Stolen Love (5 page)

At two o'clock the Willards arrived back at Tavistock Square, and Elizabeth fell exhausted into bed. The ladies had managed to leave without losing their jewelry, but still she dreamed of a mysterious gentleman who could steal a tiara and disappear as though he had never been there.

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A
melia stood in the doorway of her cousin's room looking impatient. "Hurry up, Beth, or we shall be late."

"Late for what, Amelia?" Elizabeth continued searching for her gloves.

"What difference does it make? I want to go. Why are you always so slow?"

She found her gloves and pulled them on hastily. "I'm ready now. Where's Miss Lincoln?"

"She's waiting downstairs."

Amelia set a quick pace toward Regent's Park after the three women stepped into the cool afternoon air. The reason for Amelia's haste became apparent when they reached the Park Crescent. Lady Charles was there, standing at the edge of a group of some fifteen people, Ripton Rutherford and Beaufort Latchley among them.

"Lady Charles," Amelia said, extending her hand and looking for all the world as though she was astonished to see her. "Good afternoon. We must have had the same idea—to walk in Regent's Park, you know."

"Good afternoon, Miss Willard, Miss Elizabeth Willard." Lady Charles looked pleased to see them, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief that Amelia's brash greeting had not offended such an elegant and refined woman. "I am pleased to see you do not neglect exercise," she said.

"Oh my, no. We walk almost every day, don't we, Beth?" Amelia did not wait for an answer. "And how is Sir Jaspar, Lady Charles? He was so amusing at the Villineses the other night," she giggled. "It was a pleasure to meet him and yourself."

"He is very well, thank you, Miss Willard." Apparently Lady Charles had decided the Willard girls were interesting enough to merit an invitation to join her, for she asked, "Will you walk with us? We are just taking a stroll to the zoo."

"Why, thank you," Amelia said. "You are just too kind to invite us." She dimpled and glanced around to see who had noticed her.

Ripton and Beaufort Latchley saw Amelia at about the same time, but Ripton reached Lady Charles first. He fell into step with them.

Lady Charles glanced at Amelia before speaking to Ripton. "Sir Jaspar and I missed you at tea yesterday, Mr. Rutherford." She reached over to tap the middle of his chest with her fan.

"I was upset at being unable to attend, naturally, but I had a prior engagement, and it was impossible for me to break it."

"My husband is planning a rather grand celebration to show his painting, Mr. Rutherford. The date is not yet fixed, but might I extract from you a promise to attend?" Lady Charles's smile was just short of flirtatious.

"You have my most solemn promise. And will you do me a favor in return?"

"If it is within my power, Mr. Rutherford."

"I assure you, it is. Would you be too desolate if I took Miss Amelia Willard away to walk with me?" He looked hopefully at Amelia.

"I certainly would be, Mr. Rutherford, but go along anyway."

"I would be honored, Miss Willard," Ripton said, offering his arm to Amelia.

"Come, Miss Willard," said Lady Charles after Ripton and Amelia left, with Miss Lincoln following behind them. "I want you to stay by me." She drew her arm through Elizabeth's. "Tell me, how long have you been in^London?"

"Hardly two weeks." Next to Lady Charles's silk gown, Elizabeth's blue dress looked positively drab, and she wished enough of her allowance was left so she might have a dress even a little like Lady Charles's.

"Is this your first time visiting London?"

"We used to live here when I was a girl. We moved to Dartford when I was eight, and this is the first time in four years that I have been to London."

"Then it may as well be your first time. One's first time in London as a young lady is a vastly different thing. How do you find it so far?"

"I like it a great deal." Lady Charles's interest in her impressions of London went a long way toward making Elizabeth relax, and she smiled for the first time since reaching Regent's Park. "I have been with my uncle to the British Museum and to St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I have also been shopping with my aunt Mary and my cousin Amelia at Regent Street. And I have found a bookstore where the proprietor does not mind if I spend more time than money. There is so much to do here that I am afraid to stay at home. I do not want to miss anything."

"Have you been to any balls?"

"No, not yet."

"Good heavens! You sound relieved." Lady Charles shook her head. "I can remember my coming-out. I was dreadfully nervous myself. I soon got over it, though, just as you will, you may depend on it."

