But now there was Wilmott. With him there was hope. And for that reason alone she would endure this soirée. Determinedly Lissa looked into the mirror and pinched some life back into her pale cheeks.
“Are you all right, Lissa? You’ve been so quiet all evening.” Evvie sat on the edge of her bed dressed in her finest apparel—a white wool gown with stripes of brilliant violet silk woven through it. The basque waist and ruched sleeves still fit her though the gown was made when she’d been only fifteen. Evvie looked quite enchanting with her sable hair dressed and curled and the matching white-and-violet pelerine wrapped snugly about her shoulders.
“I’m just fine,” Lissa stated evenly as she clipped on a pair of Berlin ironwork eardrops.
“Don’t let’s go,” Evvie suddenly implored her. “Wilmott will be so displeased to see me. He doesn’t know you intend for me to chaperone.”
“I’ve my right to a chaperone. Those wicked children’s nicknames haven’t so soiled my reputation that anyone will begrudge me some respectability.” Lissa again pinched her cheeks. They were abominably pale.
After picking up her lavender crepe shawl, she self-consciously covered her chest with it. Evvie had been blessed with a cooperative figure. Unfortunately Lissa had found it was highly inconvenient to blossom out of one’s dresses when there was no hope at all of buying new ones. Physically she was like their mother in all respects, including being endowed with their mother’s generous bosom. She practically spilled out of the slate blue taffeta neckline. Looking down at the sight she made, she was reminded of an old gent who’d come to one of her parents’ parties. Scandalized by the low necklines some of the women were sporting, the gent had told their butler upon leaving that he hadn’t seen anything like
that
since he’d been weaned.
Coloring, she wrapped her shawl well around her bosom and bared shoulders. She would claim she had a chill and not remove the shawl all evening.
“I hear a carriage,” Evvie said in a worried voice.
Lissa looked out the tiny, frost-covered window to the road below. By the light of the carriage lanterns, she watched the vehicle come to a halt at their cottage door. Immediately the driver jumped from his seat and helped Wilmott disembark.
“They’re here.” Lissa took her sister’s hand and made her rise from the bed. She gave Evvie’s attire a final assessment, and, ignoring Wilmott’s loud knocking, she leisurely clipped a dangling thread from Evvie’s pelerine. Giving herself and her shawl a last look in the glass, she pinched her cheeks again before leading Evvie down the stairs and out the front door.
The carriage ride was unpleasant. Wilmott made no
effort to hide his displeasure at seeing Evvie. Only when Lissa shot him several icy looks did he finally quiet. But almost in retaliation, he took his seat right between herself and Evvie, crushing their skirts beneath him. Lissa looked over and saw Evvie’s lower lip tremble. She then looked at Wilmott, smiled a tight smile, and promptly vowed to ignore him for the rest of the ride.
Her attention turned to the two women who sat facing her. Honoria and Adele were appropriately attired in brown satin. Each wore a necklet of pearls and garnet earbobs. Their hair was dressed as hers was, in a chignon pinned to the back of their heads. However, the Billingsworth sisters favored the old-fashioned look of wearing several fat curls in front of their ears. As Lissa watched them, Adele shot her a smug look, but Honoria almost seemed sympathetic to her plight. She didn’t quite smile, but she did seem less disapproving than usual, and her lips pursed in a rather friendly way.
Lissa spent the rest of the short trip looking out the window. She dreaded the evening ahead of her. She was sure Wilmott’s abrasiveness only foreshadowed what was to come. Shivering, she clutched her thin shawl to her arms.
The short trip to Powerscourt was soon over and the Billingsworth coach rattled over the drawbridge, through the barbicans, finally to stop in the castle’s bailey. Lit with torches, not gaslights, a hundred flames illuminated the courtyard and turned the sandstone a brilliant shade of gold. It was a heathen touch indeed, and Lissa had forgotten how primitive Powerscourt actually was. The castle was said to have been built in the twelfth century, given to the Irish Tramores by Richard
Coeur de Lion
for their help in storming the city of Acre. To the north the castle still retained the weathered ruins of the original keep.
There had been many a marquis who had fortified its ramparts in ages past, but none of them had apparently done much to Powerscourt’s interior. Lissa recalled her
visits to the castle with her parents, and she remembered quite clearly not liking the damp corridors and particularly the smoke-blackened Baronial Hall where Ivan’s father, grim and humorless, would receive callers. Thinking of how somber the old castle had been, something sad pulled at her heart. Now another marquis had come to embrace Powerscourt’s dark interior, to brood upon past injustices, and to perhaps become just as grim and humorless as his notorious sire.
