25
Somerset? Here? Now?” Eliza said.
“Yes,” Margaret said, in answer to all three. “He arrived this afternoon, apparently, and insisted upon waiting for your return.”
Eliza looked at Margaret, panicked. She had not expected him for a week more, and she had not at all readied herself. She had thought she would have more time.
“Do not panic,” Margaret said firmly. “He is not an ogre.”
But Eliza could feel her breath coming in sharp gasps. She could not see Somerset now. Not when her thoughts were so disarranged that she could believe she had left her mind there, with Melville, in the phaeton. She needed more time. She needed to think.
“What if—what if I see him, and realize I do not love him anymore?” Eliza whispered, pressing a trembling hand to her forehead.
What if Somerset saw her and realized exactly what Eliza had done?
“Then we shall think of a way through,” Margaret said. “I promise.”
Eliza dithered, looking despairingly down at her sadly muddied skirts. Margaret gave her a gentle push in the direction of the stairs.
“Go now, before you lose your nerve,” she said. And Eliza went. She might once have tried to delay but Margaret was right. However awful this might be, if she did not go now, she would not have the courage to do it. She pushed open the door to the drawing room. He was standing in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back, and there was a moment, when he turned around to face her—backlit by the flames and his face half in shadow—where the resemblance to his uncle was so strong that Eliza almost gasped. Then, her eyes adjusted. The resemblance vanished. And it was just Somerset standing there, a half-smile upon his face as he regarded her.
“Good evening, my lady,” he said.
“Somerset,” she said shyly. “We—I did not expect you until next week.”
“I thought to surprise you,” he said. “But you do not seem very pleased.”
“I am pleased,” Eliza said. “Of course I am.”
She found, saying it, that it was true. For as Eliza stood there, drinking in the sight of him, she could feel that her love for him remained. And all of a sudden, what had felt so large, so complicated a moment before, was rendered utterly simple in her mind. Whatever it meant, that she was able to love two men at once, it did not matter. Her feelings for Melville were undeniable, but this was the man whom she had loved faithfully, enduringly, foolishly, for years, and who had loved her all that time in return.
And if her heart did not beat quite as fast as it had begun to with Melville, and if she did not blush quite so frequently, nor breathe quite as quickly . . . What did that matter? This was the man she was to marry.
Somerset held out his arms, and she half ran across the room to him, laughing in relief. Somerset caught her hands in his, but did not use the grip to bring her closer, instead holding her a little away from him.
“What is this?” he said. “You are quite soaked through.”
“I do not care,” she said, leaning her face up toward his expectantly.
“I do,” he said, pushing her back. “You will catch your death. You must run and change.”
“I am not in the least cold,” Eliza protested. “I will soon dry by the fire.”
“I will wait for you here,” he said, his voice brooking no argument. Eliza raised her eyes briefly to heaven, but obediently ran from the room. His solicitousness was incomparable, and though it was a little inconvenient at present, to be displeased at such protective concern would be churlish. In a trice, she had returned, dressed in the first gown she could lay her hands on, of lavender crêpe, and he smiled when she re-entered the room, holding his own hands out now.
“Your hair is still wet, my love.”
“I am not going to dry it now,” Eliza said. “So you may save yourself from asking.”
She raised her head to his again, but again, he did not offer the kiss she desired.
“Where were you out in such weather?” he asked.
Eliza hesitated. She had not mentioned in any of her letters the driving lessons she had been taking with Caroline, nor the carriage she had recently purchased, wanting to surprise him. In her mind, she had imagined driving up to him in her best, most flattering habit and asking him, suavely, if he would like to come up with her for a few streets.
“Were you out driving with Caroline?” Somerset asked. “I hear she has been giving you lessons.”
Eliza frowned.
“Who told you?” she asked.
“Mrs. Winkworth,” Somerset said. “The whole family attended Annie’s coming-out ball.”
“How inconsiderate of her to ruin my surprise,” Eliza said lightly, trying to decipher his expression. “I wanted you to be shocked and awed by how very dashing I have become.”
“I was certainly shocked,” Somerset said. He looked Eliza in the face for a long moment, then sat down upon the sofa with a sigh, pulling her down to sit next to him. “I ought not to have left you here, unattended,” he said, running a hand through his hair.
“Unattended?” Eliza said, not sure whether to be more offended or amused. “I am not a horse, my lord. And I have Margaret.”
“You do not know, clearly, what people are saying,” Somerset said.
“What people?” Eliza said. “And what are they saying?”
“My sister reports that the Bath gossips are all aquiver with the news of Lady Somerset driving all over the countryside, attending routs and card parties and buying up half of Milsom Street.”
