Already His (The Caversham Chronicles - Book Two) (3 page)

“When the time comes that I must take a bride, I want a lady with spirit and courage.” She got a look at the man with her brother and recognized him as one of his friends she’d seen before. Michael Brightman’s handsome brown hair and hazel green-brown eyes made her heart flip in her breast. What an odd sensation she thought. “She must enjoy the hunt, fishing and chess. We should converse on topics beyond fashion, romantic novels and housewifely skills.”

“There you are.” Elise heard a female voice address the two young men. “Come inside, gentlemen. The dancing is about to start again and the numbers are uneven for a reel. We really need you both.”

“Yes, ma’am,” her brother said.

“Yes, mother,” Michael replied.

Both young men left the terrace to rejoin the festivities and Elise felt an incredibly superb idea hatch in her brain. She would have to marry eventually, and so would Lord Brightman. He might be an appropriate match for her, she would have to check. Certainly he was a gentleman with a title and was connected to an earl somehow. And just last week when discussing her own father’s upcoming marriage to Lady Amelia with her governess, the dour-faced old woman tried to instill in Elise the importance of marrying within the proper bloodlines.

Elise didn’t care about bloodlines, except in the case of the horses in her father’s stables.

All she knew was that listening to Michael just now proved to her that they were perfect for each other. As she listened to him list the attributes he looked for in a bride, she realized she fit each and every one of his criteria.

Before the week-long wedding celebration was over, she would convince one Michael Brightman that they belong together and should marry. Their situations were so very similar, as neither was ready to marry. Why, she had to wait at least four more years because she heard Catriona in the kitchen say she was fourteen when she married James the under-gardener. Elise heard this just the other day when the staff was talking about how young her new step-mama was, and how she was soon to present her papa with another babe.

She had to get to her room to think out a plan. As she saw it, the situation was very similar to what Old Ned taught her about horse training. Elise didn’t see a difference. She needed to make the horse
want
do her bidding, as the old man always said. And to do that she needed a plan before she climbed onto the horse’s back.

“But first I have to get out of this tree,” she said to herself. She looked down and decided it was a too high to jump down, even with the green limb bending low under her weight. She also might hit the branch beneath her, and that would hurt something fierce. No, she had to get to the trunk and climb her way back down the way she came. Reaching for a limb over her head to hold onto for balance, she stretched up an arm while at the same time holding fast to the branch on which she sat.

“Oh, fiddle-faddle. Come here.” Elise reached out again, this time grasping a cluster of new leaves and then the branch. She felt the seam under her arm tear and swore again. “Maisy will be angry now that I’ve torn my dress.” She’d never hear the end of it from her maid. And if her father found out.... Oh, heaven. She’d likely be punished, and that was after she got spanked.

She tried to keep her hold of the branch over her head while she scooted toward the trunk, but she was unable to do so without ruining the dress further. Grabbing the branch over her head with both hands now, she tried to pull herself up when she heard a crack and felt herself falling, only to have her skirts snag on a branch, stopping her descent.

In the blink of an eye, Elise both thought she would die and realized she wouldn’t. She almost wished for death when she realized she wasn’t alone. On the terrace, fanning herself, was one of her father’s guests, Lord Brightman’s mother, Lady Richard. And here Elise was hanging by her skirts from a branch in an oak tree. She supposed it was a good thing that it was her and not a male guest witnessing her humiliation.

The sound of fabric tearing echoed throughout the side garden. Just as Lady Richard reached her, Elise felt the material give and she squealed as she fell the rest of the way down, landing in the arms of the woman, sending both of them falling to the ground.

Elise rushed to get off Lady Richard, hoping she hadn’t killed her. When she didn’t move, Elise knelt beside her and took her gloved hand in her ungloved ones and pat it, as it was what she saw the housekeeper do whenever a housemaid fainted. She then began to pray as she hadn’t prayed since the last time she was about to get caught at something she wasn’t supposed to do.

