Holiday House Parties (14 page)

To that end, after luncheon that very day, she drew him into the upstairs sitting room and asked him to sit down. “Julian, my dear,” she began, seating herself on the edge of the chair facing his and twisting her fingers together nervously, “I think we should … er … reconsider our situation.”

“Situation?” His brows lifted uncomprehendingly. “What situation?”

“Our arrangement.” She dropped her eyes to her clenched fingers. “Our … betrothal.”

“Our
betrothal
?” He seemed to stiffen. “What are you saying? What is there to reconsider?”

“A great deal. We haven't laid eyes on each other for five years. That is a very long time, and … and we were so much … younger then.” Here she couldn't keep her voice from trembling. “We c-could not have realized … I mean—”

“Are you saying you wish to break our troth?” he asked bluntly.

“Yes,” she admitted, not looking up.

He stared at her bent head for a long moment and then got slowly to his feet. “This is because of what happened yesterday, isn't it? Because I didn't see you at first and mistook your cousin for you?” He knelt beside her chair and took her hand. “Please, Elinor, don't refine on the incident too much. I'm sorrier than I can say about spoiling our reunion. I can't imagine what came over me. But it was a
foolish
mistake, not a significant one.”

“It's not only that, Julian.” She lifted her eyes and gave him a level look. “What
is
significant is that we've both changed.”

“Not in our feeling for each other!” he insisted.

“Especially in that,” she replied, more blunt than he.

He rose from his knees and began to pace about the room, his brow furrowed and his lips pressed together in a worried frown. “What have I done, other than that one slip, to make you believe such foolishness?” he demanded. “Have I been distant, or cold, or withdrawn? Have I offended you in some way?”

“You've behaved in every way the proper betrothed.” She threw him a quick glance. “Perhaps too proper.”

“Too proper?”

“Lovers should, I believe, feel a greater sense of … of intimacy than we've been able to show toward each other.” To her embarrassment, she had to blow her nose at this point. The sniffle into her handkerchief made her statement seem pathetic, and pathos was not at all the emotion she wished to convey.

Julian put a helpless hand to his head. “Perhaps we're suffering a strain because of having been separated for so long. But we'll recover that feeling of intimacy in time. After all, I've been back less than two days.”

“There was more intimacy between us during the two days after we first met, when we were comparative strangers, than there is now, after months of closeness and five years of frequent correspondence.”

“Damnation, Elinor, you know that correspondence is no substitute for propinquity. We need time
together
!”

She waited for a moment before speaking. The silence made him pause in his pacing and peer at her. She met his eye. “Be honest with me, Julian,” she urged. “If we had met this week, instead of five years ago, would you have been attracted to me?”

“Yes, of course I would!”

She lowered her head. “I think not. And certainly not enough to offer for me.”

“That is silly supposition. I
have
offered for you!”

“Yes, years ago, when I was twenty, with the bloom of youth still glowing on my cheeks.”

“Do you really believe me to be such a dastard as to wish to renege on that offer now, just because that bloom has go—I mean, because the bloom has ripened into lovely maturity?”

She laughed, for she rather liked his little stumble into honesty and the embarrassment that followed it. But at the same time she was abruptly struck with an understanding of the reason why he seemed reluctant to accept her offer of release:
accepting it would make him a dastard in his own eyes
!

She was both touched and amused by his naive sense of honor. He truly believed that a manly man could not accept such self-sacrifice from a woman to whom he'd pledged his word. “It would not be dastardly,” she explained gently, “to admit that our feelings are not what they were. We are only betrothed, after all. We are not wed.”

“My feelings
are
what they were,” he said stubbornly.

She took a deep breath. It was obvious that she would have to take stronger measures. “Well, mine are not,” she lied, bravely going to this extreme for his sake, to ease his guilt.

He stopped in his tracks. “I don't believe you! I haven't seen a single sign of change in your feelings—”

“Women are good at dissembling.”

