Lord Greywell's Dilemma (30 page)

She heard Greywell offer the older woman a glass of brandy, but Abigail refused, in a very genteel, chiding voice, saying, “Sherry before dinner, my dear Greywell. I would accept a glass of sherry were you to press me.”

Greywell pressed her, and Elspeth, who dearly needed the distraction and the courage the beverage provided. Were they going to ask her when Greywell had finally succeeded in seducing her? Really, her father and Abigail made the most astonishing . . . couple.

Oh, my God. she thought suddenly, he’s going to marry her! That’s why he’s come, and dressed in such a pompous, formal style. Her eyes flew to Greywell’s, and her husband nodded, acknowledging he, too, had guessed their ill-kept secret. He seemed half amused, half pleased by the turn events had taken. Elspeth felt somehow betrayed.

Sir Edward waited until dinner was almost finished before making the announcement. By that time Elspeth had gotten her rebellious emotions somewhat under control. This had nothing to do with her mother. As far as Elspeth was concerned, there was not one way in which Abigail could compare with her mother. They were two entirely different types of people, and if Sir Edward thought he could be happy with her, so much the better. Perhaps it would end his gallivanting in the neighborhood around Lyndhurst.

“I want you to wish me happy, Elspeth,” is what Sir Edward was saying. “Abigail has consented to be my wife.”

“How . . . how lovely,” Elspeth managed, turning to Abigail on her other side and smiling. “David, perhaps we could toast them with a bottle of champagne. Have you set a date, Abigail?”

“We’ll have the banns read, of course,” said the older woman self-righteously. “Edward suggested a special license, but I want no hint of havey-cavey business about it. So it will be several weeks, I imagine. Then I shall move with him to Lyndhurst. If Greywell would be so kind, we thought he might find a tenant for my property, and keep an eye on it.”

“I’d be delighted,” he said. He had already spoken to a footman about the champagne and now turned to his wife. “I’m sure Elspeth would like to have the wedding breakfast here, if you would allow us. You’ll not want to have that burden when you’re getting ready to leave for Lyndhurst.”

Elspeth wished she were close enough to Greywell to kick him under the table. “Of course you must let us have it here,” she echoed, in what she considered an exemplary tone of voice.

“If you insist,” Abigail said.

“That’s kind of you,” Sir Edward said.

Elspeth wondered if they had planned on it all along.

Her husband sat smiling at the head of the table. When the champagne came he made a delightful toast to the betrothed couple. Elspeth said she hoped they would be very happy. They moved back to the drawing room and talked of Lyndhurst and the wedding and plans for the future. Abigail drank a little too much, which kept Elspeth from doing it, but Sir Edward merely looked enchanted with his chipper bride-to-be.

“I’m going to take this young lady home,” he announced after what seemed an eternity to Elspeth. She had never seen a man his age so besotted. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“We won’t,” she said, with sublime indifference. Greywell pinched her little finger, and she smiled benignly on the departing couple. From the drawing room they heard the front door close, and she said, “He’s lost his mind.”

Greywell laughed and kissed her cheek. “They’re perfect for each other, my dear.”

“I can’t believe he’d marry her!” Elspeth saw the disappointment in his eyes, but she was too upset to heed it. “My mother wasn’t at all like that. She was sweet and kind and beautiful and sympathetic. She wasn’t crazy like Abigail. Why would he want to marry her? They’ll make such a spectacle of themselves at Lyndhurst.”

“You won’t be there to see it.”

His cool words had the desired effect of bringing her up short.

She stood for a minute, not looking at him, and then said, “I have a bit of a headache. I think I’ll go to bed now.”

As she took a step away from him he said, “Elspeth.”

Though she stayed where she was, she didn’t answer.

“I know it’s not easy to accept that your father wishes to remarry, but I don’t think that’s what’s really bothering you.”

“What else would be bothering me?” she asked crossly. “Isn’t it enough that my father plans to marry a dotty neighbor of yours?”

“Of ours.

“Yes, well, of ours, then.”

“Don’t you think they’ll be happy?”

She shrugged. “I suppose they will.”

“Isn’t that what you want for your father?”

