A Phantom Affair (25 page)

Corey sat on the sill of the largest window in Marian's parlor and watched as Marian welcomed each guest wearing a triumphant, but slightly baffled smile. He shook his head in amazement. This match must have been the cause of her distress last night, but now she acted as if she should take full credit for arranging it. Marian Herrold would never change.

He could understand everyone's amazement. A match between Edie and Lorenzo? It seemed too ludicrous even to consider. She was a vibrant, beguiling woman, and his cousin was … dull. Corey could think of no other, more flattering description. As soon as he had a chance to speak with her, he intended to discover if she had devised this as a ploy to keep Kenneth Pratt away. He could conceive of no other reason why she would wish to pretend to agree to buckle herself to his cousin.

If only he had been able to speak with her last night, then he might be able to enjoy this much more. He had to give Edie credit. This was an inspired idea, and it would tweak Pratt's nose in the grandest style to think he had lost Edie to timorous Lorenzo.

“Yes, I knew it from the moment I first saw them together,” Marian said to a dowager who had been driven more than ten miles to bring her felicitations. “I believe it is a match made in heaven.”

“Close, but not quite,” Corey mumbled.

A low murmur swept through the room, and he looked toward the door. He could not keep from smiling as he feasted on the sight of Edie. In her simple white muslin gown with its short sleeves ruffled to complement the ruching at the modest neckline, she could have been an angel.

She seemed overmastered by the reception of Marian's score of guests. When he saw her glancing about the room, he knew she was searching for him. He was not tempted to materialize enough so she could see him. The questions he needed to ask her were not for now. She could not answer him when she was surrounded by the callers.

It would be better if he took himself off to another place in the house and waited for a chance to speak with her alone. Then he would learn the truth he dreaded hearing.

Ellen flinched when her eyes caught a flash near the huge window at the far side of the room. Her hope that Corey would appear came to naught. His absence unsettled her more than she had guessed, but some sense that had no name told her he was still nearby. For now, that must be enough.

“Thank you, Mrs. Henning,” she said to the dowager who was smiling so broadly Ellen would have thought the betrothal was all Mrs. Henning's idea. “I am pleased as well.”

“Where is she?”

Ellen spun about at the shout. Her eyes widened when Mr. Pratt stormed across the room like a hurricane, leaving a jumble of shocked women in his wake. He was dressed in riding clothes, which, as always, were cut to flatter his muscular build. His face was creased with a fierce frown.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pratt,” she said, not letting him daunt her.

“What are these loud ones I have been hearing?” he demanded.

Marian inched forward to say, “Kenneth, my dear boy, you should sit and talk more quietly with us. There is no need to shout.”

“There isn't?” he bellowed. He jabbed a finger in Ellen's direction. “
My fiancée
is rumored to be marrying another man.”

“I am not your
fiancée,
” Ellen replied with quiet dignity.

“I asked you to marry me last night.”

“You assumed, as you should recall, that I would marry you.” She clasped her hands in front of her to keep them still. If she flung them about and released the frustration within her, it would solve nothing. “You never asked me, Mr. Pratt.”

“A technicality. You know you would prefer me to Wolfe.”

“Then 'tis odd, isn't it, that I agreed to wed him?”

Mr. Pratt sputtered something, too angry to make sense. He slammed his fist into a table, making several of the figurines dance wildly. “Then you leave me no recourse. I shall take up this matter with Wolfe directly.”

“How?” she asked, caution warning her not to infuriate him more.

“If he wants you, let him prove it.”

“He did,” Marian averred stoutly, “by asking Ellen to be his bride.”

Mr. Pratt's lip curled. “I was thinking more about a battle of honor.”

All the women gasped as if in a chorus. Mrs. Henning put her hand to her forehead and collapsed back against the cushions of the settee.

Ellen glared at Mr. Pratt before rushing to call for
sal volatile
to bring the old woman back to her senses. She ignored Mr. Pratt's continuing petulance as she watched the footman put the horrible salts beneath Mrs. Henning's nose. The old woman awoke with a gurgling gasp.

