Melville left his hand resting gently upon her neck for a moment. He watched her steadily and, almost involuntarily, she felt her body begin to sway toward his. It would be so easy, the most natural thing in the world, to allow herself this . . .
“Melville,” she said, very softly.
“You might call me Max, if you wish,” he said, just as quiet.
And Eliza clenched her eyes shut and reined herself in. She could not. She could not.
“My lady—” Melville said.
“Don’t,” Eliza said, before he could continue. “Don’t.”
For whatever it was—a declaration, or a proposition or what she did not know—and however much she was desperate to hear it with every muscle in her body, she could not. She could not allow him to speak when she was promised to another.
“Then I shall not,” Melville said gently, taking his hand back.
“It is just,” Eliza said, feeling she owed him some measure of an explanation, though he had not asked for one, “it is just that when one has not expected such a thing, and one cannot—because one has already—and one thinks of all the reasons it is impossible, even if one wants . . .” Her words were as garbled as her thoughts. “Do you understand my meaning?”
“One does not,” Melville said gravely. “One wonders, even, if you understand your meaning?”
Eliza let out a watery laugh.
“I do not know,” she said, and she suddenly felt as if she might burst into tears. “I do not know.”
“That is all right,” Melville said, more gently still. He picked up her hand in his and pressed a single kiss into her gloved palm, and even that set Eliza to trembling again. “I shall bid you goodnight.”
He climbed out of the carriage and, with a last tip of his sodden hat, disappeared into Laura Place.
That Eliza made it home without crashing owed more to her groom’s quiet reminders to watch the other side of the road than to her own skill. She handed him the reins when they reached Camden Place and descended from the carriage, resembling nothing more than a drowned rat, thinking that it was a good thing Mrs. Winkworth had long ago left for London, for she might have suffered an apoplexy to see her in such a state.
Eliza hurried into the house, sighing to feel its warmth around her, and feeling tears beginning to spring to her eyes.
“Margaret?” Eliza called. “Margaret?”
Margaret appeared almost at once, running down the stairs, her hair still dripping.
“Are you all right?” Eliza said. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Eliza,” Margaret said. “It is Somerset. He is here, in the drawing room.”
25
Somerset? Here? Now?” Eliza said.
“Yes,” Margaret said, in answer to all three. “He arrived this afternoon, apparently, and insisted upon waiting for your return.”
Eliza looked at Margaret, panicked. She had not expected him for a week more, and she had not at all readied herself. She had thought she would have more time.
“Do not panic,” Margaret said firmly. “He is not an ogre.”
But Eliza could feel her breath coming in sharp gasps. She could not see Somerset now. Not when her thoughts were so disarranged that she could believe she had left her mind there, with Melville, in the phaeton. She needed more time. She needed to think.
“What if—what if I see him, and realize I do not love him anymore?” Eliza whispered, pressing a trembling hand to her forehead.
What if Somerset saw her and realized exactly what Eliza had done?
“Then we shall think of a way through,” Margaret said. “I promise.”
Eliza dithered, looking despairingly down at her sadly muddied skirts. Margaret gave her a gentle push in the direction of the stairs.
“Go now, before you lose your nerve,” she said. And Eliza went. She might once have tried to delay but Margaret was right. However awful this might be, if she did not go now, she would not have the courage to do it. She pushed open the door to the drawing room. He was standing in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back, and there was a moment, when he turned around to face her—backlit by the flames and his face half in shadow—where the resemblance to his uncle was so strong that Eliza almost gasped. Then, her eyes adjusted. The resemblance vanished. And it was just Somerset standing there, a half-smile upon his face as he regarded her.
“Good evening, my lady,” he said.
“Somerset,” she said shyly. “We—I did not expect you until next week.”
“I thought to surprise you,” he said. “But you do not seem very pleased.”
“I am pleased,” Eliza said. “Of course I am.”
She found, saying it, that it was true. For as Eliza stood there, drinking in the sight of him, she could feel that her love for him remained. And all of a sudden, what had felt so large, so complicated a moment before, was rendered utterly simple in her mind. Whatever it meant, that she was able to love two men at once, it did not matter. Her feelings for Melville were undeniable, but this was the man whom she had loved faithfully, enduringly, foolishly, for years, and who had loved her all that time in return.
And if her heart did not beat quite as fast as it had begun to with Melville, and if she did not blush quite so frequently, nor breathe quite as quickly . . . What did that matter? This was the man she was to marry.
Somerset held out his arms, and she half ran across the room to him, laughing in relief. Somerset caught her hands in his, but did not use the grip to bring her closer, instead holding her a little away from him.
“What is this?” he said. “You are quite soaked through.”
“I do not care,” she said, leaning her face up toward his expectantly.
“I do,” he said, pushing her back. “You will catch your death. You must run and change.”
“I am not in the least cold,” Eliza protested. “I will soon dry by the fire.”
“I will wait for you here,” he said, his voice brooking no argument. Eliza raised her eyes briefly to heaven, but obediently ran from the room. His solicitousness was incomparable, and though it was a little inconvenient at present, to be displeased at such protective concern would be churlish. In a trice, she had returned, dressed in the first gown she could lay her hands on, of lavender crêpe, and he smiled when she re-entered the room, holding his own hands out now.
“Your hair is still wet, my love.”
“I am not going to dry it now,” Eliza said. “So you may save yourself from asking.”