God Rest Ye Merry Spinster Page 13

  One should look her best when she’s faced with the man she loves, once she knows that she loves him.

  Surely, that was in the Spinster Chronicles somewhere.

  If it was not, she would be sure to add it in the next article that she wrote.

  She rounded the corner of the foyer, bright smile ready on her face, only to find Great-Aunt Julie and Great-Aunt Beatrice sitting in chairs and instructing a few footmen on the hanging of some greenery.

  “No, no, you simple lad,” Aunt Beatrice barked, thumping her walking stick against the floor. “What do you think it means when I say to your left?”

  Aunt Julie squawked a laugh. “He is going left, you hussy. You mean to the right.”

  “Don’t tell me what I mean, I know what I mean,” Aunt Beatrice returned. “If I wanted him to go right, I would have told him so. Now, dear boy, if you will take that end to the left, please.”

  The poor footman, knowing what was really needed, moved the end of the bough to the right, and looked at Aunt Beatrice for confirmation.

  “Exactly so, lad,” came the pleased response. “Clearly, your handsome face is not all the quality you possess.”

  “Aunt!” Elinor protested as the footman’s face heated.

  The great-aunts looked at her without surprise or concern. “What?” Aunt Beatrice replied. “Should I not give him the compliment of honesty?”

  Elinor covered her face with one hand. “Oh lord.”

  “Get that burly one we saw at breakfast,” Aunt Julie requested of Sally, the head housemaid who was standing nearby for assistance. “I want him up on the ladder next. Best backside in the estate, and I am in desperate need of the view.”

  A fit of coughing began from the three footmen before them, and Elinor pointedly turned her face into the wall. “Saints and angels, kindly plead our case before the Lord so that the whole of the family is not judged for my aunt’s eccentricities…”

  “Oh, tush,” Aunt Julie scoffed loudly, revealing the truth of her hearing abilities despite having spent years claiming to be deaf. “The Lord blesses the elderly with the freedom to speak as they will, and handsome servants with particular assets are evidence of his merciful benevolence to us.”

  “Are they indeed?” Elinor asked, turning her head to look at her aunts. “I had no idea.”

  Aunt Beatrice eyed her in return. “You seem flushed, Elinor. Are you quite well?”

  Elinor nodded and turned fully, putting her back to the wall instead. “Quite well, thank you.”

  “Of course she’s quite well, Bea,” Aunt Julie blustered as she waved a hand in Elinor’s direction. “The girl could hardly be otherwise when she’s been kissed utterly senseless by that delicious Mr. Sterling.”

  Elinor fairly hiccupped with shock. “Pardon me?”

  Her great-aunts cackled uproariously. “Oh, that was a good one, Jules!” Aunt Beatrice crowed. “A perfect dart, and right on the target!”

  “I told you!” Aunt Julie insisted, holding out a hand. “I told you. A crown, if you please, sister.”

  “Gladly!” Aunt Beatrice reached into the pocket of her skirts and withdrew an aged reticule that jingled. She stuck her fingers in and pulled out a shiny coin and placed it rather delicately in her sister’s palm. “Money well spent, and money well earned.”

  Elinor glared at them both. “I despair of you both, you know that?”

  “We do,” they said together with matching sage nods.

  “And you’re content with that?”

  “Quite,” Aunt Julie quipped, closing her fingers around the coin and waving her closed hand in the air. “Quite content.”

  Aunt Beatrice coughed into a lace handkerchief. “We’ll die one of these days, you know, and then you’ll all miss us very much.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Elinor remarked dryly. She put a hand to her flushed cheeks. “That was uncalled for, you know.”

  “Most of what we say is uncalled for,” Aunt Julie reminded her. “It’s why we say it. Besides, love, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Elinor raised a brow at that. “Don’t I?”

  “‘Course not,” Aunt Beatrice retorted. “The man is a handsome devil, and cheeky enough to keep you on your toes. And so thoughtful. He even fetched us some punch last night, in lieu of our not dancing.”

  That made Elinor smile despite the ridiculous idea of her great-aunts dancing. “Sweet.”

  “He is,” Aunt Julie agreed. “Kiss him some more, dear, and see if you can’t get him to join the family.”

  There was no explaining or excusing her aunts, and she shook her head at them. But she had also learned some of her best moments of wit from them, and it was time to give it back to them.

  “I shall do my best, aunt,” Elinor replied as she pushed away from the wall and curtseyed. “But I make no promises. He may prefer a kiss from Letitia.”

