Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice (7 page)

“Yet another young miss newly come to town with whom you somehow become acquainted without my knowledge!” Miss Lloyd-Jones chirped.

“She is but I do not see her here tonight,” Mr. Lloyd-Jones remarked.

“She is under the weather,” Elizabeth’s mother explained. “This English climate is to blame! However, I am persuaded she shall be soon recovered.”

“Well, then,” Miss Lloyd-Jones said, “it is settled. Needless to say, we must petition a few gentlemen to join us. It would not do to have an uneven party. What say you to Sir Anthony, Colin?” she suggested, her face alight with mirth.

“Ana!” Mr. Lloyd-Jones snapped, his face turning a bit red. “Excuse me ladies, but I require a word in private with my sister.” Before she had the opportunity to object, he placed an arm around her shoulders and led her off.

“Well! I never!” Mrs. Armistead berated. “I have a good mind to rake him over the coals!”

“Mama, please!” Elizabeth hissed. “I beg you, do not cause a scene. I am persuaded Mr. Lloyd-Jones has a perfectly acceptable excuse for his behavior. In point of fact, I believe he has mended his ways already and is poised to seek us out and beg our pardon.” Elizabeth knew her words bent the
truth nearly to the snapping point, but he had, indeed, turned his head in their direction. That he had turned away again after treating her to what seemed to her a scathing look that raked her from head to toe was a snub that hurt far more than she was willing to admit.

Forcing away the inexplicable tears that started in her eyes, she concentrated on what it was they ought to do next. “Come, Mama, I feel we are in need of some refreshment.” Together they walked in the opposite direction of their erstwhile failed decampment and went in search of cold lemonade and a plateful of bonbons. They ate, huddled together in the corner of the salon, whilst Elizabeth mentally went over the conversation with the Lloyd-Joneses in an attempt to determine of what she could have been guilty that should earn her such barefaced scorn.

It would seem that her mother’s thoughts ran along the same lines. “Do you know,” she murmured, “I do believe it was not well done of us to trespass on Mr. Lloyd-Jones’ hospitality when first we met. I ought to have sent the coachman in pursuit of assistance just as you suggested. If so, we would not, even now, be in such bad odor with Mr. Lloyd-Jones,” she added with a sniff.

“Why? What could his opinion of us possibly matter? By the end of June, you shall once again set sail to India and I will be a married woman on my way to Scotland. We shall none of us see neither hide nor hair of Mr. Lloyd-Jones for the remainder of our lives, and, I must say, we shall most likely be happy not to.”

“But, Elizabeth in spite of his sometimes unpleasant manner, he is an excellent catch!”

Elizabeth was stunned. “But, Mama, how can you say so? I am to be married to Duncan in little more than a month. We are promised to one another. I consider myself married at this very moment in all but deed.”

“Yes, but Elizabeth, he is so rich!”

“I have no love for money.” Comfort, however, was another matter. Life on the moors of Scotland promised to be forsaken and excessively frigid.

“And so well-connected!”

“Duncan and I shall be enough for each other. And soon enough there shall be children.” However, there would be no Miss Hale or any other young lady with whom to pass the time. The only woman for miles around promised to be Duncan’s mother who was sickly and in need of care.

“I daresay I haven’t seen so handsome a man since your father was young.”

“Handsome men are thick on the ground. Do you not recall his equally handsome friend, Sir Anthony? Besides which, I prefer men who are interesting.” And yet, there was something about Mr. Lloyd-Jones that attracted her as had no other man. It was really most provoking.

“Interesting! Mr. Lloyd-Jones is extremely interesting. I doubt I have met a more interesting man in all of my life. Have I told you that I lived in the neighborhood of his family in my youth? Such fine young men, all of them, and the ladies no different. I should have been proud to marry a Lloyd-Jones and that is not an exaggeration, I do assure you.”

“And yet, no Lloyd-Jones offered for you. To think, you might be his aunt, even now, if one had,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile. “And I, his cousin.”

“That is neither here nor there,” Mrs. Armistead replied with a swat of her hand. “You are well aware that I was entirely besotted with your father from the moment I laid eyes on him. Which brings to mind; Mr. Lloyd-Jones has a very fine set of eyes. I can’t recall seeing another quite as fine, not even amongst his family. Should you marry him, your children should have eyes just like his.”