Instinctively, Eliza bridled at the note of censure in his voice before forcing herself to focus only on the concern in his face. He was worried about her.
“Perhaps I have been a little high flying,” she admitted. “But you know how gossips are. And my fortune is mine to spend as I wish. Do you not like my new colors?”
“I do,” Somerset said. “But there are rumors that you have had Melville living in your pocket these past weeks. What of them?”
Eliza bit her lip. She could not lie to him. If he asked her whether she had feelings for Melville, she would not lie. But he had not asked.
“There is an explanation,” she said. “The commission I wrote to you of—I must confess that it is Melville’s. I have been painting his portrait.”
“What?” Somerset gasped.
“I have been painting Melville’s portrait,” Eliza repeated. “That is why he has been so often in my company. So you needn’t wor—”
“Eliza!” Somerset exclaimed. “How could you countenance such a thing and not tell me?”
“I did tell you,” Eliza said defensively. “I told you I had received a commission. You seemed to think it a good idea, then.”
“That is when I thought it was—painting some flowers, or someone’s horse!” Somerset said. “I did not think it was a portrait! Of an unmarried man.”
Eliza flinched. She knew he might not be pleased, but neither had she expected such unequivocal anger. He was pressing uncomfortably hard on Eliza’s hands and now dropped them hurriedly.
“We were chaperoned,” Eliza said, weakly. Which was true, at least in the beginning.
“Oh, by Miss Balfour?” Somerset said derisively. “Yes, a formidable duenna indeed.”
“I would ask that you not speak of my cousin in such a tone, Somerset,” Eliza said, with a coldness she did not recognize as her own. It was one thing for Somerset to express anger toward her, but she would not allow it against Margaret.
Somerset took a deep breath.
“You are right,” he said. “I am sorry. I should not blame you—either of you. It is he who is to blame, of course.”
“Melville?” Eliza asked.
“Goodness knows what he can have said to you in order to induce you to agree,” Somerset was muttering, “what lies he would have woven.”
It was so ridiculous that Eliza let out a burst of laughter. Somerset reared his head back, offended.
“I am sorry,” Eliza said, still smiling. “I am very sorry, but it is just so very absurd. Melville did not induce me, and he did not lie. It was my choice, and even if you do not approve, I do not regret it. And I cannot see what is so wrong.”
“You might feel differently,” Somerset said ponderously, “if you knew what I have recently discovered.”
“What do you mean?” Eliza asked.
Somerset ran his hand through his hair once more—it was looking sadly untidy now.
“I am not sure if I should tell you,” he said.
Eliza felt a rush of irritation. Such slanderous aspersions had haunted Melville his entire life and were the precise reason he might soon have to leave the country.
“You have been making such declarations since the day you met Melville,” she snapped, “but I am yet to hear of any proof. I should have thought unfounded gossip beneath you, Somerset.”
“You chastise me for wishing to protect you?” Somerset said, bristling.
“I do not need protection from Melville,” Eliza said.
She paused, took a breath, and mastered herself. It did not truly matter what other people were saying, what the gossip was. It mattered only what they themselves thought, what they felt.
“Let us not fall out with one another,” she said gently, “for does any of it matter, now? I have begun half-mourning. You have returned. We can become engaged, at last.”
Somerset visibly softened.
“That is true,” he said. “Finally.”
The strange tension that had lain in the air since he had arrived melted. Somerset pulled gently upon her hands and she swayed toward him until their mouths, at last, met—and once again it was so familiar, so natural, that Eliza could hardly believe they had not been doing so all along. It was some time before they separated, but when they finally did, Eliza moved to lay her head upon his shoulder, and sighed contentedly. The fire was very warm, and his shoulder was very comfortable, and she could suddenly imagine them doing just this a thousand times more, in the years to come.
“When shall we marry?” she asked. “Soon, I hope. Before my mother gets wind of it.”
She felt Somerset’s shoulder tense underneath her and raised her head to regard him.
“You needn’t worry,” she said. “She has no power to compel me this time.”
“It isn’t that,” Somerset said. “I have been thinking a great deal of how we shall manage our engagement.”
“Have you?” Eliza asked, smiling.
“And I think it would be best if you returned to Balfour,” he finished.
Eliza laughed, thinking he was making a joke. He did not laugh with her.
“Eliza, our engagement will cause a furor,” he said. “You know it will. We cannot get around that fact.”
“No,” Eliza agreed. “But why should that mean I need return to Balfour?”
“Because the life you have been living these past weeks,” Somerset said evenly, “is already causing talk. And so, it would behoove us to remove you from the public eye a little, before we make any announcement.”
“You make it sound as if I have been cavorting around town in my petticoats,” Eliza said. “I assure you, I would recollect having done so.”
