The Wedding Trap Page 3

  With exaggerated drama, Eliza lowered her hands from her eyes and swung about, making a great show of peering around the large, sunny schoolroom painted in buoyant shades of blue.

  “Now, where could those boys be hiding?” she wondered in a loud clear voice as if she were completely perplexed. “I don’t see them anywhere.” Setting her hands upon her hips, she turned a slow circle. “It is such a big room, how will I ever find them?”

  A high-pitched childish giggle of excited delight drifted up, clearly originating from the room’s far corner where a large wooden rocking horse stood complete with a real leather saddle and toy crop. Beside it sat a huge chest, filled nearly to overflowing with toys.

  Pretending she hadn’t heard so much as a peep, Eliza deliberately turned in the direction opposite the sound and walked slowly forward. “Could they be over here under this big chair?” She bent at the waist, looked beneath. “No, not there.”

  She turned and walked toward the windows that overlooked the mews at the rear of the townhouse, her footsteps ringing softly against the polished oak floorboards.

  “Could they be here behind this curtain?” She paused before taking hold of a nearby drapery and yanking the cloth aside with an overacted flourish. “Fustian! Not there either.”

  She ambled toward the boys’ hiding spot, making sure not to get too close. She caught sight of a pair of small, dark shoes protruding an inch beyond the edge of the toy chest and smiled. Her mouth curved wider when a tiny gasp of breathless anticipation broke the silence, followed by a second, separate conspiratorial giggle. When she was near enough that she could have leaned over and grabbed them, she stopped and turned her back. “Hmm, I believe I am outfoxed. Noah? Sebastian? Where are you?”

  “Here I am!” Up one of them jumped, the little boy’s body springing rabbit-quick out of his hidey hole.

  Eliza spun in feigned surprise, a hand on her chest, her eyes wide. “Oh, you scared me,” she fibbed. “And where is your brother, Noah?”

  “He’s not Noah. I am!” The second boy popped upright, a mirror image of the first, with short dark hair, keen brown eyes and cherub cheeks, the shape of which reminded her of their mother, Violet.

  She knew which boy was which and had only been teasing them about their names, though it wasn’t always so easy to tell them apart. Physically they were as alike as like could be. But their personalities usually gave them away—the elder twin, Sebastian, a bit sweeter and more pliable, the one of the pair who could generally be counted upon to give up the game—and the most information—just as he had today.

  Racing from their hiding place with exuberant shouts and exclamations, they swarmed around her. Dropping down to her knees, she returned their eager hugs and joined in their laughter, loving the sensation of their small arms twined around her neck, their sturdy bodies nestled warm and resilient against her own. She closed her eyes for a brief moment and gave in to the motherly urge that made her wish, if only for an instant, that they were her own.

  And this, she thought, was the reason she had decided to go along with Violet’s wild plan. Why she had put aside her fears, her doubts and, yes, her pride and agreed to let Kit Winter act as her mentor when she would much rather have refused and remained the shy, quiet person she had always been.

  But the plain truth was that she wanted more from her life than to spend it alone.

  After her first four disastrous Seasons, she had given up all thoughts of marriage, had abandoned the notion of ever finding a husband and raising a family. She had resigned herself to the idea that she would need to take her pleasure in her friends, satisfy her desire for home and children by playing maiden “aunt” to other people’s children. Forever outside watching what she wanted and would never, ever have.

  Then suddenly everything changed. Suddenly she inherited great wealth and the options that came with it, and like a phoenix, hope had beaten its bright, wide wings and risen from the ashes. With her new fortune, she could have a life of independence few women ever dreamed of achieving.

  Yet as a single female, her existence would be one lived in solitude. Certainly she would have friends she could visit, but she could not trade upon their kindness indefinitely. As much as she cherished living with Violet and Adrian, as much as she adored their darling children, she could not stay with them forever. They and their children were not, and could never be, her own. And when she must, out of good conscience, leave them to lead their own lives, hers would be spent in the company of a paid companion and a handful of indifferent servants.

  But if she married, she could have her own children, someone to love again to replace the family she had lost so many years before when she had been only a child herself.

