Lord Montrose settled into his seat, the glare of anger slowly beginning to dim. “I mean, Miss Wells, that I have been true and honest in my intentions when it comes to courting you. I had thought that we had started out tremendously well, but if you are continuing to have doubts and questions over me, then I would know immediately, so that I might bring this to an end.” A long breath left him, blowing the rest of his anger away. “I will not allow my heart to become entangled with one who has so little confidence in both myself and in what might be,” he finished, leaving Eliza with yet another heaping of guilt settling over her shoulders. “Do I make myself clear, Miss Wells?”
Eliza nodded, wishing desperately that she had never allowed herself to speak, had never insisted that they go to talk with Miss Stapleton and Lord Hollard. If only she had pushed aside her questions! If only she had fixed her mind on her belief that she did not need to know what Lord Franks meant, if only she had pushed aside the troubling thoughts that had begun to prick at her. This current situation might never have occurred, if only she had been able to do so.
“I must apologize, Lord Montrose,” she murmured, lowering her eyes to rest on her hands folded in her lap. “You are quite right. I have been foolish.”
Lord Montrose cleared his throat, his arms unfolding from across his chest. “Indeed.”
“I must ask your forgiveness,” she stated, plainly. “I will not allow the remarks of others to dog my mind, as I have been doing thus far.” Her eyes remained on her lap, finding herself unable to lift them to his face such was her mortification. “Might you find a way to forgive my stupidity?”
Much to her surprise, Lord Montrose leaned forward and pressed his hand to hers. Eliza started in surprise, her head lifting to see Lord Montrose looking at her with a broad smile on his face. His anger seemed to have gone completely, his dark look now replaced with one of what appeared to be a deep sense of joy. Was he truly so easily able to forgive her?
Unless he is pleased that he has been able to remove such thoughts from your mind, as Lord Hollard suggested, said a small voice in Eliza’s head. Unless this smile is one of triumph and victory.
Throwing aside such thoughts, Eliza tried to focus on Lord Montrose, aware that heat was crawling up her spine and was soon sure to fill her cheeks yet again.
“You need not beg for forgiveness, Miss Wells,” Lord Montrose said, gently, his eyes glowing with apparent tenderness. “I have already given it. It is understandable, as you have said, that one might seek out or simply listen to, the comments of others, but I beg you not to allow them to linger in your mind. They are not worthy of your consideration.”
Eliza nodded, swallowing hard. “Thank you, Lord Montrose,” she replied, slowly becoming aware that, despite the fact his hand was resting on hers, she was not reacting to his touch in any way at all. In fact, she was not at all excited or even delighted by his hand on hers. It brought her no happiness, no relief, no joy.
“Although I was interested to hear comment of your mother,” she continued quickly, before she quite lost her nerve. “You have never spoken of her.”
Lord Montrose shrugged, his fingers tightening a little. “I do not often see her and she certainly takes very little to do with my endeavors,” he replied, with a gentle tone to his voice that Eliza was certain was meant to reassure her. “She never comes to town and I have no intention of encouraging her in that way. You will be introduced to her at some point, but do not concern yourself with her for the present. If she chooses to come to town then I shall, of course, make sure to inform you long before she arrives.”
His touch, his smile and the tender tone of his voice did nothing to encourage Eliza in an
y way. Instead, she felt a twisting of her stomach, her skin crawling as his thumb rubbed absently over the back of her hand.
What had occurred? Only recently, she had been quite certain that she felt something sincere for Lord Montrose. She had told herself that she found him both amiable and handsome and her heart had, she was quite certain, skipped a beat on one or two occasions. His smiles always had a way of edging their way into her heart, his conversation and ease of manner encouraging her to think of him affectionately.
And yet now, she felt nothing of the sort. There was no reaction to his nearness whatsoever. Her heart was not fluttering within her chest as it had done before. Instead, Eliza realized that she was beginning to shirk away from him, wanting him to remove his hand and sit back in his seat so that they might be quite separate again. She had no desire to continue such intimacies and certainly no eagerness to have further such things either.
Goodness, this truly was most concerning.
“We should return to the house,” she said, slowly, wanting to set their conversation to one side for the moment. “There is our dinner party this evening and I must prepare.”
Lord Montrose’s smile grew, his eyes lingering on her. “You shall steal everyone’s eye,” he replied, letting go of her hand and sitting back into his chair. “And yet I shall be the only gentleman present who can speak of an intimacy with you that none there have ever experienced.”
He sounded almost proud of this and, even though Eliza knew that he was doing his best to compliment her, she found it difficult to respond to him in kind.
“I am looking forward to this evening a great deal,” Lord Montrose continued, evidently unaware of Eliza’s lack of response. “It shall be quite the occasion, I am sure.”
“Indeed,” Eliza murmured, thinking of each of her sisters and praying that none would say anything out of turn that might embarrass her further. “I do hope it shall go well.”
Lord Montrose laughed heartily, as though she had said something quite ridiculous. “It shall be more than wonderful, Miss Wells. After all, what could go wrong with something as simple as dinner?”
Chapter Six
As it turned out, a very good deal could go wrong.
Eliza, who had taken her leave of Lord Montrose and hurried up to her bedchamber at once to prepare, found herself both agitated and upset. Without truly being aware of what was causing her angst, Eliza found herself wanting to bury her head in her hands and weep, to let the pain and frustration and embarrassment come from her so that she would not have to bear the burden of them any further.
What had occurred on her carriage ride with Lord Montrose had been entirely unpleasant and, even now, as Eliza took her bath in preparation for this evening, she found that her mind was still greatly troubled, still trying to make sense of what had been said and shared.
What was even more difficult to understand now was her lack of response to Lord Montrose’s gentle affections. She had gone from believing herself to have a growing affection for the gentleman to now discovering that she had wanted nothing more than to return home, so that she might be able to remove herself from his presence.
When he had removed his hand from hers, when the gentle touch had come to an end, Eliza had been filled with relief instead of regret. Her breath had come a little easier, her shoulders had eased back down, her mind silently begging the carriage driver to spur the horses on a little more.
When Lord Montrose had taken his leave, with the warm promise that he would see her again in a few hours time, Eliza had found her skin crawling as he had bent over her hand. There had been no joy in her knowledge that she would be in his presence once more very soon, no happiness in the expectation of seeing him dressed in all his finery for such an occasion. Instead, she had found herself desperate to be alone, to be away from him, almost wishing that the time until the dinner party would lengthen itself instead of shortening.