Chapter Eight
Confiding in a handsome duke, late at night, behind a closed door, was not wise. Elizabeth longed to repeat the experience soon and often.
Haverford’s kisses followed her into slumber and provoked restless dreams that had her rising early. She made her way to the breakfast parlor while the servants were still arranging the buffet on the sideboard. Elizabeth slathered butter and jam on three scones, cut herself a slice of cheddar, grabbed a small orange, and wrapped the lot in a linen serviette.
She was new at confiding, and to best savor the folly of the previous evening—if folly it had been—she wanted fresh air and solitude. Charlotte, by contrast, had demanded to be left in peace amid her pillows.
Haverford Castle sat on a rise, and beyond the back terrace, the formal gardens merged with a park that gave way to wilderness and countryside. Tudor Hill rose to the east, and a river bisected the park. Elizabeth struck out for the river, which she intended to follow along the base of the hill.
The scythed grass sparkled with dew, the air was brisk, and the sunshine benevolent. No wonder Mama was often homesick, and no wonder she and Papa journeyed to Wales frequently. Something about the light put Elizabeth in mind of fairy tales and legends, magic caves, and.…
Midnight kisses.
The river was a swath of silvery brilliance in the morning sun, at variance with the geometric gardens closer to the house. A river, unlike an almost-spinster, had some say in its direction.
Elizabeth’s objective was to find a place to settle with a sketch pad. While admiring the view, she’d enjoy a solitary picnic, pretend to draw, and consider developments with Haverford. He’d kissed her of his own free will, no flirting or prodding on her part required, and that…that gratified some undignified girlish fancy Elizabeth had denied for years.
“Good gracious!”
One moment, the path before her had been empty, the next it was filled with the most gorgeous young man Elizabeth had ever beheld. A rustling of the oak branches overhead was her only clue that the fellow hadn’t sprung up from some fairy mound.
“Good morning.” His greeting was in careful English, and his smile both bashful and merry.
“Good morning,” Elizabeth replied in Welsh.
This exquisite creature was dark-haired, neatly attired, and possessed of the finest brown eyes ever bestowed on an adult male. His countenance conveyed no guile, arrogance, or caution. Angels gazed on the world with this much benevolence, though what angel had the St. David eyebrows?
He was attired not as a farm lad or yeoman, but as a country gentleman out for a morning constitutional. Everything, from his field boots, to his shooting jacket, to his neckcloth, was clean and well made.
Whoever he was, he came from means.
“Griffin St. David, at your service.” His bow was punctilious, despite the rustic surrounds, and he’d spoken in cheerful Welsh. “You’re supposed to curtsy now, and you should tell me your name. If we were at church, somebody would introduce us, but if we were at church, we’d be neighbors. I know all of my neighbors, and I’ve never been introduced to you. Did you know there are forty-two coaches behind the castle’s coach house?”
His earnestness was childlike, though he looked in every way whole and adult. This was very likely the “Griffin” who’d gone missing two nights ago, and no wonder his disappearance had caused the duke worry.
“I had not counted the coaches,” Elizabeth said. “Are you related to Haverford and Lady Glenys, Mr. St. David?” He had to be, given those eyebrows, the dark hair, the height, and his complete ease on Haverford land.
“I have my own household,” he said, obviously quite pleased about this. “You’re supposed to curtsy.”
Elizabeth remedied the oversight, because Mr. St. David was absolutely correct, though by rights a mutual acquaintance really should have introduced them.
“I’ve come outside to sketch,” Elizabeth said. “I suspect the views from the hill are spectacular.”
“I can show you the way. I’m a gentleman. I won’t let you stumble or get lost.” Mr. St. David spoke in all seriousness, and if he was a St. David cousin or by-blow, he probably did know every path and pasture on the estate.
“I would appreciate your escort, but you mustn’t expect too fast a pace. I want to enjoy the scenery.”
“I won’t run,” he said, setting off along the river path. “Do I take your arm or not? I could hold your hand. Biddy says I’m to take her arm, but sometimes we hold hands too. Biddy makes the best shortbread.”
If only all men were so willing to inquire about a lady’s preferences. “I can manage on my own, provided you’ll show me the way. Perhaps you’d be willing to carry my haversack?” Elizabeth passed him the leather bag holding her breakfast picnic and her sketching supplies.
Griffin looped the sack over a sturdy shoulder. “You didn’t tell me your name. I won’t forget if you tell me, but I must not presume-an-acquaintance until we’ve been introduced, even if you are a friend to Lady Glenys or Biddy or Julian.”
