Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice (26 page)

“I have not long been away,” Duncan said, “but this is not what passed for music before I left.”

“It is only that they are testing their instruments before they begin to play in earnest.” Elizabeth was ashamed of him for his ignorance on the matter, however, she disliked more his need to make such a remark in company. Not that his lack of polished manners would matter once they married and
repaired to Scotland as there would be none to hear him. No one to hear her, as well. Or see her. Or her children. Indeed, the circumstances of her future threatened to cut up her peace more and more with every passing hour.

She lifted her hand to touch the silky lock that curled within its brooch and wondered if it could possibly endure many weeks with her stroking it with as much frequency as she had since its arrival that afternoon. She felt it to be inconceivable for Duncan to know about the brooch, and yet, she could not help but turn her head to search his face for any indication that he suspected her perfidy. Instead, her gaze flew, seemingly of its own accord, to the face of the man standing against the wall directly across from her. He was taller than most, impossibly handsome, and the way that he stared at her, the expression in his eyes so weighted with love and grief, threatened to crush her.

Suppressing a gasp of dismay, she dropped her hand from the brooch pinned against her heart and hastily turned to face the musicians.

“What is it?” Duncan asked, his lips next to her ear. It was a sensation most unwelcome. “I feel your agitation from here.”

“I am merely exhilarated by the music,” she equivocated, hiding their tete a tete behind her fan. She did not wish Colin to see how discomposed she felt with Duncan’s face in such proximity to the very places Colin had so recently favored with his kisses.

“I believe it is more than that,” Duncan urged but Elizabeth refused to respond to such a baiting.

She forced herself to stare straight ahead and felt it to be quite dull save the moments when the violin bows seemed to be sprouting out of the heads of those seated in front of her. She wished she had taken a moment to inspect the instruments before sitting; she would have liked to know how many violins there were and what other instruments were at play. She clearly heard the tones of a pianoforte as well as at least one cello, and various wind instruments. She spent a goodly ten minutes in the deciphering of what she was hearing before the first selection came to an end.

“Well, is that all there is to be?” Duncan asked.

“Not in the least,” she whispered, stealing a glance at the wall. However, Colin had moved away and she could no longer see him. When she heard his voice coming from the front of the room, she felt no small amount of alarm, and found it necessary to fight the impulse to rise to her feet so that she might behold him.

“I shall now play for you Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major on the pianoforte,” he said in a commanding tone she had never had occasion to hear, but which she knew could originate only from him. “A prelude introduces a melody that the fugue then builds upon in two or more instrumental voices, each in its turn, and round and round it goes. I have, again and again, felt that this particular piece very much resembles love; as often simple as it is complex, with a tendency to land us right back where we started and over all too soon. Its very divinity depends entirely on its ephemeral nature.”

There came a ripple of laughter from the audience that Elizabeth could only assume was in light of his doomed betrothal to Miss Ponsonby. And yet, Elizabeth knew it was on account of her rejection of him that he spoke as he did. She felt his words to be a harsh assessment and not in the least apt; she knew her love for him would never perish. However, his love for Miss Ponsonby had, by all accounts, melted away the moment he had met another.

Perhaps he should fall as deeply in love with the next young lady as he had with Elizabeth. Perhaps he never truly loved her at all. Tears sprang to her eyes at the notion and she was careful to wipe them away with her left hand as Duncan was unaccountably alive to her every action. She was as moved by the music itself and found that she must employ her handkerchief much too frequently for her tranquility.

“Is it the ague that makes you sniff so?” Duncan demanded.

Elizabeth managed a watery laugh. “I don’t believe I have heard a case of the sniffles referred to as such.”

“Be that as it may, I still wish to hear your answer to my question,” he said in a hard voice to which she had never before been treated.

“I find the music deeply affecting, that is all. Of what consequence might it possibly be?”

“It matters because I canna see you, lass,” he said in kindlier tones that set her to doubting her doubts. “How can I comfort you if I don’t know what ails you?”