  She remembered that day with vivid clarity, the day she had awakened from a deadly fever, her hair sweat-drenched and plastered like a cap against her skull, her body listless and weak. The local minister’s wife, a woman she barely knew, had held her hand and told her with tears swimming in her eyes that both of Eliza’s parents had been claimed by the angels, dead these many days past of the same fever Eliza had survived.

  In those moments, she had wanted to die herself, weeping tears that only made her throat ache, her lungs labor harder for each ragged breath she drew. She had drifted into restless nightmares, wishing the illness would claim her too. But something inside her had clung to life, and at eleven years old she found herself alone.

  When she recovered, her aunt had taken her in rather than see her go to an orphanage. “My Christian duty,” Doris Pettigrew had pronounced with pinched nostrils and tight, humorless lips.

  In the years to follow, Eliza had found no love in her aunt’s house. Slowly she came to understand the deep resentment Doris bore her younger sister—Eliza’s mother, Annabelle. Years before Annabelle had turned her back on her aristocratic family to run off with Eliza’s father, the impoverished tutor with whom she had fallen madly in love. Doris had never forgiven Annabelle for the resulting scandal, for embarrassing the family and diminishing Doris’s own chances to make a distinguished match. Her aunt had been forced to marry down socially, a circumstance for which she had never failed to remind—and blame—Annabelle’s offspring, Eliza. Doris’s bitterness had tainted every aspect of her adult life.

  Yet astonishingly her aunt had left Eliza her fortune, giving her the means to have the one thing she desired the most—a family of her own. She was not looking for great love. She had no foolishly naive dreams that a woman like her would inspire a man to feel the sort of grand passion of which the poets wrote and romantics dreamed. But if she could find a pleasant man, a kindly sort who would give her a comfortable home and the children she craved, a man who would not abuse or harm her, then she could be quite content. And if after some while the two of them became companionable friends, she would be very glad indeed and have no room for complaint.

  So if that meant letting Lord Christopher Winter instruct her, then she would allow it. She would put aside any lingering feelings she might harbor for him and learn what she must in order to win herself a husband. Anyway, spending time with Kit would give her the chance to prove to herself that she was indeed over the man once and for all. It would let her be confident in the knowledge that all she had ever felt for him was rash infatuation and nothing more.

  Realizing she’d held the boys a bit too long, she gave both a quick squeeze and released them, then climbed to her feet.

  “Play again,” Sebastian said, clapping his hands. “Let us play again.”

  The sturdy footfalls of sensible shoes crossed the floorboards. “Not today, my lords,” said their nurse. “I am sure you have worn poor Miss Hammond down to the ground. You must let her go on her way. Besides, it is time for you to wash up and have your midday meal.”

  A pair of groans resounded.

  “We want Aunt Eliza to stay,” Noah piped.

  “Aunt Eliza, Aunt Eliza,” Sebastian seconded.

  “Your aunt Eliza cannot remain. She has other thing
s to do with her day,” the older woman said, a gentle undertone in her voice that softened her strict words. “Now, behave as well-bred young lords ought and bid Miss Hammond a polite farewell.”

  Identical mouths turned pouty, tears pooling in Sebastian’s eyes.

  “Now, what is this? Are those tears I see?” Violet asked as she entered the playroom.

  “Mama, Mama!” Both boys raced to her, burying their faces against her thighs, clutching handfuls of her dotted apricot skirts in their small fists.

  “They wish me to stay,” Eliza explained, meeting Violet’s curious gaze.

  “Well, of course they do. The boys adore you and quite rightly so. You are their favorite aunt, more favored even than any of their natural aunts. But,” Violet declared, wrapping a comforting arm around each of her sons as she bent forward to address them, “as much as she would like, your aunt Eliza cannot stay and play the day away. She has things she must do that cannot include a pair of little boys. Besides, if I do not mistake the hour, it is time for both of you to have your meal and then take a nap.”

  “Just as I was telling them when you arrived, your Grace,” Nurse said, her hands folded at her ample waist.

  “I don’t want a nap,” Noah said in a defiant voice.

