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Man Of The Mist
“Really?” she said challengingly. “Are you saying my being a duke’s daughter there doesn’t matter one iota? That one clansman’s as good as any other?”
“No,” he answered deliberately. “Is there one in particular who’s caught your eye then, puss?”
“Papa, you’re being deliberately obtuse. You know what I mean. May I go home tomorrow?”
“No, you canna go home tomorrow, or the day thereafter, either. Wouldn’t think of sending you back this soon and giving anyone the notion we have something to hide. You’ll just have to make do, Elizabeth. And that means you will see to your normal duties during the little season.
“Besides, Amalia vows she’ll strangle me if I allow you to waste this season in London, puss. Don’t think you should, since MacGregor’s come to town.”
“Amalia!” Elizabeth cried, her voice choked. “What’s she got to do with this? She hates Evan!”
“Hmmm...good point. She definitely dislikes the rogue. I’ve always wanted to know why. Do you know the answer to that, puss?”
“I believe she’s always thought he’d turn out a rakehell, too handsome by half. Most likely she had a tendre for him, like every other soul in the whole wide world, and could never get him to bat an eye her way.”
“Hmmm... Well, can’t say I’m surprised by that. She’s five years older than the scamp.” Murray laughed and rocked the stern of his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other. As was his custom, he left it clenched between his teeth, dragging down the right corner of his mouth while he proceeded to talk around it. “My point is, Amalia would like to see you settled and married, Elizabeth. Frankly speaking, so would I. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
Smoke wreathed his head while he sat thinking and gazing at the haze.
“You can’t ask me to put up with another batty old maid in my house, can you, puss? Nicky and Charlotte are enough for one poor old Scot to manage, aren’t they? No, you would be best-off married, Elizabeth. You’re not the kind of woman who is cut out to be a spinster. You feel things too deeply, and react to sensations born spinsters are perfectly blind to. No, no. You need a strong, demanding husband, you do. You’ll have to trust my judgment on that.”
“Oh, no, I won’t,” Elizabeth declared, with a firmness he found alarming. “Father, I intend to follow in Aunt Nicky’s footsteps and take her place as the patroness of Bell’s Wynd,” Elizabeth argued heatedly. “I can’t do that if I’m married.”
By the way she switched from endearments to formal address, Lord John knew Elizabeth was beginning to clutch at straws. If their conversation dwindled to the point where she called him sir, it would mean Elizabeth’s tender feelings were hurt. In that, she had always been easy to read. His older girls had called him Father for so many years he rarely thought of them as anything but adults now. But to Elizabeth he had been Papa a very, very long and dear time.
“Now, there you’re wrong. You are not at all like Aunt Nicky, puss.” He took his pipe from his mouth and leveled her a rock-steady gaze. “You need a man.”
Bordering on genuine panic, Elizabeth argued. “Surely you’re not serious, my lord!”
“You’ve completely misread the situation between us, Elizabeth. Just because I haven’t pushed any of the men forward who have asked for your hand, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t entertained and declined offers from some of these young pups. There hasn’t been a rogue whose character or means I fully approve of yet. I have high standards, you know. Not just any Sassenach will do.”
“Sassenach!” Elizabeth gasped, shocked. That would never do at all. “What are you really saying? Any old Scot’s as good as the next, is he?” Elizabeth was needling him deliberately now. “Papa, you said it was my choice and you would not force me.”
“Ah, so I did, in principle. But that was then and this is now.” John Murray sighed. “That’s why I haven’t made any mention of offers before. However, in light of today’s reflections, I believe it would do you good to remain in town for the little season. It’s only a few weeks—as long as Parliament is in session. Young Robbie will keep safe and sound in the nursery until then...and...we’ll see, hmm?”
No matter how nicely he coated the bitter pill, Elizabeth had difficulty swallowing it. “Papa, I want to go home.”
“And so you shall, dear. All in good time.”
“No, now.”
