PoetsandPromises (18 page)

“When my brother arrives I shall inform you both,” Lady
Parker answered briefly. “Please sit down and wait for his coming.”

Elisabeth, noticing Lady Parker’s distressed expression,
knew it could not be good news and wondered what new disaster could possibly
have struck. As she took one of the low-backed mahogany chairs, Revati came and
jumped in her lap but even the cat’s purring presence did not diminish her
apprehensions and she could feel her heartbeat quickening as her anxiety
increased.

Sherbourne arrived within the half-hour, his glance going
rapidly from one unhappy face to the other as he entered the drawing room.
“What has happened, Charlotte?”

“I sent for you because a most serious situation has
occurred,” Lady Parker began. “Lady Sefton called upon me early this afternoon
to inform me that our vouchers to Almack’s have been rescinded. The worst has
happened.” Lady Parker paused and stared at her hands, which she held clasped
tightly in her lap.

“While Miss Ashwood was under my care!” she suddenly burst
out, raising her head. “If we had never had vouchers it would not have
mattered—no one could have known for certain whether we had even applied. But
to have had them and to lose them… It is a great disaster.” Lady Parker’s voice
broke.

“His grace the Duke of Norland,” the butler announced, Lady
Parker having failed to think to order that no further visitors be received
that day. The three inhabitants of the drawing room quickly ordered their faces
into bland company expressions but not before the duke had noticed their strained
countenances.

“Lady Parker, forgive my asking but I cannot help but
notice—is something amiss?” the duke asked. “I do not wish to intrude on a
private matter,” he added, “but it is evident that something most distressing
has occurred and I wish to offer my assistance.”

At the duke’s evident sincerity, Lady Parker made a rapid
decision.

“I thank you, Your Grace, for your kindness, but I fear I do
not deserve such consideration,” Lady Parker began. “I fear I have been an
unworthy guardian for Miss Ashwood. I foolishly allowed her to pursue an
acquaintance with Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife and several days past
Miss Ashwood was observed speaking to Mrs. Shelley in Upper St. James Park by
Lady Walburton. She reported it to a patroness and our vouchers to Almack’s
were rescinded. Miss Ashwood’s character is ruined,” she finished baldly.

“It is I who am at fault, not my sister,” Lord Sherbourne
spoke up, unwilling to see his sister berate herself before the duke. “I
invited Mr. Hunt here to meet Miss Ashwood because of her interest in social
justice issues but in reply Hunt requested instead that we go to one of his
literary afternoons, where we met the Shelleys. I persuaded my sister to allow
the acquaintance to continue against her better instincts.”

“I am the one who foolishly went to meet Mrs. Shelley
without permission, it is through my thoughtless behavior this has occurred,”
Elisabeth chimed in, unwilling to see Lady Parker and Lord Sherbourne shoulder
all the blame.

The duke took a chair across from Lady Parker and addressed
the three in a calm manner. “It is true this is a very serious situation but at
this juncture it matters little whose error was the greatest. There are things
to be done.

“I believe we must all agree that saving Miss Ashwood’s
reputation is of the utmost importance?” he asked, looking at Lady Parker and
Lord Sherbourne.

“Undoubtedly, Your Grace,” Sherbourne replied, echoed by his
sister.

“Then I believe I have the solution—possibly the only
solution. I most strongly urge that the announcements of my betrothal to Lady
Parker and yours to Miss Ashwood be published immediately.”

Both Lady Parker and Elisabeth looked at the duke in
consternation but Lord Sherbourne instantly grasped the necessity. “I am
certain you have the right of it, Your Grace,” he acquiesced. “In that event no
one would dare slight Miss Ashwood for an acquaintance that I as her betrothed
chose to allow, and no one would cut my sister for allowing a young woman under
her care to make an unsuitable friendship.”

“Then may I suggest you take Miss Ashwood for a drive while
I speak to Lady Parker.”

“Miss Ashwood?” Sherbourne said, rising from his chair and
waiting for Elisabeth.

Elisabeth rose slowly and exited the drawing room, followed
by Lord Sherbourne. As Sherbourne and Elisabeth left the hall the duke rang for
the butler and informed Greaves that no more visitors were to be shown up that
afternoon.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Greaves answered, accepting the
nobleman’s right to give orders in Lady Parker’s home without question.

“I cannot marry you, Your Grace,” Lady Parker said softly as
the duke returned to the drawing room and took a chair next to hers.

