The Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor (22 page)

   Interested to see
his
expression, Eleanor turned
around
to face him, but as she did so, she lost her balance
slightly
.  S
everal of the loose threads of her reticule c
aught the
carriage
door and snapped,
sending a
shower of hastily sewn on
pearls bouncing over the road. 

   Eleanor
’s hand flew to her mouth as she observed the scene in horror.
 

  
‘
W
hat is it, girl?  What
have you done now?
’
muttere
d the
d
owager
, shifting in her seat
t
o gain a better view. 

  
‘
N
othing, Godmother,
’
replied
E
l
eanor
with forced cheeriness.
‘
There is a
…
kitten under the carriage.  I am just goi
ng to coax it
out
.
’

   The
d
owager
tutted. 
‘
Really, Eleanor.  It does not do for young ladies to be seen cavorting with wild animals.  It is quite unbecoming.  Now do hurry up before anyone sees you.
’

   Squatting down, Eleanor began frantically scrabbling around
to
retrieve
the pearls
. 
If she hid the bag from her godmother this evening, she could stitch them
back
on ag
ain the morrow and the old lady
would be none the wiser.

  
Intent on her mission, Eleanor was suddenly aware of the ground reverberating
slightly
.  She looked up and saw a team of four jet-black horses galloping furiously down the street pulling a plain black carriage.  They w
ere fair hurtling but the sound
of their hoo
f
s w
as
drowned out by the music and chatter from the ball and its departing guests.  Eleanor looked back towards the house and saw James skipping down the steps, carrying Lady Madelei
ne’s shawl.  A crowd of
guests had now gathered on the steps, deafeningly bidding each other goodnight.  No one but Eleanor appeared to have noticed the
careering
conveyance. 
She whipped
her head back
around
to the galloping horses and then
back
to James. 
Completing
a rapid mental assessment, she
realiz
ed that if James did not
stop before crossing the road
, he would step
out
at exactly the
m
oment the carriage hurtled by.  She shouted a warning, but he did no
t hear, nor did he stop.  Conclud
ing that there was nothing else for it, Eleanor straightened and lurched herself across the street and into Ja
mes seconds before the carriag
e flew past.  James toppled over and landed with a thud on his back on the road.  Eleanor landed directly on top of him.  As the dust from the carriage settled over them, James and th
e other guests realized
what had happened.

  
‘
Well, Lady Eleanor,
’
he
said, regarding her strangely as she lay atop him,
‘
I do believe we may now cry quits.
’

TEN

E
leanor was unable to sleep.  Every time she closed her eyes a vision of either Felicity Carmichael or James Prestonville fla
shed through her mind,
each of them having a strange, but very different, effect on her senses.   She
stared
at the ceiling for a while, contemplating the events of the evening and, in particular, her kiss with James.  Why on earth
had
he kissed her?  The man had made it quite clear that he thought her completely unsophisticated and nothing more than a source of amusement.  Well, if he had kissed her
to prove
that even she was not immune to his charms, he had another thing coming.  Eleanor Myers had no desire at all to be added to his al
ready over-large band of
admirers.

  After several more fitful hours
, she was on the verge of nodding off when she became aware of a noise outside her room.  Silently, she
tip-toed
to the door and rested her ear against the o
ak panel.  She could
hear a low mumbling.  But who on earth was standing around in the cor
ridor at this time of
night?
  Squatting down, she pressed her eye against the cool brass of the keyhole.  She could see nothing oth
er than the stone wall
opposite. 
Curiosity mounting
, she straightened again and
,
slowly turning the brass handle, cracked the door ope
n a little.  It creaked
.  Gingerly,
she
poked her head out i
nto the corridor and looked
left and right. 
M
oonlight penetrat
ed
the narrow windows of the passage, bathing its contents
in a silvery hue.  There was no sign of
people
though
.  Eleanor
scratched her head
. 
How strange. 
She had heard no
thing
to indicate that anyone was beating a
hasty retreat
.  Nor, with the exception of her own, had she heard any doors opening or closing.  It was as though she had imagined the whole thing.  She
glanced up and down the corridor
again.  The painted eyes of former members of the Ormiston family peered eerily at her from their framed portrait
s.  A shiver of apprehension scuttled
down her spine as an alternative
thought occurred to her:  p
erhaps she had not imagined the whispering at all.  Perhaps what she had heard had been the moans of the infamous Wailing Whitlock Widow.  Immediately, she snapped
the door shut, ran back to
bed and dived under the coverlet pulling it
right over her head.  There were
no such thing
s
as ghosts.  It must have been her imagination. 

When Eleanor eventually awoke from what little sleep she had managed,
it was to find
Milly hover
ing
around the room, desperate to know every detail of the happenings at the ball.
 
The minute Eleanor opened her eyes, the girl skipped over to the bed and sank down on the edge of it.

  
‘
Oh, miss, how was it?
 
Did anything exciting happen?
’

  
Quickly g
athering her wits, Eleanor mentally ran through the evening’s events:  she could not tell Milly about Felicity
Carmichael
- that would be far too dangerous
; s
he could not tell her about the drunken Smithers - that was far too embarrassing
;
nor could she tell her a
bout the kiss with James - that was even more embarrassing.  What on earth then, could she tell her?

   Milly
r
egard
ed
her expectantly
.
 