“Marian,” Ellen asked softly, “will you watch over Mrs. Henning while I acquaint Mr. Pratt with the absurdity of his suggestion?”

“Absurd?” Mr. Pratt stared at her in disbelief.

“Go home,” she said as she faced him. “I have suffered too many of your childish tantrums. I pity the poor woman who finds herself in such need for money that she will wed you.” He started to retort, but she went on, “Go home.”

“I shall—”

“Nonsense!” Marian was recovering her composure. “Kenneth, you shall do nothing, save listen to Ellen. Your mother should be calling within the hour. Think how she will feel when she discovers you have been acting like this.” A sly edge entered her voice. “You would not want her to suggest to your late father's barristers that you are too childish to handle your father's money, would you?”

“Lady Herrold, I—”

Again she cut him off, wagging her finger at him as if he were no more than a child. “Heed this for your own good. That money will come to you when you are wed … and when your mother deems you adult enough to handle it.”

Ellen stared at Marian. That small fact Marian had failed to mention previously. She wondered what else Marian had not told her. Not that it mattered now, for she had no intentions of speaking with this lout again.

Mr. Pratt opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He strode out of the room. A dozen voices spoke at once, but Ellen listened to none of them as she slipped out another door.

She hurried down the dark corridor and out into the summer sunshine. Mayhap its warmth would burn away the ice around her heart. As it scorched her hair, she realized she had neither a parasol nor a bonnet. She did not care if she was seared as red as a soldier's coat. She needed time to gather her thoughts.

Her breath strained against her side when she stopped by a low, undulating stone wall. She sat on the stile steps and stared at her dusty slippers.

“So dreary?”

Ellen looked up in shock and saw Lord Herrold's smile. “Where are the dogs?” she blurted before she could halt herself. She never had seen him without one or more in tow.

He pointed across the field on the far side of the lane. Straining her ears and eyes, she could pick out the distant forms of the pack and heard their yelps.

“I hired a huntsman to complete their training,” he said as he sat beside her. Pulling a pipe from beneath his black coat that was sprigged with twigs and leaves, he lit it. Smoke encircled his head before drifting away on the breeze. He balanced his pipe in his hand as he gazed across the rolling hills. “I know many think I am an air-dreamer, concentrating only on developing a fine line of hunting dogs.”

“I—”

His chuckle interrupted her. “You do not need to demur, Ellen. We both know the truth of what is said when folks believe I'm not listening. Mayhap they are right. I spent the first two decades of my life doing exactly as everyone expected, and I was miserable. For the past ten years, I have done as I wished, and I am happy.”

“Then you are a lucky man.”

“No, I am a fool.”

She stared at him in shock. “To do as you wish?”

“No, to have let the canons of society rule me for so long.” He smiled. “Fortunately, Marian clings to them fervently, so we are not ostracized. As lief, I am considered an eccentric block. Not a bad arrangement in retrospect.” Without a pause, he said, “I hear you have agreed to wed Lorenzo Wolfe.”

“He has asked me, and I told him yes.”

“Is it what you really want?”

“It is a good match.”

His smile returned. “That sounds like Marian and all those purveyors of the canons of propriety. I would like to hear what you think. Is it what
you
really want?”

Ellen faltered on her answer. Lord Herrold was correct. She had dismissed him as a moonling without a thought, save of his dogs, in his head. She would not make that mistake again.

“Lorenzo is a kind man, and we share a love of poetry,” she said.

“Marriages have succeeded with less in common.” He puffed on his pipe. “I simply wished to be certain you were not looking for a way to heal your heart after the loss of Corey in that horrible accident.”

“Lorenzo and Corey are two very different people.”

“True.” He set himself on his feet. “You seem to have thought this matter through, so I offer you my felicitations. Marian is so pleased you will be remaining here in the shire.” He looked across the field. “Blast! Excuse me, Ellen,” he threw over his shoulder as he ran across the lane and leaped over the wall as if he were half his age.