"But I don't know anyone in London. Except Mr. and Mrs. Villines, that is. And I do not enjoy meeting strangers, Lady Charles."

"It would not matter if you did not know a soul. In London a pretty girl does not lack acquaintances for long. Soon you won't even want to walk with me, there will be so many gentlemen waiting for the pleasure."

"It isn't true, Lady Charles!"

"Of course it is. And that's as it should be."

"I pray I shall never treat a friend as badly as that." Elizabeth hesitated. "I hope I am not presuming too much in hoping I might call you a friend one day, Lady Charles?"

"No, Miss Willard, you are not, but I would think you a peculiar young lady if you were to persist in being so disinterested in gentlemen."

"I think they won't be much interested in me, Lady Charles," Elizabeth said after a reluctant pause.

"Nonsense! If I were to ask you about London two weeks from now, you would talk of nothing but balls and the handsome men you have danced with."

"I think I had best leave the gentlemen to my cousin." Elizabeth was tempted to believe Lady Charles, but she knew what disappointment was like. Far better never to have one's hopes raised in the first place.

"Mrs. Villines is quite certain you will be married this season." Lady Charles laughed at Elizabeth's expression. "Mrs. Villines and I are great friends. We've talked about you at some length, Miss Willard. She speaks very highly of you, you know." She tapped Elizabeth's arm with her fan.

"You seem to think I might be married any minute, Lady Charles." Elizabeth laughed.

"I think you will be astonished at how soon you are proposed to. I expect you might marry any gentleman you choose."

"My cousin may marry any gentleman she chooses, not I."

"You underestimate yourself."

"I think not." Even to her ears, the words came out sounding sorrowful. "I haven't any fortune," she explained.

Lady Charles smiled. "Time will show which of us is in error." Elizabeth felt the woman's fingers gently squeezing her arm. "Dear Miss Willard," she said softly, "I am in full agreement with Mrs. Villines. I therefore hope you will allow me to give you a piece of advice. Reflect carefully before you choose a husband. If you make a bad marriage, you will be miserable your whole life. Too many women accept the first man who offers."

Elizabeth was touched by her kindness and flattered at the implied compliment. Because she could think of nothing to say, she made a pretext of looking at the park grounds. Lady Charles chose not to interrupt her silence, and in the quiet that followed, the conversation of the men directly in front of them caught Elizabeth's attention. It was the name that riveted her.

"I hear Nicholas Villines is in London again," one of the men was saying.

"Indeed?" His companion snorted. "I understand he's brought back another orchid. A rare violet cymbidium. It's said he carried away the only specimen to arrive here still alive."

"Stole it, more like!" exclaimed the second.

"Now, now," the other said.

"Well, that's what it amounts to."

"If you had his connections, you'd do the same," said the first.

"You're probably right about that. Only I'm convinced it would take more than his connections to explain how he came to be so bloody rich after the mess his father left him in."

"Well, whatever the explanation, I expect you shall soon have yet another reason to envy him."

"So?" said the other sourly, not sounding very interested at all.

"Lord Eversleigh is said to be encouraging him to take a wife, and I'll give you odds the woman he'll marry is right here among us."

"Eh, what?"

His companion answered him by pointing a finger.

Both Lady Charles and Elizabeth looked in the direction he was pointing and saw Amelia walking with Ripton Rutherford on one side and Beaufort Latchley on the other.

"That, my friend, is Miss Amelia Willard. Eighty thousand pounds, so I hear, and the daughter of close friends of Mr. Russell Villines."

"Who is her family?" He sounded distinctly interested now.

"The father is Mr. Havoc Willard, a wealthy merchant. He married the former Miss Mary Redingwood, of the Harford Redingwoods. The former Miss Redingwood and Mrs. Russell Villines were at school together. The Willards hope to have their daughter married this season. Who better than to Nicholas Villines, I ask you? I don't imagine but that the two families have planned it for some time."

"You don't suppose she has a sister?"

"There is a cousin about the same age, but she is nowhere near as pretty as the daughter. In fact, I'm told she's rather plain."

Lady Charles, who had been listening up to that point with evident amusement, cleared her throat.

