One Whisper Away (29 page)

So far it could be termed, at least for her, a disaster. For one thing, she decided as she sat in a chair sipping lemonade on the back terrace of Eddington Hall, it was clear that Elijah Winters wasn’t going to attend the party. Carriages had begun to roll in just before luncheon and it was now late afternoon. She didn’t really blame him, and she hadn’t been able to think of a way to ask her grandmother if he’d even been invited. Her one attempt to casually bring up the guest list had been met with the cryptic reply that anyone her grandmother deemed important had been included.

It was all somewhat disheartening, but then again, Cecily was happy—of that there was no doubt—so Eleanor’s personal disquiet was not as important. The morning had been spent debating over what gown Cecily would wear for her fiancé’s arrival and Eleanor had offered advice with good-natured sisterly wisdom and found it amusing to see her sibling, who was usually the modicum of poise and self-reserve, in such a fluster. Personally Eleanor doubted the earl cared one way or the other what her sister wore, he was so smitten.

No,
smitten
didn’t really fit the untamable Augustine. He was so . . . so . . .

“Would you mind if I join you?”

Her gaze swerved up.

It seemed Lord Drury had decided to make an appearance after all.

Blond hair waved back from a face that might be considered austere except for the almost always evident good humor in his blue eyes. His cravat was perfectly tied, his coat a dark brown in contrast to his fawn breeches, polished Hessians hugging muscular calves. To her dismay, Eleanor sat up so quickly she splashed some lemonade on the hem of her gown.

She had an embarrassing habit of doing that in his presence, but at least this time she’d done it to herself. “Oh.”

“I’m rather late.” Lord Drury indicated a nearby chair and pretended not to notice her clumsiness. “May I sit? Everyone else, it seems, is either napping, participating in archery, or out for an afternoon ride.”

He also had a glass of lemonade, though his held a suspicious brown tinge as if maybe it had been spiked with a bit of whiskey.

Her grandmother
was
the consummate hostess.

“Of course, I do not mind.” Had she refused any eligible bachelor the adjoining chair, her grandmother would have had her head.

And
him
. . . well, there was the small matter of how her heart had begun a quick, treacherous pounding.

“I loathe archery.” He sank down in an opposite chair by a small glass-topped table and crossed his elegantly booted ankles. “I can’t stand to waste away my afternoon sleeping, and neither was I in the mood for a cross-country amble.”

“I didn’t know you’d arrived.”

His smile was wry. “I was delayed by business. I debated over coming at all, I confess.”

“I understand very well.” She stared out at the massive park, the stately trees and clipped grass a sight she well remembered from her childhood. “Country parties are a bore, aren’t they?”

There
was a brilliant line. He would fall instantly in love with her over that one.

His good-looking face was bland. “They can be. But we both know that is not what I meant.”

“Yes.”

Lord . . . surely she could do better . . . except, in her case, she was much better off not saying anything at all.

Or was she? Eleanor took some heart in that he’d come and joined her. For that matter, that he’d bothered to come to the gathering at all, for while it was hosted by her grandmother and was a coveted invitation, there was surely a bitter edge to it for him, since everyone in attendance knew Cecily had accepted Jonathan Bourne instead of him.

Maybe all he wanted was a sympathetic ear. She said frankly, “I don’t think I would have attended were I in your position. I’m surprised you did.”

Elijah’s brows went up. “And I’m surprised it took you so long to voice that surprise. How long have I been here?” He pulled out his watch and theatrically looked at it. “A minute? Why the delay?”

Was that an insult? She couldn’t be sure. No, she decided, he would never insult her, and besides, there was just the smallest tilt to the corner of his lips. “I’m not being critical, I just—”

“You are too kind to be critical,” he interrupted, relaxed in his chair, his hands resting on the arms and his gaze on the trees in the park, their shadows oblong on the mown grass. “You are honest. It is different, Eleanor.”