Already Lissa could picture Ivan sitting in his bleak dark Hall, never to laugh or marry, hug his children or love his wife. Things might have turned out differently. She’d spent nights dreaming of Ivan, imagining him as her husband in the innocent ways only a naive sixteen-year-old can. Now her dreams were not nearly so innocent, nor, unfortunately, her possibilities so endless.
She looked at Wilmott as he escorted Honoria and Adele to the doors carved with Powerscourt’s ornate heraldry. Would they ever have children? She doubted it. Wilmott was far too old. Would she ever love him? A frown passed over her brow. Perhaps eventually she would find some fondness for him. But Wilmott
would
make her happy, she vowed. Married to him, she would be able to take care of Evvie and George. In return, she would be a faithful wife. Though she might always be cursed by dreams of another man, a man with eyes as dark as the midnight sky, she would give Wilmott no reason to complain.
And if that was all that heaven allowed, it would have to suffice.
“Lissa, what does the castle look like? Is Ivan here? What is he wearing? Does he look as handsome as I picture him?” Evvie whispered in her ear.
Shrugging off her pensive mood, Lissa whispered back, “They’re just opening the doors, love. We haven’t got to the Hall yet. And I daresay the marquis doesn’t
answer his own door.” Suddenly she exclaimed under her breath, “Good heavens!”
“What is it?”
Lissa couldn’t answer. When the huge carved walnut doors finally opened, she was overcome by surprise. Looking up from the great limestone stairs in the vestibule, she discovered the dark, shabby Hall was gone and in its place was a sparkling majestic chamber. Hidden for centuries by dirt and smoke, overhead more than a dozen quatrefoil stained-glass windows sparkled like jewels cast upon the ceiling. French medieval tapestries depicting the entire history of the Capetian kings hung over the triple fireplaces at each end. With six blazing hearths, gone was the perpetual chill, and now the Baronial Hall seemed almost as cozy as Violet Croft’s parlor. Five enormous carpets of Portuguese needlework warmed the stone floor, and four heavily upholstered couches covered with an invitingly thick Bordeaux-colored velvet lined each wall.
If the sumptuousness of the decor didn’t sufficiently impress Powerscourt’s visitors, then the army of footmen that came to assist their entrance did. Each man was attired in full livery, their breeches of chamois, their coats of azure satin with long black shoulder-knots hanging to the elbow. There was even a “flash,” or black bow sewn to the back of each man’s collar—a vestige of olden times when men sported queues.
One footman courteously reached for Lissa’s shawl. She gave a start, then shot the man an apologetic smile. Hugging the shawl to her, she discreetly moved from the footman’s reach and feigned interest in the Hall’s interior. Great pains had been taken to make the temperature quite comfortable and there was obviously no need for a shawl, but suddenly Lissa was overcome with insecurity. Watching Evvie remove her pelerine and hand it to a nearby footman, she panicked. What were they doing here? They were in Ivan’s domain now and she knew better than anyone how merciless he could be. With “Lusty Lissa” again
reverberating through her mind, she knew she had given him more than enough ammunition with which to hurt her.
“Right this way, my dear.” Wilmott held out his arm. She looked behind her and found Evvie being escorted by a dapper elderly footman. Having no choice, she lightly touched Wilmott’s arm and they were led to the castle’s drawing room.
Powerscourt’s drawing room was the grand dame of Victorian delights. It was done in the modern Grecian style; ladies perched on saber-legged chairs and men sat on scroll-end couches. Carved in the marble overmantel, a lifelike Orpheus played his lyre for the Muses. Sea-green shadow-striped satin covered the windows in swags and jabots and framed the archway that led to a sumptuous glass and iron conservatory.
Already feeling like a churchmouse in a cathedral, Lissa hugged her crepe shawl to her and looked at the ladies in the drawing room. In her pitifully plain taffeta, she was overwhelmed by the scallops, poufing, cording, piping, fringing, passementerie, and tassels that ornamented their sophisticated gowns. Arabella Parks, an old chum from days long past, looked particularly fetching in a peach satin oversewn with gilt fringe. It was all Lissa could do not to run the other way.