“Be reasonable, Eliza,” Somerset said. “I am trying to protect you.”
“I cannot return to Balfour,” Eliza said.
“What is a month or two of quietude—if in exchange we have a lifetime of happiness?” Somerset said. “Then we will announce our engagement over the summer, and in the autumn we can marry quietly.”
“In the autumn?” Eliza repeated. It was only April.
“It is when your mourning will be finally complete, in its entirety,” Somerset said. “When did you think we would marry?”
She certainly had not thought he would insist upon such traditional propriety. Why, Lady Dormer had married on the year mark after her husband’s death—and true, it was still considered something of a joke in high society, but . . .
“What if . . .” She clutched his hands. “Oliver, what if we just married, now? It is going to raise eyebrows no matter how long we wait—what if we married and bore the consequences now. We would at least be together.”
Somerset was shaking his head.
“You know I cannot,” he said. “I cannot risk doing such harm to my family.”
Eliza stared at him. A decade later and it seemed they were having the same argument. They might as well be reading from the same script, only they had swapped parts, for she was urging him to bravery and he speaking of familial duty.
“Would it matter?” she asked. “Would the consequences truly be so bad? They cannot forbid it, they cannot keep us apart anymore, they do not have the power to do . . . anything, really.”
“It would not be proper,” Somerset said.
“Hang propriety!” Eliza cried. “I have lived my life by the rules of propriety and I do not wish to any longer.”
“Do not talk in that way!” he snapped. “It does not become you. You know we cannot ‘hang propriety.’ Our lives would be forever dogged by it.”
“I cannot return to Balfour,” Eliza said, pulling insistently upon the hands still holding hers for emphasis. She could abide waiting until autumn, she could abide delaying her happy ending more months on still, but to exchange her life here for Balfour? No, that she could not do.
“You can,” he said, eyes fixed on hers as if intensity alone would convince her. “You must. You will live quietly for a few months, while my sister ensures a good match for Annie, and then we will marry without fuss and retreat to Harefield. As long as we do not flaunt ourselves, or mix much in society, the upset will subside and our families will be safe.”
“And now I am to live in isolation after we are married, too?” Eliza said, appalled.
She took her hands from his.
“Be reasonable, Eliza,” Somerset said, growing irritable now.
“I am being reasonable,” Eliza insisted. “It is just all so different to what I had imagined. I thought we would marry next month, that we might honeymoon abroad, spend the next Season in London, taking in the galleries and museums and seeing our friends . . .”
“But I despise the city,” Somerset said, frowning. “Why on earth would we choose to spend time in London when we do not have to? We can attend local assemblies if we wish—what does London have, that Harefield cannot provide?”
“A thousand things!” Eliza said instantly. “Friends. Diversions. Dances. Art. You may pick any one of them!”
Somerset let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
“You are not serious?” he said. “I know you like to draw, Eliza, but it cannot surely serve as a reason to keep us apart. This is the only way we can be together. You must see that.”
“I do not just like to draw,” Eliza snapped, “it is part of me. An important part.”
“It did not used to be.”
“If you truly think that, then you were not listening.”
Somerset scrubbed a hand across his face.
“Be reasonable,” he said, again.
“You are not trying to find another solution!”
“You never used to be this stubborn,” Somerset said.
“No, you used to think me spiritless,” Eliza said. “Which would you prefer I be? I cannot do both.”
“You are being impossible.”
“These terms are impossible,” Eliza said.
“I am not trying to make you unhappy!” Somerset said. “Sacrifices must be made.”
“But why does it always have to be me who sacrifices?” Eliza said, casting her hands up into the air. “I have sacrificed enough, Oliver, and I cannot sacrifice any more.”
“This is the only way,” Somerset said, very emphatically, “for us to be together. You must see that.”
Eliza stared at him for a long moment.
“Perhaps you are right,” she said, at last. “Perhaps it is the only way. It is just that I cannot do it.”
“It is only six months,” Somerset said.
“It is only six months—and before that it was ten years,” Eliza said. “And before that, always. I have had enough of waiting for my life to begin.”
“What are you saying?” Somerset said, face paling. “Do you . . . Do you no longer wish to marry me?”
His voice broke in the middle of the question.
“I would marry you in an instant,” she said hoarsely. “But not like this—I cannot go back.”
“You would be my wife,” Somerset said. “Would that not be worth it? After all the years we have both waited?”
Only a few months ago, Eliza would have said yes in a heartbeat. And she wanted to be able to say yes, now. But she did not want to make herself small again, in any way—not her character, not her desires, not her life. Not even for him.
Somerset seemed to read the answer in her silence. He stood and moved away from her, facing the fire, head in hands.