Elizabeth sighed her frustration. “Our children will have mine or Duncan’s eyes, and though they will not be gray, they shall be every bit as beautiful.” One trait they would not inherit were the scars that Duncan’s eyes had born since the accident, the one that left him blind and entirely incapable of loving her purely for her beauty.

“That is all very well and true, Elizabeth dear, but you know what it is I meant, about the eyes, that is to say.”

“Yes, Mama, I do, and I can only wonder at you. If you objected to my marriage to Duncan, you might have aired your opinion before our first meeting with Mr. Lloyd-Jones. As it is, I can only
assume you have been seduced by his comeliness, a virtue that is as inconsequential as it is ephemeral.” At least, she could only assume that a man’s beauty was fleeting if her father were meant to be regarded as an example of youthful winsomeness. And yet, she could not deny that Mr. Lloyd-Jones’ propensity to blow hot and cold towards her was only one of his attractions. His eyes, sometimes light and piercing, at other times shadowed and striking, were such that she had woken having dreamed of them on more than once occasion. The way his dusky hair curled about his temples was also very pleasing and she owned that his lips were shaped in a manner most becoming.

“I am only pointing out that it is as easy to fall in love with a rich, handsome man as it is a blind soldier-turned-farmer.”

“Mama! I must beg you to refrain from such talk! Now, I do believe more guests have arrived. I intend to return to the ballroom and pass the time with more congenial company.” Elizabeth then turned on her heel and marched out of the room with as much refinement as she could manage. Her ears and cheeks felt hot and she knew that she must look a trifle fearsome, but she found that nothing would abate her anger. She passed along the edge of the dance floor where a number of couples were enjoying the music, including Mr. Lloyd-Jones and his sister, their dark heads close together and as handsome as two people could ever wish.

She quickened her pace so as to put the Lloyd-Joneses beyond her line of vision when, to her horror, they looked up and took notice of her. Quickly, her face hotter than before, she turned away and all but ran towards the exit. She had not got very far, however, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she whirled to come face to face with the very one she hastened to avoid. He appeared to be suddenly far more amenable than she had known him to be, his expression one of openness and even suppressed mirth. She thought she had never beheld a more welcome sight in all her life and the intensity of her feelings nearly robbed her of breath.

“Mr. Lloyd-Jones,” she said, panting from her exertion a bit more than comfort allowed. “I had thought you dancing with your sister.” The words were out before she thought better of them and she
was left to wish she had not given him the satisfaction of learning she had been mindful of him. The slow smile that started in his eyes to finally reach those full, well-shaped lips was the final blow to her self-possession.

“Miss Armistead, my sister insists that I tender my apologies. In point of fact, I hadn’t the need for her to tell me so; I realize that I was insufferably rude. However, I must assure you that it had naught to do with you that prompted my actions. I hadn’t thought how my concern for other matters should be perceived by you and your mother.” He held out his hand and waited until she placed hers in his grasp. “I do beg your forgiveness,” he said and bowed over her hand, kissing the air a hair’s-breadth above her fingers.

Elizabeth had never known her heart to beat at such a rate nor her stomach to be so aflutter. She suspected that her countenance bore the self-same expression she had seen on so many faces of those young men who admired her and she loathed herself for it. Yet, there was nothing to be done; she found Mr. Lloyd-Jones to be the most attractive man of her acquaintance.

Bearing in mind the fact that outward appearances revealed the very least about any individual, she collected herself and convened her thoughts on which words should form a sensible reply. “Mr. Lloyd-Jones, you have done nothing for which to berate yourself. As for myself, I do not hold you in less esteem for any action taken here this night. On the contrary, I do not believe I have ever been the recipient of so pretty an apology, especially one over such a trifling offense.”

He drew himself up to his full height as she spoke and now stood so near that he seemed to tower over her. It was a wholly pleasant sensation, as if he need only spread wide his arms and she should be entirely swallowed up in his shadow. With most men of her acquaintance, it seemed very much otherwise, including Duncan who needed her so very much.

