11
Eliza darted from the room and up the stairs, hardly knowing where she was going, only that she needed to be alone. Just a moment, to master herself unobserved. She pushed her way into her bedchamber, closed the door and leaned back against the wood, closing her eyes and trying to breathe. Even now, she could not allow herself to break completely, for the sobs burning for release in her throat were not quiet, ladylike tears that she could indulge in for a few minutes before wiping her face and reappearing seamlessly into the dinner party. These tears would be loud and ugly. They would make her eyes swollen, her cheeks red, and everyone would see, and although she had already made a scene, already had her distress witnessed by everyone, Eliza still pressed her hand against her mouth and held the anguish in.
He had not forgiven her. And Eliza had not expected him to, exactly, but to be presented with such irrefutable proof, as clear as day in the bite of his words, the damning fire in his eyes . . . It was a shock, that was all. He had not forgiven her. He could not, he would not—and whatever secret hopes she had been harboring over their reacquaintance were foolish. This dinner party was foolish. Had she truly thought that if she contrived enough reasons for them to spend time together, believed that if she could hold him here in Bath, away from the poisonous tongues of his family—that he might fall in love with her again?
She had spent the day dashing around Bath, spent hours in front of the mirror, teasing her hair just so, in eager pursuit of a gentleman who held her in such contempt. A gentleman who had insulted her at her own dinner table, in full view of all her guests, with words that might have been especially designed to hurt her. Eliza pressed a hand to her breastbone as if the pain there might be eased with physical pressure. All this evening had achieved was to reopen a wound that ought to have healed long ago . . . Still, at least she knew she could endure this. She had become adept, over the years, at enduring this kind of hurt.
Eliza took a deep, steadying breath. Pushing her shoulders back and her memories down, she opened the door and headed for the stairs. It was time to rejoin the fray. As much as she might want to send all her guests away now and hang the consequences, she ought to save some face: an hour more of tea-sipping and polite chit-chat and then she could bid the whole awful, humiliating endeavor adieu. Eliza made to enter the drawing room, when she saw the door to the parlor—her painting parlor—was standing ajar, a pane of light escaping into the hallway. Worrying that she might have left a candle lit, she pushed the door fully open to find Melville standing there, examining the pile of watercolors that lay upon the table.
“Lord Melville?” Eliza said uncertainly. What was the appropriate way to challenge someone, when they were so obviously caught not where they were meant to be?
“My apologies for trespassing,” he said, not at all apologetic. “You did say I could see them.”
“I did not think you meant tonight,” Eliza said, voice hushed. She would have prepared if she had known, would certainly not have encouraged him to riffle free rein through all her pieces. “Have you left Admiral Winkworth, Selwyn and Somerset all alone to the port?”
“I had to,” Melville said at his usual volume. Eliza shushed him, casting a worried glance over her shoulder—it would cause more than raised eyebrows if they were found here, alone together, and the drawing room was only a little way down the hall. Melville obediently lowered his voice as he continued, “Winkworth was enumerating upon his kills during the siege of Seringapatam, Selwyn was listing all the classical tales I should be inspired by, and Somerset had sunk into depressed silence. An interval had to be sought.”
Eliza felt a sudden pang of guilt.
“I am sorry,” she said. “What an awful evening! I should never have induced you to come. Had I known that Winkworth . . .”
She trailed off. She had known—a little—of at least Mrs. Winkworth’s aversion to the Melvilles, but in the moment, she had simply cared more for her dinner party.
“We shall not break bread with them again,” Melville said softly, hands still moving through the pages, and Eliza nodded.
“What an awful evening,” she said again.
“The fricassee, I enjoyed,” Melville said with a quirk of a smile.
“Oh well, then I may rest easy,” Eliza said, returning it.
Melville held up another painting to the candlelight.
“You have such talent, you know.”
Eliza paused.
“Are you . . . making fun of me?” she asked. One could never be sure, with Melville.
“Why would I?” he said. “I do not pretend to be an expert, but these are as good as any of the paintings I have seen at the Royal Academy. The emotion you are able to convey!”
He moved next to a landscape of a lurid storm hovering over Harefield Hall.
“Is this Harefield?” he asked.
Eliza nodded silently, a little dazed by the admiration in his gaze.
“I had not realized you hated it,” he observed quietly. “The way you paint it—always so cold, so desolate. Have you considered exhibiting?”
Eliza let out a little huff of surprised laughter and shook her head.
“And yet this must have taken you hours,” Melville said. “The effort . . .”
“It is just for me,” Eliza said. “But that does not make it any less worthwhile.”
Melville stared at her for a moment, before he carried on riffling through, hands careful, eyes admiring, and paying her compliments so gracefully that Eliza could forget her unworthiness as she drank them in. Any dread she might have felt at the sight of him, here, looking at paintings only Margaret had ever seen, elapsed—and so overwhelmed was she to receive praise, so eager was she to receive more, that she entirely forgot what he might find in the pile.
