“Will you paint my portrait, Lady Somerset?” Melville asked, again.
Eliza looked away. She ought not. She wanted to.
“I will,” she said.
Melville let out a whoop of celebration.
“I have conditions!” she added hastily. “I insist upon discretion!”
“I am very discreet,” Melville said.
“Nevertheless it must remain a secret,” Eliza said, amused but impatient. “A permanent secret—my name must never be attached.”
“Done,” Melville agreed cheerfully.
“And we shall have to think of some pretext, to excuse your visits,” Eliza said. “For you to haunt Camden Place without explanation would do as much damage as the truth.”
“When shall we begin?”
Ahead of them, Somerset and Lady Hurley came into view—gathered before the grand gate pier with Margaret and Lady Caroline alongside. They had completed a circuit.
“Tomorrow?” Melville suggested, and Eliza hushed him.
“Tuesday,” she murmured. “Early, so we are not interrupted. And you must bring Lady Caroline—I should like as much chaperonage as I can muster.”
“Chaperonage?” Melville repeated, amused. “Lady Somerset, do you not trust yourself around me?”
Once again, Eliza’s cheeks pinked.
“There you are!” Margaret called. “We were on the point of sending out a search party.”
“Lady Somerset was just drawing my attention to a particularly wonderful orangery,” Melville said, shooting Eliza a grin.
“I will escort Lady Somerset and Miss Balfour back to Camden Place,” Somerset said authoritatively.
“Are you tired, Caro?” Melville asked his sister.
“Not in the least,” Lady Caroline said instantly. “Shall we locate this labyrinth?”
And after a quick round of farewells, they strode off, leaving Eliza and Margaret staring after them.
“Come, Miss Balfour, I would have you accompany me now,” Lady Hurley said, taking Margaret’s arm and leading her back through the gates.
There seeming no way for Eliza to avoid Somerset this time, she joined him reluctantly, leaving an impersonal gap between their shoulders. He made as if to offer his arm—then after a beat, returned the limb to his side, as they began to walk, allowing the two ladies to draw ahead on the pavement. After the verdant peace of the gardens, Pulteney Street was grey and noisy, but Eliza stared determinedly ahead as if it were the most fascinating view she had ever clapped eyes on.
“Lady Hurley is certainly fast,” Somerset said quietly.
Eliza did not know if he was referring to her walking pace or . . . something else.
“Isn’t she marvelous?” Eliza said pointedly. Somerset frowned.
“I know it is not my place,” he began, “but my lady, I wonder if you ought to be more careful, with the friends you make here. Lady Hurley is . . . Well. And the Melvilles—I do not trust them. I do not know what, truly, has brought them to Bath, but I do not think it so innocent a reason as they would have us believe.”
“No, it is certainly due to a scandal of some sort,” Eliza said. Didn’t everyone know this by now? “Perhaps an affair.”
“My lady!” Somerset said, and Eliza pressed her lips together. Walking with Melville had loosened her tongue.
“I am sorry, my lord, I did not mean to shock you,” she said.
Somerset let out a bark of surprised laughter.
“Shock me?” he repeated, as if this were amusing. He looked down at her, shaking his head. “You did not used to be so worldly.”
“I used,” Eliza said, very quietly, “to be seventeen.”
The smile faded from Somerset’s face. They were no longer speaking about the Melvilles.
“My lady,” Somerset began again, voice rougher now. “My lady, you must let me apologize.”
“There is no need,” Eliza said, voice shaking. If they could just reach Camden Place . . .
“There is,” Somerset insisted. “I was unforgivably rude—”
“Indeed, I would prefer to move past the incident,” she interrupted. Somerset’s regret could only be for his ungentlemanly conduct, and to have to hear and forgive such an apology—when the pain it had caused was not truly due to its rudeness, but to its honesty—was more than Eliza could bear.
“I think it best we discuss—”
“I do not think that—”
“By Jove, would you let me speak?” Somerset demanded, drawing to a sudden halt. Eliza considered walking on without him, but stopped, too. She would have to hear him, it seemed.
“I am sorry—that was impolite,” Somerset said. “Again. I—I have been so unpardonably uncivil to you.”
Eliza could not trust herself to speak. She merely gave a jerky nod.
“I wish to apologize—for everything that occurred last night,” Somerset continued. “I was unkind and disagreeable and any apology I make would be insufficient.”
He took off his hat, unheeding of the cold air.
“But I am sorry,” he said. “If you wish me to leave Bath today, I will.”
Eliza raised her eyes to the sky, in the hope it would keep any tears unspilled.
“No,” Eliza said. “I do not want you to leave.”
It was true. Even when it felt impossible to remain in his presence, even if he could never reciprocate her feelings. She had spent ten years without him and she could not wish him away, even now.
“I had been enjoying our reacquaintance,” she said, bracing herself, at last, to meet his eyes. Really, did anyone have a right to eyes so blue?
Somerset gave a grimace.
“I had been enjoying it, too,” he said.
Eliza looked ahead to where Margaret and Lady Hurley had stopped and were looking back at them enquiringly. “We ought to catch them up.”
Somerset did offer Eliza his arm, this time, and she took it. The air between them felt less fraught than it had done earlier, but no less heavy.
“I ought to apologize, too,” he said. “For my sister.”
“Is there anyone you are not to apologize for?” Eliza asked, with her best attempt at a smile.
“Selwyn too,” Somerset said doggedly. “I had intended to berate them most severely this morning but they were up and out so early that I could not. They were most unkind—more affected, perhaps, by the change in my uncle’s will than I had realized.”