The Problem with Seduction

Chapter Five

ELIZABETH ARRIVED at her parents’ house in a carriage fit for royalty. Another, less ostentatious carriage followed behind. Her hands twisted in her lap. She’d lost sleep wondering whether appearing at their door surrounded by obvious signs of her wealth would help or hurt her reception. Was it better to demonstrate the success she’d found even without their help and love, or better to arrive modestly and risk them thinking she’d done it all for naught?

Her desire to prove herself had won out. But she must still wonder if she’d made the right decision.

Their Gothic-style house lorded over an expansive lawn speckled by imposing evergreens. Her yearning for it startled her. She hadn’t seen this house since she was fifteen. The ensuing years had done little to make it more welcoming, and yet she searched hungrily for the distinguishing features that had imprinted on her younger self. The flying buttresses marching across the front. Equilateral arches filling the space between them, their traceries undecorated so they appeared to look on her with stoic, empty eyes. In the winter, snow and ice would freeze over what meager color the pale stone structure possessed and give it a haunted, abandoned look. The reddish façade didn’t fare much better in the weak summer sunlight, and she shuddered despite the heat.

Two footmen clad in her family’s ivory livery ran out to greet the carriages as her horses clopped across the stone drive. She pressed her back to the velvet squab of her bench, keeping herself out of view of the narrow windowpane. What did she think she’d accomplish here? In all the years since her mistake, her parents had never once attempted to reconcile with her. What would they think when she suddenly presented herself on their doorstep?

The servants went about efficiently setting the carriage to rights in preparation for her eventual exit. She adjusted the tiny emerald hat tilted at a jaunty angle on her head and pinched her cheeks. It would have been much more proper to have written ahead, but she’d had no reason to believe they’d reply. No, she’d rather pretend she was out and about in this part of Shropshire and force them to close the door directly in her face.

She steeled herself. She hoped her parents were at home. She would almost prefer they were not.

Mrs. Dalton and Oliver met Elizabeth as she descended the carriage. Elizabeth offered the nursemaid a grateful smile and reached for her son. He was awake and alert. She smiled softly. His little round head jerked as he took in the new sights and colors of Chelmick Hall. “He looks happy,” Elizabeth observed.

“He fussed a bit for the last mile, but I gave him a bit of milk-soaked bread and he settled enough to catch a wink.”

Elizabeth nodded at this and looped his small hand around her fingers. Her lips touched the down-softness of baby hair curving just over his ear. “Do you like the house? We must introduce you to your grandparents. You’ll be a good boy for them, won’t you?”

The double doors of the hall had already been thrown open. A wide, shallow-stepped staircase led to the gaping mouth of the house. She took a deep breath, then began the ascent. At the top of the stone steps she paused. She cuddled Oliver to her one more time before handing him back to Mrs. Dalton.

Those of Elizabeth’s retainers who were not helping to unload the carriages were being shown to the service entrance by other ivory-liveried footmen. Everyone seemed occupied, leaving Elizabeth alone to face her childhood fears.

Upon entering the foyer, however, she saw her first familiar face. Dodger, her family’s old butler, moved on decrepit legs to greet her. A wide smile revealed his toothless gums. “Lady Elizabeth! I never! Oh, but your parents aren’t expecting you, are they? I heard them talk just this morning of making their way to Bath.”

She reached for Dodger’s white-gloved hands. They were cold, even through his gloves, and she curled her warm palms around his fingers. He’d been like a grandfather to her when she was a child, though she was sure her parents didn’t know of the many evenings she’d spent wedged between Dodger and Mrs. Elf, the housekeeper, in their private sitting room below stairs. “Th-they aren’t here?” she asked of her parents.

“They are; it’s just that we’ve been waiting for the order to pack them off. I’m sure they’ll stay now that you’re here. Oh, dear, dear girl. You have no idea how Prudence and I have worried about you.” His toothless grin didn’t falter. If anything, his happiness at seeing her was enough to raise her hope.

Perhaps this time, it was true. She was loved.

His rheumy eyes searched her face as though he couldn’t believe he was seeing her. “Just wait until Prudence sees you. What a pretty lady you’ve become.” He squeezed her hands.