“Is that me?” Melville said, checking suddenly.
“Don’t!” Eliza said, moving forward, hand outstretched.
But it was too late, he had pulled it from the pile and held it near to the candle for a better look: the painting of himself, leaning in coquettishly to Lady Hurley, while Mrs. Winkworth and Mr. Fletcher looked crossly on.
“It is me!”
“I—I . . .” she stammered. What could she possibly say? There was no way to deny it. “It was just, that first night at the concert you—and it caught my attention—and I often paint such scenes as have occurred in the day, I hope you do not mind . . .”
“Remarkably accurate,” he said, considering it. “Though I fancy I am a little taller than this.”
The floor, stubborn and useless and unhelpful, opted not to swallow Eliza whole.
“We ought to return to the party. Our absence will have been noted,” she said.
“You know, Mr. Berwick has been attempting to persuade me to sit for a portrait,” Melville mused, ignoring this last point.
“So I hear.” Eliza placed a hand pointedly upon the door.
“I told him no,” Melville said.
Eliza gestured toward the hallway.
“Though I have been advised that it might . . . help,” Melville said, “to include a portrait at the front of my works.”
“Perhaps we could speak of this another time . . .”
“Would you do it, if I asked?” Melville asked, his voice still low and his eyes suddenly fixed upon hers.
“I do not understand . . .”
“Would you be my portraitist?” Melville said.
He seemed serious—he could not be.
“I am not sure where the joke is in this,” she said. “But I wish you will stop and let us return to the rest of our party.”
“I am not joking,” he said. “You are very good and you capture likeness—mine and others—with character, but not flummery.”
Eliza stared at him. As a girl she had often imagined such scenes as this: a handsome young lord being so taken with her artistry that he at once requested a commission (and then, after, her hand in marriage). But such things did not happen in real life. It was preposterous. Even if she were skilled enough—which she was not—the talk it would generate, the impropriety of making such a spectacle of herself . . . Eliza passed a hand across her forehead, which was beginning to ache. This was too much. After everything this evening had already contained she could not manage this, too.
“I should very much like you to do it,” Melville prompted, when Eliza did not speak.
“I am flattered, my lord, but you should seek out a professional,” Eliza said.
“From what I can see, you are a professional.”
“Have you not already admitted you are not an expert?”
“You see, I was being humble,” Melville explained with a grin Eliza did not return.
“I must decline.”
“Why?”
“There are too many reasons,” Eliza said. “It is inconceivable.”
“Is it?”
Eliza wished he would drop the matter: declining something she badly wished to accept was difficult enough to do once.
“You have been very kind, my lord,” Eliza said. “But, indeed, I am not what your kindness esteems me. I am uneducated, untested, unproven. And it would cause such talk.”
Melville tilted his head one way, then the other.
“Is it that you do not want to?” he said.
“I . . .” Eliza said, quite at a loss. If matters were different, if the world were different, she would have already agreed. She might even have asked it of Melville first, just as Mr. Berwick had. But just because she wanted to, just because this was the sort of opportunity she had been dreaming of since she could hold a paintbrush, did not mean she could simply do it. It was unthinkable—wasn’t it?
“I ought not to press you,” Melville said, when she did not speak. “If you do not wish to, that is absolutely—”
“No,” Eliza interrupted him. “No, I do—I might—”
She broke off. Melville waited silently, with more patience than she would have expected from him, as she struggled to marshal her thoughts—it was impossible to think clearly, under such roiling emotions. She could not.
“Perhaps we might . . . discuss it,” she decided.
“I adore discussion,” Melville agreed promptly, and at last obeying the open door, he followed her out and made his way downstairs.
Eliza entered the drawing room to find Lady Caroline on the point of concluding an amusing anecdote involving a Parisian nun, a glove, and a grandfather clock that had Margaret dissolving in laughter. Lady Selwyn and Mrs. Winkworth turned to watch Eliza as she came in.
“Are you feeling well, my lady?” Mrs. Winkworth asked.
“Quite well,” Eliza said crisply.
“You were gone such a while, we had begun to worry.”
“There was no need.”
“Did I hear Lord Melville come upstairs, too?” Lady Selwyn wondered. “I could have sworn I did . . .”
“If you are concerned about hearing things,” Eliza said with a snap, “I think that rather a question for your doctor.”
“Lady Hurley swears by Mr. Gibbes, if you are in need of a recommendation,” Lady Caroline put in, eyes mischievous over her teacup.
“Oh, I should not trust Lady Hurley’s judgment,” Mrs. Winkworth said at once, leaning toward Lady Selwyn. “The woman is one of Bath’s oddities—she may dress herself up with airs and graces, but there is the distinct scent of the City about her. My husband sometimes refers to her as Lady Hurly-Burly.”
