Chapter Twenty

Eliza had never thought herself to be the sort of woman who lost sleep over a man, so it was with great consternation that she found herself at the ungodly hour of half past midnight, eyes peeled open and staring unseeing at the darkened ceiling, thinking of a man.

And not just any man.

Wessex.

Aye, there was a sting most sharp.

After throwing those awful words like a gauntlet, the duke had announced he was feeling peckish and would enjoy a sandwich and a tart. Eliza had not known how to respond to such an abrupt change in conversation, so she had merely nodded and allowed him to take her back to the house. No one had said a word about their lengthy disappearance, no doubt because they all had secrets of their own to protect.

But now, several hours and far too many musical recitals later, his words were keeping her from sleep.

And when she wasn’t thinking about his words, she was thinking about that moment when they had stood close enough for their arms to brush, and the muscles of his arm had jumped like a frightened animal.

Her skin hummed with the memory, as though she could still feel him there. She kicked her legs restlessly under the heavy weight of the blanket as her brain churned.

In all honesty, she couldn’t say which was worse—that he had infected her mind, or that he had infected her body. Both were appalling and entirely inconvenient.

Well, she wasn’t going to put up with this nonsense. She would put him out of her mind and body the same way she solved all her problems—through walking. She tossed back the blanket, grabbed her wrapper, and wiggled her feet into her bedroom slippers. After a moment of fumbling to find and light a candle, she crept stealthily from her room.

Force of habit turned her toward the kitchen. As a child, she had suffered from nightmares and often found herself there keeping the kitchen maids and cook company rather than burdening her relatives further.

She moved past the long line of closed doors along the hallway. Despite the hour, all was not quiet. From behind closed doors came sounds of bed linens rustling and sometimes inelegant snores.

And then she heard a muffled squeak that was much closer. She paused, lifting the candle high, and looked about. “Who’s there?” she asked quietly.

For a moment all was still, and then Lady Freesia, wearing a pretty lilac wrapper and enormously rumpled hair, stepped into the light. “It is only me. I couldn’t sleep.”

Eliza considered the likelihood of that statement. She hoped for the sake of all the gentlemen present that it was true, for Lady Freesia was here under the watchful guardianship of two brothers, one of whom was known to be somewhat violent when the mood struck. She imagined the mood would strike very hard, indeed, if Lady Freesia was discovered in a man’s bedroom.

“Why are you awake?” Lady Freesia asked pointedly.

“I couldn’t sleep, either, and thought I might find a bite to eat in the kitchen,” she said, dodging the question.

“Ah.” Lady Freesia tilted her head. “I could do with a sandwich or tart. Shall we, then?”

They were turning toward the stairs when a door opened and a head popped out. “Eliza! I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing?”

“Couldn’t you sleep, either, Riya? We’re going to the kitchen to see what we can scrounge up.”

“I’ll join you.”

The three linked arms to better share the candlelight and silently went downstairs. A long hallway led to the back of the house, where the kitchen was situated. The glow from the candlelight flickered on oil paintings of rolling hills and dukes past, and then on something that was not a painting and very much alive. A shadowy form jumped and became two.

They halted.

“Lady Abigail! Lady Louisa! Whatever are you doing here?” Lady Freesia asked, as though she, herself, was not also there, awake, instead of abed.

Eliza gave her friend a sidelong glance.

“We haven’t yet gone upstairs,” Lady Louisa confessed. “We were playing cards and forgot the time.”

“You forgot the time,” Lady Abigail said laughingly. “I always keep late hours.”

“Well, no matter,” Lady Freesia said. “We are on our way to the kitchen for a bite to eat. Would you care to join us?”

The ladies looked at each other and nodded.

The quintet continued to the kitchen. Once inside, they located a lantern and lit it. Eliza shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth as she peered around. There was a long oak table with several chairs on either side, near the back of the room. A stove and series of cylinders took up one wall. There was a sink and several cabinets, as well.

“Does… Does anyone know how to start the fire?” Lady Louisa ventured.

“I can.” Riya contemplated the contraption. After a moment of puzzled investigation, she stood back, hands on hips. “No, it seems I can’t, after all. I’ve never seen its like.”

“Well, no matter,” Lady Abigail said cheerfully. “If we cannot make a pot of tea, we can at least slice bread. And here is some butter.” She worked as she spoke, carving thick slices from the crusty loaf.

“I’ve found some honey,” Lady Freesia said, waving the pot triumphantly.

Riya slathered the bread with butter and Lady Freesia topped them off with thick drizzles of golden-brown honey. The ladies each took a slice and gathered around the table.

Eliza surveyed their work with admiration. “Prinny himself could not ask for a more delicious midnight refreshment.”

“How fortunate that we all happened to be awake to keep one another company,” Lady Louisa said.

Gazes met somewhat shyly and guiltily around the table.

“Have you noticed,” Lady Freesia said, “that our married friends are happily sleeping right now?”

Lady Abigail grinned wickedly. “Oh, I doubt very much that they’re sleeping.”

