In the Brief Eternal Silence (9 page)

He paused and when he continued, his words
were quieter but much more pointed. “But for the daughter of a
Squire to be so squeamish, Miss Murdock, well, it nearly boggles my
mind.”

“Does it?” Miss Murdock asked with sudden icy
rage. “It is true

that I find your reputation distasteful—”

“I am so shocked to hear it.”

“—But what I find more distasteful is your
thinking that you may stroll in here and offer me your ridiculous
proposal and have me leaping for it as some starving dog at a piece
of meat.” She rose from her seat, beside herself with rage. “Allow
me to, for a moment, fulfill your expectations: Oh, thank you,
milord, for choosing me! I have been made complete now that you
have humbled yourself and sought my hand. My life, I am sure, will
be naught but a fairy tale, where I may wear fine gowns, and ride
in a fine carriage with fine horses. And I shall spend all of my
allowance on fancy hats, and luxurious furs, and eat sweetmeats all
day while I have a dozen or more servants to fetch me whatever I
care for.” She drew herself up, her worn gown and falling hair
taking nothing from her disdain. “Is that what you expected to
hear, milord? For if it is, you are wildly mistaken. If you think
that I am flattered by your choosing me to fulfill some cold motive
on your part, you are most decidedly wrong. When and if I am ever
chosen as a wife it will not be for some calculated reason, I
should hope, and I will certainly not agree to a marriage based on
a proposition that, among other things, offers your body as
something to be gained for my amusement.” Her face was flaming with
embarrassment but her outrage was such that she was not even aware
of it.

“If you prefer the illusion of a romantic
wooing, Miss Murdock,” he countered, “then I am afraid I can not
accommodate you. For I can not and will not go into this marriage
with you believing there is a feeling there which can not be.
Neither do I wish for that feeling from you. It is precisely these
restrictions that have made me, yes, choose you!”

His words hit her like a slap in the face.
Oh, she had always been plain, had accepted it long before, but to
be told outright that the very reason, now, that her hand was being
sought in marriage was because her unlikely suitor had determined
that she would never be a threat to his heart or his libido, and
for some unknown reason sought that sad state of affairs, was going
just a tad too far. “Then I suggest you travel on down the lane,
milord St. James, for although I am above calling any person ugly,
there is a lady just above a mile from here that would shock even
you.”

Her words took him by surprise. “I am not
sure that I follow you, Miss Murdock.”

“No? Well, it little matters. If you are
loathe to point out your own 'desirable' qualities, I am equally as
loathe to point out my own 'less than desirable' ones. I am going
to bed now, milord, for I have had quite enough of this ill-advised
conversation. Where you sleep, or how you spend your time before
your leaving, I really do not care.”

With those words, she left the room,
half-afraid that he would make some retort that would stop her once
again in her tracks, so she turned a deaf ear when he called out
after her. Once in the hall, she moved quicker still, holding her
hurt hand in front of her and feeling a stinging in her eyes that
she tried hard to convince herself was from tiredness and her
injury, and she hurried up the stairs, and once she made her room,
she closed the door behind her and slumped against it. She blinked
back any tears that had the temerity to even think about falling,
swiped her hair from her face, when and how it had fallen there she
was not certain, and when she at last glanced out the window, she
saw that dawn had come after all, or was well on its way, for the
horizon was just beginning to lighten.

She could have cried then with frustration
and fatigue, for instead of being able to throw herself on her bed,
sleep away the headache that odious man had given her, she would
only have time to bathe and dress, and then she would have to start
her day's work. Well, she certainly intended to dawdle, for her
father would not be up for hours yet at any rate, and she wanted to
give the duke plenty of time to clear out before she was forced to
once again go downstairs.

With that thought, she removed her robe and
sleeping costume, bathed herself in the cold water she poured from
her pitcher and into her basin. She welcomed the iciness of it,
even in the chill of her room, feeling as though she were cleaning
off the filth that man had somehow heaped into her mind.

She gave a slight shiver, toweled off more
quickly than she had bathed. As if she didn't have enough to worry
about, she thought with exasperation, without some fool of a fop
coming in and upsetting her for half the night. She wished she had
taken that iron skillet to his skull rather than cook him eggs in
it.