Gratitude welled inside her, but she wouldn’t cry. Not before she’d heard those words from her own father.

She wasn’t foolish enough to think she would.

Footfalls sounded behind Elizabeth. Dodger released her hands and collected himself into a more regal posture. Just as he turned to greet Mrs. Dalton climbing the steps with Oliver in her arms, the baby let out a soft coo. Dodger’s amazement upon seeing him turned Elizabeth’s insides to warm pudding.

If he’d been happy to see her, he was ecstatic to greet her son. “Oh, my. Oh, my. A little one!” He reached for Oliver before noticeably struggling to collect himself again. “Benson, find Mrs. Elf and inform her that the nursery must be prepared immediately. Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, my girl,” he said, using the name he and the housekeeper had used back when Elizabeth was barely out of leading strings, herself. “Mrs. Elf will be beside herself with excitement.”

The next hour was a blur as Dodger barked orders for the lodging of herself, Oliver, Mrs. Dalton, and the three maids, four footmen and two drivers who’d accompanied her to Shropshire. Not a word was said of her parents. Elizabeth startled each time a door opened or footsteps sounded in the hall. Surely, they must have been informed of her arrival by now.

At last, after she’d been bathed in rosewater and had her hair styled into a confection of dark curls, she was handed a small note card by Bertha, her mother’s lady’s maid.

Bertha’s countenance bore none of the excitement Dodger had failed to contain. She must be in her early forties now, but her pinched disapproval made her look years older. “Your mother wished me to remind you that there are to be neither gentleman callers nor any display that even hints at vulgarity while you are under their roof.” With that, she bobbed and stalked from the room.

If Elizabeth were still a girl of fifteen, she might have stuck out her tongue at Bertha’s retreating back. Since she was five and twenty, she did nothing. If her parents thought she might try to sneak a man into her bedchamber, it was because she had done it before.

Recalling the note, she looked to the card in her hand and flipped it over. Her mother’s flowing penmanship left no word illegible. The message was spelled out with perfect clarity:



Elizabeth,





Your father and I would have appreciated a word of notice. I’d say you were raised better than to drop on our doorstep, but then I would say you were raised better about most of the decisions you have chosen to make. So really, it makes no difference whether I wish you had sent word ahead or not, because you will only do what is best for you.





In any case, we were forced to retract an invitation to Lord Tweley and his wife lest we put them in the distressing position of encountering you, so you need not worry there will be company at dinner. I hope you do not mean to be here long. Your father and I wish to retire to Bath for the remainder of the summer, and I am sure you will not be rude enough to think we would change our plans for you.





Lady Wyndham





Elizabeth’s heart constricted with each succinct word, folding in on itself until she felt small, just as she had when she was a child. Her mother was horrid. Horrid, horrid. Even if Elizabeth did acknowledge that her scandalous presence imposed on her parents, and had forced her mother to cancel their evening’s entertainment in a most undignified way, surely Elizabeth deserved to receive this setdown to her face. A coldly worded note only served to emphasize the very aloofness from her parents that had driven her into the arms of a silver-tongued captain.

She stared dully at the papered wall of her former bedchamber, knowing her sisters’ old rooms were on the other side. For years she’d felt bitterly toward her parents, who had cut her from their family without so much as a look-in to see if she was happy with her choice. What if Captain Moore had loved her? What if they’d eventually married? Her parents would have had to acknowledge her then, wouldn’t they? It had never come to that, but she’d resented that they washed their hands of her, rather than try to save her.

Elizabeth tucked away her melancholy as best she could and reviewed the collection of her gowns now freshly pressed and hanging in a wardrobe. Though her mother’s note hadn’t outright extended an invitation for her to join them at dinner, it did give roundabout permission. She vowed her parents wouldn’t find fault with anything she wore down.

Mrs. Dalton helped her to dress carefully in a watered silk gown. Elizabeth drew a satiny gold wrap around her shoulders and checked her appearance. In the month during which Nicholas had kept her child from her, she’d become skeletal, but over the last week she’d begun to fill out again. Nonetheless, the gown didn’t stick to her like it used to and she breathed a sigh of relief. The less kindling she gave them, the better.