“Lady Parker, I wish a truthful answer from you—do you care
for me?” the duke asked forthrightly.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Lady Parker replied. “But—”

The duke raised his hand, stopping her protest mid-sentence.
“Under the circumstances we cannot fail to be direct,” his grace said, looking
at Lady Parker gravely. “We cannot waste valuable time by circumnavigating the
truth. Is the reason you will not accept my hand your second marriage?”

“You know?” Lady Parker gasped in surprise.

“My dear Lady Parker, I have known almost since the day I so
fortuitously made your acquaintance,” the duke confessed. “A look in the
peerage told me that your first husband was not titled. I thought at first that
perhaps you were being given a courtesy title because of your father but a few
judicious inquiries among trusted friends in the Company brought me the truth.”

Lady Parker flushed in embarrassment. “I see now it was
foolish to allow myself to be called ‘Lady’,” she admitted. “I suppose I wished
to honor both husbands—the first by taking his name again and the second by
keeping my title, although in India it was ‘
ranee
’
rather than lady.

“What must you think of me!” she exclaimed, “a woman who is
afraid to keep her second husband’s name but wishes to hold on to a memory of
his high position! However, I never thought to marry again.”

“I do not fault you for wishing to keep your secrets. I know
you will have had your reasons but I am sorry you thought so little of my
character that you did not trust your marriages would make no difference to
me,” the duke said gravely.

“They would make a difference to many,” Lady Parker said
softly. “They
did
make a difference to many. After my second marriage I
was not received by most of my compatriots, even though my husband was a
rajah
and I his
ranee
.”

“As the Duchess of Norland none will dare refuse to receive
you, or Miss Ashwood,” the duke promised. “I assume that—knowing I know your
secret and that it matters not to me—you have no further objections to
accepting my suit?”

“None whatsoever, Your Grace,” Lady Parker replied with the
first smile that had crossed her face since Lady Sefton had appeared at the town
house early that afternoon.

As Lord Sherbourne directed his tilbury to Hyde Park,
Elisabeth reflected that she was beginning to dislike parks immensely, for it
seemed that every time she visited a park something disagreeable happened,
beginning with their first excursion where they met Miss Thibeau and ending
with her ill-fated outing in the company of Mr. Earlywine when Mrs. Walburton
saw her speaking to Mrs. Shelley.

Lord Sherbourne did not speak as he drove toward the Park
and, not wishing to be the one to open the discussion, Elisabeth also rode in
silence. Only after he had maneuvered the tilbury through the crowded ring to a
less-travelled road did the viscount turn and look at his passenger.

“Under the present circumstances,” Lord Sherbourne stated
without preamble, “I believe his grace is correct and that we must marry, Miss
Ashwood. It is the only thing to do, both for your sake and that of your
parents and my sister.”

Although Elisabeth had longed with all her heart for her
betrothal with Lord Sherbourne to be restored, now that it
was
offered
she knew she could not accept. She would never know if he wished to restore it
because he loved her or from the desire of a gentleman to protect a lady, and
it would be insupportable if it were the latter.

“Thank you, Lord Sherbourne, but such a sacrifice of your
better feelings is not necessary,” she answered in carefully controlled tones.
“No doubt if Lady Parker weds the Duke of Norland that will be sufficient to
restore her credit.”

“My sister’s credit but not yours,” Lord Sherbourne
disagreed. “For she is only your sponsor, not a relation. Only by marrying me
will society be willing to forgive your transgressions.

“Moreover,” he added in a different tone, “upon further
consideration I have realized that this current sad state of affairs was due to
my error of judgment in introducing you to the Hunts and their set. I was older
and experienced enough in the ways of the world to have known the dangers of an
acquaintance with the Shelleys and I must in good conscience restore the honor
you have lost insofar as I am able.”

“My honor!” Elisabeth exclaimed, anger ousting her
wretchedness. “You offend, Lord Sherbourne. I have not lost my honor by being
seen discoursing in overly loud tones with Mrs. Shelley, only my credit.”

“That would be true if one were referring only to the
meeting in the park,” Sherbourne replied coolly. “But we both know that is not
the situation.”

“Mr. Shelley did not take my innocence, Lord Sherbourne,
whatever you may think or however low the esteem in which you may hold me. Mr.
Shelley did not ravish me, he only kissed me.”

“For that fact I may thank fortune and not your discretion,
I am certain,” Lord Sherbourne bit out.

Furious and hurt beyond measure, Elisabeth made no answer.

“Miss Ashwood,” the viscount said after a moment, his voice
quiet. “I spoke harshly and unthinkingly. It will do us no good to hold grudges
toward each other. We must marry, therefore let us at least have the grace to
deal with each other civilly as we accept the inevitable.”

