Three Weddings and a Murder (9 page)

“Ah. So now the painful truth is out. I hope I can trust you to keep it private.”

“Of course, but…what is it between you and Brentley?” Eliza looked about the crowded parlor to make sure no one was listening. “Your bond of friendship must be very strong.”

“It’s a boring story, really. One of those schoolboy pacts of blood and brotherhood and unswerving loyalty. You know, the sort of thing that means nothing to most men once they’re a few years past Eton.”

“But it still means something to you.”

He nodded. “The two of us…we had no parents, no siblings. So we made an agreement to stand by each other. That’s all.”

“Even at such a cost? He was the one who made that wager, and you’ve paid the price. You’ve been cut off without a farthing, shut out by most good families.”

“Yes, but one day I’ll be a fabulously wealthy duke. So there’s that.”

He gave her a roguish, carefree smile, but the tiny lines around his eyes told a different story. Matters weren’t so simple as he made them sound.

After a moment’s pause, he said, “Were our places exchanged, Brentley would have done the same for me. At least I bought him a little time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth in Norfolk?” she whispered. “You let me believe… You let
everyone
believe your bad influence was to blame for his misfortunes.”

“I am a bad influence.” He winked at her. “Never doubt it.”

Her blood heated, proving his point.

“You are a wicked man indeed. I wouldn’t have pressed for a romance between him and Philippa, had I known. You could have spared me a great deal of embarrassment by simply telling me the truth.”

“Embarrassment is a frightfully constant quantity. If I’d spared you a measure of embarrassment, I would have been forced to heap some at Brentley’s door.”

“And you valued his friendship over mine, of course.”

“No.”

His response surprised her.

“No, that’s not it.” He gave her a thoughtful glance. “I knew yours to be the more resilient spirit. Just as you knew yourself to be stronger than that would-be-groper, Timothy. Even at fourteen, you could bear the censure better than he.”

Eliza didn’t feel strong right now. She felt frail and flawed and in need of a hug.

“Can we talk and eat?” he said, tilting his head toward the drawing room, where a buffet was laid. “Allow me to make you a plate.”

“I…” As they moved toward the table laden with made dishes and pyramids of fruit, Eliza felt her moment of opportunity slipping away. She screwed up her courage and made the apology. “I was wrong about you, Mr. Wright. I abused you most unjustly.”

“I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Eliza shook her head. Why could he be a decent, honorable man to others, but never to her? She felt cheated.

“Smile,” he teased as they moved down the buffet. “Were you expecting me to repay your touching apologies? Admit that I treated you poorly, too? I won’t. For I enjoyed our sparring in Norfolk immensely, and so did you.” He speared a lobster patty and put it on her plate. “You like these, as I recall.”

She did like lobster patties. But she didn’t like him presuming.

“Why must you always pretend to know everything about me?” she asked.

“I don’t pretend to know. I
do
know. Because we’re so much the same.” He lowered his voice, cognizant of the guests milling about. “We’re neither of us the selfish creatures we once made each other out to be. But we’re neither of us saints. Once, I told a shameless lie with selfless motives. Once, so did you. Who knows if we’d do the same again? We’re just as likely to commit good acts with bad intentions. We’re interesting that way.”

Without asking, he plunged a wide-bowled spoon into a dish of strawberry-studded custard and ladled it onto her plate.

When she accused him with a glance, he pulled an innocent face. “Don’t pretend you didn’t want any. You were looking at it. Yearning for it.”

“Yearning?”

“You even wet your lips.”

“I did not.”

He leaned close and murmured, “I make quite a study of your lips, Eliza. I notice these things.”

“Oh, you…” Her cheeks flushed as she followed him away from the buffet. “You make it so difficult to like you.”

“On the contrary. People find it easy to
like
me. They find it difficult to
love
me.” He turned to her then, and his eyes were startling in their intensity. “Which is it you’re trying to do?”

A thrill chased down her neck. At last, she had a moment’s advantage. A thin veil of feminine mystery, after years of feeling transparent under his knowing gaze.

She said, “You have to ask? And here I thought you knew all about me.”

“I have my suspicions.”

“Suspicions?” She gave him a coy look. “It’s a funny thing about suspicions, Mr. Wright. All too often, they’re just vain hopes in disguise.”

His gaze sparked and warmed. And it was the oddest thing, but she knew his smile was coming—even before his lips gave the slightest hint.

“What?” she asked, disappointed. “That was a brilliant comeback. Have you no reply?”

“Only that I’ve been waiting for this day.”

“What day is that?”

“The day you’d prove yourself to be my match.”

Her heart throbbed lazily in her chest. There
were
equals now. Not just in wit and intelligence, but in understanding and character. Perhaps now they could be friends.

Or more.

Harry.

With great effort, she kept her tone playful and light. It wouldn’t do to tip her hand just yet. “Attend my debut, Mr. Wright. And then you may learn how it feels to be bested.”

You are cordially invited to a ball the nineteenth evening of May, 1813, on which occasion Miss Elizabeth Anne Cade will be introduced to society.

H
ARRY SAT AT THE DESK
in his cramped, dilapidated bachelor’s apartment and read through the invitation. Again. The thing had been sitting on his faded, ink-stained blotter for over a week, and he still hadn’t penned a response.

“Miss Elizabeth Anne Cade will be introduced to society,” he read aloud.

