Miss Armistead Makes Her Choice Read online

  The truth came to Colin’s tongue before he had time to consider. “No, not at all impudent,” he assured her, even as he wondered at her capacity to transform his doubt into full commiseration. He, however, failed to reveal his marital status, an omission that prompted her to turn her bewitching gaze upon him in a manner so divested of guile he knew not where to look. Mercifully, the discomfiture of the moment was put at an end by a knock on the door and the entrance of Mrs. Armistead, her eyes owl-like behind her spectacles. She was followed by whom he presumed to be Miss Hale, whose tear-streaked face and disordered locks denoted such genuine distress, he was instantly contrite.

  “Please be seated, Mrs. Armistead,” he insisted as he leapt to his feet and indicated that she should take up his own chair. Miss Armistead also rose in favor of her friend, but he persuaded her to stay put, collected another chair from the corner and placed it in front of the fire with the others.

  “Thank you,” Miss Hale said in a girlish voice that belied her full-blown looks. “I had thought we must surely freeze to death before help came!”

  Miss Armistead’s gaze flew up in dismay and Colin wondered if her agitation at Miss Hale’s bald admission was further evidence of Miss Armistead’s impeccable manners or merely the mark of her determination to gain his favor.

  “We are recently arrived from India and are not accustomed to the cold,” her mother hastened to remark.

  “Your rescue might have come sooner if you had sent the groom for help,” he observed shortly, “rather than send a young maiden out into the night.” He could not like Mrs. Armistead but feared that his manner bordered on an insolence that betrayed his refusal to be, once again, in the wrong. However, it was his instinctive desire to protect and defend Miss Armistead that troubled him most.

  “I must confess it is my abject fear of the city that is to blame. You see,” Mrs. Armistead continued with an unctuous smile, “I so feared being alone without male protection. I am ever so fortunate to have such an intrepid daughter as I do in Elizabeth. I knew she could not fail us.”

  Colin imagined a flash of understanding passed between the mother and her daughter, one which denoted their triumph at having landed themselves in such favorable circumstances, and he quickly turned to gage Miss Armistead’s expression. He was not fast enough, it seemed, for he found her looking demurely into her lap, her lips devoid of the air of victory he was persuaded would adorn them.

  “But, surely, Mrs. Armistead, you are aware that the streets of London are not where a well-favored young lady should be found so late in the day unless appropriately accompanied.” He neglected to add that Bond Street was meant to be the sole province of males once the shadows began to lengthen, a fact of which she should certainly have been in possession, India or no.

  “Oh, dear! Is that so?” she replied with a flutter of her hands. “I hadn’t the slightest idea. Dearest Elizabeth did mention something along those lines, but Miss Hale was weeping so volubly that I was unable to make out what Elizabeth was saying. Dearest,” she said, turning to Miss Armistead. “I had not wished to subject you to such peril. How fortunate we are that this fine gentleman was by.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Miss Armistead replied as she reached out to pat her mother on the hand, “we are. However, it would be rude beyond bearing if we were to trouble Mr. Lloyd-Jones for a bit longer than need be. I am persuaded he was just about to sit down to his dinner when I arrived and for that I am most contrite.”

  “Mr. Lloyd-Jones?” her mother asked with a nervous twitter. “Don’t say you are one of the Shropshire Lloyd-Joneses!” she exclaimed. “But, of course you are! How could I not have seen it immediately? Why, I grew up in the parsonage at Kempton and have many a pleasant memory of your father and uncles riding out on their lovely horses.”

  Colin subdued a groan. Here it was, the vexatious groveling over his family and their fulsome funds followed by the gushing recital of connections and common relations, most of which were invented out of whole cloth. Worse was his realization that the Armistead’s knew to lie in wait for him. Mrs. Armistead must have noted the family resemblance the moment she clapped eyes on him; gray eyes, dark, curly locks and a dusky complexion were the Welsh inheritance of each and every Lloyd-Jones of his acquaintance.