Elizabeth chose the least formal and most Welsh version of her name. “I’m Bethan. Do you live nearby?”
“At my own house, with Biddy and Abner. Oscar comes to help sometimes, and Emry Davis helps Biddy on laundry days. Are you tired yet? If you’re tired, we can rest.”
He was very dear. “I’m managing.”
Griffin shot her a furtive, puzzled look, and Elizabeth realized she’d spoken in English.
“My apologies,” she said, switching back to Welsh. “I’m fine for now, though I doubt I’d be able to keep up if you weren’t making allowances for my shorter legs. You have a dog, don’t you?”
Griffin waxed enthusiastic about King Henry, who was talented at flushing hares and named for the Welsh-born sovereign. Next came a monologue on the flora and fauna of the area, about which Elizabeth’s escort was astonishingly knowledgeable.
“We can see the coaches from here,” he said when they were about halfway up the hill. “Yesterday everybody shot arrows. Radnor and Glenys argued, but they always argue. You mustn’t think anything of it.”
Where had Griffin been, that he’d overheard the marquess and Lady Glenys having a tiff?
“House parties can be demanding for the hostess,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure Lord Radnor was only trying to help.”
“Glenys makes his tallywags ache. I like to sit on that rock there. King Henry does too.”
Tallywags? The term was English, more or less, and it had no place in a lady’s conversation in any language. Though…poor Radnor. Poor Lady Glenys, if she provoked such a response from her neighbor and didn’t realize it. Aching tallywags went well beyond a genteel tendresse.
“Let’s rest our feet,” Elizabeth suggested. “This would be a lovely place to start sketching.”
The countryside unfolded across the valley in a patchwork of pastures, hayfields, cultivated land, and woods. Far off to the west, mist drifted from the underside of a rain cloud, but in every other direction, the landscape was drenched in sun.
“Radnor is my friend,” Griffin said, sitting down right next to Elizabeth on the smooth flat stone.
He was as guileless as a boy, and even less self-consciousness. The combination of handsome adult male appearance and innocent male mind was disconcerting, and yet, Elizabeth would have said Griffin was a good man.
A gentleman, as he’d said, and a gentle man.
“Will you sketch me?” he asked. “I’m handsome. That is not my fault. Biddy says my hair needs a trim.”
“You are quite handsome. If you can sit still for a few moments, I will happily sketch you.”
He remained utterly unmoving for about five minutes, until Elizabeth passed him a scone. “I took more than I needed from the breakfast offerings. Tell me more about Biddy.”
“She’s very pretty. Her real name is Bridget and she’s Abner’s niece.” His manners were careful, though the scone soon disappeared. “Nan Pritchard is pretty too, but I like Biddy better. Who do you like?”
Interesting question. Elizabeth liked what she knew of Julian, Duke of Haverford, and what a relief that was. Beyond her family, she liked very few men, particularly very few single young men. Haverford wasn’t exactly young, though.
He’d probably never been young, while Griffin would always be youthful.
“My sister has traveled here with me,” Elizabeth said, “and so has my aunt. I like them both. I like Lady Glenys. Would you care for another scone?”
“Yes, please. Julian says if we eat outside, we don’t have to say grace out loud, but we should still be grateful. I’m very grateful because today I made a new friend.”
The second scone absorbed him for a few minutes, as Elizabeth tried to sketch both Griffin and the rural surrounds that made such a fitting setting for him. He was not quick in the sense of being socially sophisticated, but his lecture on plants and animals suggested he took keen notice of everything in his environment.
“You spoke English,” Griffin said, gazing at the ocean sparkling in the distance. “I speak only Welsh.”
“You greeted me in English,” Elizabeth replied, shading in his left eyebrow. Haverford’s eyebrows were thicker, but then, Haverford was probably ten years Griffin’s senior.
“When we go to services, I listen, and sometimes, I learn a word, and try it out on Biddy, but she says I don’t need the English. Julian speaks English all the time, unless he’s calling on me. Julian is smart.”
Such carefully guarded pain lay beneath Griffin’s words.
“Does Julian know every bird and bush on this hillside?”
Griffin shook his head vigorously. “Julian is busy. He’s the duke. He goes to London.”
A stout defense, though laced with genuine bewilderment. Who would waste time in stinking London when he could instead be here, admiring the sea and conversing with the birds?
“Shall I teach you some English, Mr. St. David?”
“Everybody calls me Griffin. I want to learn English. I want Julian to be proud of me, but I’m not smart.”
