Colin had a quiet word with his coachman, got into the carriage, and leaned past her to pull down the curtain over the window before doing the same on his side after the door had been closed. He took his place beside her and gathered her into his arms before saying a word to her. He pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed the garment onto the opposite seat. He held her head against his shoulder and rested his cheek on top of it. He had no idea if she needed to be gathered in or not. But he needed to gather.
“Idiot,” he said. “You precious idiot, Elizabeth.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I would have come with you,” he told her.
“I know,” she said.
“I was coming anyway.”
“I am not surprised,” she said.
He sighed and rubbed his cheek against her hair. “You came alone.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose,” he said, “she talked over you and under you and all around you and through you and had your head spinning on your shoulders.”
“I told her not to interrupt me,” she said.
That silenced him for a moment before he snorted with laughter. “And did it work?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He wished he could have been an invisible spectator of that particular moment.
“I have invited her to our wedding,” she said.
“Oh, have you?” he said. “And will she come?”
“She did not say,” she told him.
“Because you would not let her get a word in edgewise, I suppose,” he said, snorting with laughter again, though he felt anything but amused.
“But if it were genteel for ladies to make wagers,” she said, “I would bet upon her coming.”
“Oh, would you?” he said.
“She will have to call what she doubtless sees as my bluff,” she told him. “She was planning a grand summer-long house party at Roxingley as a homecoming for you and a welcome for your bride. It was obvious that it was intended to be anything but, at least as far as I am concerned. Perhaps she believes—or believed—that even after our nuptials she could drive me away. In any case, I reminded her that after we are marriedIwill be Lady Hodges and mistress of Roxingley, and that you and I will plan a house party if there is to be one, with a guest list we have prepared ourselves. I informed her she would be welcome to suggest a couple of guests of her own too. I made it clear to her that I will not dispute her right to consider Roxingley her home, but I added that there is room for only one mistress in any home and that after I marry you, I will be she. I actually used the worddowagerto remind her of her coming role.”
He was still holding her tight with one arm while his other hand was pressing her head to his shoulder. As though, like a frail female, she needed the support of an all-powerful male.
“She did not retaliate?” he asked.
“She talked,” she told him. “I did not particularly listen. I went there to make a point and I made it. If I have offended you by talking thus to your mother, I am sorry. But if Ihaveoffended you, Colin, then I must decline to marry you. If I am to be your wife, I will not allow your mother to dominate either me or you.”
“You would break off two engagements in one week?” he asked her. “You would be notorious all down through the ages, Elizabeth. You would be one of the few women to make an appearance in the history books. Boudicca would have nothing on you.”
“HaveI offended you?” she asked him, and her voice sounded a bit peculiar, as though she had spoken through clenched teeth. She was keeping them from chattering, he realized. She was not nearly as calm as she was trying to appear. Perhaps his sheltering arms were not so unnecessary after all.
He bent his head to hers, nudged her face away from his throat, and kissed her lips before moving his head back and gazing into her eyes. “I do not intend to allow her to live at Roxingley,” he told her. “Not after the way she treated Wren. Not after the way she has tried to destroy you. Not after hearing that she will continue to try even after we are married. Or perhaps her threat about the house party was intended to make you change your mind about marrying me. Indeed, I am sure that must be it. But she does not know you, does she? Or me. I will not have it, Elizabeth. I shall return later and uninvite her to the wedding. I shall inform her that she may have the house here in town. I will make it over to her and purchase another for us. It is what I decided last night and came to tell her today.”
She disengaged herself firmly from his arms and moved away from him to sit across the corner of the seat. She regarded him with a frown on her face.
“No,” she protested.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “she can only want to destroy us. It is what she does so that everything in her world is focused upon her. She cannot be changed. It is the way she is. You cannot draw her into our lives by simply expecting her to react like a normal human being. I have known her all my life, and she is now as she has been as far back as I can remember. She is a narcissist, and narcissists cannot be redeemed. There is only one person in their lives who matters, and everyone else must be made to realize it and to pay homage to them. And she just happens to be my mother.”
