An Encounter at the Museum Page 3

  “Honorable.”

  “How honorable?” she asked, and he admired her for it. She was not going to help him ruin some girl who had caught his eye. Well done, Lady Staverton.

  “Highly.”

  “You mean to provide for her?” It was a carefully worded question. Anne Staverton could be subtle when she had a mind to.

  “For the rest of my life,” he said, his voice gone hoarse with the power of his intentions.

  “Yet you know not her name.”

  “I know all I need to know. Once I know her name, I will change it to make it mine. She will be mine.”

  Anne leaned forward in her chair, her breath held, her eyes enormous. She stared at him with such intensity and such longing that he should have felt uncomfortable. He was not. He felt no shame, no, nor no embarrassment regarding his feelings for Elizabeth. He did not question it. He did not doubt.

  He was half French, after all.

  “You will marry her,” Anne said, her voice hardly above a whisper, “upon such a brief and casual acquaintance?”

  “Brief,” he said, rising to his feet, “not casual. But, yes,” he said, striding across the room, unable to sit quietly against the pounding of his blood, the hammer strike to his brain. Hurry. Hurry. Find her. “I would not ask openly for her name lest it do her reputation some harm.” He forced himself to return to his seat, to keep the lion caged, the civilized man taming the beast that roared to be released. “Do you know her?”

  “I believe I do,” Anne said, her gaze steady, deep, unfathomable. “She is Miss Elizabeth Ardenzy. She has a twin sister, I believe, named Elena. Their father, Mr. Sebastian Ardenzy, is the son of a minor French aristocrat, very minor according to the rumors, and perhaps not even that according to other rumors, who came to England in the 1780s. In fact, I am not certain if some rumors repute Austria as his place of origin. In any case, he made his fortune and is determined to see his daughters well wed.”

  His place in society reacquired. It went without saying. Nevertheless, he had to hear it spoken.

  “Meaning, into the peerage?” he asked.

  “Meaning that, yes.” Anne leaned forward, her hands pressed to her knees. “I am sorry, Jamie.”

  What had he expected? That the well-brought up daughter of some well-heeled house in the better part of London would run off with him into the unknown?

  Yes, something like that.

  Jamie sat down on the sofa and crossed both his arms and his legs, quelling the burning urge to run to her door, pound it down, and make off with her. He was still an Englishman, after all, and even the French half was not so unruly.

  “It is nothing more than I expected, and it changes nothing,” he said. “I mean to have her. I will have her. She is mine already, Anne, though I do not expect you to comprehend that.”

  “Are all men as confident?”

  “When they find the woman, I expect so,” he said, lying to both Anne and to himself. He had to believe he would win her. To think otherwise was to lose what was left of his mind.

  “I don’t know what more I can do to assist you,” Anne said, breaking into his thoughts. He had no plans, only thoughts, tumbling, powerless thoughts.

  “What do you know of her father?” he asked, because he had to ask something, plan something. He could not simply knock on her door, once he knew where it was, and whisk her off to Canada. Though if Romeo had simply taken Juliet to Sardinia or Venice, the story would have taken a much happier turn.

  “I met him once, perhaps twice. He is quite aware of both his current place in the world and where he wants to be in it.” Anne leaned forward, smiling. “But I’m quoting Sophia, of course. For myself, he seemed a pleasant man, if not a bit intense in his goals. I believe he has high hopes for his daughters to marry well. He has the funds to make them quite attractive.”

  “She is attractive enough without funds to sweeten the deal,” he said.

  Yet he had nothing to tempt her or her father. He was not titled and was not long for England. What father with aspirations would consider him as a suitor? His name might as well be Montague and hers Capulet for all the chance he had.

  It was a fleeting moment of despondency. He would not give into it. It was simply not possible that he should live the rest of his life without her. He could not explain why he had been drawn to her so completely and he would not attempt to explain why he was so certain that this was the woman he was destined to love for the rest of his life. She belonged with him and he with her. Sometimes, love came swiftly and profoundly. He saw no reason to question it.