“No, Elizabeth. Don’t be tiresome. You’re much too old to stage tantrums or resort to hysterical sulks.”
“I can’t believe you’re siding with Amalia.”
“I’m on the side of common sense, always, puss.”
“Fine!”
Elizabeth stood. She looked down at her father, her mouth compressed, the stubbornness of her chin very telling of her Murray roots.
“Don’t expect me to confide in you in the future. I may just go to Scotland without your permission, sir.”
“Humph!” The duke grunted.
Elizabeth met his piercing gaze without wavering. He put his smoldering pipe on a porcelain dish on the table and laced his fingers together across his stomach. He was a fit man, in his early fifties. Only a rash fool would have misjudged his vitality and strength by the premature whiteness of his hair. Elizabeth was not often a fool.
“May I remind you of the last time you decided you’d rather be in Scotland than in London with me for a session of Parliament? How far did you get on your little journey home alone during that rising, Elizabeth?”
“That’s hardly relevant today. I was an eight-year-old-child then. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes.”
“Except in your willful thinking, eh?”
John Murray refrained from standing while his youngest faced him with rebellion in her eyes. Long experience had taught him to avoid direct confrontations with Elizabeth. Once she got her blood up, she was the very devil to get to back down.
Should she warrant suppression, Atholl could certainly rise to the occasion and dominate her. But, of his three daughters, he preferred that this one remain on course with her basically easy-to-read and predictable come-ahead stance and attack.
Elizabeth could be very devious if provoked. God knew that was the most strikingly formidable Murray trait that could be inherited. That she had mastered it made Atholl wish his sons were more like their baby sister.
“Well, yes. I suppose I am being willful, sir.” She had the grace to blush with that admission.
“Good.” He gave her a look whose purpose should have quelled any further rebellious acts. “I want it understood, Elizabeth, that if you do such a foolish thing as to run off without permission anywhere, I can and will exert the full power of my authority over you...whether that is to your liking or not. And if you’ve come to an age when you think to doubt my will, I suggest you think back to Port-a-shee, and then think again.”
That reminder had the effect he sought.
“Papa,” she pleaded, “I don’t want to defy you, I want to go home. I’m not asking for a trip to Cairo. I see no valid reason why you shouldn’t accommodate me. For once in my life, Amalia could make excuses about my absence from town. London won’t die without me here to amuse it.”
The duke sighed. He propped his elbow on the armrest of the sofa and splayed his fingers across the side of his face. He stared hard at Elizabeth, willing her to accept the decision she’d been given.
She remained as she was, her back to the fire, her hands pressed together in supplication, her face an angelic mixture of entreaty and sweetness. He felt like a cad.
Their discussion would only disintegrate from here. The duke stood, walked around the sofa to his desk and sat in his creaky old leather chair.
Where his youngest daughter was concerned, saying no was easy compared to the monumental effort it took to stand on that decision. It was fair knowledge to one and all that he favored and indulged his youngest more than he had any of his other children.
He silently willed her to leave his study as he returned his attention to the briefs on his desk. She didn’t. She stood there by his fire, a living, breathing Christmas angel, praying. Whether her supplications were for him or for herself, he didn’t care to ask.
It was some minutes before he spoke, and when he did it was without looking up from the papers he was reading. “Elizabeth, Reverend Baird is kept on retainer for the specific purpose of being available day or night to hear whatever confession you have to offer. Leave my study. Go find someone else to torment. I must read all of these dispatches and proposals before I retire.”
“What about Tullie? You haven’t said one word about John. He’s not going to be available to escort me to all these routs and balls that Amalia says we must attend. I mean, it’s a pointless exercise, Papa.”
The duke said, “There’s nothing wrong with James. He’s a good man.”
“Papa, he’s worse than Tullie!” Elizabeth cried out, from sheer frustration. “James can’t be relied upon to get me as far as the door of whatever house I’m going to before he dumps me for the Cyprians across town.”