“Elinor!” he gasped. “You can't mean it! Are you saying that … that there's
someone else
?”

“Yes.”

He peered at her as if he'd never seen her before. “Who?”

“I hardly think it matters who—”

“It matters to me. Is it someone I know?”

She shifted awkwardly in her chair. Lying was something she never could do easily. “I believe you may have met him.”

“Tell me his name.”

“I don't see why. What difference will—?”

“I shan't be able to believe a word of this until you tell me his name.”

“You are behaving like a jealous lover, Julian,” she declared, drawing herself up proudly. “It's a role that ill becomes you. Suffice it to say that there's someone to whom I believe I'm better suited, just as, I suspect, there is someone to whom you feel
you
are better suited.”

His face immediately tightened into an expression of complete denial. “There is
no one
to whom I—!”

She faced him squarely. “I am speaking of my cousin Felicia.”

“Oh.” His eyes fell. “Was I—? Have I … er … shown interest in that direction?”

“I think you know the answer better than I.”

Lowering his head like a guilty schoolboy, Julian took a quick turn about the room. “It was only that she is so like my memory of
you
,” he mumbled at last.

“I know, Julian,” she said gently. “I feel no bitterness. Perhaps we were fortunate to have been separated all these years. If we hadn't, we might have wed and spent all these years being miserable. Now, however, you'll be able to make a more suitable match and live happily ever after.”

Something in her tone arrested him. “I will
not
live happily ever after,” he declared suspiciously, “if I suspect you are doing this for
my
sake rather than your own.”

“I've already assured you that it is for my sake, too.”

“Then why will you not tell me his name?”

“Because there is nothing fixed between the man and me. My being betrothed, you see, prevented—”

“I understand that, of course. I assure you, Elinor, that I'll not say a word to anyone else. But if I knew who he was and truly believed he would make you happy, I could go my way with a freer conscience.”

“Drat your conscience,” Elinor snapped, feeling cornered by her lie. “His name is … is Endicott,” she burst out, rising from the chair and turning her back on him, unable to face him. “Miles Endicott. There! I've told you! I hope you're satisfied.”

“Endicott?” Julian blinked, trying to place the name that had a familiar sound. Then his eyebrows rose in amazement. “I say, it's not that fellow with the eggs, is it? He's a bit old for you, isn't he?”

She wheeled round to face him. “Haven't you just admitted that I'm a bit ‘ripe' myself? Miles Endicott is the
perfect
age for me!”

“All right, you needn't bite my head off.” His face relaxed for the first time since this interview began. “Endicott, eh? He seems a good enough sort.” A smile, broad and charming and full of happy relief, made a slow appearance on his face. “All I can say, Elinor, is that I wish you happy.”

His conciliatory smile made her anger die. “Thank you,” she mumbled awkwardly. “And I wish you the same.” But she could not manage a matching smile.

5

Elinor could not imagine why she'd told a falsehood merely to provide Julian with a name. She'd been a weak-kneed jellyfish to have surrendered to his urging. And why had she named Miles, of all people? Miles, who was a friend and neighbor and who would be spending much of the Christmas holiday with them! If she had to name someone, why hadn't she had the good sense to choose someone far away—someone like Jeremy Hallworthy, her cousin from New York who was traveling abroad, or Sir Lionel Nethercomb, who'd been one of her suitors during her come-out year and was now living in India? She had no talent as a liar, that was the trouble.

And how she would ever again be able to look Miles in the eye she did not know!

What she
did
know was that she didn't want Julian to be forever watching her when Miles was in their company. How very awkward it would be if Julian kept watch for signs of love in Miles's eyes, or for the exchange of secret little glances, or for blushing cheeks and palpitating breasts. Good God, she would die of shame! What had she done?