“It is nothing, really; just the music,” she said, placing her hand on his arm in an attempt to reassure him of what, if she were honest, was an utter falsehood.

“So long as you are happy, m ‘dear,” he murmured.

“Yes, why should I not be?” she asked, plying her fan to cool the heat rising on her cheeks. To her relief, he made no response and she was free to listen to the rest of the piece. She was a bit taken aback at Colin’s musical dexterity and somewhat hurt that he had never offered to play other than the duet with Katherine. It was a circumstance that could hardly matter, now, but she felt the loss keenly. They might have played together, even, that night when they danced in his sitting room. However, all thoughts were soon held at bay by virtue of the beautiful music.

It wasn’t until the last note trembled on the air that her mother turned to her. “Elizabeth, how could you possibly let that man get away?” she hissed. “I am persuaded he would offer for you if you would encourage him in the slightest.”

“Mama!” Elizabeth urged. Mortified by her certainty that Duncan had heard her mother’s words she rose quickly to her feet and made her way past the guests to the end of the row of chairs. She felt Duncan grasp at her skirts as she moved past him but whether or not he was in need of anything she could not find it within herself to care.

Hurrying through the house, she found her way to the front garden and paused to regain her composure and cool her cheeks. She wished for nothing more than for Mr. Lloyd-Jones to appear at her side and take her in his arms, then took herself to task for entertaining such a self-indulgent thought. She took a few deep breaths to ward off the tears that had started in her eyes and looked about her. Guests wove in and out of the garden and moved past her on every side so it was not until she felt someone take her hand that she knew he was there. She looked up to see him raise her hand to his lips
and kiss it.

“Mr. Lloyd-Jones,” she said, turning to look into his face. His usually bright and mirthful eyes were yet weighed down with misery and her heart constricted with the knowledge that she was the cause of his pain. And yet, she could not help but feel overjoyed that he had come. “I find I cannot agree with your words in regard to love being over all too soon. It has not been so for me.” She did not add how she feared it never would be.

To her dismay, the sorrow in his face deepened and he bent his head, his gaze catching on the brooch she wore as it gleamed in the torchlight. Smiling, he gently touched it with the tip of his finger. “Come,” he said, taking a step back towards the garden and tugging on her hand.

She went with him willingly as they traipsed over the grass to the high-hedged maze that stood at the center of the garden. The moment they stepped into its paths of concealment, she heard the music of a fountain, one that was doubtless to be found in the center. In wordless agreement, they moved towards the sound but were forced to hide in a heavily shadowed enclave with the approach of voices.

She had thought only to mask their presence from any who might discover them, so was taken by surprise when she found herself tightly clasped in his arms, his lips fastened to hers. Having supposed that the kisses they had previously shared were the very embodiment of physical affection, she was astonished to find she was woefully mistaken. These that descended upon her now were even more insistent and demanding than the last, and she burned with an inner fire that seemed to set her skin aflame. Knowing she should turn and flee, she instead wound her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. She heard the breath catch in his throat at her touch and it suffused her being with an elation she had never known.

Her bliss turned to a daze of confusion when he suddenly released her, the air heaving through his lungs as he backed away deeper into the shadows of the maze. She took a step towards him and once again she was in his embrace. To her vexation he did not kiss her and instead slid his arm up her
back to press her head to his chest. They stood thus for several minutes as she listened to the thunderous pounding of his heart in perfect unison with the rise and fall of his chest under her cheek.

“Elizabeth.” Her name fell from his lips like music. “How you feel when he kisses you . . you will always feel thus. How you feel when I kiss you, how
I
feel . .” He heaved a great sigh and rubbed his thumb along her cheek. “There is so much more to these matters than you might possibly guess. I would pay any price, move any mountain, fight any foe, if only it were I who showed you what it means to be truly loved, body and soul.”

She listened as his voice fell away and the beat of his heart resounded under her ear; how it pounded faster when she tightened her arms around his waist, pressing so close that the brooch with its treasured lock of hair was nearly crushed between them. The realization that she had never felt happier unfolded in her mind like a flower in the sun. Suddenly, and quite clearly she knew that the yearning she had felt since she had first met him was an unassailable longing to spend her life with Mr. Colin Lloyd-Jones.

