“Will you marry me?” he asked, not bothering to keep his character.
“I fear I could never dishonour my family, my reputation, by eloping, Mr Valancourt. Do your best in your rejection not to gamble away what you have.”
Philip bowed and tried to leave, but Lady Alice said, “We have only one happy couple, but now the lover and the lady must discuss the qualities necessary to render them happy in marriage. William Pitt the Younger, why did you ask Miss Tilney to marry you?”
Because William Pitt is a three-bottle man obsessed with power and needs someone to humanise him?
“I am single-minded on my goal, and a wife would help remind me of the finer comforts of life.” Philip noticed Sir Charles’s downward glance at Eleanor’s evening gown and his significant smile, and felt a strong desire to strike him.
“If he wants to raise taxes, Miss Tilney, you must dissuade him,” Vaughan cried.
“I shall do my best, my lord,” Eleanor said.
“No,” Sir Charles rejoined, “my lady would be better served spending her time keeping my home, and leave all matters pertaining to being a personage of note to her husband.”
“My dear Miss Tilney, why did you accept him?” Lady Alice asked.
“With a home and husband of my own, I shall have dignity, I shall have power over my own household, and... I hope Mr Pitt will think on the mistress of his board with tender smiles.” She gave her head a little shake and forced some liveliness into her voice. “And I like nothing more than calling on all the ladies of the neighbourhood and telling them who their husbands should vote for.”
They all laughed and, while Lady Alice was ready to continue with another game, Sir Charles appeared content to sit near to Eleanor for the rest of the evening, and others broke into smaller groups. The way that Sir Charles leered at Eleanor, and the way she calmly bore it, drove Philip to distraction. As soon as he could politely do so, Philip begged Lady Longtown to excuse him. After refusing the lady’s offer of a candle several times, he made his escape.
He would leave with Vaughan on Wednesday.There were so few people in her circle who truly loved Eleanor, and it pained him to watch her bring another man into her world who did not.
He had reached the stairs when he heard the drawing room door open. Eleanor came into the hall, holding a candle. She silently came to his side and stopped rather than proceed up the stairs.
Some resentful part of himself he had not known was there allowed him to say, “Does yourhusbandknow you are here with me?”
Eleanor met his gaze. “I am getting my work basket.”
“Then do not let me keep you,” he said, turning away.
A hand rested on his coat sleeve, and although he could have easily shaken her off, Philip stayed. She gave him an earnest look as Eleanor took his hand and squeezed it. She then sighed as from the bottom of her heart.
Any other moment when they had been alone in a darkened corridor would have led to his arm encircling her waist, her clasping him around the neck. Philip was not sure if he wanted to kiss her to make her forget Sir Charles or if he was too repulsed by the idea that the last lips to kiss her had not been his own.
Her thumb was tracing over his fingers, and Philip felt his heart racing away while his memory went back to January at Northanger. It was useless to indulge in imaginings of a happy future together. She was not a flirt, not the sort of woman to give pain to a man, but that was exactly what Eleanor was doing by seeking to comfort him.Or maybe she wants comfort for herself.Remembering all the reasons they could not be together, Philip pulled his hand from hers.
“You have a goal, do you not?” he said quietly. Eleanor nodded, her downcast eyes expressing more than her lips could utter. Knowing she hated this as much as he did was hardly a consolation. “Your being here with me does not help you achieve that goal. Go back into the drawing room and do what you must to secure a husband your father approves of.”
Eleanor closed her eyes and sighed again, and Philip pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before running up the stairs.
What sense was there in yearning for a woman he could never have and who had chosen elsewhere? He had once thought that he esteemed Eleanor with such affection that, by gratifying her, he conveyed gratification to himself. That might once have been true, but if making her happy involved helping her be leered at by an unpleasant braggart, then the end to this visit to Welland Hall could not come soon enough.
ChapterSeven
Not having ever sincerely kissed anyone other than Philip, Eleanor had found last night’s game unpleasant. Typically, parlour games’ forfeits had an element of hilarity with kissing a gentleman, but having to kiss Sir Charles was a different experience. Unlike the games, it was not done in frivolity and then forgotten. It was done with the goal of allowing him to be the only man to kiss her for the rest of her life.
What made the kiss dreadful: that I felt nothing—not even amusement or novelty—or that Philip had to watch me do it?
She had been so disquieted by it that Eleanor had done the one thing that had always felt right to do when she was distressed. She had turned to Philip, but their encounter in the hall showed her she could not do that any longer. She did not want to punish him, after all.
As Eleanor walked through the orchard back to the house, she thought over what she was sacrificing by pursuing Sir Charles. She already sacrificed her peace of mind, any contentment or dignity by living at Northanger with the general. Losing Philip was only another sacrifice; she was trading one heartache for another, daily misery and hopelessness for the sorrow of marrying someone who could never mean to her as much as did Philip.
She could endure that heartache; she was certain of it.
Still, as awkward as kissing Sir Charles was, it was the insincerity of what she was doing that troubled her. Sir Charles had remained by her side last night, going so far as to try to trick her into calling him by a name that was not his character’s in the hopes of another salute. His admiring looks were telling, and she supposed she had a chance to secure him.
I must be honest with him about my intentions.It would be dreadful to a man’s feelings to think that he was wanted from love and then to learn it was only for what he could provide for her.