The mere wording rankled. Harry didn’t need to be “introduced” to Eliza Cade. He knew her. Perhaps better than anyone else did.

He sat back in his leather armchair and closed his eyes, picturing the scene. She’d be dressed in some pale, delicate shade—yellow or pink, perhaps. Stars in her eyes, roses on her cheeks. Surrounded by admirers, just as she’d always wished to be.

As she deserved to be.

He sat up and drummed his fingers on the blotter. He shouldn’t be churlish. As long as she’d waited, she’d earned her measure of freedom—and if she chose to squander it on frivolity, that was hers to decide. She wouldn’t be happy until she’d had this—a season of exuberant, exhilarating youth. Twirling through life, fast and free.

But he was a little too old for that sort of thing, himself. And he had too much pride to be just another face in the admiring throng.

Plus, he didn’t have a damned thing to wear.

That was it, then. He’d decline.

He took out a sheet of paper, resolved to pen a brief, solicitous note of regret. Surely he could come up with some excuse.

But before he could even sharpen his quill, he’d abandoned the letter—deciding to read the newspaper instead. After all, invitations could wait for days or weeks, but news was of the moment. It had to be read, and now.

Right?

He took a draught of red wine and laughed at his own absurdity. As many times as he’d resolved to
not
attend Eliza Cade’s debut, he couldn’t bring himself to put the decision on paper.

He was taken with her. Smitten. He was a man in his thirties, in the throes of the most adolescent, puppyish attraction possible. All the more reason to stay away from her. He all but slavered in her presence, and she was mature enough now to see it.

She might even gloat.

When he opened the broadsheet, Harry soon found something to divert his attention from Eliza Cade’s imminent extravaganza of silk and suitors.

His chest hollowed out, and his heart dropped straight to his gut. He scanned the list with a mounting sense of dread. It couldn’t be.

But there it was. Printed in black on white.

“No, no, no. Bollocks. Blast. Bloody hell.”

He shot to his feet, casting the newspaper aside and reaching for his coat.

He must go to her at once.

E
LIZA SAT NUMBLY
on the garden bench. Her bombazine gown was a smudge of charcoal gray in the midst of nature’s brilliant spring palette. It was a rare joy, to see Cade Manor’s gardens at this time of year. Usually, they spent these months in Town. The daylilies were just coming into bloom, a hundred cheerful yellow smiles.

Sadly, their beauty wasn’t as restorative as she’d hoped it would be. She felt disloyal sitting out here amongst the blossoms and songbirds and all these lush, vibrant signs of life while her sister sat weeping inside. But Eliza couldn’t help it. She needed a respite from gloom and grief. Even if it only lasted a few minutes.

She watched a finch flitting about the wall, gathering a bit of moss to line its nest. As the bird took wing and flew away, she turned her head to track it.

Her breath caught. There was a man standing in the garden gate.

Not just any man.

Harry.

Her heart leapt. He was disheveled from travel, as always, dressed in buckskin riding breeches and a blue cutaway coat. His boots showed a thick layer of dust from the road. She hadn’t the faintest idea what had brought him here, all the way from Town. But the sight of his green eyes did more to lift her spirits than a thousand lilies could.

“Mr. Wright,” she managed. “What a surprise.”

He bowed. “Miss Eliza.”

When he approached, she offered her hand and he bent over it. His lips brushed her knuckles in a warm, tender kiss.

“May I sit with you?” he asked.

That seemed an imprudent idea. If he sat beside her today, she wasn’t sure how she’d keep from falling straight into his arms.

“I believe I’d rather walk,” she said, standing. “If you don’t mind.”

He offered his arm, and Eliza accepted it. When she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow, he flexed his arm and drew her close. In years past, she would have thought it just another example of his impropriety. But today, the warmth and strength of his body were a welcome comfort. He seemed to know she needed support. She leaned into him, grateful.

His scent was a balm to her discomfited soul—that subtle, manly blend of bergamot and leather. She inhaled deeply, breathing him in.

Together, they left the walled garden and set out on a path across the park.

“It’s remarkable to see you here.”

“I must admit,” he said, “this isn’t how I’d pictured our next meeting. I had visions of you drifting through a ballroom, wearing pink or yellow silk. Bright as a summer blossom, with all the young gentlemen buzzing about you like bees.”

She smiled. “Only the
young
gentlemen?”

Eliza instantly regretted her words. Their house was in mourning, and it wasn’t the time to tease, or joke, or laugh, or smile.

But he didn’t chide her. He chuckled, in that dry way he had. “Perhaps a few of the ancient ones, too.”

They shared a brief, meaningful glance. There was so much power in that unspoken connection, she couldn’t bear it for long. She looked away, a coward in the face of her own emotions.

“It’s a beastly thing,” he said. “This tragedy with Lessing.”

“It’s unbearable. To think, he’d survived all those battles, only for the ship to sink on his way home…? So cruel.”

He swore violently, the way men were permitted to do. “When I saw his name listed in the papers, I went straightaway to your family’s house in London. But you’d already left Town.”

She nodded. “William’s family is here. There’s no body, of course, but they’re placing a monument in their family churchyard. Poor Georgie is beside herself with grief. They’d only been betrothed a few months, but they’d been in love for years. I don’t know how she’ll survive this.”

“With your help,” he answered. “You’ll be strong for her.”