Elizabeth Mansfield (6 page)

Kittridge’s head came up slowly. “Oh, God!
Elinor
!” He stared at his friend, his eyes widening in horror. “I didn’t even
think
of her!”

Sandy’s round face took on a glow of hope. “Then think of her now, you clunch. At least you’ll have Elinor to bring some light into your life.”

“No,” Kittridge groaned in despair. “Even
that
will be denied me.”

Sandy’s face fell. “Why? Do you think all this will affect her response to your proposal?”

“Affect her response? How can it
not
? But the question’s moot. I can’t ask her now.”

Sandy gaped. “Can’t ask her? But, Robbie, you
must
! She’s expecting it, isn’t she? The whole of London’s expecting it. You and she have been smelling of April and May since the girl came out. She’s
waited all through the war for you!”

Kittridge, ashen-faced, stumbled to his feet. “You don’t seem to realize the extent of my indebtedness, Sandy. I have
nothing
. No income, no prospects. Only debts. I don’t know how I shall manage to support my family. In these circumstances, how can I ask
anyone
to be my wife?”

“Damn it, Robbie, we’re speaking of
Elinor
, not some jingle-brained goosecap. She’s been loyal to you for six years. She has
character
. She will
want
to be at your side, to share in your deprivations, to help see you through.”

“She may want to, but I won’t let her. What sort of man would ask a woman to make such a sacrifice? Would you?”

Sandy blinked up at his friend, trying to answer honestly. “I don’t know,” he admitted at last. “No woman has ever loved me in that way.”

Kittridge’s eyes fell. He turned and stared into the fire. “I was going up to Suffolk on Saturday to see her. It was to be our grand reunion.”

Sandy’s face was a study in sympathy. “You’ll still go, won’t you? If she’s expecting you—”

“Yes, I must, of course.” Kittridge lowered his head until his forehead rested on the mantel. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “I shall have to tell her that I won’t be making an offer after all.”

Sandy shook his head. He didn’t believe matters would turn out as badly as that. The girl was much too fine—too loyal, too loving, too strong of character—to permit him to sacrifice their happiness. She would insist on their betrothal. Why, she might even convince her father to help Robbie with his finances! All might not be as black as Robbie imagined.

But Sandy didn’t say anything of this aloud. Robbie was in no mood to believe him. All Sandy permitted himself to say was that he was glad Robbie still intended to call on the girl.

“Be sure you don’t permit the dismals to keep you from driving up there,” he insisted.

“Yes, I shall go. But it will not be in any way the reunion I’ve been dreaming of.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Sandy said cheerfully, unable to keep his optimism hidden. Then he added with a kind of raucous gaiety, “Do you know what I wish, Robbie?”

“What?” Robbie responded glumly, turning to stare at his ever-optimistic friend.

“What I wish,” the moon-faced fellow said, holding up the empty bottle and eyeing it in mock disgust, “is that we had another bottle of brandy.”

Chapter Six

The wind had eased by the week’s end, but the temperature had dropped sharply. A light snow fell quietly throughout Lord Kittridge’s drive north. By the time he arrived at Langston Hall in Suffolk he was chilled through. Snow lay over everything, softening the forbidding outlines of the dark, turreted building that had housed his ladylove since birth. His lordship spent no more than a moment, however, admiring the shadowy, snow-trimmed edifice. Shivering, he loped quickly up the steps and gained admittance.

Sandy’s optimism notwithstanding, the greeting he was given by Elinor’s father was not very warming. “Well, Kittridge,” Lord Langston said coldly as the butler helped the new arrival off with his greatcoat, “we’ve three inches of snow on the ground, but you’re here.”

“Yes, my lord,” the weary traveller answered, trying to sound cheerful. “You didn’t think a little snow would deter me, did you?”

“I suppose not,” his host answered enigmatically. “At least Elinor didn’t give up hope of your arrival, even though I tried to discourage her.”

Kittridge could not fail to notice that the house was at sixes and sevens. The front hall was piled with luggage, several footmen and housemaids were busily running about carrying articles of clothing and household goods to and fro, and there were dust covers to be seen on the sofas and chairs of the drawing room to his right. “Are you going away?” he asked in some surprise.

