Anna held her spoon suspended over her dish and considered. “He is good-looking,” she said, “and very attractive, I believe. It is hard, though, when you have known a man all your life, to see him dispassionately. But oh, goodness, Lizzie, I have done all the talking even though the meal is almost at an end, and even I know that that is bad-mannered. What about you? Do you have any beaux? Do you hope or even plan to remarry?”
“No, probably not, and no,” her cousin said, and laughed. “Though the very fact that I am in London this year for the Season may mean that the probably not might be perhaps not. You are looking thoroughly confused. I did not have a happy marriage, Anna. In fact, it was worse than unhappy and it has made me skittish. It could be said, of course, that at the age of thirty-three I would make a far wiser choice than I did at the age of seventeen, when I fell head over ears in love with good looks and charm. But to be fair, I saw more in Desmond than just those things. He was a man of property and fortune. He was amiable and mild-mannered and kind. He loved his family and friends. Perhaps strongest in my defense is the fact that my mother and father liked him and approved his suit. I could not have known what actually being married to him would be like, and it is that fact that frightens me whenever I meet a personable and eligible gentleman and am tempted to encourage a courtship.”
“He drank?” Anna guessed.
“He drank,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “Everyone drinks, of course, and almost everyone drinks to excess once in a while. It is rarely a greater problem than the embarrassment of the fool one can make of oneself when in one’s cups. He did not even drink very often. He would go weeks without. And often when he did drink, he would just grow merry and funny and be the life of the party, if there was a party. But sometimes there was a moment—it was always when we were alone together—when I would know he had crossed some line into becoming something or someone else altogether more ugly. There was something about his eyes—I cannot even describe it, but I would recognize it in a moment. It was as though he had been sucked into a dark hole, and then he would become viciously abusive. I could not always escape in time before he became violent.”
“I am so sorry,” Anna said.
“He was the loveliest man when he was sober,” her cousin said. “Everyone loved him. Almost no one ever saw the dark side of him. Except me.” She closed her eyes for several moments, drew an audible breath, and pressed clasped hands prayer fashion against her lips. But she did not continue. She shook her head, opened her eyes, and attempted a smile. “But let us not be gloomy. I cannot bear those memories or the thought of inflicting more of them upon you. Shall we go to the drawing room?”
“It is such a vast, uncozy room for just two people,” Anna said. “Come up to my sitting room instead. It is very pretty and the chairs and sofa look comfortable, though I have not had any time to spend there yet.”
They settled there a few minutes later, each in a soft, upholstered chair. A servant came and lit the fire.
“I could grow accustomed to luxury,” Anna said after the servant had withdrawn. “Oh, I suppose that is what I will be expected to do.”
They both laughed.
“Why did you say,” Anna asked, curling her legs to one side of her on her chair and hugging a cushion to her bosom before realizing that this was probably not the way a lady ought to sit, “that the responsibilities of being the Earl of Riverdale would be burdensome to your brother? It must be very grand to be an earl.”
“I love Alex dearly,” Elizabeth said, taking her embroidery out of the bag she had brought up with her. “He deserves every good thing that could happen to him, and I had high hopes for him just a few days ago. But now all this has happened and I am not sure he will be happy after all—and not just because he feels terrible for Harry.”
Anna watched as she threaded a length of silk through her needle and bent her head over her embroidery frame.
“As the Earl of Riverdale, for example,” she continued, “Alex will be expected to take his seat in the House of Lords, and because he can never take responsibility lightly, he will feel obliged to be here each spring when Parliament is in session. He does not enjoy London. He came this year just to please Mama and me, though he did admit too a few days ago that he intended to take the opportunity of being here to look about him for a bride at last, for someone to complete his life.”
“Can he not still do that?” Anna asked. “Is he not even more eligible now than he was? Surely there must be any number of ladies who would be only too happy to marry an earl.”
“But would they also be happy to marry Alex?” Elizabeth said. “I want someone to marry the man, not the title. Someone who will love him. Someone he will love.”
How wonderful it must be, Anna thought, to have grown up with a real brother and such obvious affection. But she had Joel. And really she wanted the same things for him as Elizabeth wanted for Cousin Alexander.
“Alex has always lived more for other people than for himself,” Elizabeth said. “He has always had what Mama sometimes calls an overdeveloped sense of duty. And now, just when he seemed to have his head above water, along has come this deluge.”