age.”

Miss Katherine tilted her head to one side. “For one thing he is a commoner. Then, of course, so is Elizabeth. Only, as I have learned, commoners with money are somehow more acceptable, are they not?”

Colin ignored her question and pressed on with his own. “Then it is not a love match? It is only her money that he is after?”

“She believes him to love her well though who can say? Mr. Cruikshank had offered for me and my considerable dowry not many weeks before Elizabeth found him under the bridge.”

“How can that be?” Colin asked with more than a little astonishment. “That is to say, any man would be honored to have you as his wife. And yet, how could Miss Armistead fail to discern his intentions when he had so recently offered for another?”

“By that I am persuaded you mean another young lady with a dowry that could rescue even the Prince Regent from the river tick,” Miss Katherine suggested.

“You are not wrong.” Colin fastened his gaze to the rapidly receding figure of his beloved and considered his next question. “If there was one fact you might share with me about Mr. Cruikshank, which would be the most illuminating?”

“Oh, no, that I shall not do,” Miss Katherine said with a wag of her finger. “I am afraid you shall have to form your opinion of Mr. Cruikshank independently from mine. However, once he has arrived, I believe it shall prove vastly entertaining.”

“Vastly entertaining for whom?” Colin demanded.

“For me!” she replied and with a laugh she let go of his arm and danced to Elizabeth’s side.

Colin found no pleasure in the remainder of the outing. Not only did Elizabeth refuse to look at him, let alone speak to him, he found that Analisa was singularly quiet, as well. This left him with the task of entertaining Miss Katherine and Mrs. Armistead all on his own. To add insult to injury, the afternoon was not to be salvaged by the promised sweet at Gunter’s as the establishment was not supplied with his favorite flavor of ice, that of pistachio.

The drive home was a misery; Elizabeth was once again seated where he could least see her and Miss Katherine was making the most of her place at his side. Somehow he doubted he should be as eager to forestall the physical advances Miss Katherine insisted on making if it had been Elizabeth who attempted to rub her leg against his. At the same time, he could not imagine that it was an activity in which Elizabeth would engage in the first place.

Once they arrived at Lady Augusta’s establishment, Colin exited his side of the coach in hopes that he should at least be allowed to escort Elizabeth to her front door. However, by the time he had appeared on the other side of the coach, Elizabeth was already rapping on the door for the butler to admit her. The final blow to his equanimity was that she failed to so much as turn her head to acknowledge either himself or Analisa before she was swallowed up into the house.

Their return journey to Lloyd-Jones House was spent in utter silence. Rather than enter his father’s home, he saw his sister safely inside, then waited out front whilst his curricle was brought round. Upon arrival, he went directly to his bedchamber where he stayed for the remainder of the evening.

His butler disturbed him only once, to ascertain when and where he desired his dinner, a meal for which Colin had no appetite, and to leave him a letter on a silver tray. Colin thought he would not bother with it until morning but decided there was no news that could deepen his despair.

In that he was wrong.

Jonesy,

It would seem that I am betrothed to an empty-headed goose who uses me to accomplish some sinister plot of her own. Additionally, I am to fight a duel with Lord Avery over her honor. It is not a duel I can win as I mustn’t do away with the only man who has the slightest inclination to take the baggage off of my hands, and yet, I am too fond of my shirt to allow him even a single shot. How I shall come about I know not, but do not despair!

Tony

P.S. How much can change in so short a span!

“How much, indeed,” Colin murmured as he balled the letter in his fist and tossed it into the fire.

Chapter Twelve

Elizabeth dragged herself through the front door of her aunt’s townhouse and was immediately presented with a piece of correspondence by the butler.

“Here ‘tis, Miss,” he said, beaming. “I know how very much this has been looked for.”

“Thank you, Andrews.” She took the small, neatly folded square of vellum and wondered at her utter lack of gladness. She had anticipated this moment since almost before she had boarded ship for England and had yearned for the communication that signaled Mr. Cruikshank’s reappearance in her life nearly every day since. However, as she looked down at the neat copperplate, all she could think on was that she did not recognize his handwriting. This reflection was followed by the realization that he must have had someone else write it for him; that she, at any rate, knew nothing of his handwriting, knew nothing of so many things about him. How could she have agreed to marry him?

With trembling fingers, she spread wide the vellum and confirmed the news that his ship had docked, that he was only awaiting her return correspondence before he presented himself at her Aunt’s house. How he was to arrive on his own, she could only guess. Certainly it would be more convenient should she send Aunt Augusta’s carriage to retrieve him. Elizabeth knew she ought to immediately respond with the news that they would call on him at his lodgings without delay, and yet, she could not bring herself to write.

She told no one of the letter, though she knew they all had guessed based on the expressions of apprehension that ringed the table at the evening meal. After a listless rubber of whist after dinner and a valiant attempt to read
Sense and Sensibility
, a story altogether too discerning for her current tastes, she blew out the candle and tried to sleep. After a number of hours abed spent tossing and turning, she could put off her correspondence no longer. However, the first letter she wrote was not for Mr. Cruikshank.

His ship has docked. I shall put him off until evening
.

As ever,

E
.

She then wrote to Mr. Cruikshank in care of the concierge at his lodgings and directed him to wait until she and her mother arrived to collect him just before dinner. She prayed that he would prefer waiting for her in favor of making his own arrangements which would prove to be both costly and inconvenient, though what he would do with himself all day as he waited, she knew not. She then returned to bed to sleep the few hours left to her before an early rising in order to have her letters posted at the earliest possible moment.

