15
We danced to this, did we not?” Somerset said, so very quietly that his voice almost seemed to blend with the lowest violin in the company.
“Yes,” Eliza whispered, her eyes still closed. “At—at Lady Castlereagh’s ball.”
“I remember,” he said. “You were . . . you were wearing a dress that seemed to twinkle, somehow.”
“It was embroidered with silver thread rosettes,” Eliza said. She had been so proud of it.
“I could not take my eyes off you.”
“Nor I, you.”
It was as if they had entered a different world. They were speaking so softly, their eyes facing forward, lips barely moving, their whispers hardly louder than a thought, as they confessed their memories into the air with the kind of honesty that belonged to dreams.
“I left Lady Jersey mid-word,” Somerset said. “She never forgave me for such deplorable rudeness.”
Eliza could hear the smile in his voice even as she kept her eyes directed forward and it felt far more intimate, somehow, than being able to see it.
Eliza breathed out a hint of a laugh.
“My mother had promised all my dances away. But you said that you did not care . . .”
“I did not. I have never cared about anything less.”
“And the music started,” she sighed.
“And I took your hand . . .”
“And we danced . . .”
She could see them in her mind’s eye now, the memory playing before them, rather than the musicians. Two young persons, as impossibly in love as could be, with no notion that their days together were already so numbered. She could remember the firm press of his hands as well as if they were grasping hers now, the drag of her skirts upon the ground, the soar of the music overheard. How it had felt so impossibly perfect. How hopeful she had been.
“I have never been one much for dancing,” he said. “Too tall, too ungainly . . .”
“You always danced so beautifully,” Eliza disagreed.
“Age has altered your memory,” Somerset said wryly, and she felt the press of his leg against hers on the bench. “I had all the grace of a tree.”
“I do remember laughing a great deal,” Eliza admitted.
“With me, I hope,” Somerset said.
“Always.”
“I could have danced with you forever that night.”
“The music stopped too soon.”
Eliza swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She wished they might linger there, in that moment and that moment only—the dancing, the joy, the sense their time was endless . . .
“And I asked if you wanted to take in the air,” he said, softly.
“I agreed,” she said, voice barely audible. “The moon was so bright.”
She could still smell Lady Castlereagh’s peonies. Almost too sweet on the air, but only almost. It was a night for sweetness.
“I can’t remember what we spoke of,” Somerset said.
“I think it might have been the weather,” Eliza said. “And all I could think of was . . .”
“And then . . .”
They paused. Involuntarily, Eliza pressed a trembling hand to her lips, remembering. Beside her, she heard a catch in Somerset’s breath.
“If I had known,” Somerset said. “What was to happen . . .”
It had been the very next day that everything had fallen apart. They had not even one day to enjoy the promises they had given each other. It had only been that night.
“I would never have let you go,” Somerset said, his voice low, hoarse.
Eliza could no longer see the musicians ahead through the tears building in her eyes, and a tiny sob broke from her throat.
“Eliza,” he said, so quietly she did not know if she had imagined it.
“Oliver,” she said, brokenly.
And though they were in public . . . though there were a hundred persons around them . . . she felt his arm move and just when she thought him about to throw caution to the wind and take her hand in his—
The music stopped. Everyone began to applaud. Eliza took in a gulp of air, and . . . Somerset dropped his hand.
“Everyone is gathering for tea,” he said, his voice very rough.
Eliza nodded blindly and stood, but found she could not move. Looking toward the laughing faces heading to the tearoom she knew she would not be able to pretend all was well.
“Would you please,” she began. “W-would you please inform Margaret that I have returned home? I am feeling a little . . . light in the head.”
She disentangled herself from Somerset’s arm without waiting for a reply and hurried toward the door.
“Lady Somerset!” she heard him call after her, but Eliza did not look back. She dashed from the rooms, and through the hall, not even pausing to collect her cloak before stepping out into the air. She found herself enveloped immediately into drizzle, but with another half of the concert to go there was a plethora of hackney cabs available to her, and she did not wait for a footman to procure her one.
“Camden Place, please!” Eliza called to the first she saw, climbing inside and breathing a sharp sob of relief to be finally alone. But the door barely closed before it was wrenched open again.
And Somerset was standing there, his arm bracing the door open against the wind. He was not wearing a cloak, his hair was already dark from the rain, and his chest was heaving as if he had been running.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
And what was there left for Eliza to say, except the truth?
“No,” Eliza said, her voice breaking. “I am not.”
There was the muffled sound of a question from the driver, and Somerset abruptly climbed into the carriage after her and slammed the door. The carriage drew off.
