The Match of the Century (4 page)

“Is she all right?”

Morris lowered his voice to murmur something, and Elin’s feet took flight. She reached the terrace and dashed to the door

Ben began walking quickly toward the house, toward
her
.

Years ago, his father had bullied him into leaving Elin. Fyclan had been there as well. They had known what the two of them had done—

Ben forbid the thought. He
hadn’t done anything
to Elin that was not right and very much wanted between them. They had been young,
too
young, and naïve—but he now knew he’d loved her. He’d
always
loved her. What had happened between them, bumbling, silly, awkward—well, it had been the actions of youth.

He was wiser now and much older. However, his feelings were ever true. He needed to tell Elin, to set aside masculine pride and the wretched weight of family honor and be honest. He had to finish the conversation that had been interrupted.

Ben was running now, a premonition growing inside him with each step. “They” were going to separate them again. Whatever had happened to her mother would change everything. Elin would not come back to him, not unless he reached her before they did.

Years ago, he’d been wrong to have let them force him away from her. He would not allow it now.

He reached the door. The footman wasn’t paying attention to his door duties. Instead, he craned his neck, trying to see what was happening on the far side of the room where everyone was gathered.

The musicians had stopped their playing. Women were crying. Men appeared grave as they comforted them.

As Ben flung open the door to charge past the startled footman, he heard Elin scream.

And he knew he was too late.

There were many questions and much confusion the night Elin’s mother died.

The doctors told Elin and her father that Jenny had been gone before she’d hit the floor that night. “Her heart stopped,” seemed to be the only explanation. Those who heard it would murmur that Jennifer Morris’s time had come, and there was nothing to be done when God sent His angels.

Elin hated such talk. There were other condolences. Few people said simply they were sorry for her loss.
That
statement she could respect.

The thought that her mother was needed in heaven more than she’d been wanted on earth made Elin wanted to roar with rage. However, she didn’t. She was too inconsolable.

As was her father.

From the moment Elin had come upon her mother’s prone figure on the floor, she and her father stood side by side but were lost to each other. It was almost as if Jenny had been the bridge between them, and now that she was gone, they were both too shocked to lean on each other.

Elin also learned that Ben had been wrong in his accusations against his brother. In the days following her mother’s death, Gavin was more than generous with his time. He had lost a parent. He understood. For the first week, he was always by Elin’s side although she made for poor company. She was drowning in grief.

Jenny’s death would delay the marriage once again. When her father apologized, Gavin assured him that if anyone understood, he did.

“We’ll start again after this is past,” he told Fyclan. “We will announce the betrothal then.”

Of course, the duke couldn’t stay with her all the time. After the first week, responsibilities took him away. He was an important man.

Her father, too, threw himself into his business dealings. He and Elin couldn’t sit alone together for very long. It was too difficult for them both. They reminded each other of what they had lost.

Elin had seen Ben at the funeral, where her mother was buried with as much pomp as her father could buy for her. Ben had looked terrible. He appeared weighed down with concerns as if he had been the one to lose a loved one. He tried to talk to her, but Elin was not ready for him yet. If she had not been out in the rose arbor with him, she would have been by her mother’s side, and who knows? Could she have prevented Jenny’s death?

Guilt was a rogue emotion. Elin didn’t really know why she felt guilty. She could form a list of all the times she had not been the most dutiful of daughters. She should have eaten more of the supper her mother had had Cook prepare for her that night. She should have been more excited about marrying the duke.

Indeed, the marriage was the one thing her mother had desired for her. Jenny wanted Elin’s portrait hanging on walls of Baynton’s estates. She had envisioned it, dreamed it, and made Elin see it.

Marrying Baynton was the sole fitting tribute to her mother’s memory.

But Elin was in mourning. The wedding need wait at least a year out of respect to her mother’s memory. She wished she could hear her mother call her “sweet bee” once more or feel her warm, loving touch.

Over time, Elin did learn that Gavin and Ben had argued. They said Ben seemed to have disappeared from London. “Run off without a word to anyone” is what they said and “tsked” their thoughts.

In truth, Ben had tried to see her before he quit the city. He’d left his card. He’d called several times, but Elin was not receiving visitors, especially him.

However, Ben was not one to be ignored. He had sent her a rose, a rare white one. A single bloom.