No, not an insult; a compliment. She should be beyond maidenly blushes, but her cheeks held a sudden, peculiar warmth at his use of her first name so informally. “Thank you.”

He didn’t look at her, seemingly intent on the peaceful vista stretched out before them. The archery tournament was on the west lawn, far enough away that the participants were mere figures in the distance. “I don’t suppose it will sound very logical, but I think your sister represented to me an ideal that doesn’t exactly exist, which she proved to be true.”

Though normally she would have asked him what he meant, Eleanor with effort refrained, because with a brother and a father, she’d at least learned that when men wished to discuss their feelings—which did not happen often—it was best not to intrude on the moment. The less said, the better.

“Cecily is undeniably beautiful, but also I found her understated manner to be what I thought I might like in a wife.”

There truly was no reply to that statement, so she didn’t try. In fact, despite the glass of lemonade she’d been sipping, Eleanor found her mouth was quite dry.

“But,” Lord Drury said with equanimity, his face bland, “perhaps I was wrong. It’s clear she isn’t nearly as reserved as I believed, so maybe my approach to all this is flawed. I am obviously not as astute as I thought I was.”

If he wanted reserved, he didn’t want her, so Eleanor also just pretended interest in the amateur archery competition. “I think, my lord, that often what we perceive as an ideal might be more fantasy than reality. Human beings are in general flawed, but when you contemplate the matter, it is part of our capricious charm. If someone is predictable, are they not by the very definition of that term dull? I do understand a gentleman wanting decorum in his wife, but asking for predictability is sentencing oneself to a life of complete boredom.”

A long-winded speech, but she felt better for delivering it.

For she meant every emphatic word of it.

Out in the grass, a small bird fluttered down, hopped about, and then flew off. They both watched it as if it were a fascinating feat of nature. “You have a point,” he finally drawled in his cultured voice. “I rarely view introspection as a good idea, but lately I have been asking myself a few pertinent questions.”

“Such as?” Maybe she shouldn’t have asked, but after all, she’d been sitting by herself and
he’d
joined
her
.

Elijah looked at her. Directly. Actually,
very
directly. “I suppose I wondered how important the impressions of society were to my own. Propriety is all well and good, but ultimately, surely a satisfactory relationship is between the two people involved and no one else. Deferring to popular opinion is tempting, of course, since it takes courage to do otherwise.”

It would be best if at this point she kept her opinion to herself, but she had never done all that well with that course of action. “I agree with that view.”

“It made me ponder that I’ve maybe taken the wrong road this season. Perhaps last season as well.”

Dare she ask it? Last season. Did he mean her? Dare she inquire why though she’d felt their friendship growing, he had suddenly cooled in his attentions and backed away?

No. She didn’t have enough courage.

Or did she?

What was there to lose anyway?

“What did I say to offend you last year?” She paused and took a breath before she rushed on. “I might be wrong and you never felt any interest in me at all, but I thought maybe you did. . . . I hoped. Then suddenly you no longer spoke to me except with excruciating politeness. Something happened, and truthfully, I have thought about it almost every single day and am still mystified.”

He didn’t answer at once, and Eleanor stilled her now trembling hands against her skirts, reminding herself that in the end it didn’t matter what he said. In some measure she’d given him a disgust of her, and so be it. Knowing exactly how she’d come about doing it might be enlightening, but it repaired nothing.

Lord Drury took a sip of lemonade and cleared his throat. “I am ashamed to say it out loud.”

Ashamed? The oddness of that declaration made her simply stare at him.

“You conversed about Miss Austen’s novel with a depth of understanding about how it so skillfully represented English society one evening and then debated the new Corn Laws in the same conversation with a fluent ease and expertise that made me wonder if my modest interests in literature and politics would bore you.”

Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t
that
.

“So you see, maybe I am one of the grievous dullards you so disdain.”

Before she thought, Eleanor said, “Cecily disdains them too.”