After a long day that seemed to go on forever, she was in the salon entertaining callers, her nerves stretched to their very limit. As such, she nearly gasped with apprehension when the butler scratched at the door and entered with a silver salver bearing a single card. She dared not hope that it bore the name of Mr. Colin Lloyd-Jones but found that she utterly failed to do otherwise. As the butler strode in her direction, she felt her heart begin to hammer with the certitude that the man she loved waited not at some lodgings but under her very roof. When she saw that the card was indeed meant for her, she was assailed with trepidation. She wished she knew whether Mr. Lloyd-Jones, as the owner of the card surely must be, had already received her letter or if he came without the knowledge that Mr. Cruikshank had arrived on British soil. She took the card and handed it, without a word, to her mother.

“Oh! Elizabeth,” her Mama breathed. “What a delightful surprise. You are most likely astonished to know that Mr. Lloyd-Jones pays us a visit,” she revealed to the nosy woman and her daughter who were seated on the sofa across from the Armisteads. “But, you must know, he and his sister are nearly family to us.”

“Mama, I fear you overstate the case,” Elizabeth said faintly. Though the wide-eyed stares of their current guests were somewhat alarming, it was her anticipation of the guest not yet arrived that so discomposed her. She hoped that the fluttering of her stomach and the pounding of her heart that
always occurred whenever she cast her gaze upon him would not be apparent to the tale bearing ladies who would doubtless choose to stay rooted to the spot in anticipation of Mr. Lloyd-Jones’ arrival.

When he stepped into the room she saw directly that he had had her letter; the mirth that always lingered in his compelling eyes had fled and he did not smile. “Good day,” he said with a bow that took in all of the occupants of the room but the tragic cast of his features when he once again lifted his head was for Elizabeth alone.

“Ladies,” her mother started, “I do believe I am meant to be elsewhere.”

“No,” he said, throwing up a hand to forestall her, “pray do not inconvenience yourself on my account. Miss Armistead doubtless recalls that she is engaged to ride out in my carriage this afternoon.”

“Yes, of course,” she said as she rose to acquire her bonnet and reticule. She had placed them in a chair in the far corner so that they would be handy should he appear and not on display if he did not. “I have been anticipating it with pleasure.”

“You have said nothing of this to me, Elizabeth,” her mother insisted but her daughter paid her no heed as she took his arm and quit the room.

As he led her down the stairs and out of the house, she admired his composure nearly as much as her own. Her stomach was in turmoil, her knees weak, and without his arm she would have tumbled down the stairs, thinking as she did on how these would be their last moments together before she became another man’s wife.

Once they were safely perched in his curricle and her bonnet carefully tied against the breeze, he lost no time in whipping up the horses and hurtling down the road at a spanking pace. She thought, then, that he might be angry, and her trepidation grew. She found herself too breathless to speak and he spoke only once to ask if she were quite all right. She nodded that she was but wondered for how long it should be the case. The speed with which they moved felt dangerous, indeed, and then there was the question of when they would stop and where.

At last, he veered off onto a deserted lane and they fetched up behind a sadly dilapidated church that faced out onto the other side of the square.

He jumped out and ran round to take her hand and help her down. “There is a bench just the other side of that wall,” he said with a nod at what must have once been part of a cloister but was now mostly fallen stone and masonry. To her great astonishment he put his arm around her and held her tight against his side as they walked. The bench looked upon a garden that grew in abundance despite the ruin all around it. As they sat he kept his arm about her and, eventually, she recovered enough from her apprehension to settle her head against his shoulder.

He said nothing for what seemed an age whilst she fretted over what her first words should be. Finally, she dared to ask what she already knew to be true. “You have had my letter?”

He tightened his arm about her and looked off into the distance despite the lack of a view. “I thank you for your kindness in sending it. And yet, its contents,” he said, his breath catching in his throat, “conveyed a message I find I cannot like. Am I correct to conclude that our outings together are now at an end?”

Tears sprang to her eyes and closed her throat so that she was only able to render a tiny nod.

“I have thought and thought again
how
to say the words,” he said, a bit savagely, “but I cannot. If we are to part, it must be at your word. I shall not bid you goodbye.”

“I comprehend that it must be myself,” she said, forcing the words from her trembling mouth “to make it clear who I am to be to you from here on out. I have knowingly encouraged your attentions and for that I must beg your pardon, for I mean to marry Mr. Cruikshank. That is something I am every bit as determined to do as I was before we met.”

“Say only that you wish it far less than you once did,” he said, his breath heaving in his chest. “It shall be the smallest of concessions for you but the greatest of gifts to me. And when you say it,” he said as he shifted to face her, “let me see the truth of it in your eyes.”

She turned towards him as the tears spilled down her cheeks. She felt his fingers as they ran
along her neck until they caught in the ribbons of her bonnet and pulled them loose. Slowly, she pushed the bonnet from her head but she could not bear to meet his gaze. “I wish it far less,” she whispered.

He put his hand to her wet cheek and so gently drew her face to meet his that she did not comprehend it. When she lifted her gaze and was met with the sight of him looking down upon her, and with such tenderness, her heart turned over.

“Elizabeth. Say that you will not go through with it. Say that you will marry me.”