Lady Richard groaned and moved, and Elise heaved a sigh. As soon as the woman opened her eyes, Elise knelt over her and began to apologize profusely.

“Ma’am, I am so very sorry. Please do not.... my father will be so very angry.”

“Move aside,” said the woman with gray streaks in her ruined coif as she sat up. Elise handed Lady Richard the pearl-encrusted comb that fell from her once artfully-arranged hair, then rose and stretched out a hand. She ignored Elise’s offer of assistance and rose on her own, then began to dust off her backside. The lady’s aqua colored dress was now in disarray and probably stained as well. Elise apologized again for her behavior, and prayed Lady Richard didn’t want retribution for Elise ruining her dress and mussing her hair.

Lord Brightman’s mother looked down her nose at Elise, who stood almost as tall as she, and asked, “Who are you, and what were you doing spying on the guests in the house.”

“I am Elise Halden and I wasn’t spying because I was in the tree before my brother and his friend came outside.”

Elise watched as Lady Richard rearranged her bodice, and wondered if she should mention the rip in the back. She decided against it. If the woman was this mad and she didn’t know about the tear, imagine how angry she’d be if she did.

“Just what were you doing in that tree, Elise?”

She’d come to the tree to escape the taunts from some of the older girls during the feast, then Michael and Ren had come outside to puff their cheroots and she was trapped aloft. Elise smiled as she remembered the qualities Michael listed when he described the woman he wanted as a wife. The instant she heard them, she knew he was describing
her,
and that they would marry one day because they were perfect for each other. She gathered her ripped skirts and held them in her hands, as she looked up to the limb from which she just fallen to see if she’d left any material behind.

Smiling, she turned to the woman who softened her landing, and replied, “Falling in love, I think.”

C
HAPTER
O
NE

London, May 1822

“H
ave you heard the news?”

Lady Elise Halden shot her dearest friend in the whole world a stern gaze and tightened her lips. Unable to move for fear the dressmaker’s pins might come out of place, she hoped her friend would catch her expression and hold her tongue. Lady Beverly Hepplewhite’s eyes widened as she continued into Elise’s room and hopped onto her bed.

Elise looked down to the stitchers working on the hem of her gown. “Excuse me,” she said. Holding a rose-colored ribbon in place on her sleeve, she stepped off the stool and addressed her maid and the seamstresses. “Bridget, Madame, will you give us a few minutes please? I’ll ring when I’m ready to continue.”

Adding a straight pin to the ribbon before leaving, Madame Fuichard and her two assistants quit the room. But not her maid, Bridget. She looked directly at Elise and her friend. “You’re due to come out in five days,” said the red-headed maid, just a few years older than Elise. “If you do something foolish now, His Grace’ll banish ye for sure. An’ because I don’t have a fondness for the Grampians in winter, I won’t be going with ye.”

Once the door shut behind her maid, Beverly said, “I was wondering why he didn’t come for breakfast. Now I hear he’s gone to Woodhenge to make arrangements.”

Elise lifted her hands, showing Beverly her inability to hold them steady. “I have never in my life been so nervous as I am now. These horrid butterflies are the result of the entire
ton
believing Michael,
my Michael
, is in need of a bride
now
simply because his uncle has died and he’s ascended to the title.”

“You can’t say it took you by surprise. We all knew this day would come as the old earl has been on his deathbed for the past year,” Beverly quipped. “Heaven knows the new Earl of Camden has a responsibility to all those women in his family. After all, he’s now the only male and will need to see to an heir very soon.”

“His mother and older sister have been pressuring him to take a bride for the past year. Now he
must
wait three months.” Elise sighed. “My heart wants to believe he’s been waiting for me, but my brain says it’s unlikely.”

“I’ve always wondered why the old earl never married,” Beverly said. “Was he... you know, light in the instep?”