“Now, that’s enough slander, Elizabeth! Glenlyon wouldn’t dare be so careless with your reputation!”
Last, in final desperation, she threw out her lone remaining trump. “Father, Robbie’s not going to get any better just because you’ve heard of a specialist in London. He’s lost the only person that was ever important to him. No Sassenach doctor can change that.”
John Murray picked up his pen and dipped it in the inkwell, affixing his signature to a document his secretary had marked as urgent. He dismissed Elizabeth with a stern warning. “Don’t start a rising in that direction, miss. Wee Robbie is my ward. I will do what’s best for him, as I will do what is best for you. Now, good night, Elizabeth. Let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.”
Elizabeth couldn’t find words enough to express her disappointment to her father. She stood for quite some time without moving, hating this room, but unable to hate the man who dominated it so thoroughly. She prayed fervently that he would soften and change his mind, because he didn’t know what he was doing in forcing her to remain here in London while Evan MacGregor was in town.
It filled her with terrible dread to consider her alternatives. She couldn’t imagine what fury her father might give vent to if the worst should happen, and Evan MacGregor came forward and told the duke that he and Elizabeth had run away to Gretna Green and got married when they were fifteen and seventeen years old.
But she knew her father would surely kill Evan.
Elizabeth swallowed what felt like her own heart lodged in her throat. She took a deep breath and tasted defeat. Abruptly she quit the study.
Upstairs, she collapsed on a stool before the fire in her room, watching red-and-blue flames lick their way out from underneath several wedges of split oak. The sight consumed her. She felt like the wood, smoking and burning, aching, ready to burst into flames.
“I’m a coward,” she said out loud. “The first and only Murray ever born who was an outright coward, down to the bone. Grandfather George must be spinning in his grave. I’ve shamed every Murray that fought at Culloden.”
It wouldn’t do any good to argue with herself that it wasn’t true. Elizabeth Murray was a coward. All she wanted to do was run away...just as she had from the beginning.
The slightest thought of pain and suffering made her tremble and quake. Thinking back to Tullie’s bravado of the night before only made her stomach turn vilely. How had he done it? But that was a man for you!
Woman weren’t of that ilk, and little girls were even more vulnerable. Why, her father had only to remind her of one telling incident from her childhood—the one time she’d struck out on her own — and she knuckled under, even today.
She was nearly twenty-one, would be in April—a woman grown, by all rights. But she had no backbone. She didn’t have what it took to stand up to anyone. Oh, she could act as if she did. Like that time her father had referred to. But how far had she actually got? Charing Cross, that was how far.
She wasn’t a child now. More importantly, she had a child of her own, whose best interests were not being served by her father’s insistence that everyone in his household keep up appearances.
Elizabeth had to do something.
She couldn’t go to any member of her family for aid in any plan that went against her father’s will. Elizabeth had enough common sense to know which of her friends would help her with no questions asked. Only one had the means to go against a duke, Elizabeth’s long-standing friend, the writer Monk Lewis. Her only other friend with the gumption to assist her was George, Lord Byron.
Both Monk and Byron adhered to styles that played fast and loose with society’s rigid expectations of correct behavior, though neither had gone beyond the unredeemable pale. And of the two, Elizabeth was more inclined to put her faith in Monk Lewis. Monk was twenty years her senior, a confirmed bachelor, and a true gentleman where ladies were concerned. He’d never failed to give her good advice in the past.
However, she was closest to Byron. They were of the same age, and had practically grown up together, so to speak, being thrown into one another’s company at the same social functions since they’d turned sixteen.
Elizabeth made up her mind to write to Monk. She saw no good coming of putting off the inevitable.
Chapter Five
Almack’s
January 20, 1808
“Well, well, well, here we are again, the lost, the lame and the duckling. Whatever shall we do to entertain the haut ton, hmm? See no evil, taste no evil, hear no evil...have no fun?”