Before his host could answer, Lady Langston came down the stairs carrying a birdcage in which a beautiful green-blue cockatoo was imprisoned. “Do you think Chickaberry will stand a sea voyage, Langston, or shall I give her away to—?” She stopped abruptly where she stood on the bottom step and stared at Kittridge with something like horror. “Good God!” she gasped. “
Robbie
!”

Kittridge, hiding his dismayed confusion, came forward and lifted her hand to his lips. “Weren’t you expecting me, ma’am?”

“Well, the sn-snow, you s-see …” She gaped at him as if he’d risen from the dead. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Robbie, my poor boy!” Bursting into tears, she turned, ran up the stairs again and disappeared from sight.

Lord Kittridge was not expecting to enjoy this visit, but these greetings were worse than anything he’d anticipated. He turned to his host with upraised brows. “Is something amiss, Lord Langston?” he asked. “Is someone ill? Good God, not …
Elinor
?”

“No, no, not at all,” Langston assured him. “Don’t pay any mind to Lady Langston’s waterworks. She’s easily perturbed. Any little change in routine can set her off.”

“Change in routine? You
are
going away, then?”

Lord Langston’s eyes wavered. “I think Elinor wants to tell you about it herself. She convinced me that you both deserve the opportunity for an interview in private, under the circumstances.”

Kittridge eyed his host narrowly. “Circumstances? What circumstances?”

The other man looked uneasy. “Elinor will explain. Why don’t you make yourself at home in the
library, Kittridge? You know the way. I’ll go upstairs and send her down to you.”

Kittridge nodded and strode off down the hall. He found the library still habitable, with the furniture uncovered, the drapes drawn against the draughts and a fire burning in the grate. He stood before the fire warming himself as he wondered what his beloved had to tell him. Whatever it was, he realized, it would not be as devastating as the news
he
had for
her
.

He was so absorbed in his depressing thoughts that he didn’t hear her step in the corridor. It was only when she threw open the door that he whirled around. She was flying across the room toward him. He had barely enough time to catch her up in his arms. “Elinor!” he breathed, holding her close.

Her arms clutched him tightly round the neck, and she buried her face in his shoulder. “Oh, Robbie, my darling!” she sobbed. “I want to
die
!”

He held her until the sobs subsided, kissing her hair and whispering soothing endearments into her ear. She was tall for a woman, so that she seemed to fit against him as if she’d been designed for him. Her body was lithe and supple in his arms. The feel of her made him weak in the knees. Whatever it was that she had to tell him could wait. All the news would be revealed soon enough. In the meanwhile he could close his mind to reality and permit himself the joy of this closeness. He’d dreamed for eight months—since his last leave—of holding her like this. As far as he was concerned, they could remain locked in each other’s arms this way forever.

But all too soon her sobbing ceased, and she recovered herself enough to draw him to a large wing chair and settle him in it. Then she sat down on a hassock at his feet and took his hand in hers. “It is the end,” she said, her voice thickened by pain and tears. “They are taking me abroad.”

“I see,” he said quietly, his eyes drinking in the beauty of her. Her face looking up at him was heart-wrenchingly lovely, her blue eyes still misty with tears, the skin of her oval face translucent, her lips appealingly swollen from her bout of sobs, her red-gold hair, only slightly dishevelled, caught up in a girlish bow at the nape of her neck and falling over one shoulder in a silken curl. But he couldn’t let himself wallow in her loveliness; he had to concentrate on the problem at hand. “They know about my situation, is that it?”

“Yes. Papa heard rumors, and he went to London himself and made inquiries. I have been begging and pleading with him for weeks, saying that I did not care, that we would find a way to live, but he is adamant against you.”

“Do you blame him? If you were my daughter, I would do the same.”

“But I love you, Robbie.” She lowered her head and heaved a sigh that trembled through her whole body. “There will never be another like you for me.”

He lifted her chin and made her look up at him. “Nor for me, my love, nor for me. But circumstances have turned against us. I am saddled with debts that will take me a lifetime to pay. I can’t allow you to join me in impoverishment, any more than your father can.” He withdrew his hand and looked away from her pleading eyes. “It is … hopeless.”

