“I really do not want to hear any more,” she said. “I am sick of the whole thing. The very worst thing I ever did in my life was accepting Geoffrey’s proposal.”
“It is not him,” he said. “He left town the day after the ball.”
She was right, then. But whowasdoing it? Or was it a whole group of people who were feeding off one another’s nastiness? Butwhy?
“I suppose we can expect a family gathering this afternoon,” she said
“It would not surprise me,” he said.
But soon after luncheon, before any of the family descended upon South Audley Street, Colin was announced.
Elizabeth was in the morning room, explaining in a letter to Araminta Scott, the friend of hers who had recently lost her father, that she was no longer betrothed and was very happy to be single again. She put her pen down in some haste and got to her feet. Colin was the last person she wished to see at the moment. Her emotions were ruffled enough without having to confront her painful feelings for him.
And he was not looking happy. Or boyish. Only very handsome and attractive to boot. She wanted him to go away.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, smiling at him and clasping her hands at her waist. “I daresay you came to see Wren. I believe she is in the nursery with Alex.”
“No,” he said. “I came to see you.”
“Did you?” she said. “I suppose you have heard all the gossip. It would be strange if you had not when all the rest of the world must have done so. You must not worry about me, Colin, if that is what you have been doing. Perhaps someone will be obliging enough to murder his grandmother soon and there will be another conversational topic to distract from me. In the meanwhile I will not run away. I positively refuse to do so. And you mustnotworry about me.”
“I am so sorry, Elizabeth,” he said, and for the first time she noticed how pale he was. “It is all my fault. At least, it is all on account of me. It is not Codaire. It is my mother. It has to be. Only she could do something like this.”
She gazed at him, uncomprehending.“Lady Hodges?”she said. “But that is absurd.Why?”
“One thing you need to understand about my mother,” he said, passing the fingers of one hand through his hair and turning away from her so that he would not have to look into her eyes, “is that she always has to have her own way. No matter what. And she always does get it. There is no standing up against her. Though I do intend to do just that. But what is going on now is that she has heard that I am in search of a bride this year, and she has taken it into her head that I must marry Miss Dunmore, whom she considers to be the most beautiful of the eligible young ladies making their debuts this year. My mother has always surrounded herself with beauty and she has decided to add my wife to her court—and me too. She will not compromise on that now she has decided on it. I have explained to her that I have not chosen anyone yet and that when I do, it will be someone who suits me. After what happened a few evenings ago, she is clearly afraid that I will marry you. She is doing everything in her power to prevent it. And she has considerable power. I have never quite understood it, but she does.”
Elizabeth gazed at him, aghast. “She sees me as a threat?” she said.
He turned his head to look at her. “But she is right,” he said. “I did ask you to marry me. And thus subjected you tothis.” He gestured with one hand as though all the gossip hung in the air about them. “It is not enough for her to nudge me in the direction she wants me to take or even to trick me. She has to destroy you to make doubly sure.”
Elizabeth licked lips that were suddenly dry. “You must be exaggerating,” she said. “You are speaking ofyour mother, Colin.”
“And a son must speak no evil of his own mother,” he said, striding across the room until he stood at the window, looking out. “Do you think it is easy for me to say these things to you or even tothinkthem? She decided upon her campaign and is carrying it out with ruthless intent—but with no personal involvement whatsoever. No one would ever be able to accuse her of spreading even one word of the gossip. No one would ever find proof that she was behind it. But I know as surely as I am standing here that sheisbehind what has happened to you during the past few days.”
“But how,” she asked him, “would she know about things that happened during my first marriage?”
“Oh, she would know,” he told her, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder. “And what she does not know she will make up. The truth and lies are all the same to her. There is only one unassailable truth in her universe. She is the center of it, and everything and everyone else exists to praise and adore her. Only the young and most beautiful are allowed to inhabit her inner orbit.”
He turned his head sharply away again and tipped it back. She guessed his eyes were closed and that perhaps he was trying to hold back tears. She felt a bit as though she had walked into someone else’s nightmare. But it was all soridiculous.
“One thing she obviously does not know,” she said, “is that you did indeed offer to marry me and I refused. She could have saved herself a lot trouble if she had discovered that. Perhaps I should simply write and tell her so.”
“Good God, no!” he exclaimed, turning sharply from the window.
She moved closer to him. “What are you going to do about your courtship of Miss Dunmore?” she asked him. “Do youwantto marry her, Colin?”
He closed the distance between them and took both her hands in his. He held them tightly, almost to the point of pain. “My mother, probably with some sort of acquiescence from Lady Dunmore, has sent a notice of our betrothal to the morning papers,” he told her. “To be published tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she said, her heart plummeting to come to rest somewhere in her slippers. But—hismotherhad sent the notice?
“Blanche was awaiting me in my rooms when I returned from the Lords earlier,” he said. “She had come to warn me. She has never done anything to help me like that before. I am not sure why she did it today. Perhaps she does not want the sort of competition Miss Dunmore would represent for herself. Or perhaps I do her an injustice. Perhaps she thought that this time our mother was going beyond the pale.”
“You are going to be forced into marrying, then?” she asked him. “Oh, Colin. Are you sure it is what you want?”
“I am very sure it is what I donotwant,” he told her. “And there is time to put a stop to it. I will be doing that shortly. But what I really want to do, Elizabeth, is put another notice in the papers in its stead. I want to put in a notice ofourbetrothal.”
He tightened his hold on her hands even further.