I’m not pretty, I’m not well dowered, I’m not clever, I’m not witty.…Why were one’s failings so often the sum of one’s self-awareness?
“We will educate each other,” Elizabeth said. “For every word or phrase I teach you, you will instruct me regarding a plant, a bird, a feature of the geography, or the local lore. Have we a bargain, Griffin?”
“I never forget anything,” he said, nodding so enthusiastically, he bobbed up and down on his rock seat. “I can teach you everything Abner has taught me, and Abner knows a lot. He’s old. He helped find me when I wasn’t lost. Teach me something.”
Elizabeth took up her sketch pad and turned over a clean sheet. “What would you like to know how to say?”
Griffin resumed studying the sea, presenting Elizabeth with a profile that would have eclipsed Byron’s beauty on his most striking day.
“I want to learn how to say ‘I love you.’”
“A good place to start and a simple sentence.”
Though saying those words took courage, if they were meant honestly. If they weren’t meant honestly, then they should not be said at all.
* * *
“I am ready to take vows,” Julian said, guiding Rhodri down the path through the park. The fresh air was invigorating, and old Rhodri was eager to stretch his legs.
Radnor rode a mare, an unusual choice. He claimed mares had better self-preservation instincts than geldings, and weren’t as easily distracted as stallions.
“Who’s the lucky woman?” Radnor asked.
“Not those kind of vows. Is there some unwritten law that house parties turn everyone associated with them daft? I’m ready to swear a vow never to host a gathering like this one again.” Witness, Julian had risen at the crack of doom for his daily ride and had had to bring Radnor along for safety in numbers.
Julian hadn’t slept well for years, but last night’s dreams had been uncharacteristically erotic. He was accustomed to dreaming of unpaid bills, crumbling turrets, and reproachful ancestors. Another frequent torment involved books turning into winged banknotes and fluttering into the blue Welsh sky. On his better nights, he dreamed of schedules and budgets, declining balances, and rising market prices.
The ancestors couldn’t begin to compare to Elizabeth Windham for troubling his sleep.
“Lady Glenys would be hurt to hear you grumbling,” Radnor said. “She’s needed a project.”
“Glenys needs a husband.” And Julian needed a long swim in the river’s coldest currents. “You will not allow Lady Inglesby onto my team for the scavenger hunt, Radnor.”
“I was about to make the same demand of you. If I take on Lady Inglesby, you should have Delphine.”
“Delphine should be having her husband, and I’m to remind him of that.”
As head of the family, that was a task Julian should have undertaken several years ago. He’d been too busy fretting over finances, Griffin, Glenys, a subsiding wall in the gate house, a river determined to create water meadows out of pastures, and passage of a bill to prohibit the labor of young children in the mines.
Among other things.
“I’d say your house party is off to a good start,” Radnor observed as they turned down between two hedges. “Intrigues are hatching, the elders are off in corners getting tipsy, and nobody was struck by any stray arrows yesterday.”
Julian had been struck in the heart—and perhaps a bit lower. “Must you be so optimistic? I have no patience with optimism when careful planning and hard work are much more likely to produce a positive outcome.”
Radnor drew up his mare. They were out of sight of the castle, and mist rose from the distant hills in the morning sun. Julian brought Rhodri to a halt too, though he shared his horse’s longing to gallop hellbent across the fields.
Never a good idea when the grass was still slick with dew.
“Today, Haverford, you have no patience at all. What’s amiss?”
Everything. “I tarried with Miss Windham for a short while last evening in Glenys’s parlor.”
“Miss Windham seems like a sensible creature, and she comes from very good family.”
Julian nudged Rhodri forward. “She is not a sensible creature, and in her presence, I am tempted to toss sense straight over the parapets myself. She has hidden depths, Radnor, and a determined streak that somebody has been badly underestimating for years.”
“Any somebody in particular?”
“Men.”
“That narrows it down. Bad girl, Buddug.” Radnor’s mare had snatched at the reins, apparently intent on grazing despite the bit in her mouth.
“Miss Windham has red hair,” Julian went on. “I should have known she wasn’t as demure and tame as she looked.”
“Tame? I know a certain duke whose hair might be described as darkish red.”
“She’s about as tame as a lioness, Radnor. Miss Windham is enthralled with lending libraries.” And kisses. Protracted, passionate kisses. How would she respond to more adventurous overtures?
“Lending libraries are a heady topic. Would I be expecting too much to hope you’ll make a coherent point anytime soon?”