  Drawing deeply upon the well of generations of training, he allowed the expected smile to curve his lips. “Yes, indeed” he replied as he sketched the matron a brief bow. “I believe your people are no longer living at the parsonage,” he added with a sidelong look at Miss Armistead in order to know her reaction. He was puzzled by the color that suffused her face and more so by how she continued to gaze steadily into her lap. The thought had more than once crossed his mind that she must be an excellent actress, but he was forced to own that it was impossible to feign a sincere blush.

  Mrs. Armistead must have taken in her daughter’s discomposure, as well. “Oh, my, have I misspoken?” Mrs. Armistead asked.

  “No, Mama, it’s only that I am persuaded we have troubled Mr. Lloyd-Jones long enough. Perhaps he ought to be relieved of his duties as host. We shall do quite well on our own, shall we not?”

  “Dinner has been pushed back, already,” Colin said with a wave of his hand at the butler who had toed open the door and was listening for his prompt to enter the library. “It would not be equitable to require Cook to bring it on again so soon.” With his words, the butler’s highly polished shoe disappeared from behind the door that shut so quietly even Colin did not hear it. To his chagrin, he was now fully committed to the entertainment of the ladies until they might be once again on their way.

  There followed a thorny silence before Mrs. Armistead made what promised to be another unfortunate attempt at small talk. “There is to be a ball at the Carruth’s in two days time. As a Lloyd-Jones, I warrant you must have been written in at the top of the guest list. Have you plans to attend?”

  “You honor me, ma’am, but I don’t believe I have been invited to that particular ball.” Colin restrained himself from looking to the mantle where lay the invitation designed to proffer him entrance to the very ball of which she spoke.

  “Oh, dear! Well, then, what about the Green’s do Tuesday next?”

  “No, I am afraid I have not received that invitation, either,” Colin replied in mild tones at odds with the pounding in his head. He hadn’t an aptitude for deceit and he feared the insightful Miss Armistead saw through his denials.

  “What of the Russell’s; have you not received their invitation?” Colin merely gave her a terse smile, unwilling to say anything that would further expose his perfidy, but she would not be silent. “It is certain you have received word of the Ames’ ball. And the Roberts’? Or perhaps the Scott-Montgomery’s?”

  Colin silently shook his head with each name and prayed she would run out of friends and acquaintances before he, in a too conspicuous move, jumped to his feet and consigned the stack of invitations on his mantle to the flames below it.

  “Mr. Lloyd-Jones, you grace the portals of Almack’s on occasion, do you not?” Miss Armistead asked in reasonable tones. They unaccountably served to soothe his frayed nerves in spite of his suspicions that she was aiding her mother in a quest to ascertain his schedule.

  “Not often. In point of fact, I have sworn to a friend of mine that we should avoid all such entertainments this season.” Rather than be dismayed at his revelation of such a personal nature, he was relieved to give the ladies the truth, one which had no reflection on them at all whatsoever. In spite of that, a shadow passed over Miss Armistead’s face as if he had indeed dissembled at their expense.

  “What a pity,” Miss Hale remarked. “I am persuaded I should have very much enjoyed dancing with you.”

  Miss Armistead leaned forward and intently regarded her friend. However, Miss Hale seemed impervious to the silent admonition.

  “You can’t be anything but an exquisite dancer, what with those longs legs of yours,” Miss Hale continued shamelessly.

  “Mi
ss Hale,” Miss Armistead cut in. “You forget yourself. It is one thing to talk so amongst the officers back home, but you will find that few in London society shall look on you with favor if you do not mind your tongue.”

  “I only wished to dance with him, Elizabeth, not wed him,” Miss Hale said with a pert air.

  This admission seemed only to deepen Miss Armistead’s vexation and she rose quickly to her feet. “Mr. Lloyd-Jones, we thank you for your congenial hospitality but perhaps it would be best if we waited elsewhere.”