Lady Louisa turned bright pink. “Abigail!”

“Oh, darling, you know it’s true. You’ve seen the way they look at each other. So disgustingly in love.” Lady Abigail wrinkled her nose comically. “I suppose we would be fortunate to find the same for ourselves.”

Lady Louisa tossed her brown curls. “Oh, I do not aim so high as love. A wealthy duke is good enough for me.”

The ladies tittered appreciatively.

Eliza went very still, her bread hovering an inch from her lips. Slowly she put it down again and turned to pin Lady Louisa with a cold stare. “You do not mean to suggest that you would marry Wessex for his title?”

“On the contrary, that is exactly what I mean to suggest. I was raised to be a duchess, to manage large households and advance my husband’s interests, whatever they may be. Is he not searching for just such a wife? Does he not also have requirements about parentage? To be sure, he is handsome, amiable, and charming—admirable qualities in a husband—but the same can be said of many men in England. All else being equal, why should I not aim for a duke? Ought I to settle for a mere mister?”

Lady Abigail looked aghast. “Oh, Louisa, no! What of love?”

Lady Louisa flushed and lowered her eyes. When she raised them again her expression had hardened. “Love so often proves to be at odds with one’s well-being, I have found.”

It was an eminently practical viewpoint, and one Eliza had espoused many times herself. Wessex, too, seemed entirely uninterested in love. Had he not claimed that the point of a duchess was to beget an heir? Yet she shook her head in patent disbelief. “You say that as though men like Wessex are as common as squirrels. All things being equal? You won’t find his equal in London. You don’t know—you can’t possibly understand—” She stopped abruptly, aware of four pairs of feminine eyes trained on her with sudden interest.

Lady Louisa tilted her head. “I could not help but notice that when we were playing hide-and-seek, you proved to be exceedingly well hidden. You are very good at the game, Miss Benton. Every bit as good as the duke. We could not find either of you for near half an hour.”

Eliza saw no malice in the other woman’s face, but there was a good deal of mistrust. She opened her mouth to protest her innocence and then closed it again. Could she say in all truthfulness that nothing had happened? Something had.

Lady Abigail made an unladylike snort. “Honestly, Louisa, you have all the subtlety of a jousting pole when a knitting needle would get the job done.”

“A lance,” Riya murmured. When they all looked at her, she said, “I found Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the duke’s library.”

“Are you enjoying it?” Lady Freesia asked. She propped her chin on her palm.

“Well. It begins on New Year’s Day, at a house party at King Arthur’s Camelot. The Green Knight appears and issues a challenge—someone may strike him once with an ax and the Green Knight will return the blow in a year and a day. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and chops off his head. The Green Knight picks up his head and reminds him to expect the same in exactly a year and a day. Deliciously gruesome, is it not?”

“All the best house parties are,” Lady Freesia agreed.

It was an admirable attempt to turn the conversation, and Eliza gave her friends a small smile of gratitude. Alas, Lady Louisa was not so easily waylaid.

“Of course I did not intend to imply that either you or the duke had behaved in an untoward manner during our little game,” she said.

Eliza arched a brow. “Yes, you did.”

That gave Lady Louisa pause. She studied her silently, her own expression carefully blank. Eliza met her gaze evenly.

“Very well, I did,” Lady Louisa conceded. “But not in a judgmental way, you understand. I accuse you only of taking an opportunity I wanted for myself. It is no easy task to land a duke, and I commend any woman who manages to do so.”

She looked at Eliza expectantly.

Eliza said nothing.

Lady Louisa sighed. “May I ask if there is an understanding between you and the duke, Miss Benton?”

No was the proper, honest answer, but her mutinous mouth refused to form the sound. She stared at Lady Louisa resentfully. The presumptuousness of the woman, demanding an explanation of her friendship! She had no right. Wessex did not belong to Lady Louisa, not yet. He was—

Eliza drew her spine straight. “There is no understanding. Our lives are intertwined because his friends are married to my friends, so naturally that makes us often together. There is friendship between us. Nothing more.”

“Ah. But that will change after you are both married.” Lady Louisa lifted her shoulders in a pragmatic shrug. “Marriage leaves little time for such things.”

Eliza sat very still, absorbing the sting of her words. Such things. As though friendship was nothing more than a child’s entertainment to bide time until life began in earnest, easily cast aside.

“I have seen,” she said slowly, “how marriage can make two people very lonely. It would be easy to allow oneself to be consumed by the daily toil of married life, but when one makes an effort, friendships need not dissolve. My friends have not neglected me after their marriages, nor I them. Physical distance is a greater impediment to friendship than marriage, and thus it is likely that my friendship with Wessex will naturally lessen, for I will not be in London next Season.”

Lady Louisa considered that with a tilt of her head. At last she raised her honeyed bread in a toast. “Well, then, Miss Benton. I wish you every happiness, wherever you shall be.”

Eliza gave a determined toss of her head. “Oh, I will be happy.”

And if she felt the smallest twinge of regret, not at the life that lay before her, but at what she must leave behind…well. At least she would be alive.