Peace,
he had written on the card. An apology of sorts and one that had infuriated her and brought tears to her eyes at the same time. She’d been trying so hard to keep her emotions contained. Her mother would expect her to be strong. Jenny had not admired “weepy” women.

And once again, without
even being present
, Ben proved he could threaten Elin’s fragile hold on herself.

Peace.
Her whole world had been upended with her mother’s death, and she didn’t know if it would ever be right again.

Nor did she understand why, out of all the flowers that had been sent and all the cards, she took the rose and Ben’s one, heartfelt wish and pressed them between the pages of her journal.

Invitation

Gavin Thornhill

Alexander Whitridge,

Duke of Baynton

will marry

Miss Elin Tarleton Morris

Tuesday, 5 November, 1811.

The Dowager Duchess of Baynton

and Mr. Fyclan Morris

request the honor of your presence at the wedding breakfast at 2 p.m.

R.S.V.P. Menheim House

Chapter Four

October 1811

E
lin wasn’t ready to return to London.

There were too many reminders of her mother there—her favorite amusements, the shops, the friends who met Elin with long faces and eyes melting with pity.

Her father sought out those people’s company. Elin could not. Her grief was still too private. Too consuming.

In truth, in the past many months, she and her father had grown even more distant from each other. They had never been close—the way Elin had been with her mother—but this was something deeper. Perhaps Elin reminded him too much of the wife he’d lost. He’d given his wife a funeral the likes of which London had never seen. It had been a tribute for the love of his life, but now, he seemed adrift. He compensated by working more hours on his business interests than he ever had before and often took his meals at his club.

This had left Elin rambling around their large London home. In truth, she wasn’t accustomed to talking to her father. She knew he cared for her; however, her mother had been the one to communicate between the two of them. She’d planned their outings and had encouraged their closeness. Without her, they acted like polite strangers.

As soon as Elin was able, she’d returned to Heartwood. The country was where she belonged. It was also easy to pretend her mother was still alive and living happily in London. Life could go on the way it had before the ill-fated betrothal ball.

Except that it was a lie.

At the end of the first year of mourning, Elin realized she couldn’t hide from the truth. Her mother was gone and, in many ways, so was her father. He rarely wrote and had not come to Heartwood even for hunting, for while he no longer rode, in the past he’d often hosted large parties.

While she was in London, the Dowager Duchess and Baynton had called on Elin to see how she fared. Now that she was back home, Baynton had made a point of writing Elin at least once a week. His letters were brusque and far from newsy. He’d mention a piece of legislation he was trying to see passed or the name of someone he’d dined with, then close with just his signature. Elin suspected he dictated his letters to his secretary, and she could hear her mother’s voice chiding her to be more patient with such an important, busy man.

And then, after months of silence, a week ago, Elin had received the invitation to the wedding breakfast and her father’s letter ordering her back to the city.
The time has come, daughter,
he wrote,
to see to your obligation to marry Baynton. I would have it done before Christmas.

The letters were delivered by the hand of a woman named Madame Odette. Madame said she was the daughter of an impoverished French émigré. Although she now was forced to oversee the creation of fine wardrobes, she made a point of telling Elin that her father had been a count before he’d been cruelly robbed of his estates and riches by the rabble during the revolution, a theme Madame harped on every evening over her wine.

She had arrived in Fyclan Morris’s traveling coach followed by a wagon full of fabric, dress patterns, small clothes, and all of the embellishments. She was almost ten years older than Elin and as petite, except with blond hair and blue eyes . . . reminiscent of Jenny Morris.

“Your father wishes me to see you outfitted properly,” she’d informed Elin in her accented English. “You must set aside your black, and the styles in London, they change, they change. Mademoiselle is to be a
duchesse
. She wants to be an asset to her husband, not an embarrassment.”

So began an agonizing week for Elin of being poked, prodded, and continually criticized by Madame Odette. Or Madame
Odious
as Elin referred to her in her mind.

Elin did set aside her black. Not willingly, but she did it, and there was more than a little resentment in her doing so. It felt too soon, and sometimes she had the sense of being a sleepwalker. She went through the motions but only because she could not think of how to object, not if this was what her father wanted.