Ellen rose to see Lord Herrold working with his huntsman to keep the dogs from jumping over another wall to enter a field where sheep were bleating in terror. With a smile, she strolled back to Herrold Hall. This would be her life for the rest of her days. A quiet, country existence where the crises would be small ones as would the times of happiness. If she could not have a life with Corey, it was an acceptable substitution.

That was a lie.

She blinked back tears as she went into the Hall. When had she started being false with herself? Nothing would replace the life she wished she could have with Corey. Everything else would be a colorless dream.

Ellen went up the stairs and opened the door to her room. Lord Herrold's insight had unsettled her assumptions more than she wanted to own. Everything she had deemed to be true was being undermined.

When a low radiance appeared in the chair by the hearth, she breathed, “Corey! Where have you been?”

He did not rise. “I thought it would be wiser if we were alone when we spoke about your betrothal.”

“Then why didn't you come to me while I was outside?”

Slowly he stood. “There is a heaviness about me of late, Edie. I cannot wander about as I once did.”

“But you are a ghost! There should be nothing heavy about you.”

“No?” He put his hand to his chest. “The heaviness is here. Do you know its cause?”

“I fear 'tis I.” Her fingers trembled as she fought to keep tears from filling her eyes.

“How could you do anything to harm me? I do own you have looked at me with such fury I knew, had I been alive, you would have wished me dead.” He chuckled, but it was a weak shadow of his usually booming laugh. He grew somber again as he said, “Sit down so we might talk.”

Ellen glanced at the pillows piled at the top of her bed. How she longed to lean back on them while they laughed together as they talked about anything that might come into their heads! That camaraderie was gone, banished at the very moment she told Lorenzo she would be his wife.

She sat on the window bench where he often had appeared. When he lowered himself slowly to the chair she had come to think of as his, she bit her lip to keep in her moan of despair. He moved as slowly and stiffly as an old man. Something was drawing the last bits of life from him so swiftly he was fading before her eyes.

“Corey, I wished to tell you last night,” she whispered.

“About you and my cousin.”

“Yes, but you were not here.”

He smiled sadly. “Edie, do not look like the wandering wife who has been caught cuckholding her husband. You have done nothing wrong by considering Lorenzo's suit.”

“It is more than considering.”

Pain flashed across his face. “I feared that was so when Marian welcomed all of her cronies for a celebration.” He took a deep breath, then released it. “So you will wed Lorenzo?”

“He cares deeply for me, Corey.”

“And do you love him?”

“I care deeply for him.” She hoped he would forgive her for embellishing the truth. She did care for Lorenzo, but love? No, she could not give Lorenzo her love, for her heart did not have a yearning to belong to him.

“I see.”

She waited for him to say more, to say anything, although she doubted if there was anything he could say.

When he smiled, it was with irony. “Who would have guessed that my attempt to play the matchmaker would end with you becoming Lorenzo's wife? Mayhap it was, as Fenton would say, your fate to become Lady Wulfric. As Lorenzo presently holds that title, you must be his wife.”

“I thought this was what you wished.”

“Aye, so did I.” He stood. His smile was as forced as the lightness of his voice. “See? I have done as I pledged. I found you a husband, a task that others have despaired of accomplishing. What would Marian say if she ever learned that I have bested her yet again?”

“She was not pleased by the match.”

“No?” He lifted a single brow. “I had not thought Marian and I would ever agree on such a thing. Lorenzo is the wrong man for you, Edie.”

“Who would you have me marry?” She jumped to her feet. “Would you have me marry Mr. Adams or Mr. Pratt?”

“There are others.”

“How many,” she asked, her voice rising, “must I parade myself before like a horse being sold at a fair? Lorenzo is a kind man. He does not want to marry me so he can get his father's money.”

“Edie—”

“No! You will listen to
me
for once!”

“Lower your voice. Everyone in Herrold Hall is listening to you at the moment.”

Fury gripped her. How dare he admonish her when he could shout as loudly as he wished and the only one to hear him was her! “Why can't you understand? I have good reasons to marry him.”