Elspeth didn’t answer. She stood with her back to him, making it perfectly clear she wished to leave the room. Greywell came to stand beside her, lifting her face with a gentle finger. “Just don’t let it settle in your mind that their marriage is what has entirely discomposed you, my dear. You are surprised, and a little unhappy about someone replacing your mother in Sir Edward’s affections, but you know it’s a suitable arrangement. More than suitable, really. It will make both of their lives more pleasant. It will keep your father at home and give Abigail someone on whom to lavish all that pent-up care she has. After the initial shock, the people around Lyndhurst will think nothing of them—they’ll be enchanted to have such a quaint pair in their midst. You know that’s how it will be, Elspeth.”

Her eyelids flickered rapidly under his unswerving gaze.

“Probably.”

“What has really upset you was what Abigail said earlier, wasn’t it?”      

She was tempted to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about, but she knew it was useless. There was always the possibility of brazening it out. “Well, it was a very uncivil thing to say, which only goes to show what a strange old woman she is.”

Greywell abruptly removed his finger and stepped back from her. “Very well, Elspeth. Why don’t you run along to bed? Sleep well.”

His forbearance infuriated her. And the certainty that he wouldn’t come to her, that he wouldn’t expect her to come to him, made her feel desolate. “You said we didn’t have to talk about it again.”

“That’s true, I did. And we won’t . . . if you don’t want to.”

Elspeth knew he was backing her against a wall. “Why would I want to talk about it? It’s embarrassing to me. I’ve told you I’m sorry about all that.”

If she hadn’t used the same phrase again, ‘all that,’ he might have been able to let it go. But now he was truly curious as to how much ‘all that’ was. She had been a virgin that morning, so it couldn’t be so very much, could it? Why wouldn’t she tell him and get it behind them? But he had promised to let it be. “I think we’re both tired. I did promise not to press you. I’ll see you to your room.”

“But you won’t come to me later, will you?” Elspeth moistened her lips. “What she said has upset you and made you think all sorts of things about me, hasn’t it? Oh, I could throttle her. And how dare they discuss me in that way? Well, she’s right. I’m a wanton, David. All he had to do was kiss me and I was nearly ready to . . . to . . . to jump into bed with him. Only there wasn’t really any bed we could use, which made it more difficult.”

Elspeth dropped onto the nearest chair and tapped her fingers against the arms. Her face was a confused mixture of shame and remorse and fear. “I didn’t know how easily I could be tempted. Francis was very sweet to me. He wrote all these poems about me and he told me he adored me. Well,
you
didn’t adore me. You left here being very annoyed with me, and your letters weren’t much of an improvement, were they? I’m not trying to excuse myself. Well, yes, I suppose I am, actually. You have to understand, David, I’d never been in a position like that before. My purpose in being here, to see that Andrew got well, had been accomplished. Emily Marden was preoccupied with her new baby. The only visits Abigail made were these strange calls—she would pop up in the house somewhere and start talking to me practically in the middle of a sentence. You had written that you were going to join Wellington’s staff, and I felt quite put out with you about that, thinking you would probably just get yourself killed.”

She made a dismissive gesture with one hand and allowed it to fall listlessly on her lap. It was impossible to read his expression. He hadn’t seated himself, but stood there watching her without changing position or allowing his eyes to register anything more than polite interest. Elspeth let out a long, shaking breath. “So one night we took a walk to the woods over there.” She indicated with one quivering finger and continued. “It was the day before I got your valet’s letter, so Abigail is right, in a way, about what might have happened if I hadn’t heard from you when I did. But I’d heard about Waterloo and I was upset and I let Francis comfort me. I’d let him kiss me a few times before, and the sensations were quite pleasurable. That night I let him . . . touch me.

“I had my gown on!” she insisted, flushing and not meeting his eyes. But I might have let . . . everything happen if it hadn’t been for remembering my father and how I’d been so upset with him for what he did. Still, I started to understand why he had done it. The desire is stronger than I’d understood.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s very strong. I wouldn’t have liked you to sleep with another man, Elspeth. I probably wouldn’t have cast you out, as you were determined to think I would, but I would have suffered. No man likes to think of himself as a cuckold. I realize I didn’t give you any special reason to be faithful to me, but I expected it of you.”