“If you will let me explain—” Somerset started.
“At my dinner party you spoke to me in such terms,” Eliza overrode him, “as I thought made any romantic feeling between us an impossibility.”
“I lashed out with an anger I truly regret,” Somerset said urgently, clasping her hands. “I must assure you, the sentiments I alluded to that evening—the ones I spoke to at the end of our acquaintance, so many years ago—are not ones I feel any longer.”
“They are not?” Eliza asked.
“I understand now that your actions spoke to an abundance of duty, rather than a lack of spirit,” he said.
“You do?” Eliza asked.
“I do,” Somerset said emphatically. “I have for a long time, now.”
Eliza stared at him.
“But at the dinner party . . .” she said.
“I cannot excuse my behavior,” Somerset said. “I had thought, upon my return to England, that I had long ago overcome the . . . anger I felt toward you upon leaving these shores. But being in your presence again, I was not prepared for the feelings which would arise.”
He grimaced, and added, with a defeated shrug, “At times it has felt just as if I am eighteen, again.”
“For me, too,” Eliza whispered.
“I am not alone in it, then?” Somerset said.
“No,” Eliza breathed. “No, not at all.”
The relief sweeping through her felt sufficient enough to knock her off her feet. She had not thought . . . She had not hoped . . .
“And I confess,” he continued doggedly, “that the reason I have lingered so long in Bath—beyond anything that my duty required of me—is because . . . Because I still . . .”
And Eliza knew what he was going to say, even as he hesitated—knew too that if the words were spoken, they could not go back.
“I still love you, too,” she said.
It was the bravest thing she had ever done. Somerset jerked back as if he had been shot.
“My lady,” he breathed. “The nature of our locality prevents me from being able—”
But after ten years of waiting, Eliza would not allow herself to be inconvenienced by such a nonsensical piece of honor. She reached out and laid a trembling hand upon his shoulder, tracing her fingers down the front to grip his lapel.
“Somerset,” she said, with clear instruction. Then, softly, “Oliver.”
“Eliza.”
He kissed her. And though they had only shared such an embrace once before, they fell into one another as easily as if they had done so a thousand times.
“I missed you dearly,” she whispered when they broke apart, their foreheads still pressed together, his breath still ghosting across her lips. “When I saw you again, I was sure you had quite forgotten all that had passed between us.”
Somerset shook his head emphatically.
“Then I am a better actor than I thought,” he said. “For I was overcome.”
He embraced her again and she had forgotten what it felt like to be kissed in such a way. Not for duty, not for obligation, but with such intent that to stop even to breathe felt unthinkable.
“Oh, what are we to do?” Eliza said, when at last they parted.
“Well, I should hope that after kissing me in such a way, you would intend to marry me,” Somerset said, laughing a little.
“We cannot become engaged before a year and a day has passed,” Eliza said. “The disgrace . . .”
“Not until you enter your half-mourning, at least,” Somerset agreed. “Until then, it shall have to remain a secret.”
“And what about Margaret?” Eliza asked anxiously.
“What about Margaret?” Somerset said.
“She is needed by her sister, for the new baby,” Eliza said. “But then—after—she will live with us.”
“Will you have need of a companion when we are married?” Somerset asked doubtfully.
“I will always have need of Margaret,” Eliza said.
Somerset picked up her hand and kissed it.
“You are very sweet,” he said. “Of course. She will be my family too, soon enough.”
This reassured Eliza only for a moment.
“Your family despise me,” she said, covering her face with a groan.
Somerset could not disagree.
“They are protective,” he said, drawing her hands down gently and covering them with his own. “And I think they will like you a great deal more now that Tarquin will inherit Chepstow again.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Eliza said.
“Oh, just that it—well, it would go a long way to easing matters with my sister . . .” Somerset said.
“But Chepstow is mine,” Eliza said.
“And when we are married, it will be ours,” Somerset reminded her.
“But . . . but it was given to me,” Eliza said. She did not know why, exactly, she was fixating on such a point as this—it was, after all, a minor one in comparison to at last marrying the person she had loved all of her adult life.
“It was given to me,” she repeated quietly. Surely that counted for something?
Somerset’s gaze flickered between her eyes as if he could not quite understand her expression.
“Eliza, is this not our second chance?” he said, when she did not speak. “It may not have been what my uncle intended, but is this not worth sacrificing whatever we need to?”
The look in his eyes was so tender, so vulnerable, that she was not sure she could bear to see it. And if this was their second chance, Eliza wanted nothing more than to grasp it with both hands and never let go, but . . . Try as she might to focus only upon Somerset, her mind was racing. There was so much they had yet to discuss. So much about her new life that he did not know. She had not even told him about the portrait, yet, but how to broach such a topic now, in a carriage, when time already felt as if it were running out.