She was shown to the drawing room by Dodger, who couldn’t keep his smile hidden. She hung back before entering the room. “Might you and Mrs. Elf go up to the nursery after the dinner’s been cleared?” she whispered.

He almost blinded her with his delight. “Oh, certainly, certainly. It’s been so long since there was a little one here. I miss seeing you and your sisters toddling down the hallways.”

She smiled faintly and touched his sleeve. “I’m so glad to see you again, Mr. Dodger. Thank you.”

With that, she stepped into the drawing room. It was empty. Were her parents not coming after all?

Before she knew what he was about, Dodger reached out and squeezed her hand. “You will always have Mrs. Elf and me.”

The click-clack of her mother’s sure steps, pitted against her father’s long strides, caused Elizabeth to jump away from Dodger. He stepped back against the wall, leaving Elizabeth only somewhat alone to face her parents.

The Countess of Wyndham was fearsomely handsome. That hadn’t changed. Her dark hair was done in a crown of simple braids that accentuated a sharp widow’s peak a less formidable woman might have concealed. She looked down her long, patrician nose at Elizabeth and tugged on her husband’s arm. “At least she’s finally outgrown her baby fat, Wyndham.”

“Now, Jane,” her father boomed, “she’s what, five and twenty? Long in the tooth to be sporting chubby cheeks. Even so, Elizabeth, you will want to mind what you eat. A trim figure doesn’t come easier with age.”

His brown side-whiskers were threaded with white now, as was the hair on his head. Otherwise, he looked exactly the same. He’d always worn a poof of hair in a curl over one eye, and he preferred the brass-buttoned coat issued by his old regiment to a dinner jacket. Ten years ago, the red coat had been outdated. Gaping open across his belly now, it looked the victim of another two wars. “Well, girl, don’t just stand there,” he said to her, “a homecoming like this calls for whisky.”

Realizing Dodger had abandoned her after all, she went to the sideboard and poured a whisky and two sherries. When she returned with the tray, it was to see that her parents had seated themselves in two wingback chairs facing a long sofa.

She was to be interviewed, then.

She settled onto the sofa. The large bench dwarfed her, likely their intention. Her mother and father sipped their drinks and watched her with unflinching contempt. She swirled her sherry, uninterested in imbibing spirits when so much needed to be said.

Silence stretched between them until Elizabeth could stand it no longer. “Were you told I have a child?”

Her mother made a disgusted noise. Her father leaned forward and thwacked the bottom of his empty snifter against the low table. “I suppose you’ve brought him to meet us. Think it will butter us up, do you? Think we will take him under our wing and let bygones go by?”

Her throat tightened so much that she could barely form a response. “He’s a baby.”

Her voice sounded weak. She hated that her voice sounded weak.

“Exactly,” Wyndham shot back. “An innocent baby who has no notions of immorality. He ought to be raised as a gentleman rather than a whore’s son, but you’ll never be selfless enough to admit that, will you? You’ll keep him for yourself and hinder any help his father’s name might have lent him, bastard though he is.”

She stared at her father incredulously. He was on Nicholas’s side? But how did he know?

“You should have left him with his father,” her mother said, further confirming Elizabeth’s horrible suspicion that they knew about Nicholas. “But of course, it doesn’t surprise us to hear you refused the man his own offspring. You’ve always been a headstrong girl. Had I suspected you would have the nerve to come here, however, I would have kept Clara here another day. Now I must send her a letter with your whereabouts. How embarrassing it will be to have to explain this.”

Elizabeth’s vision blurred. She shook her head at her mother’s vitriolic words, though she couldn’t make sense of the last. “Clara?”

“Lady Montborne,” she replied with a disdaining scowl. “Lord Constantine’s mother.”

Elizabeth blinked. Her heart thumped against her breast. They didn’t know about Nicholas. They wanted her to give Oliver to Lord Constantine. That was much, much better.

“You’re exchanging letters with Lady Montborne?” Elizabeth still didn’t understand what this meant.

Her mother’s pinched derision matched her tone. “She said you aren’t cooperating with his efforts to bring his child into his care. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, given—”

“I am a headstrong girl. Yes, I’ve been listening. Why did she write to you?” Elizabeth’s heart pounded so loud she could hear it. What if Con were still determined to “borrow” Oliver?