Elisabeth sat in silence while Lord Sherbourne directed the
tilbury around the park, her thoughts in turmoil. What could she do? Return
home unwed? Even if Lord Sherbourne made certain her family did not suffer
financially her mother and father would still be very distressed should their
daughter’s character be tarnished by her association with the “godless
Shelleys”. And Jane… What would she tell her upright friend and Jane’s vicar
husband? It seemed mortifyingly impossible to tell them the truth. But to marry
Lord Sherbourne under these circumstances—what cold and loveless future would
that lead to? Still, she could not deny what she owed Lady Parker, who had
generously taken her into her home and done her best by her brother’s choice.
It would not be right for her to open Lady Parker to the disapprobation of Lord
and Lady Ashwood or the rest of Society. In the end, Elisabeth thought bleakly,
she must do what was right by others, whatever the cost to herself. It was the
only honorable answer.

“I have no choice but to agree, Lord Sherbourne,” Elisabeth
said finally in an expressionless voice. Never would she have believed the
restoration of her betrothal to Lord Sherbourne would bring so little joy.

Twin announcements in the
Times
that May—one
informing readers of the betrothal of John Stanhope Orcutt, Duke of Norland, to
Charlotte Lavinia Parker, daughter of Lord Sherbourne, deceased, and another
notifying the public that Richard Montfort Leslie Sherbourne, Viscount, was to
wed Miss Elisabeth Anne Ashwood—caused almost as much whispering behind the
doors of the
ton
as had Miss Ashwood’s and Lady Parker’s loss of
vouchers to Almack’s. Hostesses who had struck the two women from their guest
lists quietly added them back.

But although Lady Parker was now radiantly happy in her
betrothal to the duke, Elisabeth was as unhappy as she could ever remember
being. She had come to desire the restoration of her betrothal above all
things—but not in this manner. To be married not out of affection or even as a
convenience but as a gesture of gallantry! It was not to be borne! Yet she had
accepted his gesture when she need not have. She could have returned home. It
was true her parents would have been distressed at the loss of the settlement
but they would have forgiven her eventually. Lady Parker might have been
censured for her error in allowing Elisabeth to associate with members of the
literary set but only until her marriage to the duke. Why had she agreed to marry
Lord Sherbourne? Was it right of her to bind Sherbourne and herself in a
loveless union? Why had she done it? So pervasive was Elisabeth’s unhappiness
that she found no pleasure even in her beloved books and she began to lose
weight. Her new gowns hung loosely on her and her face had shadows that had not
been there before.

“Shall we accept this invitation to a musicale at Mrs.
Fortescue’s?” Lady Parker asked Elisabeth one June morning as they sat together
in the drawing room after they had breakfasted.

“If you wish, Lady Parker,” Elisabeth answered tonelessly as
she leafed unseeingly through the pages of one of her new books.

Lady Parker gave her a sharp look, noting Elisabeth’s hollow
cheeks and pale complexion. She set the invitation aside and joined Elisabeth
on the sofa. “It cannot escape my attention that you are unhappy, Miss Ashwood.
What is it? Is there anything I might do to lessen your melancholy?”

“I do not like to think that Lord Sherbourne is marrying me
only out of gallantry,” Elisabeth replied honestly.

“How can you imagine that is Richard’s only reason?” Lady
Parker inquired, puzzled. “The betrothal was planned before you arrived this
February past.”

Unwilling to tell Lady Parker of Lord Sherbourne ending the
betrothal before it was reinstated, Elisabeth found it simpler to agree with
her hostess’s assumption. “I suppose you have the right of it, Lady Parker.
Perhaps it is only I am feeling a bit melancholy of late.”

“You will see, you are still low from the occurrences of
this past week. Come, Miss Ashwood, you must put it all behind you and enjoy
the musicale this coming Thursday. I shall send our acceptance.”

But although Elisabeth resolved to make an effort to appear
content for Lady Parker’s sake, she found it difficult to pretend, particularly
in the face of the true happiness of Lady Parker and the Duke of Norland.
Moreover, it seemed that everyone was happy with her own betrothal to Lord
Sherbourne but she herself. Lady Parker was of course pleased, her parents were
delighted that a date had at last been set for the wedding, her friend Jane
Fairacre had written expressing her pleasure that the betrothal had been
renewed, reiterating her opinion it had all just been a misunderstanding, and
Miss Earlywine could not cease talking excitedly about the coming nuptials
whenever they met.

“Miss Thibeau,” Greaves announced, and Elisabeth looked up
to see the artist entering the drawing room, a sketchbook under her arm.