  “As I have been introduced to Mr. Ardenzy and his daughters, it is entirely acceptable for me to call upon them. Would you care to accompany me, Jamie?”

  It was the only spark he needed to set the fire to have Elizabeth blazing up again.

  “I would. Now?”

  “If we hurry, we can. Shall we hurry?” she asked.

  Hurry? It was all he could think, his pulse quickened at the word.

  “I’d love to hurry. In fact, hurry seems to be the word of the day.”

  He rose to his feet and watched her rise in concert. They walked to the library door and he could not have said if she proceeded him or if he ran her down or if it took seconds or hours to reach the door. He was numb to all but the notion that he must get to Elizabeth Ardenzy in all haste, every other thought, vision, sensation was nothing but a blur.

  In the blur, there was some discussion about Anne’s hat and a carriage being brought round, and into that haze he said, “It cannot be far. I believe we could make better time if we walked.”

  She looked at him oddly, and the butler and lady’s maid and perhaps a footman as well. They all gave him a look and he did not care if they looked or how they looked; he must be away, to Elizabeth.

  “Yes, for we must hurry, mustn’t we?” Anne said, giving him a soft look. “No carriage, Winthrop. Have William accompany us.”

  A footman appeared, the maid disappeared, and then they were out the door and upon the street and he felt his heart lighten with each step he took. He was on his way to her. It would only be moment’s now. He took a deep breath, enjoying it fully. He offered Anne his arm and she took it with all grace. He cast a glance back at the footman. The footman dropped back a few paces.

  “I do not know what you expect to happen at the Ardenzy’s,” Anne said.

  Jamie banished all thoughts of Sardinia, Venice, and, yes, Canada from his mind. “An introduction?” he said mildly. He was quite sure he was mild. Or fairly certain.

  “And after that?”

  “A marriage,” he said. It was an honest answer, perhaps not as mild an answer as he should have given, but it was honest.

  Anne said nothing for a half block, and then she said, “Mr. Caversham, might I propose something?”

  “Lady Staverton, you may.”

  “I believe that it may raise Mr. Ardenzy’s estimation of you if he believes that you are visiting him at my insistence and not your own. In that I do think he is the sort of man who will hold you in higher esteem if he perceives that you hold him in small esteem.”

  “Why do you think that?” He had met many people like that in his life, of course, and they were never pleasant people or pleasant encounters. One did wonder how they got any pleasure at all out of any of their social connections with that sort of attitude.

  “Because of something Sophia said about him,” Anne said. “Has she ever been wrong?”

  “Not according to my mother,” he said. Nor according to Sophia herself, though he would not voice the thought. He loved Sophia almost as an aunt, a very clever, very dangerous, very mysterious aunt. It was a love mixed with a great deal of caution, to be sure.

  “Nor according to mine, who did not heed her counsel,” Anne said.

  That Anne’s mother had lived badly and died worse was not something ever discussed within his family. He knew the bare details and did not wish to know more, but it was one of the main reasons why h
e had never entertained the attention of a lady bird, either for a night or a season. Those women were more to be pitied than desired.

  “I believe that if you hold yourself a bit apart,” Anne continued, “show a bit of superiority, Mr. Ardenzy will look upon you with favor.”

  “And his daughter? How will she look upon me if I do so?”

  “I trust you to manage his daughter,” Anne said, a humorous gleam in her grey green eyes.

  Very hopeful words, very cheerfully spoken. How he was going to manage the love of the daughter when he treated her father with veiled disdain? Even if she did not much love her father, and he had no reason to think she did not love him to distraction, it did nothing to credit him.

  And that was not the only puzzle. He knew enough of women to know that Anne was not helping him out of pure charity. Oh, she was kind enough and generous enough, but no woman did so much and so eagerly without something in her mind that she wished in return.