Her mother draped her fingers over her heart, as if she couldn’t countenance what she was about to say. “Write to me? She came here. What an awkward tea! Never in my life did I imagine I would entertain the mother of my daughter’s paramour. I told her in no uncertain terms that I had no notion of your whereabouts and I most adamantly would not insert myself into a custody complaint over a natural child, even if he is my grandson of sorts.”

“He’s no grandson of mine,” Wyndham said with a harrumph. “I’m more than happy to step in if I must.”

Elizabeth’s head spun. Lord Constantine couldn’t have sent his mother here.

Her dizziness made it difficult to speak. Lady Wyndham had never required her daughter’s participation to brew a fight, however. “All the same, I certainly will not harbor him. What a scandalous circumstance that would be, when poor Lord Constantine is being denied his own flesh and blood. Elizabeth, do sit up straight. You’re looking very common these days.”

“You ought to rid yourself of that child, is what you should do.” Her father’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Turn him over to Lord Constantine before he becomes some dirty pickpocket.”

The edges of her vision turned black. Her stomach heaved and she cradled her abdomen. Oh, God. No, she would not retch on her mother’s low table. But how could they be so cruel? Did they not trust her at all to raise her own child? “No,” she whispered, out loud this time.

“If not him,” Wyndham intoned, “then Captain Finn will do just as well. He can afford to apprentice him out. Give him a trade to fall back on, so he doesn’t end up addicted to gin and thievery.”

She jerked her head up. “Finn?” Her father did know.

Her mother arched a thin eyebrow. Her sharp chin jutted forward and she looked down her long nose in disgust. “If we must entertain one more of your dirty conquests, Elizabeth…”

Elizabeth went cold as mortification set in. No wonder they were angry. She’d inadvertently sent her scandal straight to their doorstep. And yet, she wished with all her heart that her mother would put aside her offense and ask Elizabeth if she needed help. Comfort. For this anguish only existed because she’d never felt her mother’s warmth in the first place, and had set off to find someone, anyone, to hold her.

Wyndham shook his meaty finger in the air. “I don’t pretend to know the facts, girl, but one thing is clear to me. Finn is looking for a fight. Your mother and I won’t stand for it. Our family name has been dragged through the mud enough, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I’ll give you one month. That’s long enough for you to return to London and place the boy with his father. I don’t care which man that is, so long as you’re sure he’s the right one. I want the gossipmongers silenced, do you hear?”

She could only consider him mutely. Her whole world, her son, hung over the edge of a precipice. How dare Nicholas come here? How dare he?

Wyndham’s thick brows drew together. “If you don’t end this farce in one month, I will choose for you. Lady Montborne may have tugged at your mother’s heartstrings, but I smell a rat. When it’s my word and the captain’s against yours and that feckless Alexander boy’s, whose do you think the courts are going to believe?”

She knew one thing for certain. It would never, ever be hers. Her father had the influence to make good on his threat with a snap of his fingers. In one month, he would snatch away her baby…if he could find her.





She didn’t wait for daybreak. An hour before the sun rose, she thrust her precious son, his nurse and the balance of her entourage into the two carriages and gave the order to pull away.

Now she could run. The last string tying her to England had truly been severed. Her parents didn’t love her. Moreover, her own father had just become a threat greater than Nicholas himself.

Her carriages made haste for the port city of Ellesmere. From there, she might sail to Dublin, or north to Scotland. France was out of the question, as was the majority of the Continent due to the ravages of the recently ended war, but it hardly mattered where she landed next. She would never be safe in England, so long as her father was willing to set the law on her.

Maybe Ireland wasn’t far enough. Could she be extradited? How was she to know?

Mrs. Dalton rode rear-facing. Her wide brown eyes shone in the dark. In that direction churned another question: would the nursemaid come, too? What about the rest of her staff? None of them had intended to defect when she’d told them to pack for Shropshire. What if they refused to follow? What would she do alone in Dublin, with a few pieces of jewelry and a small coin purse, while waiting for the post to travel back and forth between her solicitor and herself?

If she was declared a fugitive, would her accounts be frozen?

