Meet the Earl at Midnight (Midnight Meetings) (33 page)

“Good.” Then his gaze rose to her hair. “And no powder on your hair.”

“Of course that must be part of her toilette, Edward,” Lady Elizabeth said, her voice firm and decided. “To attend a ball unpowdered would be gauche.”

“No powder.” He said that as if it were a king’s edict. “I’ll not have her stuffed and trussed like so many woman, peacocked and ridiculous. Powder would dull the color of her beautiful hair.”

“And what do you know of fashion?” the countess sniped. “She must have powder. We go to London tomorrow to begin selection of ball gowns
and
powder for her hair.”

That Edward had such strong opinions on her hair surprised her. She didn’t even think he noticed what shade sprouted from her head. Yet he and the countess shifted on the settee, two combatants about to square off in this latest challenge, and Lydia witnessed a fragment of the infamous tension between the two.

“If I have to work it in the wedding vows, I will.”

Lydia laughed at his last proclamation. Of course she planned to honor her vows, but what he’d said teetered on the ridiculous.

“I’ve never heard of anything so silly in my life,” Lydia said, her gaze bouncing between Edward and the countess.

He turned to her, and his strained visage softened. “I
request
that you never powder your hair.” And then he added, “For me.”

She knew right then she loved him, at least her imperfect understanding of something so perfect as love. Her heart belonged to Edward, and there was no going back on that. His quiet words, a request over something as un-life changing as hair powder, tilted the world upside down for her. Benumbed and exhilarated at the same time, she set her plate in her lap, lest she drop the thing as the skirmish of wills continued. Both combatants, however, were blithely unaware of her earth-shattering revelation.

This was not a matter of mind-muddling attraction, though all of her was drawn to him and longed for his hot friction. His fine form folded on the furniture, a feast for her eyes. He planted one tanned hand on his knee closest to her, and the same question that probed her at the Blue Cockerel came to the fore: What would it be like to have those tanned hands all over her?

The discussion between Edward and the countess escalated: powder or no powder, go to London for ball-gown fittings or stay at Greenwich Park to continue the neglected scientific illustrations. These became the hotly discussed topics around her and about her. Then Edward turned and tried to draw her into the fray.

“What do you want to do?” Edward held up a hand to halt his mother’s verbal onslaught. “Lydia?” he called again and dipped his head for eye contact with her. “What do you want?”

She looked at him and the countess, drawn back from her stunning revelation. “I…I…”

Want
to
paint. Be naked with Edward. Tell him how I feel.

Another honest admission from her heart and mind, but she’d stifle those words and choose a diplomatic route. “Why don’t I go to London tomorrow for the fittings, and the next day I’ll catch up on the illustrations? I’m behind only a few days.” She gave Edward a triumphant grin. “One would think you’ve always had me around to labor for you. I’d say you’ve grown accustomed to me in your greenhouse.”

“If you must,” the countess said in a huff, though oddly sounding not too put out to have lost this battle. She smoothed her skirts and addressed Lydia. “I shall return later in the week to find a dance instructor, and you must have your own stationery. Don’t worry, I can decide that for you.” She tapped her fingers against her skirts. “Very well, I’ll take care of the other items that don’t require your immediate presence.”

“Going to London tomorrow, are you?” Mr. Bacon asked. “Then would you mind dropping off a small chest at Buckingham House? Saves me a trip.”

“Are we talking about the books you exchange with the king?” The countess turned to Edward, her eyes rounding at the mention of Buckingham House.

“Yes.” Edward nodded. “The chest’s manageable for your carriage.”

“Of course we can deliver them.”

Lydia guessed she’d find a way to drop that royal connection into conversations at tea with friends for weeks to come. But the recipient of that chest opened a new door on an idea that had been brewing. Timing and opportunity rarely fell so fortuitously in her lap. This was as near an invitation as she’d ever have.

She chewed her bottom lip, contemplating what would be her boldest move yet.