“We could elope, Robbie. Run off to Gretna …”

“Yes, we could. And then what?”

“I don’t know. Something would occur to help us. Perhaps Papa—”

He stiffened. “You don’t really think I would permit your father to support us. I am not a sponger.”

“No, you’re not. I knew you would say that.” She looked down at his hand that she still clutched in hers. “Besides, Papa is not being generous. When he learned what your father had done to your estates, all he did about it was to insist that I disentangle myself from you. He never once offered to help you.”

“How could he? It’s not as if a few hundred pounds would solve the matter. We are speaking of a debt of thousands! He has your brother’s expectations to think of. He cannot take so great a sum from
Arthur’s inheritance to throw away on me.”

Elinor drew in a wavering breath and, dropping his hand, rose slowly from her seat. “I have given Papa a dozen reasons why helping you would
not
be throwing his blunt away. But he was not persuaded.”

“Nor would I be in his place.” Kittridge got to his feet and grasped his beloved by the shoulders as if he wanted to shake her. “Damnation, Elinor, you had no right even to ask it of him.”

“No right?” She drew herself up in offense. “Because you haven’t yet offered, is that what you mean? Are you implying that, not having the status of
betrothed
, I had not the right to plead your cause?”

He winced and pulled her to him with a groan. “No, my dearest, of course not. You have been my heart’s betrothed since we played together as children in those fields behind this very house. You know as well as I that my offer was only a matter of form.”

She sniffed into his shoulder. “Then, if I am truly your heart’s betrothed, why had I not the right to speak to my father in your behalf?”

He held her away from him and peered at her sternly. “Because it humiliates me to have you do so. Don’t you see, my love, that I couldn’t be beholden to
anyone
for so great a sum? Even if it were possible for Langston to lend it to me—which it is not—it would take too many years for me to pay it back. Don’t you see how such a situation would diminish me in your father’s eyes and in my own? And even, in time, in yours?”

She dropped her eyes from his face and turned away from him. “Yes, I suppose I do see,” she said sadly. “That’s why I’ve submitted to parental commands and have agreed to leave for the continent. I knew in my heart you would not marry me now.”

“Not would not,” he corrected, his voice unsteady. “
Could
not.”

“Could not.” She moved to the fireplace and took up the poker. “I understand, Robbie, I really do. I know that you have many burdens … your mother, your brother, and now Lady Yarrow and her children, too. I would only be another one.”

As she poked at the flames, he stared at her face. Her skin glowed amber in the brightened firelight. His throat burned in pain. “I would never think of you as a burden, my love. But I won’t be the one to deprive you of the kind of life you’ve known and have every right to expect to continue.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I knew you would say that, too.”

Before he could reply, there was a knock at the door. Evans, the butler, put his head in. “Beg pardon, m’lady,” he said, “but her ladyship wishes to know if Lord Kittridge stays the night. And will he be wishing to have some supper?

Elinor gave her beloved a pleading look, but he shook his head. “Thank her ladyship for me,” he told the butler, “but I will be leaving at once.”

“So soon?” Elinor cried when the butler had withdrawn. “Please, Robbie, can’t we have just a little more time?”

“If I stayed,” he said bluntly, “we would not be prolonging being together, only prolonging the good-bye. I don’t think I could bear it.” He took one last look at her before crossing to the door. “Good-bye, my love. You must know that I wish you every happiness.”

She gave a little cry and made as if to run to him, but he held up his hand. “No. Stay as you are, there at the fire. I want always to remember you this way, with the firelight bronzing your face.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Good-bye, Robbie. I shall love you always.”

He opened the door, but before stepping out he looked back at her. “Elinor,” he asked hesitantly, “will you … sometimes … write to me?”

“I don’t suppose …” She seemed to choke on the words. “Papa will not let me read letters from
you, you know.”

“I know. But—”

“I’ll write, my love. As often as I can.”

“No, not often. Just sometimes. To keep me sane.” And he closed the door behind him, leaving her weeping brokenly for what might have been.

Chapter Seven