Elise shook her head. “Heavens, no! It’s not common knowledge, but—” Elise checked to make sure Bridget hadn’t come back into the room, and continued, “The old earl had a scandalous marriage many years ago. He’d fallen in love with, and married, a young lady who was unfaithful while he was in India on the Crown’s business. She then became with child by her lover. Both mother and babe died in childbirth. And the earl, as you know, never remarried.” Elise’s mind raced at what she could do now to benefit her cause. “This does not help my chances.”

“Michael will be in mourning for three months, Elise,” Beverly stated. “He’ll not start a bride hunt until after that.
That’s
when you need to worry about competition.”

“In three months I won’t have you here to help me think things through because your Papa will be back any day now. Won’t he?” When her friend nodded, Elise sighed, feeling as though the whole world was conspiring against her.

“I won’t be moving to Land’s End, Elise. I’ll only be a few blocks away.”

She nodded as she caught her reflection in the mirror. “I had so hoped to win him over gradually during this season. Now I shall have to contend with every mother of a marriageable-age daughter, and the daughters themselves, all pursuing Michael for his new title and wealth.” Elise studied the dress pinned onto her with a disapproving eye, and sighed with double frustration. “You would think that Michael being my brother’s life-long friend would give me an advantage,” she muttered. “He’ll likely not wish to be in the same room as me.”

She stamped her foot, her complete annoyance giving rise to a flourish of unladylike manners. “Damn his uncle for dying last night!”

Beverly gasped at Elise’s invective. “The man couldn’t very well plan the time of his departure from this world, Elise.”

She sat at her dressing table, her shoulders slumping in dejection. “I’m sorry for my selfish tirade. The old earl really was a dear man.” A pin stuck her in the waist and she pulled the offensive thing from the dress.

Beverly nodded, “You know, that dress has turned out better than we originally thought.” Her friend eyed it closely. “But, something is still missing.” She shook her head. “Perhaps after you have your jewels and your mother’s tiara on, it will complete the effect.”

Elise contemplated her friend’s words. The as-yet unfinished dress she planned to wear Saturday was completely conventional, and the latest fashion among her set. It gave her the appearance of a proper young lady. The lady her brother wanted her to be. She did want to please him—all of them really—and make he, Lia and Grandmother proud of her on her special night.

The skirt was crushed white silk with rows of narrow rose-colored satin ribbons ringing the skirt up to the knee. The same colored ribbons ringed the puffed white silk sleeves at the edge. The bodice of rose-colored silk ended just below her less than acceptable bust line. It successfully created the desired effect of a more abundant cleavage than God had provided. A wide band of silk rosettes, precisely three shades lighter than the ribbons, intertwined with satin greenery at the hem of the floor-length creation. More of those same rosettes were sewn into the folds of ribbon gathered on the sleeve, and on the same material gathered between her breasts.

Looking at herself in the mirror with a critical eye, she realized that the dress she once adored, she now hated. The exquisite, one of a kind creation from Madame Fuichard made her look just like all the other girls out on the marriage mart this season. She would be unremarkable among the herd of other chits being paraded about by anxious mamas.

“What am I going to do, Beverly? How
ever
will I get him to notice me?” She stamped her foot again. “You more than anyone know I have the worst luck where Michael is concerned. Now to be forced to catch his eye while all the other unmarried ladies out there do likewise.... Why, I could never compare! I am not as pretty as they are.”

“You are so,” Beverly argued.

Elise cut her off, “Not to mention that he remembers every misdeed and prank I’ve executed on him since I was ten.”

“He doesn’t know about Attila,” Beverly said with a confident smile.

Elise remembered seeing Michael at Tattersalls that day three years ago and laughed. “No! He doesn’t know that was us, and it’s best left that way.” She began to pull pins from the dress, removing all the rosettes as her imagination began to wander. “I knew Attila was perfect for Michael when I started him under saddle. And I was right, for Michael loves that horse.” She smiled as she pulled pins from a ribbon and tossed it onto the table. “To this day, the man has no idea I was the one who trained him.”