The two men turned around. "Ah, Lady Charles!" said the first gentleman, sending a penetrating look in Elizabeth's direction when he had straightened from a polite bow.

Elizabeth could feel her cheeks burning with mortification, and she was doubly mortified to see that Lady Charles intended to introduce the men to her. "Excuse me," she said quickly. "Do forgive me, but I believe I hear someone calling me." She was gone before Lady Charles could stop her.

"Who was that pretty creature?" asked the second gentleman as he watched Elizabeth walk quickly away.

"That, my dear gentlemen, was Miss Elizabeth Willard. Miss Amelia Willard's cousin."

Plain! People were talking about her and calling her plain! Elizabeth did not stop walking until she had left Lady Charles's group behind. What she had overheard only confirmed what her aunt had already told her. It must be her vanity that made the truth hurt so much. She was staring at the skirt of her dress, absorbed in self-pity, when a shadow fell across her face. She looked up and was surprised to see Ripton Rutherford standing before her.

"Miss Willard. I thought you were with Lady Charles." He was obviously waiting for her to take his arm.

"And I thought you were with my cousin, Mr. Rutherford," she said when she had.

"As you can see, I am not." He smiled slightly.

"So I perceive." She managed a smile in return.

He began walking but made no effort to catch up to Lady Charles. "You were not in London last year, Miss Willard?" he asked after they had been strolling for a time.

"I was not." She almost succeeded in putting her misery from her mind.

"I suppose everyone asks you how you like London."

"Yes."

"And what do you tell them?"

"That I find it very interesting, that there is much to do here, and that I find the prices shockingly dear." Ripton smiled encouragingly, so she added, "My uncle gives me a generous allowance, or so it seemed until we came here. I am daily tempted to spend more."

"I daresay when, or if, you leave London, it will be with an empty purse and full trunks." He smiled as he said this.

"I daresay you are right. I shall have to throw out all my clothes to make room, for I know I'll be too poor to buy another trunk."

"On what do you spend your pounds and pence?" He looked surprised that it was evidently not clothing.

"Books, Mr. Rutherford. I love nothing more than to spend an afternoon in a bookstore. I try to leave my money at home when I visit one, for it is certain I should leave there without it."

"Nicholas told me you like to read," he commented.

"Oh, yes! He sends me his recommendations quite often."

"And do you always approve of them?"

"Of course I always approve, Mr. Rutherford. Nicholas would never send me something unsuitable. I do not, however, always agree with his thoughts on them."

Although they'd continued to walk slowly, they were now almost even with Lady Charles's group. Ripton did not seem much disposed to join them, and slowing so they would remain behind the others, he stared intently toward Amelia, who was walking with Beaufort Latchley still at her side.

"Have you ever remarked, Miss Willard, upon the importance of one's name?" he asked with a wry grin when he saw she was following his gaze. "Have you, for example, ever read a novel in which the hero had an inadequate name?"

"I've always thought the greater the writer's skill, the less important the hero's name."

"I must disagree. The name is all important. Take my name, for instance. It's a good English name. Dashing, heroic even, if you will pardon my immodesty."

"To be sure, Mr. Rutherford." She smiled.

"Other names are only pretentious." He shot a poisonous look just ahead of them.

"Such as 'Beaufort,' Mr. Rutherford?"

"The very name I was thinking of, Miss Willard. What right-minded fellow would have a name like that?"

"I'm sure if your parents had named you Beaufort, you would think it a fine name."

"On the contrary,
I
should have changed it immediately upon my majority."

"I suppose you think 'Amelia' to be another fine name."

"It is, Miss Willard. It is a wholesome name deserving to be linked only with an equally fine one."

"Well, you needn't worry about Mr. Latchley," she responded. "I overheard a gentleman saying that Nicholas will marry Amelia."

"Nicholas? An interesting thought. He would find that rather amusing, I think."

"Would he? Why?"

"Ah! Then you don't know everything about him after all. Do you know how many lovely women have wanted to marry Nicholas? He will encourage her to a point, and then—" He snapped his fingers. "She finds another woman has supplanted her in his favor. He's quite without scruples when it comes to women."