  “And do you not want something from me, Lady Staverton?” he asked. William walked a few steps behind them and they were keeping their voices low. They would not be overheard. “I have learned that women are very generous in doing a man a favor or in giving him a prize, but only when they receive a favor or a prize in return.”

  “That is quite a harsh view of women.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it shows a practical turn of mind and a very businesslike quid pro quo. It is hardly a fault. Now, by taking me in hand and ushering me into the Ardenzy’s drawing room, what favor am I doing for you, Lady Staverton? I am willing to be used in nearly any manner you wish.”

  As long as it did not offend Elizabeth. He could not imagine anything that Anne could want of him that would possibly offend Elizabeth.

  “I do admit to having an idea,” she said, casting him a sideways glance. The afternoon was drawing to a swift close, the sun dipping down behind the buildings, the air freshening. The day had begun in drizzle with skies of pearl. It was ending with pink flags of cloud and a soft breeze; he liked to think it was propitious.

  “It involves a man, I trust,” he said. “All the best ideas involve a man.”

  Anne laughed lightly. “Since you are Zoe’s son and not some ill-informed country cousin, I assume you might guess the man?”

  “If the man is the Marquis of Dutton, then, yes.”

  He would have been ill-informed indeed to not be aware that Dutton had pursued, and failed to capture, Anne for nearly two years. She had married out from under him, so to speak, becoming Lady Staverton quite neatly. That Anne clearly was interested in Dutton and yet had married elsewhere was cutting his own situation with Elizabeth far too close to the bone. Things could fall against him more easily than they could fall for him. Far more easily.

  “I have been advised,” she continued, “that, well, I don’t know quite how to put it, or as to that,” she said, considering the footman not three paces behind them, “if it needs to be explained. I have decided to . . . acquire Lord Dutton.”

  “Acquire?”

  She did not blush. He found that almost admirable.

  “In all the word may imply.”

  “And all that it may not imply,” Jamie said under his breath. Not marriage. She wanted to play with the man and not marry him. If Elizabeth felt even part of that . . .

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Forgive me,” he said, pulling his thoughts back under his control. “It is your plan. Proceed with it as you will. How may I assist you?”

  Anne cleared her throat and said, holding her chin up, “I gave Lord Dutton the impression that I was interviewing for lovers. I told him that was the reason for your visit.” Jamie’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “I would like him to continue to believe that. I would like Lord Dutton to . . . to . . .”

  “To feel himself in competition for a post and to find himself . . . the loser?” Jamie finished.

  “Yes. At least at the start.”

  “Yet you mean for him to win.”

  “No,” she said, looking at him. They were at the gate to Ardenzy’s house, the slanting light striking the windows and turning them golden. “I mean for me to win.”

  “I don’t know what you think to gain by spending so much time in the Reading Room,” Elizabeth’s father said.

  It was the end of the day. They had received only one caller, Aunt Edwina, her father’s elderly sister and not a woman to tangle with on any subject, and who, because she was family, was still sitting in her favorite chair in the little drawing room. Her father was very ill-tempered because they had received no true callers. He was moving very swiftly, and very predictably, to lay the blame upon her. For not being At Home. That Elena had been At Home and available did not factor in, apparently.

  “Culture,” she said, kicking her feet out in front of her and studying her shoes. They looked perfectly fine to her, no matter what her maid said. They were comfortable and she loved the color of the ribbons on the toe box. “If I am to marry Lord Redding, then I should acquire culture where and when I may.”

  “If?” her father said, pouncing on that one idea, ignoring all the rest. “When you marry him.”

  “If he asks,” she said. “He has not yet asked for my hand. Has he?”

  “No, but it is merely a matter of time,” he said.

  “I should not rely upon that, were I you,” Aunt Edwina said with a sniff, her hand clutching her gold headed cane with a claw-like gesture. “Until he makes his proposal, it is all fantasies and wishes. You cannot build a life upon so insubstantial a structure as that.”