***

As
the
clock
struck
midnight…

Sitting comfortably at her white desk, Lydia chewed her thumbnail. The plan, bolder than brass, scared her. A few deep breaths for courage, and she opened the drawer of her writing desk. But easing the drawer open gave her a surprise.

Someone
else
had
gone
through
this
drawer.

She hadn’t noticed earlier in her haste to be done with the letters, but her three sketches of Edward were not in the correct order. Someone had looked at her simple lead-stick sketches. That had to be what had happened, since the sketches were tucked in the back of the drawer.

“The countess,” she said, hissing that woman’s name.

How invading, leaving her bare in a most personal way. But she paused, glancing at the adjoining door, and admitted the lady’s methods weren’t so far off from her own. Instead, Lydia was drawn into what she held in her hands.

She loved these sketches. Tenderness filled her from this late-night viewing. Her favorite, a close view of Edward’s face, embodied the way he looked the day she untied his queue outside the art gallery. He had shown her Jonathan’s portrait, and revealed that Miss Mayhew was not a woman of any romantic consequence.

No. He revealed much more than that.

Her fingers skimmed the lead pencil sketch, showing equally the planes of his face. The fierce fire in his eyes leapt off the page, the same as when he had proclaimed staunch loyalty to his friends. She grinned at how those sculpted lips had frowned this evening when she chased him away after so short a time of
discussion
. She had covert work to finish.

With that, the sketches went back into the drawer. Lydia retrieved two letters hidden away inside, written a few hours ago. So nervous was she then that she’d failed to notice the sketches out of order. She set one letter atop a pile of papers, and the other on an identical stack of sheaves and illustrations. A third stack, sketches and diagrams, made a neat pile already atop her desk.

Heart thumping as loud as a drum, she walked to the fireplace, and tossed that third pile into the flames.

Hot yellow and orange flames curled the white sheaves, turning them to gray dust. The shock of what she’d done washed over her. So final. A stall tactic to be sure, and wouldn’t do near the damage of those letters atop the desk. But what was burned was gone forever. Emboldened, Lydia grabbed the remaining papers, cracked open her door, and sped along the vermillion path, down the stairs to Edward’s study.

Reaching his study, she shut the door behind her with a click. She leaned back, grateful to have the heavy walnut hold her up until her breath calmed. She’d come this far…

She went to the drawer where he kept his seal and blotting wax, and moved methodically through her steps, disembodied from what she was doing. Across the mahogany surface, her hands folded letters inside the packets. Those same hands melted wax to the right spot. But when Lydia held Edward’s seal over the formless red wax, she paused, loosening her grip on that ancient token of good faith. Her stomach quivered and roiled.

Words of Wickersham’s vicar echoed in her head, when he recounted an Old Testament story last fall: Jezebel had used Ahab’s seal.

Twenty

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

—Plato

“Change brings discomfort, even if it’s for the better.” Edward tapped his lead stick on the Sanford Shipping’s account book.

He halfheartedly listened to his mother’s commentary and responded, though his head was filled with numbers: numbers to calculate in their accounts, numbers of days ’til he left England, and number of days until his self-imposed one-month edict was done. All three numbers pressed down on him, demanding their due.

Beside the account book rested the special license. That document’s arrival had initiated this latest flow of conversation with the countess, whose presence in his study was for no particular reason that he could tell. One trait he shared in common with his mother: neither did anything without a purpose. For the countess, conversation, whether social chatter or deep dialogue, always served an end. As he tallied this final column, she was blessedly silent.

He scratched a number in the book and looked up across his desk. “And speaking of change, you’ve sung a different tune about Lydia this past week.”

Straightening her sleeve, the countess smoothed the lace and silk, banishing creases and wrinkles. “She’s adapted rather quickly to her lessons, but she’s not fit to be a countess.”

“I don’t care.”

The countess tilted forward in her chair and touched the edge of his desk. “Bear in mind, I do like her.”

He snorted rudely at that shocking admission and tossed the lead stick onto the open book.