But by then she had met Ivan’s eye. He stood by the mantel looking every bit as handsome as Orpheus himself. He wore a severe black cutaway relieved only by his brilliantly white shirt. Even his barrel-knotted tie was an unheard of black silk, but it complemented his coloring magnificently. Though she was terrified, she would die before she would show it.
Meeting his cool gaze, she allowed Wilmott to escort her to their host and exchange pleasantries—if that was possible with the eleventh Marquis of Powerscourt. Yet seeing how changed the castle was, she was beginning to
think anything was possible with this wickedly attractive man. Anything at all.
“Who would have ever thought, old boy!” Wilmott congratulated Ivan on his newfound wealth as if he were still the stableboy he remembered him to be.
With all eyes on them, Ivan chivalrously bent down and brushed Lissa’s hand with his lips. His touch felt at once like fire and ice, and her fingers curled into her palm as if to protect them from the strange sensation.
“Yes, who would have ever thought,” he answered meaningfully, his assessing gaze darting between her and Wilmott. His hidden meaning not lost on her, she colored, then despised herself for doing so.
Numbly she watched him greet her sister. After he kissed Evvie’s hand and she was blushing prettily, Tramore greeted the two Billingsworth sisters in the same manner, though perhaps a bit more dispassionately. He next proceeded to introduce his company. The group was small. Arabella sat next to her mother and father, and much to Lissa’s relief, the Bishops were there also.
Lissa turned to meet the stranger in the group. Yet he was no stranger, not really. He was the man who had been in the Mercantile that terrible day they received the news of Great-aunt Sophie’s death. He looked quite dashing now in doeskin trousers and a gray cutaway. His cravat was blue, and as bright as his eyes, which were now trained on herself and Evvie.
“This is my bailiff—if you will—Holland Jones,” Ivan said, introducing the stranger.
Mr. Jones bent to kiss her hand. His manners were assured, but Lissa could have sworn his hand shook when he touched hers. When he was introduced to Evvie, he made the same elegant gesture, and his eyes seemed to warm at her sister’s sweet appearance.
When the introductions had been made, the ladies were served sherry and seated. A short half hour was spent
in idle conversation while Lissa self-consciously fingered the corners of her shawl.
There was only one terribly uncomfortable moment when Mrs. Parks bubbled with enthusiasm over the castle’s new appearance. Thoughtlessly she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen this old place look so grand! Why, the last time Mr. Parks and I were here, one could hardly see to the end of the Hall in the gloom. It’s quite extraordinary—can you believe it’s the same place, my lord?”
A booming silence reverberated around the room and Lissa knew all too well the reason for it. There wasn’t a person in the room who hadn’t been to tea at Powerscourt —except, ironically, the very person who now owned it. Everyone knew Ivan had been barred from the castle like a leper.
“I wouldn’t know,” Ivan answered, as solemn as death.
His words immediately put everyone to shame. Mrs. Parks, remembering whom she’d been talking to, seemed to go into apoplexy. She fanned herself most hysterically while the silence in the room became almost unbearable. Everyone suddenly seemed to find their drinks or shirt buttons so much more interesting than the conversation at hand.
Only Lissa seemed to find the courage to look at Ivan. It had been thoughtless of Mrs. Parks to inadvertently bring up his father’s cruelty, and if Lissa had found even the tiniest glimmer of hurt in Ivan’s eyes, she surely would have been beside herself trying to ease it. Yet typically, Ivan seemed to relish his guests’ discomfort and suddenly she was angry. How like him to fight back in this manner, she thought. But he was not going to destroy everyone around him and he was most definitely not going to destroy her.
Abruptly she stood and walked to the mantel. Joining Ivan, she daringly met his gaze and said, “I daresay the marquis has been the lucky one, then, not having had to
endure tea in that gloomy Hall with the former Lord Powerscourt.”
A few of the men released chuckles, and quickly the tension was dispelled. Lissa knew there wasn’t a visitor in the room who didn’t remember all the awful calls made to Ivan’s father. For years an invitation to Powerscourt had been like an invitation to hell. Certainly one did not ignore it.
With the company again at ease, conversation began once more. Heartened, Lissa looked about the room. Her gaze was caught by Mr. Jones’s. To her surprise, Ivan’s bailiff looked at her with open admiration, as if she had done something he’d wanted to do for years. She smiled at the nice gentleman, then took a sip of her sherry.