  Probably not. But she did like the dream of building a life upon a wish. She had always dreamed, she supposed, buried deeply within the practically of living, but meeting James Caversham had unleashed dreams and hopes and longings that she had not known she possessed. Since she was required to live a practical life, she should have been quite annoyed with him. Yet she was not. She was caught too deeply into the dream to tolerate annoyance. She could not even be annoyed with her anxious and angry father or her curt and abrasive aunt. She did spare some mild unpleasantness for Elena.

  Being a twin did have its flaws, one of them being the instantaneous ability to read the other twin without a word being spoken. Elizabeth had no more than walked up the stairs of the house they leased on a fashionable street in Mayfair before Elena had opened the door of the green drawing room and said, “You’re later than usual.”

  Before Elizabeth could gather breath to form a reply, Elena then said, “Something’s happened.”

  After that, Elizabeth could think of no reply that would serve.

  Elena, as a rule, kept to herself. She was not shy, far from it, but she was not as needful as Elizabeth to get out of the house every day, even to just walk to the shops and buy nothing. Elena stayed in most days, smiled pleasantly whenever their father or aunt said something provocative, and engaged her time doing nothing of note. Elizabeth, sad to say, did not have that sort of composure. Or that anything approaching that level of self-restraint.

  The maid was sent off for tea, the girls both seated upon their favorite chairs, Elena on the small sofa, sprawled lengthwise, and Elizabeth perched cozily on a deeply upholstered chair in pale silvery green damask. It was when they were both comfortably settled that Elena began her inquisition.

  “What’s happened?”

  “I was at the Reading Room. What do you expect happened? I read.”

  Elena studied her, one identical face scanning its mirror. Though, truly, while they were identical twins, there were differences. Elena’s hair was slighter darker and her eyes were slightly lighter and her left ear tipped out just a bit at the top. Elizabeth possessed a mole on the very top of her back, on the right side. She hated it. She hated that Elena was not cursed with a mole.

  “What did you read?”

  “Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Romantic nonsense,” Elena pronounced.

  “A tragedy, most assuredly. Still, if they had been left
alone, free to love and to marry, then it would have all ended well.”

  Elena leaned up and pierced Elizabeth with a look. “You’ve met someone. Someone unacceptable.”

  “I was in the Reading Room. Reading,” Elizabeth repeated.

  “One cannot be alone in the Reading Room.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I went that one time. That one, miserable time,” Elena said with a lopsided grin.

  “Who is he? Not Lord Redding, that is certain. Lord Redding does not inspire such looks in you.”

  “What looks?”

  Did she look different? Was she changed? She felt changed. She felt tingly and alive and on the brink of something spectacular and frightening and thrilling. She did not think a woman about to marry Viscount Redding was supposed to feel any such thing.

  “You look . . . dreamy. Sparkly. Shimmery,” Elena said. She had probably meant the words as an indictment. It sounded entirely complimentary to Elizabeth. She felt shimmery.

  “I was reading Romeo and Juliet. The story inspires such things,” she said.

  The trouble with having a twin was that lying was nearly impossible.

  “Who is he?” Elena asked. The maid came in just then bearing the tea things. The girls said nothing more until the door was closed behind her. “If he feels shimmery, though I don’t think it possible for any man to feel any such thing, then he will come here and I shall know him by his shimmer. But of course, he won’t come here.”

  “He may,” Elizabeth said, springing to Jamie’s defense. Surely, he was entirely the type to search her out and free her from her father’s grasp.

  Perhaps she had read Romeo and Juliet once too often.

  Elena smiled, the trap having been sprung. “Who is he?”

  “His name is James.” She would tell her no more than that. She would probably never see him again, and the thought caused a pang she could barely conceal, but that did not mean that his name should be bandied about in the Ardenzy household. “We shared a table. He was very cordial and we became acquainted, nothing more mysterious than that.”

  “He’s handsome?” Elena asked with a twinkle.