Her mouth pursed, and she pressed on with her agenda, something at which the countess was very skilled. “But it’s not too late. Why not let me assist you in finding more suitable young ladies? I could—”

“Stop.” He raised both hands, disliking the direction this interview was going. “We have been over this too many times. I refuse to dance attendance on empty-headed chits.”

“But, Edward,” she pleaded, “I’ll carefully preselect ladies of the highest quality, those amenable to marriage to one of your stature.”

His short bark of laughter was barely suppressed ire. His mother never knew when to quit. He rose from the chair, restless and wary, sauntered to the widow. A long-suffering sigh came from behind him when he leaned a shoulder on the window frame. He folded his arms across his chest and crossed one boot toe to the floor in front of the other as he drank in the scene before him.

Outside was warmth and bluster, pleasant and pastoral. Pure Lydia. She wore one of her old dresses, something dark brown and practical, with a high neckline. She was flying a kite with John, the stable master’s son, and the tail of the kite swirled and trailed through the grass. Its diamond shape twirled low, and woman and boy ran, laughing as they tried to capture the wind. Lydia tugged on the line just before the kite dropped to the ground, saving its flight.

Both enthusiasts cheered their success. The lad slowly unwound the string, letting the kite dance and soar higher and higher. Lydia was like that with him: she unwound him in places he didn’t even expect were coiled and tight. So lost was he in his reverie, Edward failed to hear his mother’s approach. Her silk skirts rustled as she inched closer to him.

“She still has a rather bracing walk.” The words came as judgment, but one corner of her mouth tilted up as she delivered what was close to a tender proclamation.

Edward faced his mother—his beautiful mother—who reflected on the same scene as he. Emotional nuance was new to him, a gift from Lydia, but the truth of his situation—no, his life—blew across him as surely as the wind blew winter clouds away outside.

“What bothers you more?” he asked. “That I’m marrying Lydia? Or that you think I’m
forced
to marry Lydia because no one else will have me? Scarred beast that I am?”

Her eyes spread wide, but she flinched as if someone had hit her.

“Edward, that’s not true. There are many women who’d have you. You simply have to put yourself in the position to meet them, take the time to court them.” The skin around her blue eyes strained, creating tiny wrinkles.

“You didn’t answer me, but that alone gives me your answer,” he said, shrugging that off. “No matter.”

The countess tipped her head against the chilled pane and said nothing.

“You mean for me to go back into Society. The very same Society I despised even when I wasn’t scarred,” he groused as mocking bitterness tinged his voice. “The assemblage of garrulous bloviates. Couldn’t stand them when my face was intact. Like them even less now that it’s not.”

“Oh, Edward.” She reached for his forearm, but her hand hovered, not making contact. “It’s not good to hide away from people, however flawed we all are.” Then she raised her hand, and the backs of her fingers stroked his smooth, unscarred cheek. “You were so handsome. Your brother was dashing, but you were always so, so much more…” Her lips pinched into a painful line. “My beautiful boy.”

A teardrop sparkled from her lower lashes, a well-cut crystal that liquefied and slid over her cheek. That the countess still harbored pain over his injuries, injuries earned from a younger man’s rash decisions, caused an ache within him. Wasn’t it a boyish need to always have the praise and adoration of one’s mother? No matter, he was a man now. The responsibilities of these past three years had molded him into who he had become. Yet another dawning crept in, truth that failed to bother him. Edward gripped her fingers in a gentle vise but kept her hand aloft between them.

“That’s what bothers you,” he said, viewing his mother in a clearer light. “You hate the fact that I’m scarred, probably more than I do.”

Her sharp intake of breath must’ve been like a knife to her, so pained and broken was her visage. She stepped back and dabbed her knuckles to new tears forming.

“How can you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.” He nodded, allowing her to collect herself a moment. Then he pressed on as gently as he could. “All my life you’ve thrived on the appearance of things. I pity you your world of empty vanity, but I love you all the same, Mother. I made my peace with what happened to me. Now you must make yours.”

The countess wrapped her arms about herself, and her shoulders drooped. She touched her mouth where the beginnings of a small, bitter smile was forming.