“How very kind of you to overlook my slight, Miss Armistead. Since you are present tonight for the purpose of dancing, might I be allowed the privilege of leading you out onto the floor at the beginning of the next set?”

“Well, I . . Yes, of course. I should be delighted,” Elizabeth stammered. “I have always believed dancing to be the most amiable course of exercise.”

He looked as if he wished to say something but checked himself just in time, whereupon he smiled, and said, “In this particular instance, I shall be most delighted by the company.”

Elizabeth had been the recipient of hundreds of pretty, even lavish, compliments, but none had pleased her as had these words of Mr. Lloyd-Jones. “I, too, look forward to it, I assure you. However, I am afraid that your sister has been left alone too long on the dance floor.”

Without a word, he hastened off to rescue his sister whilst Elizabeth waited for the wobbling in her knees to pass. If this, truly, was what the young men of her acquaintance experienced when they beheld her, she once again considered herself most fortunate that Duncan was blind and immune to such a bewildering happenstance. Why Mr. Lloyd-Jones seemed immune to her, despite his acute eyesight, was a question whose answer she looked forward to discovering.

While she waited for the next set of music to commence, she went in search of her mother and disclosed to her the news that she had accepted an invitation to dance with Mr. Lloyd-Jones. “I am quite aware that you are beside yourself with delight, Mama, however, it is only a dance. Dancing is why we accepted the invitation here tonight in the first place, is it not?”

“But, of course, Elizabeth, it is only a dance, but who knows to what it might lead?”

“Mama, why must you insist on being so vexing? If you have no reverence for the promise I have made to another man, I am persuaded that Mr. Lloyd-Jones has. I cannot imagine that he has a single solitary design beyond that of dancing with a fellow guest.”

“I am merely pointing out that one dance might lead to a second and so on and so forth,” Mrs. Armistead said with a sniff.

“What is this ‘so on and so forth’?” Elizabeth requested. “No, never mind, I have no wish to know. We have been invited to dine at his establishment, is that not enough?”

“Oh, yes, it is quite, quite wonderful. I daresay he has a beautiful home and most likely
constructed quite recently, too, not one of those hovels dating practically back to Shakespeare.”

Elizabeth wished nothing more than to laugh, but the music had now ceased and Mr. Lloyd-Jones and his amiable sister were even now approaching. “Mama, please do behave yourself and pray do not say anything you shall wish unsaid.”

“I?” she asked, her eyes wide. “I have never regretted a single word that has escaped these lips.”

“I am persuaded that is perfectly true,” Elizabeth murmured to herself just as Mr. Lloyd-Jones reached her side, his hand outstretched and waiting for hers. Briefly she considered telling him that she had changed her mind for she was suddenly very afraid. What if dancing in the arms of this captivating man resulted in a lifelong discontent with the lot she had chosen for herself? However, her hand moved as if of its own accord to place itself in his and before she had a chance to demure, he had escorted her out onto the dance floor.

To her great relief, the musicians struck the chords of a contra-danse and her time in conversation, not to mention his arms, would be limited. She found, then, that she could smile and enjoy the dancing with no self-recrimination. She could not compare it to time spent similarly with Duncan as his lack of vision did not allow them the opportunity, but she found it far superior to dancing with the young officers who failed to vanquish the desire that flared in their eyes when they gazed at her.

Too soon the music came to a halt. Elizabeth expected to be immediately led back to the auspices of her mother, but it seemed that Mr. Lloyd-Jones had the opposite intention.

“Would you object to another dance with me; the next waltz, perhaps? I find it much more conducive to conversation and I find myself keen to learn from you of India. You must have had a fascinating childhood.”

Elizabeth looked down at her hands. “If any of the soldiers with whom I have danced had suggested anything as beyond the pale as a second dance of an evening I would, of course, be forced to
decline. However, as I am betrothed to another, I trust there will be no misapprehension between us. I find that I should like, very much, to tell you about my home, but only if you tell me about yours. I am more than a little captivated with the land of my ancestors.”

He did not immediately respond as the music had once again been sent aloft and, as it was indeed a waltz, he took her hand and placed one of his at her waist. “Shall we begin?”