‘
Come on, miss
,
I’m dying to know how it went.  Did you do your dancing?  I’ll bet they were queueing up to ask you.
’

   Eleanor pulled a rueful face. 
‘
Well, as a matter of fact, they weren’t, Milly.
’

  
A wave of disappointment washed over Milly’s feature
s
. 
‘
I don’t believe that for a minute, miss.
Someone must’ve asked you.
’

  
‘
Well actually,
two people did,
’
grimac
ed Eleanor.

  
‘
Ooh
. 
Were they handsome,
miss?  Do you want to marry either
of them?
’

   Eleanor giggled as she
considered
the contrast between her two dance partners.    
‘
Well, Milly,
’
she declared truthfully,
‘
one of them was very handsome indeed, but I can assure you I have no wish to marry either of them.
’

To
Eleanor’s
enormous relief, there was no evidence of any
ghostly happenings when she tentatively opened her bedchamber
door some thirty minutes later.  She had
considered
telling Milly
about the
nocturnal muttering
but
decided against it
.  T
he girl would m
ost likely think her
mad.
Indeed
,
with all the hullabaloo of the evening before,
even she was beginning to doubt her sanity.
Perhaps she had dreamt the entire thing. 

   She was almost as relieved to find no mortal beings in the breakfast
-
room when she arrived downstairs. 
She
had not expected to see the
d
owager
.  The old
lady
had imbibed
so much champagne that she would no doubt
remain i
n her bed until well a
fter lunchtime
.  But, noting the untouched place settings, it appeared no one had breakfasted that morning. 

Wasting no time, Eleanor
helped herself to
som
e ham
and scrambled eggs
from the silver dish
es
on the sideboard
.  If she ate quickly, she might
avoid seeing anyone at all.  She
had no idea
if
Derek
Lovell had returned to the
castl
e but if he had, she
had no desire to see the odious man.
Equally, she had
no wish to see James.  In fact, i
f
he
were in the same strange mood as yesterday evening, she would go out of her way to avoid him.  Her negative feelings also stretched to Lady Madeleine who had been decidedly put out yesterday evening by all the attention Eleanor had received following the carriage incident.  The w
oman had made no attempt
to dis
guise her annoyance.  While
other
witnesses
had awarded her with praise and pats on the back,
Madeleine had
pouted her perfect mouth and
moane
d
about t
ravelling back in the carriage with Eleanor who
had
most likely picked up fleas from the kitten she had supposedly been coaxing out from under the carriage.  Someone had replied that perhaps, had she been wearing a little more clothing, then the fleas would not have had so much bare flesh with which to amuse themselves.  The comment had merely resulted in more pouting and a jibe at Eleanor for being decidedly indelicate.  The
d
owager
who, up until that point, had been amongst those on the praising side, had suddenly jumped ship and
a
greed with Madeleine that
yes,
Eleanor was
indeed
inde
licate and it was
quite unbecoming.

The person who had reacted most strangel
y following the incident
, though,
had been James.  Once the two of them were back on their feet and had assured their witnesses that they were unharmed, James had merely stood by watching the proceedings like a complete outsider.  He had not e
ven had the courtesy to thank Eleano
r for her efforts.
Back in the carriage, the two of them
had
spent the return journey in exactly the same humour as they had spent the outward one
:  Eleanor
seething - this t
ime at both James and Madeleine -
and James, oblivious to all around him, resuming his silent staring out of the window. 

Fortunately for Eleanor, she managed
to pass the entire day
peacefully, without encountering the
d
owager
or any of her fellow guests.  Lady Ormiston, Giles had informed her, ha
d taken to her bed with a
severe attack of her rheumatism.  Lady Madeleine also appeared to be spending the day in bed.  There was no sign at all of
Derek
Lovell and James had, early that afternoon, go
ne off
somewhere
in the carriage
. 

Eleanor
h
ad hoped that the lack of people
around the house would mean that
she would be the only one tak
ing dinner that evening.
Having been deeply engrossed in her book all day, she made a leisurely toilette and wandered down to the dining
-
room just as the last gong was so
unded. 
C
ontrary to her expectations,
she found
the
d
owager
and James
already at their places.
  Her heart sank. 

‘
Ah, Eleanor.
The last to arrive as usual,
’
remarked the
d
owager
tartly.

Eleanor rolled her e
yes as she slipped into her
chair, opposite that of James who was, she couldn’t help but notice, looking tired, with dark smudges under each of his eyes. 

‘
Good evening, Godmother,
’
she said sweetly.
‘
How is your
rheumatism
?
’

‘
Quite dreadful. 
I have felt quite out of frame all day.
’

‘
Oh what a pity
.  I
do believe an onion poultice is a
n
excellent cure for rheumatism.  Or was that
the cure for
taking
too much
champagne
?
  Hmm.  I
appear to
h
ave quite confused the two.
’
 

While Lady Ormiston
flashed
Eleanor
a suspicious g
lare, James regarded
her
strangel
y.

‘
Is medicine
another of your
alternative
accomplishments, Lady Eleanor?
’
he aske
d, lift
ing a questioning eyebrow.

‘
It is, sir,
’
replied Eleanor, meeting his gaze defiantly.

James nodded
thoughtfully.  ‘I see. 
And how many more of these
alternative
accomplishments are we still to discover?
’

Eleanor reached for her glass of water. 
‘
T
here are many more, sir,
’
she replied matter-of-factly.

The heat of James’s gaze burned
into her
as he said, in a tone
that sent a frisson of excit
ement slithering down her spine,
‘
Now why, Lady Eleanor, does that not surprise me?
’
 

Attempting to control the deep flush flood
ing
her cheeks, Eleanor raised the glass of water to her lips.  What on earth did he mean by that?  Was he referring to-
?