| |
Richard poured himself another glass of wine from the bottle, then pushed it away. No amount of drink would settle his mind. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wobbly table of the coaching inn. The list of marriage prospects he had to choose from was dismal. Hung, drawn, and quartered would be a welcome escape from being forced to spend the rest of his life with any one of those ladies.
Harriet Herbert: a widow with four children under the age of six. All of them boys who would make the hardest prisoners in Newgate look like gentle lambs. Dorothea Fortescue: a spinster with spectacles thick as an oak beam. It always gave him the feeling of staring at a beetle through the wrong end of a telescope. Lady Cecilia Finch: a beautiful young woman who believed the world revolved around her. She also believed the world was flat and that reading was only for women who could not get themselves husbands.
Dismal indeed. If he did not so desperately need his inheritance from his aunt, he would have tossed all prospects of marriage into the fire. Let them burn up in a puff of smoke. Ash was all that he had to live for anyway.
What did it signify? He downed his glass and refilled it with the last of his bottle. Any chance of a happy union had ended a year ago with the death of his dear Eliza. He may as well draw straws and accept his fate.
“Eliza!” came a harsh voice from the table behind him. “Stop it this instant.”
Richard spun around. A young woman sat in a pale-green dress, her head hanging low. She dabbed at her eyes with a limp handkerchief as her shoulders shook. Not his Eliza, of course. Why must every third girl have that name, tormenting him, teasing him, calling up hope that could not be?
A woman with graying hair sat across from her. “You’re making a scene.” The inn was fairly empty, and the older lady’s words carried.
The younger lady pressed the handkerchief against her face in some sort of effort to hold back the waters. It only made her shoulders shake harder.
This was how far his life had sunk. Listening in on the conversations of crying women.
The girl, Eliza but not his Eliza, lifted her head, and her gaze fell directly on Richard.
He tried to look away, but her eyes caught him. Huge gray eyes, the exact same color of his Eliza’s, rimmed in red and utterly forlorn.
She blinked at him a few times. Richard turned away, back to his empty bottle and his lonely prospects.
The older woman scolded Eliza again. “Adolphous Barrington is a good match. You could scarcely hope for better.”
“He is twice my age,” bemoaned Eliza. “He has rheumy eyes and a belly like melting butter. His bald head calls to mind some sort of pockmarked pumpkin. He is the most boring man ever born. Every time he speaks I want to puncture my ears with knitting needles.”
Richard snorted. At least she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. It seemed he and this new Eliza were in the same boat. A boat that would anchor them to a partner they despised. A lifetime imprisonment. Hung, drawn, and quartered was looking better and better.
“I would rather be hung, drawn, and quartered than have to marry that man,” cried the Eliza behind him.
Richard spun around again. Who was this woman?
“Hush!” The older lady smiled at a serving girl who’d brought a tray of tea and cake to their table. “Thank you, miss.”
The serving girl gave her a nod and hurried back to the kitchen.
“Don’t exaggerate,” the older woman said. She must be her mother. “Mr. Barrington is a gentleman with money, a house in the country and in town, and connections in all the right places. You will be the envy of the ton.”
If Eliza’s description of this Mr. Barrington was anything close to accurate, he doubted she would be the envy of anyone.
Eliza wiped her eyes and glared at her mother. She opened her mouth to speak but caught Richard staring again. She redirected her glare at him, and he turned around, caught like a fool eavesdropping. Even so, he kept perfectly still to better hear the conversation going on at the table behind him.
“Mr. Barrington will be here any minute. Now dry your eyes and make yourself presentable.”
Richard gave them a sideways glance. A new wave of tears streaked Eliza’s face. Her handkerchief was already saturated, but she pressed it to her reddened eyes anyway.
“How can I, Mother, when you are sending me to my death?”
The mother sighed, long and heavy. “You will thank me later, when you are living a comfortable life in the best society. All the finest of everything at your fingertips.”
Richard well understood the girl’s desperation. Family was often the greatest hardship one had to bear. He was facing a similar dilemma. He could get what he so desperately needed only at the expense of his happiness—marriage to an unwanted companion. It was indeed a high price to pay.
The mother swallowed a bite of cake and checked a watch hanging from her chatelaine. “Go and take a turn in the garden. Dry your eyes and recover yourself. Your face is splotchy. Mr. Barrington will be here to collect you in a few minutes.”
Eliza’s chair scraped back with a screech, as if every movement she made punctuated her protests. “I will never be recovered.”
Then she strode away and out the rear door into the inn’s little garden.
Richard stared after her.
He understood her completely. He was not a romantic man, but was it too much to ask to spend life with a person he could at least call companionable? Interesting? Lively?
There was a way to solve both of their problems. It was preposterous. Vulgar, even. And more than likely would land him in Newgate along with the Herbert boys.
But she had Eliza’s eyes. And really, that was enough for him.
He downed the last of his wine and followed Eliza but not his Eliza out into the garden.