Marriage had given the former Miss Northcott the supreme air of assurance. Indeed, those who were not enamoured of her suggest she had secretly regretted that there had been no marriageable dukes available when she had accepted Rendlesham. She certainly swept in, bedecked in diamonds and with a supercilious look upon her face, and, as bad luck would have it, came up face to face with Elizabeth. For a fleeting moment there had been no recognition, then the sapphire-blue eyes hardened, and the smile had become fixed. There had been a stiff acknowledgement, an exchange of formal insincerities, and then her ladyship had moved on, but not before Elizabeth28had heard her comment to a dyspeptic-looking lady in lilac.
‘One wonders why on earth dear Lady Chalford, with that sweet daughter of hers to launch, would care toadvertise past failures.’
Elizabeth had stood very still, though the room seemed to spin about her for a moment. Her kid-gloved hands clenched involuntarily, and she took a deep breath. The colour had drained from her face, but then returned in a rush. It took all her self control not to turn and run from the room, but she had regained her composure, and if her manner seemed a trifle brittle thereafter, she successfully concealed her inner turmoil. She had danced, mechanically rather than with any pleasure, including the quadrille with the hapless man who had trodden on her toes, and which had added a final dismal note to the evening. Her aunt and cousin, caught up in who had said what and danced with whom, barely seemed to notice with how much relief Elizabeth had climbed into their carriage at an advanced hour.
The trouble, she thought, and sighed, was that last night was just the beginning. Weeks and weeks of this stretched before her, of wishing that she could be invisible. If only Aunt Chalford had let her remain in Sussex. There was no point to her coming to London, none at all. For all that her aunt retained the faint hope that she would find a husband at this late stage, Lady Chalford was deluding herself. Elizabeth had resolved not to let herself be exposed to the humiliation and hurt again. At least she thought that she could avoid it, but if Lady Rendlesham and her friends chose to rake up the past, that was what she faced, even29without falling into the trap of believing the shallow lies that men offered as ‘love’. She shut her eyes.
‘Have you the headache still, Miss Elizabeth? Would you not be better laid upon your bed rather than out in the park in that nasty cold wind? I could burn pastilles if you so wished.’
‘No, Ditcham, it is not a headache, I promise, and the chance to let the wind blow away my foolish thoughts would be welcome. I am visiting Lady Godmanchester this afternoon, so would you lay out the fawn twilled silk and my green spencer.’
‘As you wish, miss. And I ought to mention there’s a nasty mark on one of your satin slippers that you wore last night, and I am not sure as it will come out, for the fabric is damaged.’
‘Oh dear, how vexatious. I had thought it was only my toes that were bruised. I think gentlemen should produce certificates of competence before requesting to dance with one. There was a man last night who is a danger to every toe in London.’ Elizabeth smiled at her maid, who shook her head, but thought that whatever had blue-devilled her mistress would pass quickly enough.
It so happened that Lady Chalford had not been blind to her niece’s failure to enjoy the evening, and whilst her daughter’s palpable success weighed most with her, she did spend some minutes wondering what might have occurred to put Elizabeth out so much. She had not entertained the false hope that Elizabeth would spend an evening of unalloyed pleasure, but when she had seen her early on30during the ball, she had seemed in tolerable spirits, and several gentlemen had sought introductions as partners. Admittedly, one was Colonel Bettison, who had been a friend of Elizabeth’s late uncle Gerald, and another was Lord Farncombe’s hapless heir, a weak-chinned youth inclined to poetry. The Honourable Gregory Escott had eschewed the normal mistakes of youth; he did not give his mama sleepless nights over heavy drinking or the muslin company, nor was his father forced to advance him his quarter’s allowance to cover his debts, beyond those to his tailor, which was expected. Instead, he had determined that he was a poet in the Byronic mode, and turned the simplest phrase into a grandiloquent outpouring littered with excessive, and sometimes random, emphases. He awaited admiration of his poetic talent, but in fact the rest of the Polite World simply tolerated his folly and waited for him to grow up. He was a pleasant enough youth, and everywhere received, and Lady Chalford had introduced him without any thought but that he might be anything more than a reasonable partner for the cotillion. Neither of these gentlemen had been seen by Elizabeth as a threat, the one being too old, and the other too juvenile.
Lady Chalford was wise enough to know that her niece now regarded men with the utmost suspicion, but retained the hope that somehow, somewhere, there might be a gentleman who would see past her unapproachable, if not antagonistic, manner, and find a way to make himself acceptable to her. Elizabeth might talk of living the single life at Dowlands, but her aunt was under no illusions that, once the novelty wore off, such an existence would prove31lonely and miserable. Single ladies were difficult to invite to any function, and, with age, generally became eccentric. She herself had had such an aunt, and it was not the future she wanted for her much-loved niece.
She was sure that none of the gentlemen could have given Elizabeth cause to be upset. However, at some point in the evening something had happened, something untoward. The gentle cynicism in Elizabeth’s eyes had been replaced by a ghastly emptiness by the time she had seen her at supper. She had danced thereafter like an automaton, she who could dance with such vivacity and joy in every step. Elizabeth herself would certainly not reveal the cause and Lady Chalford saw no reason to ask Amelia if she had heard or seen anything. Not only had the dear girl been caught up in her own excitement, but Amelia was largely ignorant of what had happened three years past, and how it had twisted her cousin’s view of the world. She had been but a fourteen-year-old and firmly in the schoolroom when ‘The Disaster’ had occurred, and had been kept from all but the sketchiest details by her mama, for fear that it might make her unnecessarily nervous and cautious at her own come-out.
