Gabriel’s cane slipped, then, and he crashed to the floor. His head hit so hard that he saw stars and pain exploded behind his eyes. His mother screamed, but it sounded, very, very far away. She called for help, and Gabriel felt her hands on him.
“I said don’t touch me, damn you.”
The words came out slurred and sounded very far away indeed.
CHAPTER5
BILLINGTON HOUSE, LONDON
Eliza Wingfield sat on the pianoforte bench, staring out of the window which overlooked the street that passed in front of Billington House, her practicing forgotten. Ever since the Midsummer Ball at Elkington House, she had not been able to get the Duke of Elkington and the dance they’d shared out of her mind.
He had been so good-humoured and so much less pompous and self-important than she would have expected a Duke to be. His good looks and fine humour combined with the dance and conversation at the Midsummer Ball would have been more than enough to consume Eliza’s thoughts. Then, he’d saved her from being trampled to death by a runaway horse and curricle in the park that morning. That was enough to burn the Duke of Elkington into Eliza’s thoughts forevermore.
“It is not like you to stop playing mid-Mozart, Eliza.”
Georgiana’s observation from where she was embroidering on the settee made Eliza jump and press her hand to her heart, as if that might slow its racing. Georgiana and Edward had just come in from a short visit to Galleon Chase a half hour before, and she had not yet heard of Eliza’s misadventure in the park that morning.
Eliza would just as soon have kept it that way, too, but Billington House’s housekeeper, Mrs. Williams, bustled in with a tea tray just at that moment and clucked like a mother hen.
“The poor dear is probably still a bit shaken up. I know I would be.”
“A bit shaken up?” Georgiana was instantly alert, her eyes narrowed, and hands planted on her hips. “What does Mrs. Williams mean, Eliza?”
“It’s nothing.” Eliza forced a tight smile. “There was just a small incident while I was walking in the Park this morning.”
“A small incident my eye!” Mrs. Williams set the tea tray on the table and shook her head, oblivious to Eliza’s wish to dismiss the whole matter and sweep it under the rug. “Annie told me all about it when the two of you arrived back from the Park. Had a brush with death, she did. A horse dragging an empty curricle behind it nearly trampled your poor sister to death, and probably would have done if the Duke of Elkington hadn’t been walking in just the right place at the right time. He pulled her to safety just in time, then walked her home.”
“Good heavens!” Georgiana turned pale and she rushed over to Eliza, pulling her to her feet and examining her for injuries. “Are you sure you’re unharmed, dearest?”
“Not a scratch, I promise, though I could use another stout cup of tea.”
Georgiana nodded and tugged Eliza over to the settee, absent-mindedly rubbing her growing belly. Whether the motion was to soothe herself or her unborn child, Eliza couldn’t be sure. When they both had piping hot cups of tea in hand and Mrs. Williams had bustled out of the room, Georgiana stared at Eliza over the rim of her teacup with one eyebrow raised.
“So tell me, what is the Duke of Elkington like?”
Eliza blew on her tea to cool it and took a sip to give herself time to think before responding.
“Well… when you meet him, it is easy to see why so many mamas desperately fling their daughters at him, hoping His Grace will choose to court them.”
“He is a Duke, and a wealthy one, too, from what I have heard, though perhaps not quite as wealthy as the Duke of Thistlewayte, so I should think that behaviour a foregone conclusion no matter what.”
“True enough.” Eliza sighed and pursed her lips. “It is not just that he is wealthy and a Duke, though. He is handsome, amiable, charming, and a good dancer, too.”
“And he rescues young ladies from runaway horses, as well. That is quite a lot to recommend him.”
Georgiana raised her teacup to her lips, attempting to hide a knowing smile, but Eliza did not miss the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, nor the twinkling warmth in their dark depths.
Eliza narrowed her eyes at her eldest sister and sighed.
“I do wish you wouldn’t get that look in your eye, Georgiana.”
“And why should I not?” Georgiana scowled at Eliza, her expression ferocious and scolding. She hadn’t looked so chastising since her brief time as a governess in the Calthorpe household, where she had met her beloved husband, Edward Calthorpe, the Marquess of Billington. “I would very much like to see you as happily wed as Susan and I are, dearest, and why should you not find yourself wed to such a fine and heroic Duke?”
Eliza set her teacup down and stared at Georgiana.
“I do not wish to hope for such things, Georgiana. If I were to allow myself to dream, even for a moment, that he might consider courting a wallflower like me, only then to have those hopes disappointed… I cannot bear to think of how deeply it would pain me.”
Even as she spoke the words, Eliza knew that she was desperately trying to convince herself that they were true. She didn’t want to remember the blue of his eyes, or the way that they’d made her heart stutter when she met his gaze. She didn’t want to remember the way his night-black hair fell across his forehead when he tilted his head to study her like a fox preparing to pounce on a rabbit.