It was all so overwhelming. She’d have to see to severing her lease and organize the removal of her personal effects, all from another country. A new city where she’d have to set up her life all over again…for the third time within a single year.

She was too exhausted to close her eyes, and then there was Oliver to mind. This time, she hadn’t been strong enough to let him out of her sight. She’d directed Oliver, Mrs. Dalton and the large bag filled with Oliver’s necessities to her carriage, rather than the second. Elizabeth held his small body upright while he bounced on his baby legs. His soft fingers gripped hers and he gurgled happily. She had to be strong. She must do this. Otherwise, he would never know her. He would grow up thinking she hadn’t loved him. He might even believe she’d abandoned him—there was no telling what Nicholas would claim.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, she estimated there were a few hours yet before they arrived at Ellesmere. If the weather held, she might have six more hours of sunlight. Even so, the horses must be changed again before they continued on. She rapped on the carriage ceiling and fished out a coin from her velvet satchel. If they must stop, they should rest a moment, too. There were few taverns along the sparsely populated road and Mrs. Dalton looked half-starved.

They were seen into a private dining room while the rest of the servants were given ale and a meal in the front rooms. Elizabeth balanced Oliver on her hip, unwilling to have her son out of her arms for even a moment.

“That’s a handsome lad you have there,” the innkeeper’s wife said as she drew two of the four chairs away from the table. She waggled her fingers in Oliver’s smiling face as she passed. “Would you like some warm milk and bread for him?”

Elizabeth tried not to sound bitter when she answered, “Yes, thank you.” Her milk had dried up in the month she’d been separated from her son. Another offense she would never forgive Nicholas.

After the woman left, Mrs. Dalton removed her dusty bonnet and went to a washbasin set in the corner. “Are you sure we won’t stay the night, madam?” She sounded hopeful.

Elizabeth did feel conscience-stricken for dragging her staff posthaste across the countryside, but she shook her head. “My father thinks we’ve returned to London. I want to be far from here before he realizes that’s not true.” She had told her nurse they were headed for Ellesmere. She hadn’t yet explained that they weren’t coming back. “Will you stay with me?” she asked, even though it wasn’t a fair question.

Mrs. Dalton had lost her husband in the war. She was a pretty young thing with a shock of brown hair and a rosy complexion. She was too much a child herself for the sadness in her eyes. “Of course. I adore Oliver.”

Elizabeth sat at the table and positioned Oliver on her lap in the crook of her arm, preparing to feed him when the innkeeper’s wife returned. “Would you stay with me if I never came back to England?” She looked up to check the young woman’s reaction.

Mrs. Dalton’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you have a place in mind?”

What if she decided not to come after all? Elizabeth couldn’t risk a witness who knew her destination. “Not as yet,” she began, but she was interrupted by the arrival of the innkeeper and his wife toting mugs of fresh ale and plates of food.

The older woman set a loaf of bread onto the table. “The milk is on the tray, dearie. Now, is there anything else I can fetch?”

“No, thank you,” Elizabeth replied.

“In that case, your horses will be fresh when you’re ready.” With that, the couple backed out of the room.

The aroma of beef stew and crusty bread made Elizabeth’s mouth water. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the previous afternoon, as she’d fled the drawing room before they’d been called into dinner.

Her lips twitched with a touch of sad humor. So much for making amends.

She and Mrs. Dalton took turns dipping the bread into the milk and offering it to Oliver. When he finally sucked in his lower lip and refused to eat any more, Elizabeth proceeded to demolish the stew and the remainder of her half of the loaf. Mrs. Dalton did the same.

“Would you like to take a turn around the yard before we climb back into the carriage?” Elizabeth invited the nursemaid as she rose and shook out her skirts with one hand. The other held Oliver firmly on her hip.

Mrs. Dalton also stood and smoothed her traveling dress. “Yes, please. Let me fetch my bonnet—”

The door burst open.

Nicholas entered.

Elizabeth gasped. Mrs. Dalton squeaked.

The innkeeper’s wife barged into the room behind him with her red-faced husband at her heels. “Sir, I told you not to come in here—”

Nicholas took three steps into the room. His eyes met Elizabeth’s. Then they locked on Oliver. “I’m told a man can do whatever he wants, when it comes to fetching a runaway wife.”