Upset and disgusted with herself, she wanted nothing more than to retreat to her bed. Not only was she ill in spirit but in body: her throat was sore, her nose was stuffed, her head throbbed, and all her muscles ached. But she could not retire to her room, for there was still much to do to prepare for the arrival of Julian's parents, who were expected in time for dinner. She tried to dismiss from her mind the matter of Julian and the aches of her body as she ran about busily assisting in the preparation of two more guest bedrooms, arranging for the extra places at table, and completing the hanging of the Christmas festoons.

The Earl of Lovebourne and his Lady, having received word that their son had returned from abroad, were so eager to see him that they arrived several hours early. In fact, the others had just sat down to tea when the Earl's two carriages (one devoted solely to carrying their many trunks and bandboxes) trundled up the drive. Tea was forgotten as Lady Selby and all her guests hurried to the wide, high-ceilinged entry hall to greet them.

Lady Lovebourne, a very tall, imposing female wearing a huge feathered hat and fur-lined cloak, swept over the threshold in the manner of visiting royalty. She was trailed by her husband, Maurice Henshaw, the Earl of Lovebourne, an unassuming man of average height, who was quite accustomed to following in his wife's wake. Lady Lovebourne's eyes at once fell on her son, and she threw herself upon him with a cry of gladness. Meanwhile, as the other guests pressed round the new arrivals, Perkins and the footmen set about unloading luggage, and housemaids began to run up and down the stairs with cloaks and overcoats. Loud voices and shrill laughter rang in the air, combining with the sound of hurrying footsteps clacking on the marble floor. To add to the din, the Fordyce children, excited by the stir, took to dashing in and out among the adults, their shouts and hoots echoing in the rafters and making the scene more riotous than it already was.

In the midst of this commotion Miles Endicott appeared in the doorway. “I thought I was invited to a quiet family tea,” he remarked to Lady Selby as he surrendered his hat to a harried footman.

“We're quite at sixes and sevens”—Martha Selby laughed, her good nature undisturbed by the tumult—“but don't worry, my dear. We shall soon settle down and have a lovely tea.”

Julian, who'd noted Endicott's arrival, extricated himself from his mother's tearful embrace and drew Elinor aside. “Does Endicott know we've broken our troth?” he asked her in a whisper.

Elinor tensed. “No, of course not. When could I have—?”

“Then don't say anything yet, please, Elinor. It has just this moment occurred to me that my mother may be very put out about this. She's so fond of you, you know.”

“But, Julian, we'll have to tell her sometime,” Elinor pointed out.

“Yes, of course, but can't we put it off? You know how overbearing Mama can be. She might very well make a scene. We don't want to spoil Christmas. Perhaps we should wait to make the announcement after the holiday.”

Elinor glanced over at the group still milling about near the door. The Earl and Lady Lovebourne, having embraced Henry and Fanny Fordyce and complimented Felicia on her blooming womanhood, were now greeting Miles, who was quite well known to them. The sight of Miles reminded Elinor of the embarrassing situation she'd created for herself, and it occurred to her that it would be to her benefit to agree to Julian's suggestion. If the breaking of her troth were not announced until after Christmas (or, better still, just before everyone went home), Miles might never have to learn about her dishonest use of his name. “Very well, Julian,” she murmured. “Our news can wait.”

She turned away to search for Perkins, for it was clear that the tea service would have to be moved from the sitting room to the drawing room to accommodate the expanded number of guests. That chore accomplished, she left it to her mother to usher the guests to the tea table. Meanwhile she collected the noisy children and led them off to the nursery. There, after calming them and setting them to playing a game of spillikins, she sat down to catch her breath. Her throat burned, her head ached, and she felt dizzy. She knew she was feverish. She yearned for bed. But she was determined to make an appearance at the tea table to keep her mother from becoming concerned about her health. This was not the time to be ill—she could not let a little head cold spoil the holiday. So, with a determined effort, she got to her feet, straightened her tucker, smoothed back a tendril of hair that had fallen over her forehead, blew her nose, and made her way down to join the tea party.

At the drawing room door she found Miles waiting for her. “Elinor, my dear, you look terrible,” he said bluntly.