Chapter Fifteen
On the nightthey were to attend the opera with Harbury and Lady Asquith’s brother, Sir Brenton, both Eliza and Cassandra took pains to dress with care and intention. As they dressed, they rehashed their earlier discussion about Mr. Vane.
“He was very honest,” Eliza repeated the argument she’d been making to herself. “And he owns our house.”
“A house we all agreed to part with so we could have sufficient dowries. A house with unhappy memories.”
“Yes. But I could have the houseandthe dowry. I could make new memories. Doesn’t that sound like fate?”
“Fate.…Or not. You cannot convince me you liked him.”
Eliza traced the row of tiny buttons down Cassie’s back, double checking to make sure they were all securely fastened.
“I didn’tnotlike him,” she said reasonably.
“You’ve spoken of him at length and yet you haven’t described anything close to…” Cassie glanced over her shoulder.
“Close to what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cassie sighed. “The little thrill you get when you gaze at someone at a man you find…intriguing.”
Eliza turned Cassie around. “Have you felt such a thrill?”
“Of course I have.” Cassie primly pursed her lips. “If I hadn’t been…just a tiny bit taken by Harbury, do you think I would have let him drag me into a dance?”
“Oh, no!No!”
“Don’t look so horrified. After he’d announced he’d no interest at all in me, but merely needed a distraction, my feelings underwent a drastic change. How do I look?”
Together, they stood in front of a long looking glass.
“Beautiful.”
Cassandra’s dress was of fine fabric and in the first stare of fashion. Eliza wore pale-green chiffon over an ivory silk underdress with dozens of tiny buds of coiled ribbon wrapped around glittering jewels.
Eliza twirled in front of the mirror, loving the way she shimmered as she moved.
The extravagant display was meant to send a clear message. Fate—and the duke’s arrogance—may have cast Cassandra into that Harbury’s path. But the Wainwright ladies were not without resources, or options. Such as a large inheritance divided among them. An inheritance meant choice…something Eliza repeated to herself as, together, the sisters joined Lady Asquith.
All three then made their way to the duke’s conveyance.
Eliza took the liveried footman’s hand, allowing him to help her up the carriage steps and into Harbury’s town coach—a well-sprung, closed carriage unlike any she’d ever seen. The lower half of the carriage was a lovely green, the upper, a glossy black. Two footmen and a tiger stood on the rear rail, with a coachman sitting stone-faced but alert on the box.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim interior—which consisted of three snugly spaced rows. Harbury and Casandra had taken the first, Lady Asquith and her brother, the second. And—to her surprise—Redver awaited her in the third.
No one had warned Eliza the party was to include the marquess.
A plot was clearly afoot.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon had warned her they might be thrown together. At the time, she’d believed she would be safe, simply because he would not have any reason to connect her with the Blackbird. She hadn’t considered that heart would leap and her body would know and recognize him.
Did his recognize her?
She masked her dismay with a polite smile and settled in beside him. Simple proximity was enough to make her hands sweat and her heart race.
She inquired after his sister and Lady Redver—whom she now knew was not his wife but his father’s widow.
Both well, he responded. His sister, at present, likely with her nose in a book, while Lady Redver was holding one of her weekly salons, where some topic of scientific or philosophical importance was being discussed.