Putting her hands to his chest, she pushed away so that she could gaze upon the little of him she could discern in the dark of the night. “There is something that I would say to you.”

“If I spoke too freely,” he said with a groan, “pray forgive me. I had not meant to press you further but when I saw you leave the room . . To have one more opportunity to speak with you, to ask you to be mine, I had not the courage to let it pass me by.”

“And how fortunate am I that you did not!” she cried, smiling up at him. “It all seems so clear to me now and yet I have been so hopelessly befuddled. I had not presumed, until I had met Mr. Lloyd-Jones with his so comely face, pleasing temperament and exceptional character, that one could love a person’s nature every bit as much as one’s exquisite exterior. In point of fact, I had not thought it possible to be loved for anything but my outward appearance; such was my experience. And so I seized upon an artificial love in as much as I believed that its lack of capacity to be diverted by my appearance was comparable to being loved wholly for my nature.”

“And now that this paragon of virtue has led you to this so avidly wished for conclusion,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “may I dare to hope that you will formally reject this spurious love for one that is so very true?”

“My only regret is that I have left it for so long,” she confessed as she allowed her hands to be gathered in his and ardently kissed. “I do so fear that I shall make Mr. Cruikshank miserable but I cannot trade my . .
our
happiness for his. And yet, you perceive how he depends upon me. I cannot bear to face him. I have not had the time to think what I should do.”

“Perhaps not, but I have been thinking on it rather incessantly,” he said through what sounded to her like a wide smile. “I am aware of how scandalous it is to so much as say the words, however, if we were to elope to Gretna Green, you needn’t deal with any unpleasantness. You need only leave a note for your mother and beg her to remain in England until we return from our honeymoon.”

Stunned by the ease of his proposition, she was at first bereft of words. Finally, she pulled her hands free from his grasp, threw herself into his arms and cried, “How utterly brilliant!”

To her delight, he lifted her off her feet and into the air, spinning her about until she was giddy and faint. Slowly, he loosened his grasp and allowed her to slide back to earth. “Miss Armistead, I ask you, and for the last time,” he said in charmingly threatening tones, “will you marry me?”

“Mr. Colin Lloyd-Jones, I find I cannot do otherwise!”

He bent his head and kissed her so thoroughly that she could only wonder what new pleasures their wedding night might hold. “Soon you shall be Mrs. Colin Lloyd-Jones,” he murmured as his kisses traveled from her mouth to her neck.

“Yes, but when?” she dared to ask. “For Mr. Cruikshank’s sake, I cannot think of anything so cruel as to delay the inevitable. Besides which, I fear that if we wait too long, you might be tempted to anticipate our marriage vows.”

“As for temptation,” he murmured as he moved his kisses back to her jaw, “isn’t that a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?”

As she submitted herself to another incursion of kisses, she thought that she rather agreed. Eventually, she remembered where they were and that there were those who doubtless wondered what had become of her. “I must go back.”

“Yes, but I swear we shall not be long parted. When you arrive home, pack only what you think you will need for two or three days. We shall be free to purchase anything else you wish when it suits us. Be sure to write your mother a note; when you are certain all are sleeping, meet me at the area steps.”

“Tonight?” she gasped.

“Yes, but only if you wish; it is an answer to all your troubles. And yet, if it seems to you that I am overhasty and you fear the worst, you have my word that you shall be married a maid.”

“It is not that I fear,” she insisted. “You have over and over again proved yourself worthy of my trust, though I must confess to being full of apprehension. It is only because of how it will pain those we leave behind. And yet, I feel it to be the scheme that best suits the purpose.”

He took her hands and again kissed them. “Go to your mother and make some plausible excuse to depart at the first possible moment. I shall wait until you have entered the house; it would not do to be seen emerging from the shadows together. The small-minded will condemn you for our hasty marriage, but I shall not provide them with what they might see as proof of its needfulness.”