Lady Selwyn gave an appreciative titter.
“Very clever,” Margaret said flatly.
“Lady Hurley has been very kind to Melville and me,” Lady Caroline said with a raise of one arched brow.
Lady Selwyn ceased her titter at once and Mrs. Winkworth flushed, but the gentlemen joined them before any rejoinder could be offered. Eliza smiled up at them in placid welcome, though she could not look at Somerset, for she knew she could not do so without fresh mortification staining her cheeks.
“Did you enjoy your digestif?” Lady Selwyn asked.
“Very much so,” Somerset said. “Admiral Winkworth and I discovered that we have been stationed in many of the same ports.”
“Oh, how marvelous,” Mrs. Winkworth said enthusiastically.
“I too have visited a great many of those ports,” Melville added, as he sat beside Margaret, “though in, I would say, a different capacity.”
Margaret laughed openly while Eliza suppressed her own smile.
“That is a magnificent pianoforte, my lady,” Mrs. Winkworth said loudly. “Do you play?”
Eliza looked over to the instrument in question and shook her head.
“I’m afraid it is sadly neglected,” she said.
“You are not musical?” Melville asked, pouring himself a cup of tea.
“I have neither voice nor skill,” she said.
“Much to your husband’s despair!” Selwyn said, with a chuff of laughter.
Margaret glared at him.
“Do you recollect, Lady Somerset,” Lady Selwyn said, with a tinkling laugh of her own, “the night your engagement was announced, when he bade you to sing for us all at Grosvenor Square?”
“I do,” Eliza said grimly. It was rare, after all, for persons to have to live out their very worst nightmare—one did not easily forget it.
“You were so reluctant!” Selwyn said. “And we soon understood why!”
Eliza did not think she had ever hated a person more.
“Selwyn . . .” Somerset said quietly.
“We are just funning, Somerset!” Selwyn protested.
“I am not laughing.”
An hour ago, such a defense might have warmed Eliza, but now it only worsened the throbbing in her forehead. Was Somerset setting out to be confusing? To alternatively ignore her and tease her, snap at her, then defend her. It was dizzying.
“Oh, gentlemen cannot help but wish their wives accomplished,” Mrs. Winkworth said. “Whomever Winnie marries will be fortunate on that account, for she was born singing so sweetly.”
There was a pause, as the company murmured politely. Then, as if she had been suddenly struck with a Very Good Idea, Mrs. Winkworth added, “Why, Winifred ought to entertain you with a song, now, Lady Somerset!”
“Mama . . .” Miss Winkworth whispered, shaking her head.
“I am persuaded a little music would be just the thing!” Mrs. Winkworth insisted.
Was there to be no end to their torment, tonight? Or was there merely to be an endless stream of unpleasantness for Eliza to sit through, helpless to avoid or avert?
“Oh yes!” Selwyn agreed. “Perhaps a jig of some sort.”
“The perfect end to the perfect evening,” Lady Selwyn said slyly.
“Mama, I cannot,” Miss Winkworth said.
“Lady Somerset, I beg you will add your entreaties to mine!” Mrs. Winkworth said to Eliza. “My daughter is too modest to perform without them.”
“If Miss Winkworth would rather not sing for us, I am not sure I—” Eliza began, as firmly as she was able.
“Mere bashfulness,” Admiral Winkworth said. “Come now, girl, do not keep us waiting any longer.”
“Oh, do not compel her, sir.” Melville joined the defense of Miss Winkworth. “For then I will feel myself similarly obliged, and that I am persuaded you would certainly not enjoy!”
Margaret and Lady Caroline laughed, but Eliza could not be distracted from the sight of Mrs. Winkworth hissing remonstrances into her daughter’s ear. Miss Winkworth’s breathing looked now alarmingly quick and the ache behind Eliza’s eyes twisted higher.
“Please do not . . .” she started, as Mrs. Winkworth began to chivvy her daughter out of her seat.
Once again, Eliza wished fervently that she could end the evening here and now: flout all convention and breach all rules of hospitality, send her guests away, and not care for the possible ramifications of such ill-manners. Would that such a course of action were open to her!
Except . . . was it not open to her? It would be ill-mannered, yes, inelegant, certainly—shockingly bad ton, in fact, but . . . But this was Eliza’s house. They were drinking her tea. Attending her dinner party. Why should she sit here and pretend the Selwyns’ jibes did not offend her, pretend the Winkworths were not horrible, pretend that she wanted to be here at all? There was no one to reprimand Eliza for inelegance, anymore. She was a woman grown, with a mind—and fortune—of her own, and she did not want to sit here for one moment longer.
For the second time that evening, Eliza stood. Her heart was beating as quickly as if she were about to leap off a precipice.
