He was silent for the remainder of the journey.
Upon their arrival, Lady Tannenbrook greeted them with a twinkling grin. “Miss Widmore! Delightful to see you again. Why, your gown is breathtaking. The color! I have never seen the like. Mrs. Bowman is a magician, is she not?” The petite beauty looped her arm through Augusta’s, tugging her into a white-paneled, gold-draped drawing room. “Come along, Elijah,” she sang over her shoulder.
Augusta frowned, wondering to whom the woman was speaking, as she hadn’t seen a man standing near the doors. Soon, however, Augusta’s attention shifted to the other guests arrayed around the room. Most sat on gold-velvet sofas or stood near the fireplace in murmuring groups of three and four. Some she recognized—Lord Tannenbrook, of course. He came forward to greet Sebastian, his gaze warm and approving. Lady Wallingham sat in a chair before the fire, her quizzing glass in frequent use, her headdress a confection of violet velvet and lilac plumes.
Others, she did not know. Three chaperoned young women roughly Phoebe’s age, each a beauty in her own way. A sable-haired man with hooded, turquoise eyes and a sardonic smile. A flame-haired, freckled woman—clearly his wife, for he never stopped touching her—who was taller than any female Augusta had ever seen. As she gestured, the woman’s wrist nearly collided with her husband’s nose. Before it struck, however, he calmly caught her hand in his, laid a small kiss on the inside of her wrist, and gave her a smoldering glance. She turned pink and stopped mid-word, her eyes riveted to his.
Good heavens, Augusta nearly blushed, watching them together.
“I shall introduce you to everyone, Miss Widmore,” Lady Tannenbrook assured. “We have only one more guest due to arrive. I expect him shortly.”
Behind her, she heard Lord Tannenbrook and Sebastian talking in their low rumbles. Once again, she wondered at their connection.
Lady Tannenbrook kindly performed introductions. The sable-haired man and the freckled woman were the Marquess and Marchioness of Rutherford. Lady Rutherford blinked when she heard Augusta’s name. “Widmore. As in, Sir Edmund Widmore?”
Augusta smiled. “Indeed. He was my father.”
“And a dear friend to my uncle, Sir Frederick Farrington. Uncle spoke ever so highly of him.”
She nodded. “Thank you, my lady.”
“You are from Hampshire, yes?”
“Indeed.”
“She owns a cottage there, Charlotte,” Lady Tannenbrook interjected. “Isn’t that lovely? When I lived in Cheshire, I dreamt of having a cottage of my own. On a little lake. Surrounded by pines. Oh! And bluebells.”
Lady Rutherford’s smile was wry and affectionate. “Viola, you now have an entire village full of cottages.”
Extraordinary blue eyes rounded. “Yes, but not of my own. They belong to the villagers.”
Lord Rutherford’s sensual lips quirked. “I’d wager Tannenbrook would build you your own castle and dig you your own lake, were you to mention it.”
Lady Tannenbrook beamed, her eyes sparkling brightly. “Yes,” she sighed. “With his own hands, too. How I do love that man.”
It had been years since Augusta had witnessed such naked adoration between husbands and wives, particularly among the nobility—not since her mother’s death, in fact. She’d begun to suspect her parents had shared a bond unique in the world, and that the norms of marriage were far less loving.
These two couples proved her wrong. Additionally, she’d expected them to shun her. She had, after all, arrived as an unmarried woman with an unmarried man, and they had no chaperone. Lady Tannenbrook knew very well she was living with Sebastian. Both couples should be scandalized by the whole affair.
But they were not. They were friendly. Kind.
Augusta did not understand it in the slightest.
Next, she and Lady Tannenbrook moved on to greet Lady Wallingham, who gave a superior nod and commented upon Augusta’s “remarkably bold choice of gown, my dear. One wouldn’t wish to be missed in a crowd, would one?”
Last, Augusta was introduced to the trio of young women. And the moment their names were spoken, a bell of recognition clanged so loudly in her mind, she scarcely heard another word.
Miss Lydia Chipperfield.
Lady Maria Fitch
Miss Cecilia Eversley
Every one of them had been on Lady Tannenbrook’s List of Prospective Brides for …
Elijah Kilbrenner.
Elijah.
Kilbrenner.
Augusta slowly turned, finding Sebastian standing near the drawing room doors, speaking with Lord Tannenbrook. They looked like brothers.
More to the point, Sebastian looked like a Kilbrenner.
And Lady Tannenbrook had mentioned Elijah when they’d entered.
Oh, God.
“Lady Tannenbrook?” Augusta murmured as the trio of prospective brides wandered toward the pianoforte. “Who is Elijah Kilbrenner?”
The beauty blinked, her thick, dark lashes fluttering, her flower-petal lips an O of surprise. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Elijah is there, speaking with my husband.”
Augusta swallowed against sudden nausea as her eyes went to him. He stared back at her, unblinking, as though he’d been watching her every movement with great vigilance.
“No, I meant …” She was awash in ice. “Who is he to your husband?”
“Oh! He is James’s second … no, third … no, second cousin. Or, perhaps third. Oh, what does it matter? I am certain Lady Wallingham could tell you, as she knows a great deal about these sorts of distinctions. The point is, Elijah is James’s heir presumptive, though he resists it mightily. Their grandfathers were brothers, you see. Elijah’s grandfather moved his family to the American colonies some years ago. Following the war, Elijah’s parents were a bit disenchanted with the cause of independence, and they returned to England. Then Elijah was born, somewhere in Cumberland, I believe. He is most reluctant to discuss it.” Lady Tannenbrook sighed. “His parents and infant sister perished in a fire. Dreadful thing. Elijah survived, of course, but … well, the circumstances of his early life were harrowing, as you might imagine.”
Presumptive heir. Sebastian Reaver was Elijah Kilbrenner, the presumptive heir to a peerage. An earldom, no less.
Far from being a lowborn ruffian, or even a bastard, he might one day inherit a title. Good heavens, his blood was nobler than hers.
He could never marry her, a disgraced spinster from Hampshire. She blinked as the light in the room seemed to dim. He must marry a lady of quality, a woman worthy of being a countess.
Miss Lydia Chipperfield.
Or Lady Maria Fitch.
Or Miss Cecilia Eversley.
“Miss Widmore.”
What had she been thinking? She’d fallen in love with him. She’d given her heart to him. She would have given her body to him, had he not stopped her again and again.