“The point is, Elizabeth Windham is kind, passionate, independent, well read…and I cannot court her.”
“The passionate part,” Radnor said. “I don’t suppose…? You are a gentleman, Haverford. I wouldn’t want to have to call you out.”
“Don’t be tedious. She’d call me out herself if I gave offense, but I didn’t.” Pride, frustration, glee, and sorrow shadowed that admission. Elizabeth Windham had liked Julian’s kisses, and he’d liked hers.
A lot. She was enthusiastic, articulate, alluring, and utterly unavailable.
“So she won’t call you out. That’s a relief. The prospect of arming irate women is disquieting in the extreme. If you didn’t give offense, then why did this encounter trouble you?”
Trouble him and delight him. When was the last time Julian had been delighted with anything other than a good harvest?
“I finally find a woman who doesn’t bore me, and whom I don’t bore. A woman who’s not dangling after my dukedom, a woman to whom I’m attracted, and I can do nothing to further my acquaintance with her.”
Except stand aside while she contemplated spending her pin money on the likes of Robinson Crusoe and Robert Burns. She would have got on famously with Papa and Grandpapa, which should not be possible when she also got on famously with Julian.
“What do you mean, you can do nothing to further your acquaintance with her, Haverford? Vows of chastity taken when you’re non compos mentis don’t count.”
The day was so achingly pretty, the sky brimming with sunshine that distilled all the beauty of the landscape, the same way a glass of champagne embodied the essence of the grape more intensely than did the fruit itself. Nowhere on earth stirred Julian’s heart as did these verdant vistas of his own property, and yet, today, the brilliant light hurt.
“Glenys’s plot to marry me off is doomed, Radnor. You know the state of my finances. I have made progress in recent years, but not nearly enough. I refuse to tear up the earth searching for copper or coal, blight the sky with foul smoke, exploit children—you’ve heard my speech enough times.”
Radnor patted his mare, who was wringing her tail at some imaginary fly. “Half the Lords has it memorized. It’s a fine speech.”
“Which they applaud as cheerfully as they ignore. Someday, I might be in a position to offer for a viscount’s daughter, if her papa is well off enough to be content with minimal settlements. I can’t marry into another ducal family. Such a woman has no need of my title, and she would expect generous contributions to her settlements. A widowed duchess should live in a style appropriate to her station.”
Not in a tower plagued with damp, mice, and subsiding walls.
“So this is about pride?”
“It’s about money. Infernal, benighted money, and the lack thereof resulting from my forefathers’ obsession with books, manuscripts, and all things literary.”
“One little coal mine—”
“Children die in those mines, Radnor. Slums spring up where pretty villages used to be. The foremen and the owners grow wealthy, while half of Wales turns into a wasteland. People need to eat, and Welsh livestock is the best in all of Britain. I’ll content myself with slow progress farming, and leave exploiting children and pillaging the land to those with the stomach for it.”
Radnor’s mare took a mouthful of leaves from the hedge along the bridle path. Her chewing punctuated an otherwise awkward silence.
Julian had overstated his position—there were responsible mine owners among his acquaintance. Sober fellows whose ambition was tempered by concern for those in their employ. Alas for Wales, such men were rarer than true copies of the Magna Carta.
“So don’t marry Miss Windham,” Radnor said. “You’ve spent five minutes with her in private, and been smitten by her red hair—or something. I know your grasp of courting subtleties is nonexistent, but even you couldn’t get into too much trouble in five minutes. Take the next few weeks to enjoy the lady’s company, see where things lead, and when the house party ends, morale will have improved all around.”
“She’s a gently bred unmarried woman, and you suggest I offer her a dalliance?” Though Elizabeth wasn’t entirely innocent, and she wasn’t on the hunt for a husband.
“Aren’t dalliances what house parties are for?”
“Not in Lady Glenys’s opinion.” Glenys appeared to be in the minority. “Do you think the grass is dry enough for a gallop?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll gallop on the damned lane. Why is your mare doing that with her tail?” The beast was in a taking over something.
“The poor dear is probably coming in season. House parties are no respecter of species.”
“And you are no comfort to a man in house party hell, Radnor.” Julian pressed his heels to Rhodri’s sides and the gelding took off at a pounding gallop. Radnor’s mare gave chase, and for the length of a mile, Julian lost himself in the sheer pleasure of equestrian exertion.
As the path joined the course of the river, though, he spotted a familiar figure trundling down the hill, a haversack in her hand, and the morning sunlight turning her red hair into a beacon he saw no earthly reason to resist.