No wonder he had thought that she would
swallow his outrageous tale. He had only had to look around and see
the drudgery that was her life. He must have deemed her very ripe
indeed for what she could see now as nothing more than some cruel
jest, designed to tease a naive country maiden with few
prospects.

Curious that, that he had not once asked,
where is your maid? Where is your cook? Where is your butler? Why
do you eat in the kitchen? Why are you the one preparing the food?
One would think that a man such as he could barely fathom a life
without servants.

She pulled on a dress, it was her best, just
in case he had not left before she was forced to go down, and she
was not going to give him another opportunity to mock her for being
dirty or disheveled. Not that there was much difference between her
worst and her best. They were all out-moded and faded, and as they
had been her mother's, too large, for she hadn't the time nor the
skill to take them in.

But she needn't have worried, for as she was
buttoning the last pesky buttons up the back of it, she heard
sounds from below in front of the house, and moving to the window,
she saw that the duke's curricle had been brought around by his
groom, the same team of horses at its front and an additional horse
tied by a lead to the back.

She gave a single nod of satisfaction,
thinking goodbye and good riddance, when something made her
remember that she did not recall seeing a spare horse when he had
arrived. She drew back the sheer from the window, enabling her to
see the tied horse more clearly and with a gasp of dismay, feeling
as though the air had been beat from her chest, she cried, “Leaf!”
and turned and ran from the room.

She reached the bottom of the steps and flung
open the front entrance door. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“That is my horse, milord Duke, and I do not take kindly to having
it removed from its stall and tied to the back of your
curricle!”

St. James turned to her. He had on his great
coat, buttoned to the top, and Lizzie had a moment's thought that
once again she was out in the cold with no proper protection and he
was again warm and comfortable. “Ah, there you are, Miss Murdock. I
have been awaiting you.”

She went past him, deigning him with only a
glare from her brown eyes, and went to the back of the curricle,
where she gave the quick release knot a single, angry yank, freeing
her horse from the vehicle. Then she turned on the duke, holding
the lead in her uninjured hand. “I do not know what bargain you
think you struck with my father last night after getting him drunk,
but he was not at liberty to sell this horse, for she is, in
essence, mine!”

“So he told me, Miss Murdock,” he said. “He
explained quite poignantly that she is, in fact, your dowry.”

His words came at her like a board to her
head. Her cheeks paled from the flush that had been staining them,
and her eyes looked at the man in front of her unseeingly for a
long moment. At last she said the words, words she knew to be true,
but could hardly believe them long enough to even speak them. “It
was the filly then,” she choked. She looked at him accusingly. “You
wanted my horse.”

He sucked in a deep breath, but his eyes did
not flinch from her face. “Yes, Miss Murdock,” he told her. “I
wanted your horse.”

A spasm went through her, making her rigid.
“You—you are more despicable and disgusting than anyone I could
ever imagine.”

“You are probably correct on both points,
Miss Murdock,” he said in cool agreement.

“My father was drunk. He would have never
agreed to this otherwise.”

“Your father should be sobering by now. Ask
him if you wish. See if he still is willing to stand by his
agreement.”

She clutched the lead, undecided, and he
prompted her, taking the lead from her hand and beckoning to his
groom. “Come, Miss Murdock. I don't wish there to be any doubts in
your mind, any thinking on your part that I am abducting you
against your father's wishes. Tyler will hold your horse, will not
steal her off from you while we go inside. Shall we?” he asked, and
his voice was soothing to her ears, as though he regretted very
much the tactics he had taken.

“You have no heart,” she said. “For I can see
in your eyes that you know exactly what you are doing and do it all
the same.”

“Yes. I know exactly what I am doing. Never
doubt that, either, Miss Murdock.”

Tyler took the lead, and St. James took her
elbow. He wore his driving gloves, and the leather of them dug
through the thin material of her sleeve. They went in silence up
the steps together, the groom behind them spitting a long stream of
tobacco with a loud pththttt. Then they were through the door that
she had left standing open in her urgency, and went again to the
parlor off the hall.