“There is much we have not spoken of,” Eliza said softly.
Somerset ducked his head to catch her eye.
“We have time,” he said gently. “We love each other. Everything else, we can solve.”
He made it sound so simple. It was so simple. Eliza’s frown slid from her face.
“We can,” she agreed.
“And while circumstances have not been kind to us, in the past,” he said, “we have the means to change that, now. We shall do better.”
She squeezed his hands in return.
“We shall do better,” she agreed.
The carriage drew to a stop. There was a thump on the roof.
“Five minutes!” Somerset called in response. Then, cupping his hand to her jaw, he spoke urgently. “I still must leave tomorrow. I must take a tour of my lands—I am afraid with this recent rain of them becoming flooded out—but I will write. And in six weeks, I shall return.”
“Very well,” Eliza whispered, leaning into his touch.
She had waited ten years. She could wait six more weeks.
“And in six weeks, you shall be in half-mourning,” Somerset said. “I shall ask you to marry me.”
“In six weeks,” Eliza said, lifting her eyes to his, “I shall say yes.”
He pulled her toward him once more.
“Will you be all right alone, while I am gone?” Somerset said, feathering a kiss onto the corner of her mouth.
“I will have Margaret,” Eliza said. “And Lady Hurley and the Melvilles . . .”
Somerset’s jaw clenched under her palm.
“I do not at all like the way he looks at you,” Somerset said.
“And how is that?” Eliza said, laughing a little because he was jealous and Melville had been right all along.
“It is the way that I look at you,” Somerset admitted.
“Listen to me,” Eliza said, tugging upon his hands. “Melville flirts with me, I won’t deny it. But he does not mean it seriously. You must note he flirts as easily as breathing.”
Somerset raised his brows in comical disbelief.
Eliza wrinkled her brow, wanting to reassure him but hardly knowing how. For Melville’s attentions had been assiduous and she had been enjoying them, truthfully. How could one not enjoy being so flattered, especially by a gentleman who did it so well as Melville? But it was not real—he was amusing himself, only.
“Melville has had a mistress in keeping for several years,” Eliza said. “Whom he has been very much in love with, and so I hardly think him likely to have reattached his affections to me on such short notice. His attendance upon me is motived more by dislike of you.”
“He told you this?” Somerset said, a good deal consternated.
“No,” Eliza laughed, shaking him gently by his lapels. “The gossip is everywhere.”
Somerset appeared torn between amusement and disapproval at Eliza’s reference to matters of which ladies were expected to have no knowledge.
“If it is true, I do not see that it makes him any more trustworthy,” he said.
“But do you trust me?” Eliza asked.
“I—of course,” Somerset said. “But you are still so much the innocent and I—”
“I am not such the green girl that you think me,” Eliza insisted. “I am well able to look after myself, I promise.”
Somerset picked up her hand and kissed it.
“I look forward to the day when I might do that for you,” he said.
Eliza knew she ought to tell him now that she was painting Melville’s portrait but there was another thump on the roof and Eliza bit the words back. There was simply not sufficient time—the explanation was one thing, but the reassurance it would require would be far lengthier. She would do so in her letters.
“Won’t you come inside?” Eliza asked.
“No,” Somerset said. “We both disappeared in the interval and there will certainly be talk unless I show my face again. Besides . . .”
His gaze was warm as he looked her over.
“I may be a gentleman,” he said, “but even I am not immune to all temptation.”
Eliza blushed.
“Ah, so my shy Eliza still exists, too!” Somerset said. “I am glad to see her.”
He kissed her one last time, lips, hands and finally eyes all lingering upon her as if all were equally reluctant to let her go.
“Six weeks,” he said, whether to remind her or himself, Eliza did not know.
“Six weeks,” Eliza repeated, as she climbed out of the carriage.
The Pelican
March 1st 1819
Eliza—
I awoke this morning already smiling. Last night feels sweeter than any dream, and I write you this note for no more reason than to prove to myself that it truly did occur.
I already miss you more than I am able to convey here, and the only solace I can find over our parting is knowing that when next we meet, I shall finally call you my fiancée. My Lady Somerset.
Write to me as soon as you are able. I cannot promise to compose you beautiful odes in return—in truth I have always been an indifferent letter writer—but I would have you tell me fully and honestly of your days while I am gone. There is not a detail I should find too dull from your pen.
Please consider me yours, always yours,
Oliver