Meanwhile, the dressmaker took numerous liberties. One morning, Elin had come downstairs to seeing the woman mentally cataloging the furniture and art in Heartwood’s front room. She gave orders with the authority of Elin’s father. She talked to the other servants as if they were underlings and had even threatened Mrs. Varney’s housekeeper position when the woman did something that displeased her.

It didn’t make sense to Elin that her father would choose such a woman to escort her to London. She also didn’t appreciate having the safe, predictable sameness of her days interrupted by Madame, and yet Elin did nothing to stop the Frenchwoman from setting her return in motion. Elin knew she must go. He was right when he wrote she had an obligation to Baynton, who had been patient long enough.

She remembered her mother’s saying that the duke wasn’t the sort of man who would cry off. He was honorable, and if she had any pangs of conscience about her not being honest about that “incident” in her past, she reminded herself that this marriage was the one thing her mother wanted. The only meaningful tribute to her. Perhaps she and Baynton would name a daughter after her. Jennifer Tarleton Whitridge. The dream of a daughter helped Elin out of her sadness.

Village girls were hired to finish what sewing needed to be done with the dresses. Heartwood became a hive of activity. The work was done quickly, and Madame announced that the wagon with Elin’s trunks would leave that next morning, while they would depart on the day after tomorrow.

“Why not leave with the wagon?” Elin had asked.

“Because we must leave on Thursday,” was the answer, as if it explained all. Perhaps it did. Madame Odette wore Elin down. She did as told. It was easier than arguing with a Frenchwoman.

And all probably would have been fine, except for what Elin overheard Mrs. Varney whisper to Tillman, the butler, the morning of her departure.

Madame Odette was already in the coach. Elin was saying good-bye to the servants. “This is not farewell, really,” Elin assured them or tried to convince herself. “When I return I will be Trenton’s mistress, but I will see you often. I’ll make a point of it.”

She was going down the line of servants who had turned out to wish her well, offering them little reminders and pretending to be happy. Even Norman the stable master had come up, and he had brought several of his lads with him.

“Mademoiselle,” Madame Odette barked in that imperial tone of hers. “
Vite!
We must be on the road.”

“She’s anxious to return to London,” Elin overheard Tillman grumble.

“If the master had to choose a mistress, did he have to choose a French whore?” Mrs. Varney had answered.

The housekeeper was known for strong opinions. She had something to say about everyone in the parish.

But
this
suggestion that not only had her father taken a mistress but that the servants believed she was Madame Odette stunned Elin. It also explained everything—the woman’s high-handedness, her disdain over what Elin thought, and the way she coveted all she saw at Heartwood, the way she acted as if she could own it.

Elin didn’t want to go toward the coach. If the duke had not been expecting her, she would have refused.

However, she had no choice. The duke waited for her. If Heartwood had another traveling coach, she would have ordered that prepared, but there was only the one.

“Mademoiselle, we
must
leave,” Madame Odious called. Elin faced the coach.

Old Jensen the coachman had come to the door. Elin had known him since childhood. “It would help if we leave, Miss Elin. You never know what we’ll find on the road.”

Her favorite footman, a young man named Craig, a Yorkshireman, held the coach door open. He smiled as he waited, always pleasant and accommodating.

Elin walked to the coach and climbed in, careful to keep her skirts from touching the Frenchwoman’s.

Protecting the coach were two outriders, James and Toby, stable lads who were handy with their fists and could fire a shot. They were good-natured men who had been raised at Heartwood and were loyal to Fyclan Morris. They would keep Elin safe.

Mrs. Varney leaned into the coach. Had she meant for Elin to hear what she’d said? She gave no indication. “We’ll keep you in our prayers, Miss Elin. Don’t worry about Heartwood. I shall run matters as you would wish.”

“Thank you,” Elin heard herself murmur, then the door was shut. The coach swayed as Jensen and Craig climbed up into the box. There was a snap of a whip, and they were off.

They had a three-day trip to London ahead of them with nights spent at inns along the way. The first day’s travel would be relatively short, but the next day would be long.

Too long, Elin reflected, to spend it trapped in such a small space with Madame. She attempted to shut her out with needlework and reading. She tried not to talk, just speaking when asked a direct question. Elin needed to do this as she processed the thought of her father with not only another woman, but
this
woman.