“Miss Thibeau, I am so glad you have come,” Lady Parker
welcomed the Frenchwoman. “Miss Ashwood, Miss Thibeau has come to make sketches
of Revati.” She turned back to the artist. “Please, Miss Thibeau, feel welcome
to stay as long as is necessary for you to draw your initial sketches. I must
leave shortly but Miss Ashwood will help you if you wish to sketch Revati in
different positions. Revati is fond of Miss Ashwood and will allow herself to
be handled by her.”

Lady Parker departed soon afterward with the duke and
Elisabeth was left alone in the drawing room with Miss Thibeau. The artist set
her sketchbook on the low brass-inlaid mahogany table and began readying her
supplies.

“I see in the announcements you are to marry Lord
Sherbourne, Mademoiselle Ashwood,” the Frenchwoman said as she unwrapped a
packet of charcoals. “I am happy for you. I also am to wed—Monsieur Earlywine
has asked me to be his wife.”

“May I offer my felicitations, Miss Thibeau. I also am happy
for you.” Elisabeth congratulated the Frenchwoman, surprised. She found it
difficult to imagine the merry, easygoing Mr. Earlywine wed to the volatile
artist and wondered that she had never noticed any particular attraction
between the two.

“Thank you. You are the first I tell, for Monsieur Earlywine
he wish to wait until after the wedding of his friend to make the announcement.”

Miss Thibeau settled herself on the floor before the sofa
where Revati still lay asleep, her paws and mouth twitching as she dreamed of
catching birds. “I must see the face directly or the likeness, it has no life,”
she explained as she took up her sketchpad and began to draw. “Lady Parker, she
has no desire for a sketch of the top of the
chat’s
head, no?

“Please to pardon me, Mademoiselle Ashwood,” the artist
added, glancing up at Elisabeth, “but I have the interest in the human nature
and you do not look happy. Have you no wish to marry the Lord Sherbourne? He is
the lord and the—what do you say? The nabob?”

“Yes, I wish to marry Lord Sherbourne,” Elisabeth answered.
“But it is what is called a marriage of convenience,” she finished, surprised
to find herself confiding in the artist. She had never spoken to the
Frenchwoman in privacy before and was surprised to find the artist had such a
warmth of manner and sympathy in her voice that confiding in her was
irresistible.

“Ah, and you wish it were not,” Miss Thibeau said with
perspicacity. “But, Mademoiselle Ashwood, most marriages are what you call the
marriage of convenience. Few of us have the choice to marry for love only,
n’est-ce
pas
?”

“Perhaps,” Elisabeth acknowledged.

“The love, she will come, Mademoiselle Ashwood,” Miss
Thibeau continued as she half rose, shifted her position and settled in a
different place on the floor in order to draw the cat from another angle. “You
must, how you say, entice the love, yes? The gentleman, he must be courted, you
must not leave the gentlemen only to court you, you understand? The gentleman,
he wants to be tempted, to be, how you say, tantalized.

“You do as Mademoiselle Thibeau say and you will have the
love match, Mademoiselle Ashwood,
c’est vrai,
” the artist finished with
conviction.

Remembering her jealousy of Miss Thibeau over the past
months as the beautiful Frenchwoman charmed every man she met, Elisabeth had no
doubt the artist was speaking the truth. But how to follow Miss Thibeau’s
advice? Elisabeth could not imagine herself behaving in a flirtatious manner to
someone who held her in low esteem and had made it clear he was only marrying
her out of a sense of duty. She did not have the bold assurance of the artist,
nor her beauty. How could a brown wren tempt and tantalize?

Sherbourne, making an effort to salvage what he could out of
the disaster his betrothal had become, ate dinner at his sister’s each night
and made a point of speaking to Miss Ashwood in a courteous manner and she did
the same. But he could not understand why Miss Ashwood seemed as unhappy with
the betrothal restored as she had appeared when he had first suggested they end
it. The happy and confiding young woman of her first months in London did not
return and the new somber, silent Miss Ashwood remained. Worse, she was losing
her looks, becoming pale and thin, which Sherbourne knew was the outer sign of
deep inner unhappiness.

Wishing that he had Earlywine’s ease with the female sex,
Sherbourne set out once again to take dinner at his sister’s town house.

“Richard,” his sister welcomed him, “I am pleased you have
come—I have ordered a dinner of dishes from India in order to tempt Miss
Ashwood’s appetite. She is looking far too peaked.”

“Indeed, I must agree, Charlotte,” Sherbourne said, taking a
chair next to that of his betrothed. “But no doubt the special meal you have
ordered prepared will tempt her appetite,” he added, genuinely concerned at
Elisabeth’s pale looks.

“I am certain I shall enjoy a meal prepared in the style of
India,” Sherbourne’s betrothed responded politely, though with little
enthusiasm.