  As it seemed unlikely that they should ever again lay eyes on one another, Colin was loathe to be so rude as to send them away. “I won’t hear of it. As a bachelor who lives alone, I am most often deprived of such genteel company.” As he listened to the words he spoke, he was surprised to know that they were indeed, true. Convinced that he would never again allow himself to be caught in the talons of a Cecily Ponsonby, he felt unaccountably safe admiring the disingenuous Miss Armistead from the distance his wounded heart afforded. Certainly, the heat from the fire had never turned Cecily’s cheeks such a delicious shade of pink nor had her pale blue eyes sparkled as, even now, Miss Armistead’s green ones did, for any reason at all whatsoever. So lost was he in his thoughts that he, at first, failed to notice that Miss Armistead still stood as if about to depart.

  “Miss Armistead,” he admonished as he rose to his feet, “do take your seat.” When she did not immediately comply, he dared to take her by the elbow so as to guide her descent into the wing backed chair. He was unprepared for the flash of resistance she demonstrated and was utterly confounded by how the rigidity of her arm dissolved into compliance once she had raised her magnificent eyes to look into his.

  She was far too beautiful to fail to recognize his admiration of her; as such, he had expected her to be immune to the veneration she had surely recognized in his expression. Instead, her face betrayed an emotion to which he could assign no name save that of wonderment and, in spite of his hand at her elbow, she descended as did a hot knife through butter, staring into his eyes all the while.

  “Caught another one in your net, have you, Elizabeth?” Miss Hale twittered. “Still, it shall be of no account now that you are betrothed to your Duncan.”

  Colin felt as if the ground had shifted under his feet. “Betrothed?” he asked of no one in particular, unwilling to believe that he could have been so wrong about these three women. Certainly, he could not be, not so close on the heels of his having been so very wrong about Miss Cecily Ponsonby.

  “Well, yes, Mr. Lloyd-Jones,” Mrs. Armistead said faintly. “We have come for the procurement of bride clothes for Elizabeth, you see. We intend to vastly enjoy society whilst we wait for her intended to join her in a month or so. Once they are married, Miss Hale and I shall return to India.”

  Colin could feel the frown that furrowed his brow as he fell back a step and regarded the women with fresh eyes. The scheming mother now looked to be the frightened traveler she was and Miss Hale less the innocent ingénue, while the beautiful coquette was nothing but a misunderstood maiden. The shock of these revelations was nothing compared to the taste of ashes in his mouth when he realized that the gorgeous Miss Armistead was not in the least obtainable, his patent admiration of her not in the least proper, and that he had made a fool of himself over a woman for the second time in as many weeks.

  With a swift intake of breath that, even in his own ears, sounded suspiciously like a gasp, he turned away from the trio of women he had so willingly assumed to be imbued with every possible unsavory intention and sunk his face into his hand. Not for the first time that night, he was grateful for the pact that he and Tony had made; he needs must never be in the company of any of these women again. The very moment a silent prayer for speedy deliverance was sent aloft, the butler rapped at the door and entered with news that the team and carriage were ready and waiting to convey the ladies to their lodgings.

  Colin pulled the ravaged edges of his pride about himself in order to bid a proper farewell to Mrs. Armistead, her daughter and her friend and heaved a huge sigh of relief when the library door had shut behind them. As he stared into the fire, he recalled that Tony had warned him about gazing overlong on the face of one as beautiful as Miss Armistead and knew that his friend had the right of it. He had never felt quite so pulled in before, and never on so short of an acquaintance. His eyes went again to the invitations on the mantle and with a flick of his wrist he dispatched them to the flames. There was nothing, now, that could dissuade him from keeping his distance from Miss Armistead and all of her ilk for the remainder of the season.

  Chapter Two

  Miss Elizabeth Armistead did not wish to be observed. As such, she stood behind a potted palm in a dark corner of the Carruth’s ballroom, a circumstance that had little to do with the repeated requests by her aunt to partner a spotty-faced boy. She was persuaded his governess should certainly arrive to carry him home to bed any moment, never mind that he was over six foot tall and, of all things, an earl. No, indeed, her hiding place afforded her the opportunity to glean much from the breathless conversations that sailed past her unawares.

  From these, she discerned that a recent contretemps on the dance floor had been occasioned by one Miss Ginerva Delacourt who was rumored to have said something unforgivably shocking. However, no one agreed on the words she spoke. Some said she had called her dancing partner, Lord Eggleston, a simpleton while others insisted that her words, in reference to his lordship’s mother, were “weighs a ton”.