She studied the hand lying in her lap. “Yes, I know.”

“Do you think it will be difficult for you to remain faithful to me in future?”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so.”

He smiled and came to take her hand. “Shall I come to your room tonight, or do you prefer mine?”

“It doesn’t make the least difference,” she murmured as his lips met hers.

Chapter Fifteen

During the two weeks before the wedding, Elspeth saw very little of her father, unless Abigail came to dine at Ashfield. Sir Edward was gruffly good-humored with his daughter, strikingly easy with Greywell, and totally oblivious to little Andrew. Under Greywell’s watchful eye, Elspeth behaved as though the match were the best idea since the seed drill. Actually, she didn’t mind it, once she became accustomed to the reality, but she liked pretending that it was only Greywell’s constant attendance on her which guided her behavior. That way she saw a great deal of him, which made her days as inordinately pleasing as her nights were dazzling.

Greywell never let on that he understood this little ploy. It was a game they played, and he was perfectly willing to participate. His intention was to consolidate the gains he’d made, before putting them to the test. He had already devised a scheme for bringing matters to a head, but it would have to wait until the marriage was safely performed and Sir Edward headed to Lyndhurst with his new bride.

Of course, Greywell could simply have told his wife he loved her and asked if she’d changed her mind about Francis, but Elspeth was not quite the same woman he’d married. When he looked back at that time he’d spent at Lyndhurst, he remembered how easy it had been to read every emotion in her face. In those days she could not have dissimulated if she’d wanted to, but the past months had affected her. She had become more cautious, and with her caution had come the ability to dissemble. Hadn’t she withheld from him the gravity of her involvement with Francis? She had purposely let him believe it had been little more than a harmless flirtation. And it had certainly been more than that.

And yet he found it difficult to believe that Elspeth loved Francis, that deep inside her she maintained a secret desire to be with him. Greywell was not convinced that his assumption wasn’t wishful thinking, or even unsuspected arrogance, but he could not believe Elspeth was so thoroughly attuned now to artifice that she could behave toward him as she did if her affections weren’t wholly attached. But there was the nagging doubt which would not leave him alone. He wanted this matter settled once and for all.

The morning of Sir Edward’s wedding dawned hot and still, with a promise of suffocating heat later in the day. Elspeth and her father were already at the breakfast table when Greywell arrived. They both looked lethargic and were taking desultory bites of food around a few uninteresting comments such as “I think everything is ready for the wedding breakfast” and “This is going to be the damnedest heat to travel in.” Greywell didn’t feel any more energetic than either of them, but he smiled cheerfully as he seated himself, saying, “It’s a good thing we decided to have the meal outside under the trees where there will be a little shade.”

“What we’ll need is a bit of a breeze if everyone isn’t to expire on the spot,” Elspeth sighed. “Even with the wedding as early as planned, we’re going to have people eating at the very heat of the day. If we didn’t need all the servants to pass the food and drinks, I think I would devise some of those enormous fans you see in the Eastern drawings, where the slaves stand about waving them to cool some overindulgent potentate.”

Sir Edward regarded her speculatively. “I believe you would. You know, Elspeth, you’ve become almost frivolous since the last time I saw you, and it’s very becoming. Don’t you think so, Greywell?”

“I think Elspeth is charming,” her husband agreed, smiling across the table at her. She accepted the compliment with a demure lowering of her lashes. That was the sort of thing he wondered about. When he had first met her she had had none of those little feminine tricks; she had been all bald frankness. Who had taught her that, if not Francis? And where she had been capable of blushing at any hint of intimacy she was now almost coquettish. Well, perhaps not that, but certainly warmly affectionate. Not that he minded! Unless it was part of an act to disguise her true feelings.

“Well,” Sir Edward continued, “she has more of a taste for finery than I would ever have imagined, and I for one am pleased to see it. With Abigail I don’t mind in the least that she dresses a little oddly now and again, but Elspeth is too young to be so eccentric. And Abigail has a flair for wearing the most outrageous outfits. I quite like them on her. Elspeth, on the other hand, used to look like a scalped rabbit the way she wore her hair, and she dressed as though she were companion to the bishop’s widow.”