  “Me either,” Sebastian seconded.

  “Hmm.” Violet slowly shook her head. “Well, I cannot make you sleep, I suppose, but if you do not get your rest your papa will not take you out this afternoon to ride your ponies. He says tired boys make poor riders, and he will never agree to let you take a turn on Snow and Ebony if you have not had your naps.”

  “I want to ride the ponies.” Noah cast an entreating gaze up at his mother.

  “I do too.” Sebastian pressed himself closer against her hip.

  “Well, I see no alternative, then, but for you to go with Nurse and do as you are told. Will you promise to be good boys, eat your meal and take a proper nap?”

  “Yes, Mama,” they said in unison.

  “That’s my sweet loves.” Violet planted exuberant kisses on each of their cheeks, hugging them until giggles erupted. “Off with you now, imps.”

  The boys started toward their nurse. Sebastian stopped and ran to Eliza. He motioned for her to bend close. “Will you come and tell us a story later?” he whispered in a loud voice.

  She smiled, melting under the spell of his innocent charm. “If I hear you have been extra good, I shall accompany your mama upstairs when she comes to tuck you in tonight.”

  Noah grinned from where he waited beside his nurse. “We shall be good,” he piped.

  Sebastian’s lips curved in agreement with his brother before he gave Eliza a hug, then obediently went to his nurse. Taking a small hand in each of her own, the servant led the children away.

  “Thank the stars for ponies,” Violet said the moment her sons were safely out of earshot. “Heaven knows what I will be driven to bribing them with come next year. At least Georgianna is too young yet to work her wiles.”

  “She is a darling baby.”

  A look of happy pride washed over Violet’s features at mention of her daughter. “She is, is she not? I am perpetually astonished at how even-tempered she is. She doesn’t fuss, hardly ever cries, not even when her diaper is wet. I was just in the nursery feeding her and as soon as she finished, she drifted straight off to sleep.”

  Behind her spectacles, Violet’s eyes sparkled. “You should see Adrian with her, cooing and making silly faces. You would think a man never had a daughter before. He is quite besotted. Did I tell you he has taken to calling her his little angel?”

  And the baby did resemble an angel, Eliza thought, one with round rosy cheeks, long-lashed green eyes and a perfectly shaped head that was only now starting to grow the veriest bits of dark hair upon its surface.

  “Is the christening still to be held a week from Sunday?”

  “Yes. Jeannette sent ahead a note. She and Darragh and my new niece plus most of Darragh’s siblings are on their way. The whole brood of them should arrive in the next day or two, if all goes as scheduled. Their servants are madly cleaning their townhouse, making preparations for a very full house indeed.”

  Eliza had mixed feelings about being in the Countess of Mulholland’s presence once again. Jeannette Brantford O’Brien intimidated the life out of her, managing somehow to always leave her feeling roughly the size of a small green inchworm. But Violet said she had noticed a marked mellowing in her spoiled, gregarious twin’s disposition since Jeannette’s marriage to her Irish lord. And since the addition of their new daughter, born only a week earlier than baby Georgianna, she had softened even more.

  But could one glean such things from letters? Eliza wondered. Only a visit in the flesh would tell.

  “I am so pleased we decided to wait and hold a joint christening together here in Town,” Violet said. “Traditionally, family baptisms are always held at Winterlea, but since it will be both our daughters this time, I see no harm in a bit of change. Anyway, Jeannette said traveling with the baby all the way from County Clare would be exhausting enough without having to go up to Winterlea then back down here to London again. And she wants to stop in Town, since she refuses to return to Ireland without an entirely updated wardrobe.”

  Oh, yes, Eliza thought, Jeannette’s mellowing remained to be seen since in some matters she clearly had not changed at all.

  A polite knock sounded on the schoolroom door. A footman entered and bowed, then waited to be acknowledged.

  “Yes, Robert, what is it?” the duchess asked.

  “Your Grace, you asked to be informed when Lord Christopher arrived. He is in the yellow drawing room now, awaiting your pleasure.”

  Eliza’s stomach dropped hard and fast as a lodestone. She didn’t know if she was ready but it seemed her lessons were about to begin.