“I am afraid I have the headache,” she said briskly. “And so, while I am sure Miss Winkworth’s performance would give considerable pleasure, I must now retire.”
The shocked silence that lay in the wake of her declaration might have made her wince had Miss Winkworth not been gazing at her with the stunned air of a mouse unexpectedly freed from a trap.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Eliza said.
Lady Caroline set down a half-drunk teacup with a clink and stood. Silently, still stunned, the rest of the party rose to take their farewells.
“Brava,” Melville whispered, bowing over her hand. Eliza did not respond, instead extending her hand next to Lady Selwyn, whose eyes were flicking between them with more calculation than Eliza should like. Somerset was the last to leave, hesitating at the doorway and opening and closing his mouth as if he were a fish.
“My lady—” he started.
“Goodnight, Somerset,” Eliza said.
Whatever he wanted to say to her, whether to apologize for his rudeness or castigate her further, she did not want to hear it tonight. Not when she was so close to falling apart.
In their absence, the house felt blissfully quiet and still. Eliza sat back down upon the sofa and closed her eyes with a sigh. She would no doubt one day be sorry for such a lapse in manners as she had committed tonight, but at this moment she could not bring herself to regret it.
“It was a very memorable evening, at any rate,” Margaret said, and Eliza felt the sofa shift under her weight, too.
“Which was, of course, my chief object,” Eliza said dryly.
“Oh, did you have an aim, then?” Margaret retorted. “You weren’t motivated just by lunacy?”
“I think I have been,” Eliza said, still with her eyes closed. “All that effort to keep Somerset here, to win something over the Selwyns . . . And for what?” She paused, swallowed, and added in a hoarser voice, “He has not forgiven me. I ought never to have expected—I knew it was foolish to hope, but . . .”
She heard a rustle as Margaret shifted, then felt her hand begin to stroke Eliza’s hair.
“With the way he has been acting,” Margaret said, “it was not foolish. I thought as you did.”
Eliza’s eyes pricked with tears as a wave of shame washed over her again.
“Why seek out my company if he holds me in such contempt?” she gulped. “I would never have—if I had not thought—”
“It was unjust,” Margaret said. “And unpardonably rude in front of everyone—there is no excuse. And I am sorry for the part I played in bringing it about. I was trying to make a point.”
Eliza chuffed a slightly bitter laugh.
“I think you did so quite successfully.”
“I am sorry,” Margaret said quietly, and Eliza gave a jerky nod.
Her headache had not elapsed, even in the quiet. It seemed, rather, to be taking over her whole body, moving down her neck and shoulders to meet the throbbing pressure in her chest. You have done this before, she reminded herself. This time will be easier.
“Well, he is only here for a fortnight,” Margaret said pragmatically. “You may easily avoid him for such a time and then you need not see him ever again.”
“Oh, do not say that,” Eliza said. “That is not what I want.”
“What do you want?”
Eliza didn’t know. Her head was hopelessly tangled. She wanted to avoid Somerset forever. She could not bear to never see him again. Both were somehow, incomprehensibly, true.
“I just need some calm,” she said. “It is all so much, with the Selwyns and Somerset and the Melvilles—”
“What have the Melvilles done?” Margaret asked, with a little indignation.
Eliza had not the energy to explain tonight about Melville’s offer: not now, when her thoughts were so knotted that she could not tell if she were appalled or exhilarated by it.
“Nothing. I just—nothing,” she said.
“I admire them very much,” Margaret said staunchly. “Lady Caroline is quite the cleverest—the most amusing—woman I have met.”
“Beautiful, too,” Eliza added.
Margaret inclined her head, eyes flicking away.
“I wonder that she has never married,” Eliza mused. “She must have had scores of offers.”
“I am glad for it,” Margaret said. “Most commonly, spinsters are without standing, consequence, or importance to society. It is a relief to see that is not always the case.”
“You have standing, consequence and importance to me,” Eliza said, turning to regard her dearest friend. “You are the most important person in the world, to me.”
“I cannot decide if that is the most wonderful,” Margaret said, “or most depressing thing I have ever heard.”
But she squeezed Eliza’s arm to take the sting out of her words.
“Shrew,” said Eliza fondly. “That could have been a lovely moment, before you ruined it.”
“That is my finest lady’s accomplishment,” Margaret said. “I may not be able to paint or sing or embroider, but I am certainly quite capable of ruining things.”
Eliza laughed, and it was a relief to do so. Margaret could always be trusted to make her laugh—and Eliza had done so more in the past month than perhaps her whole life put together. It was worth remembering that.
And worth remembering that before Somerset had arrived in Bath—before her world had narrowed again to the point of a single man—she had been happier than she had ever known herself before. She had Margaret. She had Camden Place. She had friends and, even, the possibility—perplexing though it might be—of an artist’s commission. Losing Somerset was not the mortal blow it once was.
She just wished it did not have to hurt quite this much.