Lady Chalford was not unfeeling, and it distressed her to think her niece had been made unhappy, but she was at a loss to know what to do about it. She sighed, instantly dismissed the idea that she might mention it to her husband, and having come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but hope that it was a passing case of agitated nerves, set it on one side to think of more pleasant things. The most pressing of these were the decisions upon which32of the invitations that had arrived in the course of the morning should take precedence in the following weeks, and whether attending the military review in Hyde Park was likely to give Amelia an unfortunate predisposition towards young men in regimentals. They did look so dashing, but none she had ever encountered had a feather to fly with, and they were universally high on the matchmaking mamas’ list of dangers. It was with thoughts of scarlet cloth and gold tassels, rather than Elizabeth’s disquiet, that she rang for her dresser.
33
CHAPTER THREE
Elizabeth’s every worst fear about the horse that her uncle had selected for her was fulfilled. It regarded her with patent suspicion, as someone likely to want it to go at a pace it had little inclination to attain. It had four legs, yes, but calling it a horse was, in her opinion, an error. What her uncle, who was well aware that she was a considerable horsewoman, was thinking when he selected it, she could not imagine. Perhaps, as Amelia had said, he had reverted to thinking about what he would select for his daughter, ifshe had to ride in London.
It had been Elizabeth’s intention to go for a ride rather than be ‘seen’. Riding around Hyde Park was undoubtedly something that many people did as a social exercise, taking the opportunity to meet and exchange gossip rather than simply take the fresh air upon horseback. From choice, Elizabeth would have preferred the freedom to gallop, but this would have attracted the most severe censure, since it was forbidden, even assuming she had been able to force34her mount to such an expenditure of energy. As it was, even a sedate canter proved more than it was happy to maintain for more than a hundred yards or so. Elizabeth was faced with the alternatives of kicking the beast in an unseemly effort to get it to keep to even a moderate pace, or maundering along at a desultory trot. The only advantage that she could see was that nobody would wish to be seen riding beside her, assuming they could get a real horse to match the pace.
On the other hand, it prevented her passing the highly polished barouche of Lady Rendlesham without exchanging courtesies, just as she emerged from Hyde Park at the conclusion of her inadequate ride. Lady Rendlesham was not a rider, but it did not take an expert to tell that Elizabeth was mounted upon a hired beast of dubious worth. It was therefore too good an opportunity to be wasted. Lady Rendlesham commanded her coachman to halt, waved her gloved hand and nodded, smiling, at Elizabeth.
‘Dear Miss Ashling, riding out in the fresh air so early, I see. No doubt it is good for the complexion, or is it indigestion? I never can remember, never having been worried by either. Lady Cumnor – oh, have you been introduced … yes … Well, Lady Cumnor and I were saying how well you look upon a suitably mettlesome steed. You were accounted quite the horsewoman, as I recall.’
Lady Cumnor blinked, having said nothing of the sort, but made a vague gesture of agreement. The smile on Lady Rendlesham’s face grew, for it was an insult couched in the most unexceptional terms, but one which Elizabeth was bound to feel. The retort that sprang to her35lips, had, perforce, to be bitten back, for she had not the added experience of the married lady of fashion to reply in kind, and knew she would be openly offensive, which was unthinkable in front of Lady Cumnor. She was therefore reduced to bland inanities. Complaining about the horse would do nothing but give pleasure to her torturer. Elizabeth wondered why on earth Aurelia should seek to continue to denigrate one whom she must have considered ‘defeated’ three years since, and decided it was simply a natural malevolence.
With a condescending nod of her elegantly bonneted head, indicating dismissal, Lady Rendlesham had her carriage move on.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth, and smiled as falsely as the ladies in the barouche. Even when upon horseback, it seemed, London was determined to ruin any chance of not only pleasure, but even contentment. How could one feel liberated upon a creature as uninspiring as the one she had been given to ride?
It was therefore an out-of-temper Miss Ashling who returned to Mount Street, a little dusty and most displeased with life.
Her mood was not improved by finding that, in her absence, Mr Escott had called, been cast into apparent despair by her absence and had left a bouquet of garish red roses with a message, which turned out to be in rhyme. This offering, at which she took one appalled glance and then flung upon the table in disgust, was pounced upon by Amelia. It sent her into whoops of laughter, which were only curtailed by36her mama’s arrival upon the scene to deliver an admonition on unladylike ‘yelling’.
‘I am sorry, Mama, but this … Oh, it is just too funny!Mr Escott has written a poem to Elizabeth.’
‘Then it is hardly your place to be reading it, surely, Amelia,’ remonstrated Lady Chalford gently.
‘Oh no, Aunt,’ interposed Elizabeth, still fuming. ‘At least if it gives Amelia some merriment it has done something, other than fill me with the strong desire to stamp these roses into your new carpet.’
‘Oh dear! Is it that bad?’
‘Worse, if possible. Go on, Amelia, read it out, if you can bear to do so.’
Amelia tried to school her features into a semblance of disinterest, cleared her throat, and promptly choked over the first line. It took her three attempts before she managed to recite the short stanza.
‘Fairest of fair, yet beauteous dark,