  Under the circumstances, Elizabeth felt it was likely she had merely uttered “Mother Eggleston” and was being unduly censured for what must surely be the fault of his lordship’s feeble hearing. From what Elizabeth could determine Lord Eggleston was on the windy side of forty and had no business inducing a young woman such as Miss Delacourt to dance in the first place. The fact that Lady Eggleston was, indeed, doomed never again to sit on a daintily constructed chair merely added fuel to the fire.

  Elizabeth, who watched the proceedings unfold, found Lord Eggleston’s behavior in the wake of his outrage far inferior to Miss Delacourt’s as he had stalked off to leave her quite alone on the dance floor. This had caused such confusion amongst the other dancers in the set that they were soon seen to mill about in so disordered a fashion that those watching from the perimeters of the room began to point whilst chortling into their respective handkerchiefs. It was with a great deal of composure, chin held high, that Miss Delacourt had walked away in the opposite direction of her feckless dancing partner.

  She had been met by a tiny woman with red hair upon which perched a turban whose arrangement was endangered by her ferociously raised eyebrows. It was only then that Miss Delacourt had bowed her head. Elizabeth doubted any but herself, who was free to gape to her heart’s content, had seen how the young lady dashed away her tears, so deftly was it done.

  Elizabeth’s own eyes filled as she reflected on what she had witnessed. Not for the first time that night, she thanked her lucky stars that she was safely betrothed to Duncan Cruikshank, a man who cared for her as much as she cared for him. She need never again be concerned for her future as was Miss Delacourt and, perhaps more so, the red-haired woman at her side.

  Elizabeth continued to observe as the woman marched out of the room into the colonnaded gallery alongside it, Miss Delacourt following behind, her head once again held high. With a sigh, Elizabeth began to emerge from her hiding place until she noticed that Miss Delacourt and her red-haired doyenne were headed in her direction. It would be some time before they reached the end of the gallery and returned to the dance floor to obtain the exit from the room, but Elizabeth knew that if she stirred an inch, she should be caught out. How much more appealing it seemed to regard the two women from her current position in hopes of overhearing as much of their conversation as possible.

  She had not long to wait.

  “What you could have been thinking, I cannot imagine!” the tiny woman demanded.

&nbs
p; “It hardly matters now what I was thinking,” Miss Delacourt observed. “I am to be vilified regardless of the truth.”

  “It would not be so,” the older woman said as she stopped to catch her breath just the other side of Elizabeth’s palm, “if you hadn’t the distinction of being known to say exactly what you please. I can see that it has put you quite beyond the pale.”

  “Grandaunt Regina, you cannot believe that the purely innocent, though, admittedly unfortunate, remarks I made at Lady Jersey’s rout are still being bandied about. That was three weeks ago.”

  “They are and they will until you make a respectable marriage or quit London society altogether, one or the other. For now, I think that is precisely the solution.”

  “Which is the solution?” Miss Delacourt asked with an arch look. “Or is it both? Though I fail to see how it matters as I have no say, one way or the other.”

  “That is quite enough,” the woman huffed as she turned to resume her journey to the exit. Miss Delacourt once again bowed her head but not before Elizabeth heard the young lady mutter something nonsensical having to do with the superior company of roses over the ton.

  Once they had marched out of earshot, Elizabeth drew a deep breath and emerged from behind the palm tree. The dancing had re-commenced and the high society lords and ladies chatted amongst themselves as if nothing had occurred. She was relieved to see that the brouhaha had blown over and, as a final boon the ladder-tall, young earl was occupied on the dance floor. Quickly she located her mother and aunt and made her way to their sides.

  “Why, Elizabeth,” her mother said sharply, “I had believed you to be doing the jig.”

  “No, Mama, I was merely amusing myself on my own. I suppose I wandered off a bit.”

  “Well, see that you don’t,” Elizabeth’s Aunt Augusta insisted. “It is not seemly for a young lady to wander off, as you so summarily phrased it.”