  Chapter Three

  “Is this the young lady you mentioned, my lord?”

  A stranger dressed in a well-tailored coat and breeches of tobacco brown turned at Eliza and Violet’s entrance into the drawing room. Shoulders erect, he marched straight across and stopped in front of Violet. Since he was not a tall man, his critical middle-aged gaze landed nearly at her eye level. Angling his head of wavy, shoulder-length copper hair, he conducted a bold inspection of Violet’s coiffure.

  “Hmm, not bad,” he mused aloud, craning his head one way and then the other. “Not bad at all. Lovely color and texture but, of course, I am sure I could provide you with something far more elegant, more fashionably au courant. A style certain to bedazzle your friends and make you the envy of your acquaintances.”

  Kit cleared his throat loudly. “Ahem, Mr. Greenleaf. That is not the young lady we discussed but rather my sister-in-law, the Duchess of Raeburn. The young lady in need of your attention is over there, standing just inside the door.”

  Greenleaf’s gaze shifted and fastened upon Eliza where she hovered not far from the entrance.

  She watched his eyes widen, blue irises flashing first with surprise before darkening in unconcealed disappointment. His thin nostrils quivered faintly around their edges, lips rounding into a disapproving moue. “Ohh.”

  She stiffened, his tone and look as hurtful as a slap. After years of receiving many such similar reactions, this one ought not to have stung. Yet all she wanted to do was turn on her heel and flee the room. Only stubborn pride and a fear of further censure held her in place.

  Kit stepped forward, gesturing her toward him with a hand. “Come in, Miss Hammond, come in. Allow me to make known to you and the duchess, Mr. Albert Greenleaf. Mr. Greenleaf is the best women’s hairdresser in all of London.”

  “In all of England, my lord.” Greenleaf drew back his shoulders, his angular chin pointing upward. “I am the finest hairdresser in all of England and likely the entire Continent as well. I have never seen my better.”

  Well, he certainly does not lack for self-esteem, Eliza mused. Perhaps his middle name is Napoleon.

  The introductions ap
parently at an end as far as the little dictator was concerned, the hairdresser tapped a pair of fingers against his lips and stared at her once more the way one might study a particularly distasteful but nevertheless intriguing beetle. He walked a slow circle, tsking and humming and sighing as he went.

  Nerves pinched and fluttered along her skin, buzzing like a swarm of tiny gnats. She restrained the urge to twitch and slap, holding herself steady beneath his scrutiny, her eyes cast down. Over the years she had learned to endure all sorts of unpleasant, intolerable encounters by keeping her gaze lowered firmly toward the floor.

  Suddenly fingers began plucking at her hairpins, diving with rude impertinence into her tresses to brush against her scalp.

  She jumped and whirled, her hands flying defensively to her head. Fingers trembling, she tried to hold up her drooping topknot. “W-what are you doing?”

  “Taking down your hair. I must see it free of this dreadful bun in which you have it yanked if I am to envision any kind of improvement. Already it has been made better simply by loosening it around your face. Now, put down your hands and let me take out those pins so I may see the challenge before me.”

  She backed a step away. “No!”

  Reddish-brown eyebrows rose, imperious as a pair of outraged monarchs. “No?” He turned to Kit, exasperation writ clearly upon his face. “My lord, if she will not cooperate then I see little point to this exercise. I am a busy man with many clients who do not balk at having a few trifling pins removed from their hair.”

  Kit looked between the two of them. “Well, you did rather take her by surprise. Perhaps if you ask her politely you might begin again.”

  The little man’s nostrils quivered anew at the rebuke. Still, he turned and made her a small bow. “My apologies, Miss Hammond, if I startled you. Now, may I please be allowed to continue?”

  She hesitated, desperately wanting to refuse. She looked to Kit then to Violet, seeking their help and intervention.

  Compassion lapped like a gentle ocean wave in Violet’s gaze. “Perhaps I could remove the pins?” Without waiting for a reply, Violet stepped forward, reached up and began to slide the remaining hairpins free of Eliza’s hair.