“Father,” Miss Murdock called when they came
within a few feet of the sofa and the duke dropped his hand from
her arm. Her father stirred. The sun, now peeking above the
horizon, shone a beam in and upon his eyes, making him blink when
he at last opened them in his drink swollen face.

He looked with incomprehension at the two of
them standing there, then sat up, groaning. He ran a hand through
his thick, gray hair. “Aye, Lizzie, I'll be needing your special
coffee this morning, luv, for I surely indulged myself a bit too
much last night.”

“Oh, whenever did you not?” she asked.
“Father. . . there is something I must ask you.” But she could not
frame the words, afraid that her father had done as the duke
suggested and agreed to a marriage designed for his lordship to
obtain a horse.

At her hesitancy, St. James stepped forward.
“Squire?”

Her father focused on his lordship. His
expression changed from lazy waking to full cumbersome alertness.
“Ah, yes. That business. Is it time?” He looked at his daughter's
face, the wide open, pleading eyes, the shadows beneath them, and
the paleness of her normally dark skin. “Ahhhh,” he said. He turned
to the duke. “I was to pave the way, you know.”

Lizzie dropped her chin to her chest. “Oh,
God, father, do not tell me it is true?”

“And why would you say it like that, lass?”
he asked in sudden anger, as though she had accused him of an
unspeakable crime. “I have made you a brilliant match, with no help
from you. You should be well-pleased, instead of standing there
looking as though the fireplace is smoking again.”

“Oh, father! How could you?” She brought her
chin up and held her hands out before her in supplication. “You
have bartered me off as part of a horse bargain!”

“That horse is your dowry, and don't you
forget it! No one says anything if a man marries to gain his new
wife's cash or lands or jewels, but if it's a horse, suddenly
there's something evil in it?” Her father pointed his finger, his
face turning red which indicated that he would be impossible to
deal with. “T'is a duke, you know! You could have never done
better.”

She turned once to look at the object of
their conversation. “T'is St. James!”

“Oh, ho,” her father exclaimed, “and of
course you have a dozen more duke's lined up at the door and can
afford to be choosy.”

“I'd rather not marry at all than marry
him!”

“Well, you hit that nail right on the head,
missy, for that's the

only choice I see that you have. Either him
or no one, for you're twenty summers old and haven't had a suitor
yet!”

She opened her mouth to berate him, but he
waved a hand at her, shutting her off. “Oh, do not start, I'm not
blaming you, by any means. Lord knows I have failed in my duty up
to this point in getting you up to snuff and out the starting
gate,” he told her. “So do not get on your high horse. The offer
was there, I fully apprised him of your short-comings and he was
not put off. Who is to blame me for snagging him while I
could?”

“Fully apprised him—! Oh, God, I wish the
floor would open up and swallow me! I want no husband through
trickery. I'd rather have no husband at all.”

“Do you feel tricked, miduke?” the Squire
asked.

“Not in the least. If I had not wished to
offer for your daughter, I would not have done so. Believe me, I
have been under rather more pressure in the past,” and his lips
twitched, “and you can see that I came out unscathed.”

The Squire nodded. “There you go, Lizzie. The
man wished for a wife and he offered for you. You have no
complaint.”

“I have no complaint?” she asked. “You are
both out of your heads!”

“Please do not shriek, Lizzie, dear,” the
Squire implored, holding his head. “For you are making me sick with
it.”

“You made yourself sick with the drink you
took last night, and now I am the one that must bear the
foolishness of it,” she told him. “Oh, you have done folly before,
father, but never as bad as this! You've gambled off the money for
the winter's coal, and lost every decent mount I had besides Leaf.
You bring home your cronies for pot-luck when there isn't much luck
in the pot to begin with. You've scared off every maid we've ever
retained that was under fifty with your groping ways, and agitated
every one older than fifty with your ill-temper until they have
left in a huff. You leave me the accounts to juggle when there is
more money going out than coming in, and then gaily set down your
bills for jewelry and perfume for payment to those women who would
not have anything to do with your gouty, portly, black-toothed self
if not otherwise, as though they were just another feed bill.