“Both, in society’s view.”
“Goodness, Mr Patmore, that is a harsh line to take.” Lady Fenton looked distressed.
“That’s not to say I agree with society’s narrow views, I assure you, Lady Fenton, for I do know you like to do your good works with the orphans from the foundling home. However, if we wish to participate fully in society, to be accepted and have our ambitions furthered, it isn’t wise to display too liberal an attitude.” He sent a warning look at Bramley. “We gentlemen do have, as I said before, greater licence than the ladies for misconduct, but there is a line beyond which we must not allow our vices to take us.” He paused and said in a tone of measured significance. “Take gambling, for instance. A man who cheats loses his right to be called a gentleman. Surely you agree?”
He was referring to Mr Bramley’s potential plans for Devil’s Run, Eliza knew, but she was more concerned over the previous references to fallen women and their bastard children. She felt sick.
Mr Bramley inclined his head. “A man caught cheating is not a gentleman, I do agree. And a lady who is so eaten up with vice that she succumbs to the charms of a gentleman before she is wed, and then tries to foist that brat upon another, should burn in hell, do you not agree?” Though his words were less tinged with aggression than before, he continued to look pointedly at Lady Fenton.
Susana gave a little gasp, and Mr Patmore took this opportunity to intervene, saying in quite a different tone, “We forget where we are, I think. Miss Montrose has just lost her aunt and is looking decidedly distressed.” He offered her his arm. “I think you need some fresh air. You have worked so hard to ensure all is in order during this time of grieving, and no one has given a thought to your need for a moment to gather yourself before the momentous next stage, which will determine your future. Allow me.” Without brooking a refusal, he caged her hand and all but marched her away from the gathering.
She didn’t know why she should suddenly come over all prickly, but she felt as dangerously put together as she ever had; that she might break into a million pieces if he said the wrong word. “Mr Patmore, I do not need your assistance. Or your sympathy,” she added. “I can hold my own with my sharp-tongued cousin. She has spent her life scoring points over me, and I am very used to it. Nor must you concern yourself over Mr Bramley and myself. There is no need to treat me like a piece of Dresden china.”
Oh Lord, why did she not take his concern in the way it was intended? His face was a picture of bafflement, as well it might be. Last night, there’d been passion and camaraderie. This morning, she’d held him at arm’s distance. Now she was hurling figurative bricks at him.
His expression cleared, and he gripped her arms. “After your enthusiasm last night, I don’t think you resemble anything remotely like a piece of Dresden china. There, I’ve said it. Made mention of what some might consider your terrible sin when it is I who have sinned if I do nothing to atone.” His smile grew sweeter, his eyes crinkling at the corners “I will never forsake you, Eliza. Please give me hope that I might call you that. You have endured so much, so bravely, and I understand what this has all cost you.” He indicated the house behind them with a nod of his head.
Eliza’s mouth trembled, and she might have responded, only he placed a finger upon her lips and lowered his head a little.
“I believe there is a great deal of feeling there,” he touched his hand ever so briefly to her heart, her chest, “that you don’t know what to do with.”
His touch sent the blood rushing to her cheeks and stoked the smouldering embers of her lower belly into a conflagration that threatened to consume her. If she didn’t go now, she’d succumb to his curiously affecting blend of strength and masculinity mixed with genuine kindness. She used hauteur as her defence. “My actions last night were out of character. I’m not the woman you think me—”
“Oh, you are so much more, and I love you for it—”
“Eliza! Come indoors this moment. Have you no sense of occasion? Mr Wilkins is here to read my dear sister’s will. Oh sir, I didn’t see you, sir. Pray escort my niece indoors this moment.”
Mr Patmore sent Eliza a wry look as he offered her his arm once again, and the door closed behind the clearly harried and exacting Aunt Catherine. For a moment, she thought he was going to brush a strand of hair from her forehead, but to her disappointment, he withdrew his hand at the last moment. “So everything for you hinges upon the next few minutes. Mr Bramley said you were a betting girl after his own heart, but if the wager you apparently agreed to doesn’t go your way, then this is what you have to look forward to for the rest of your days?” He squeezed her arm. “That is, if you don’t receive another offer.”
Half an hour earlier, Eliza’s heart would have been beating in expectation. Her smile of encouragement would have been in place, and she’d have been ready to accept this lovely man’s imminent marriage proposal, throw herself into his arms and, in relief, allow him to direct her future.
Instead, she nodded slowly. “Indeed, Mr Patmore, but now is not the time to consider anything but the matter at hand. I think we should go inside. My aunt’s will is about to be read.”
Chapter 12
The servants had rustled up as much seating as could be managed in the tiny parlour, with its green sprigged curtains and borrowed furniture. It was a pretty outlook from a simple country cottage which made it all the more astonishing when the sum of Aunt Montrose’s assets was finally revealed. Three times as much in the four per cents as anyone had ever speculated. It seemed Aunt Montrose had been in receipt of a bequest far in excess of anything she’d hinted at and, not being one to flaunt her wealth for fear of fortune-hunters, she’d told Eliza, she’d even kept it secret from her sisters and two nieces.
It was as if the old woman were in that very room, enjoying the anticipation with which her surviving relatives waited to hear how they’d been favoured. It positively crackled about them.
Eliza was glad of the fashion in bonnets which enabled her expression to be screened from the rest of the company, as she listened to Aunt Montrose’s cousin receive a cow and a pig, Dr Rutledge a rather fine silver-topped cane that had belonged to her father, and Dora, the porcelain tea servi
ce. Aunt Montrose had been at pains to bequeath individual items to a great many, but after half an hour, there was still no mention of the bulk of her assets, and nothing for Eliza, or Susana, who fidgeted beside her cousin and darted increasingly anxious looks at her.
Susana had a comfortable home and a father ready to provide a reasonable dowry. She’d be disappointed to receive nothing, but she’d never be destitute as Eliza would, should her aunt exclude her.
As the sun dipped low on the horizon, the lawyer, at last, came to the division of Aunt Montrose’s greatest holdings. He wasn’t the dry, aged partner, Mr Cuthbert, who generally advised Aunt Montrose, but rather the junior, and he displayed the theatricality of David Garrick himself, pacing his words and holding his breath for the final pronouncement.
Now, here was what they’d all been waiting for.
Eliza’s skin prickled; her mouth felt dry, and she heard Susana’s quick breathing beside her.
The lawyer cast his gaze about the room, looked pointedly at Aunt Montrose’s two nieces, and declared that the cottage was to go to Eliza, while Miss Anabelle Montrose’s fortune in the three and four per cents was for Susana, to be held in trust until her twenty-fifth birthday, three years hence.
There was a collective gasp though the greatest came from Susana herself who held her hands to her cheeks and, thought Eliza, was about to cry out in pleasure until she heard her cousin’s plaintive: “Must I wait so long?”
Eliza darted a look at Mr Bramley, but he turned his head away. No sympathetic, even understanding glance of the torment she must be enduring. His interest was purely pecuniary. She’d thought at one stage he found her moderately attractive; that he was anticipating the fact she’d be his wife for more than just her money. The idea had repulsed her at the time, but now that it was so clear it had all been about the money, the pain that clawed at her insides was almost too difficult to contain. Well, it wasn’t just that; it was the whole pain associated with Mr Patmore and the principled attitude he’d adopted just before the reading regarding fallen women and illegitimate children.
“Why, Eliza, you have a house to live in; you cannot be churlish about that,” Susana said brightly beside her. “I always told Aunt Montrose she must not take your good offices for granted, and she hasn’t. She has given you a house.”