But once at table Miss Ashwood did appear to be making an
effort to eat more heartily than she had of late, and she asked Lady Parker
about the ingredients of several of the dishes.

“I very much like the taste of what you tell me is cumin,”
Elisabeth said after asking the ingredients of a savory stew-like dish of lamb.
“Does the duke like foods prepared in the Indian style?” she asked Lady Parker
curiously.

“In truth I do not know,” Lady Parker answered, appearing
much struck. “It is something I shall have to find out. It is an adventure,
learning the likes and dislikes of another person, but we have many interests
in common so I am hopeful the dishes we prefer will be another.”

“When Miss Thibeau came to sketch Revati today she told me
she is betrothed to Mr. Earlywine. There are two who cannot have much in
common—I would not think two people of such different temperament would be
attracted to one another. Is it true about their betrothal, Lord Sherbourne?”
Elisabeth asked, turning to the viscount.

“Yes, Miss Ashwood, Earlywine had informed me of their
betrothal but said he wished not to announce it until after our marriage takes
place.”

“So they are truly to wed? I also am surprised but I am not
certain they would not have any interests in common,” Lady Parker said
thoughtfully. “Miss Thibeau and Mr. Earlywine both appear to have most cheerful
characters and to find great enjoyment in whatever happens to come their way.”

“I suppose that is true,” Elisabeth agreed.

Shortly after dinner Elisabeth begged to be excused because
of a headache coming on, leaving Sherbourne and his sister at the table while
the viscount drank a glass of Port.

“Surely I have not changed into an ogre, Charlotte,” Sherbourne
said in frustration as the door was closed behind her. “Miss Ashwood seems
barely to tolerate my presence.”

“I do not think it is you but I would not have thought the
happenings of the last two months would affect her quite as much as they appear
to have,” his sister commented. “For I did think, when I first met her, that
Miss Ashwood had a very independent turn of mind.

“I was in fact hoping that you might tell me what is amiss
with her, Richard, for I am at a loss,” Lady Parker finished. “I do worry to
see her looks to fall off as much as they have and to see her pick so at her
food.”

“I am afraid I have little more idea than you, Charlotte,”
the viscount said rather mendaciously, staring moodily into the distance as he
sipped his Port. Surely it could not be the argument they had had in the
tilbury when he had thrown it up to her about Shelley’s kiss and she had
retaliated with mention of Miss Thibeau? They had argued about the kiss and
Miss Thibeau before without it causing lasting ill feelings between them. Then
what could be the cause of her low spirits? It could not be longing for the
poet, could it? It was true Miss Ashwood’s decline dated from the time she was
not allowed to see the Shelleys anymore. If it were not for Shelley, Sherbourne
thought glumly, he would maneuver to be alone with Miss Ashwood and simply ask
her what was amiss, or even dare an embrace, gambling that it would evoke the
return of the physical response to him he had noticed whenever they touched,
whether in a dance or when simply taking her arm as they walked. But he would
not offer his embraces to her when she might be longing for those of another.
It was more than he could bring himself to do.

A sennight passed without Elisabeth discovering any
opportunities to act as Miss Thibeau had suggested, even had she dared follow
the artist’s advice to tempt the desires of the viscount. Each day that passed
Elisabeth felt that she and Lord Sherbourne were becoming more entrenched in a
pattern of careful courtesy that deepened the gulf between them. She glanced
over to the viscount, who sat next to his sister, deep in a discussion
regarding what Lady Parker would do with her town house upon her marriage. The
serious topic of conversation accentuated the harsh aspects of Lord Sherbourne’s
profile and he appeared almost forbidding, the lines in his tanned face etched
deeply, his fair, sun-bleached hair adding a hint of ice. His dress, without
the modish touches of Mr. Earlywine’s, added to the stark correctness—plain
trousers tucked into black boots, dark morning coat and simply tied cravat.

Lord Sherbourne finished his discussion with his sister and
approached Elisabeth, who hastily pretended to be absorbed in her embroidery.

“I have received an invitation from Hunt. He invites us to a
dinner to celebrate our betrothal that is being given at Marlow on the night
of…” Lord Sherbourne glanced down at the invitation, “the night of ‘the feast
of the eve of midsummer’.

“At first I was of a mind to send a refusal, for I know you
and my sister have had an unspoken agreement that you will not see Mr. and Mrs.
Shelley again and they are likely to be there. But I think an exception might
be made this once if you would care to attend, Miss Ashwood. Or would you wish
to refuse, given that it is through your acquaintance with the literary set
that your trials have come to you?”