“I cannot believe you mean to break my heart for a second time,” he said eventually, turning back to her, shaking his head bitterly. “I cannot believe you mean to do it again.”
Eliza wanted to curl up on the sofa, to press her head against her knees and crumble—but she stood and looked Somerset in the eye as directly as she could.
“Back then, I could not say yes for my family’s sake,” Eliza said, as clearly as she could. She needed him to understand. “Now, it is for my own.”
To say it felt as if she were wrenching some essential piece directly out of her heart, but Eliza gritted her teeth against the pain. It was the truth.
“And I suppose this has nothing to do with Melville?” Somerset asked savagely.
Eliza stared at him.
“Six weeks ago, you were ready to say yes to me; was it him who changed your mind?” Somerset demanded. “Do you love him?”
“I did not change my mind because of him,” Eliza said quietly. “You have to believe me.”
Somerset let out a derisive laugh. It was not a pleasant sound.
“I cannot believe he has had you so fooled,” he said. “If you only knew . . .”
“I know everything,” Eliza said. “And he is not the villain you make him out to be.”
A light knock at the door interrupted them.
“My lady,” Perkins said, eyes moving between Eliza and Somerset. “You have a visitor downstairs. Shall I tell them you are otherwise engaged?”
“At this hour?” Somerset said crossly. “Who on earth . . . ?”
“Lord Melville, sir,” Perkins said.
“Oh lord,” Eliza breathed. The only possible thing that could make such a situation worse.
“It needed only that,” Somerset snarled.
“Tell him to go away, Perkins,” Eliza said, quickly. “Tell him now.”
“Oh dear,” came the sound of Melville’s voice, as he appeared beside Perkins in the doorway. He had not yet changed out of his damp, mud-sodden clothes. “Afraid I took the liberty—raised voices, you see.”
“Taking liberties does seem to come naturally to you, Melville,” Somerset said.
“Good evening, Somerset,” Melville said, as if Somerset’s salutation had been a normal one. “I thought I heard your dulcet tones. Is everything well, Lady Somerset?”
“Oh everything is quite well, Melville,” Somerset said harshly.
Melville did not appear to hear him, instead steadily regarding Eliza, who became horribly aware of her own tear-filled eyes and the redness of her face. She opened her mouth to reassure Melville, to lie, but found she could not.
“Perhaps you could call at a different time,” Somerset said, in a voice that would have been polite had it not been so very loud. “Lady Somerset and I were just in the midst of a rather personal discussion.”
“Perhaps it is one I ought join,” Melville said, setting his jaw. “Could we have some tea, Perkins? Calm the nerves.”
“Yes, my lord,” Perkins said, withdrawing slowly. He did not close the door after himself.
“Melville, you appear not to have understood me. I was politely requesting you leave,” Somerset said.
“Yes, I understand,” Melville said. “You see, I was politely refusing. I shall remain until Lady Somerset requests I do otherwise.”
Somerset laughed again.
“You seek to protect her? You?” Somerset said.
“Somerset!” Eliza protested. “Melville does not deserve such rudeness.”
“You might think differently, if you knew what I had just discovered about Melville,” Somerset said. Then, looking directly at Melville: “Well?”
“What do you want, Somerset?” Melville demanded, his voice rising a little from its amused calm.
“Do you pretend not to know to what I am referring?”
“I’m sure I could guess,” Melville said, “if you wish to quiz me again.”
“Joke away, my lord,” Somerset said. “I do not think you will find her such an easy audience once she knows.”
Melville’s mouth snapped shut. For once, he did not have a witty retort to offer.
“I wish you would cease speaking in such riddles!” Eliza said loudly. “Will you just tell me what you wish to say?”
“Would you like to, or shall I?” Somerset asked, with horrible politeness.
“My lady,” Melville said, taking a step toward Eliza and holding his hands out entreatingly, “I do have something to tell you—something I ought to have told you long ago—but you must know, it does not truly change anything between us. I still feel—”
He sent a foul look toward Somerset, as if suddenly furious to have him in the room with them.
“I came here tonight to—to tell you how I felt, and make a clean breast of everything,” he said, and there was a strange note of urgency in his voice. “I swear that was my intention.”
“What on earth is going on?” Eliza said slowly. She had assumed that Somerset meant to inform Eliza of Lady Paulet, but then Melville—having already referenced the affair—would surely not appear so rattled. It was the most perturbed she had ever seen him.
“Do hurry up, Melville,” Somerset said impatiently.
Melville took in a breath, then swallowed—apparently, for the very first time in his life, utterly lost for words.
“Oh, enough of this,” Somerset said impatiently. “Eliza, Melville was sent to Bath by my sister. He was employed by her to embroil you in a scandal. To ruin you.”