“Oh, stop being so nasty, Byron. Just because I can’t risk being seen doesn’t mean you have to hide behind the potted palms, too.” Elizabeth slapped the young baronet’s arm smartly with her fan. “Go take your terrible temper out on someone more deserving than Monk and me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of deserting either of you. Imagine the consequences of MacGregor’s temper, should he discover how assiduously you avoid him. Suppose he decided to wreak his vengeance upon skinny little Monk here? He’d make a bloody mess of the poor half-witted sot.”
Monk peered through his quizzing glass at Elizabeth. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed between drooping points. “Why would MacGregor want to do that?”
“Never mind, Monk, of course he won’t do any such thing!” Elizabeth countered. She bit down on her jaw, hard, glaring at Byron. “I should have never told you a blessed thing. Damn you, Byron, don’t make me regret befriending you.”
The youth splayed his fingers across the breast of his coat, above his heart, his eyes widening with sincere hurt. He and Elizabeth were the same age, and had known each other forever. True friendship had evolved when each felt the awkwardness inherent in being thrust onto the social scene to sink, swim or flounder. Good or bad, they’d been ardent supporters of one another ever since.
“You misjudge me, Elizabeth. We are both wounded by life’s cruelest blow — ill-fated love. I could no more betray your secrets than you would mine,” he added apologetically.
Not certain she was mollified, Elizabeth arched a questioning brow. “Then I take it your grumbling originates from some other source. Perhaps you’re out of sorts because no one has remarked upon your upcoming birthday? Shall I hire a carousel and hobbyhorses? If you behave yourself tonight, you may just find that you have what you most desire by the end of this evening.”
“My dearest Lady Elizabeth, an angel of your stature could not possibly grant me the intercourse I most desire.” Byron waggled his thick brown brows suggestively. “Not an angel of the first water, such as you.”
Beneath those brows, the most outrageous eyes in all of London simmered with mock heat. Elizabeth pursed her lips and drew back her fan. He blinked, and those clear blue orbs widened in genuine alarm when he perceived her intent to strike him again. “Behave, you pesky little brat,” Elizabeth balked. “Don’t use those eyes on me. I’m immune.”
“Are you? Really?” Byron lifted a brow in a wicked arch, and when Elizabeth’s scowl deepened, he laughed with genuine amusement. “You’re supposed to melt at my feet and simper, damn it.”
“Ladies don’t melt,” Elizabeth said confidently, but she couldn’t keep up the ruse. The corners of her mouth spread in an impish smile. “And gentlemen don’t swear.”
“I vow, Elizabeth, you sound as pedantic as Lady Jersey. You really should write a poem titled ‘Ladies Don’t.’”
“It’s been done — and overdone, and satirized, as well.” Elizabeth sighed. She leaned her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table, to look over Monk Lewis’ bent shoulder, watching his pen fly across his sketchpad.
“What would be of greater interest is what ladies do.” Byron resumed his previous sulk. “I don’t want any fuss on my birthday, and well you know it, Elizabeth. Gads! Imagine how hostile I’d feel if people actually jumped at me from all directions, yelling, ‘Surprise,’ giving me apoplexy and propelling me to an early grave? I’d probably shoot someone, and then have to repent and regret it.”
Abruptly he made a fist and slammed it forcefully on the table. “Confound it, Elizabeth! There’s not a blessed thing to celebrate about being twenty. All twenty marks is another three hundred and sixty-five days of groveling, begging and explaining myself. I fear I’ll never become my own free man...ever. Damn me, do you realize how much I envy MacGregor his age, his luck and his damned bloody daring? He managed to throw off all the traces and escape this bloody coil.”
Elizabeth empathized with Byron’s straits, but thought better of telling him so. He needed prodding out of his sulks, not comfort that pushed him deeper into his private mire. They were very much alike in that respect. “Byron, you’ve done it again. I don’t want to talk about Evan!”
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