“Thank you for reminding me. She is marrying someone else, so you are no doubt telling the truth.” His smile held cynical humor. “I think this entire endeavor has forced me to examine my life a little closer.”

“And what did you come up with, my lord?”

“How is it I knew you would ask me that?”

“Because you are acquainted with my tendency to speak my mind.” There was a hint of rueful honesty in her reply, but then again, it was the truth.

Yet he answered. “I suppose I am.” He paused. “I believe women find me pleasant. I know I try to be. Physically I am not repulsive—”

“Far from it.” She said it with too much conviction and, as a result, blushed.

He smiled at the vehement interruption. “Thank you. In any case, it is all very well to be well mannered and pleasing to look at, but I am conservative to a fault, and my interests, if I look closely at them, are superficial at best. I am passionate about nothing.”

“Whereas I am passionate about everything.” Eleanor grimaced. “One is no doubt as bad as the other.”

“Indeed. I agree. So I’ve come to the conclusion that perhaps I have been going about all of this the wrong way.”

“All of what?”

“What I thought was a reasonable approach to a sensible marriage.”

His reply made her look at him, raising her gaze from where it had fastened on the tips of her slippers. There was still telltale warmth in her cheeks. “Is there such a thing as a sensible marriage, my lord? By virtue of the intrinsic meaning of the phrase, it seems impossible. Romance cannot be sensible, for that takes any semblance of romance out of it.”

“I wasn’t speaking of romance.” He took a hearty sip from his glass of lemonade and muttered, “I was talking about a suitable arrangement between a man and a woman, and that
is
possible, or at least in the world I thought I lived in it was.”

“You thought you lived in?” Eleanor elevated her brows.

“The one in which a man reached a certain age and decided it was time to select a wife and set up his nursery because he has an obligation to his title and family name to do so.”

“I am perishing to know the criteria males have established to define
suitable
, for considering
my
unmarried status, it is obvious I am lacking in some way.”

It happened again. His gaze strayed downward, just briefly, a flicker of a glance. “You are not lacking, Lady Eleanor.”

“I wasn’t talking about my bosom.”

Amazingly enough, he laughed at her frankness. “Neither was I, but do I have to beg forgiveness for noticing you are particularly fetching in that shade of blue?”

It took some effort to avoid pointing out that she doubted he’d really been admiring her gown, but she
did
refrain. “No forgiveness required, but I am finding this conversation fascinating. So, since you stated you think you’ve been going about finding a wife the wrong way with the sensible approach; may I ask how you are going to solve this thorny problem?”

He looked into her eyes. “If, as you say, there is no such thing as a sensible romance, perhaps I am going to toss logic to the four winds and court a woman who amuses me, whom I find physically attractive, and with whom I can converse freely, never mind whether or not she is a model of decorum. One who might even be able to teach me something about . . . passion. Do you have any suggestions as to whom I might choose, Lady Eleanor?”

 

Being an engaged lady had its merits, that was for certain, and the provincial lifestyle of the countryside also had an appeal. Not the least of which was that when she and Jonathan went for a late-afternoon ride, they were truly alone.

How delightful it was going to be, Cecily mused, taking in the sunshine, the sweet fragrance of the clean air, the bucolic setting of pasture and woodlands, to have a new freedom that had been denied her all her life. First nannies, and then a succession of governesses, to be replaced with chaperones; she’d been shadowed her entire existence. “This is lovely.”

“
You
are certainly lovely,” her companion murmured, his glossy dark hair gleaming under the sun, his coat casually draped over his saddle, his cravat discarded, a glimpse of a bronzed chest visible through the neck of his partially unbuttoned shirt. Their horses walked side by side down a wide path usually taken by the cows grazing in the pasture beyond.

“Thank you. However, I was referring to the freedom.”

“I dislike the city as well.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

His quizzical sidelong glance clearly stated he did not quite understand.

Familiar with how males took for granted the privilege they enjoyed, she clarified. “I could not normally ride alone with you.”