It defied her imagination.

The second day of travel was worse.

Madame knew Elin was ignoring her and took delight in taking little jabs at her.

“If you keep such a long face, you will create wrinkles that will make you appear a crone,” Madame sang to Elin, as the coach bounced and rolled over a particularly difficult track of road. The movement was upsetting Elin’s stomach, so she couldn’t read or do handwork. The day was also dreary, one of those threatening rain without delivering it.

Elin ignored her by studying the passing scenery outside the coach window. Craig had told her this road was called Woods Road because it traveled through a thick and obviously lonely forest. Elin hadn’t seen a soul for over two hours. A bridge was out on one of the other connecting roads, so Jensen had taken them this way to pick up the Post Road. He’d heard about the bridge the night before at the inn where they had spent the night.

“Is that what you want, Mademoiselle Morris, the wrinkles of a crone?”

No, what I wish is for you to disappear. Vanish. Begone
.

Actually, what Elin really wanted was to return to Heartwood.

“You, English, so stoic.”

Elin didn’t respond but had a vision of giving Madame a push out of the coach.

“I know what you are doing,” Madame said. “You choose to ignore me as if this is a problem. It is not. You may pout all you wish. Of course that is the problem with you Englishwomen. Never satisfied. From the expression on your face, one would think you were returning to London for your beheading instead of a wedding. Or that the duke was ancient or ugly.” She gave a small, cynical half laugh filled with secret envy, and added, “Or poor.”

There was a beat of blessed silence. “I know poor, and I shouldn’t,” Madame continued. “If my family had not been chased out of France and robbed of what was ours, I could have married a prince. And I would not be pouting, I tell you that.” She punctuated her opinion with a condescending laugh and, after listening to more of this chatter than any person could tolerate, Elin had had enough.

She turned to the dressmaker and said, “Are you and my father lovers?”

Madame’s brows lifted.

Elin held her breath, hoping for a denial.

Instead, a change crossed Madame’s lovely face. A mask fell away, and Elin had the impression she was seeing the true woman. She smiled, the satisfied expression of a cat that had got into the cream, as if she knew something Elin could never imagine. “Do you think we are?”

Uncertain, Elin curled her gloved hands in her lap into fists. The day was chilly with a damp that seeped into the coach. She wore a good wool, dark blue cloak over her travel dress and a pair of warm socks with her sensible shoes, but still she felt a chill.

Or was the chill because she found herself in the presence of—what? Avarice? Smugness?

Elin kept her voice level. “If I knew the answer, I would not have asked. However, you seem very sure of your place and disrespectful of mine.”

“One lesson I have learned is that roles can change quickly in life.”

“What does that mean?”

“That you needn’t worry about your future. There, do you feel better now? You will be free of him.”

“What do you mean?”

Madame laughed silently. “You will find out.”

The cramped quarters of the coach became suddenly too close. The woman’s threatening confidence was unnerving. Elin didn’t know how to react or what to think, so she acted. She reached up and knocked on the roof to signal the driver to halt.

Madame Odette grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand down to the tufted velvet seat between them. “What are you doing?” she demanded, but it was too late.

The door slid back, and Craig, who was riding in the box with the driver, said, “Yes, Miss?”

“I wish to stop,” Elin said.

“
We will not stop
,” Madame countermanded.

Crag closed the door and in seconds the coachman slowed the horses, saying, “Calm, calm now.”

Elin fought the urge to give the dressmaker a triumphant look. The servants were hers, and they listened to her, not a dressmaker.

The battle between the two women wasn’t over yet, but Elin had won a skirmish and given herself the opportunity for a little distance so she could think clearly.

“It is not safe for us to stop here,” Madame Odette complained. “This road is lonely. There could be highwaymen.”

“Highwaymen?” Elin almost laughed.

“
Yes,
” the Frenchwoman insisted. “It is dangerous. Why else does your father have outriders?”

“He always has me travel with outriders,” Elin answered. “There hasn’t been a highwayman in these woods since the reign of the last king.”

“Times change,” Madame answered, an echo of her earlier words.

“So you have told me.” Elin jerked her arm free and held up a hand to stave back any other attempt to grab her again. “Enough. Leave me alone.”

Craig opened the door. “Is there a problem, Miss Elin?”