  Her aunts immediately crossed themselves, and Aunt Julie took out a hidden flask and drank a swig. “Away with you, girl,” Aunt Beatrice croaked with a laugh. “Save the man from that hag.”

  Elinor walked away, giggling to herself despite her embarrassment.

  Charlotte would like her aunts. In fifty years, Charlotte might actually be just like them, and the idea was amusing as well as terrifying.

  Elinor wandered the house a bit aimlessly, avoiding being dragged into any of the decorating that was already underway, for fear of somehow missing an opportunity to see and speak with Hugh.

  Provided he ever actually returned to the house.

  She was about to give up and return to the sister parlor or her bedchamber to mope in frustration when she heard the sound of male voices coming up from the kitchens.

  They must have entered through that door rather than traipsing around from the stables! It made the most sense, certainly, and they were not so formal at Deilingh as to have a preferred door of entry.

  What a silly thing that would have been!

  Oh, Lord, she was rambling, even in her mind.

  Calm. She must be calm.

  She forced herself to inhale and exhale slowly, her hands going to her abdomen as she did so, the steady rise and fall of her body giving her something with which she could ground herself. She had to be grounded. Hugh would be appearing with members of her family, and if she appeared in the least bit overwrought, for whatever reason, they would call her out in front of him.

  And that, she absolutely would not risk.

  Could not.

  The voices grew closer and closer, and Elinor tucked herself into the study nearest the door to the kitchens, remaining just inside so she might hear what the men might be discussing after their ride, and where they might go afterwards. She had to be strategic, after all.

  “To break them up? What a feat that would have been!” her brother’s voice said with a laugh. “A revolution, no?”

  “Precisely,” Hugh replied, his voice firm. “Something to give the men of London a chance. You wouldn’t believe the influence the Spinsters have.”

  “Interfering busybodies the lot of them,” an unfamiliar voice said in a tone she did not care for.

  Elinor felt her hands become fists at her sides. How dare they!

  “At any rate,” Hugh went on, his voice drawing closer, “the attempt failed, and Tony up and married Georgie.”

  “Quite a disaster for you, wasn’t it?” the same unfamiliar voice said with a laugh.

  No, Elinor pleaded, pressing her back against the wall of the study in agony. No, please.

  “It was indeed,” Hugh replied, the door from the kitchens squeaking loudly as it opened. “So I set my sights elsewhere. Tried various other methods of ruination. Did you see a certain article earlier in the year raging against them?”

  “I did,” the other man said. “Quite well written, if a bit heated. Oh, that was you, was it?”

  Elinor hissed through her teeth, her heart crashing through her stomach and nearly down to her toes.

  “I wrote a
s I found,” Hugh told him without much concern, or, apparently, regret. “If they could write so much against Society as a whole, why shouldn’t I?”

  “Ah, the power of the press,” Edmund chuckled. “I understood that article was quite the topic of conversation in Society for some time.”

  Someone grunted.

  “It ought to have been. It was meant to be inflammatory,” Hugh said. “They deserved it.”

  They what?

  No, this wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with. This wasn’t her darling Hugh, the one who had kissed her so passionately and with such adoration the night before. This wasn’t the man who had waltzed her beyond her dreams and gave her wings to fly.

  This was the reptile she hadn’t thought about in days. This was the monster she’d fought so violently against in London.

  This was the man she hated.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and found, to her surprise, a pair of tears leaking out from the corners and racing down her cheeks. She dashed them away at once. This was no time for that.

  “Well, I cannot wait to tell Joan,” Edmund chortled stupidly. “She’ll never believe it.”

  “Tell her whatever you like,” said Hugh. “It makes no difference to me.”

  Enough was enough, and Elinor could not bear one moment more. She wiped at her tears again and pushed off the wall, then strode out of the study, her hands still balled at her sides.

  Her brother saw her first, and something in her expression must have warned him off, for he was quick to depart with whomever they had been walking with, abandoning Hugh to face Elinor alone.

  Coward.

  Hugh saw Elinor and broke out into the sort of smile that only a few minutes ago would have had her knees buckling. Now, it only fueled the ever-growing fire within her.

  “How dare you,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

  His smile froze, then faded. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m sure you do,” she spat. She shook her head, words and emotions swirling in her mind, struggling to find their way into coherency. “I… I believed you.”

  Hugh’s brow furrowed and he took a step towards her. “Believed me?”

  She barked a harsh laugh. “You see? Even you cannot comprehend it. Why was I so foolish as to actually believe that you’d changed? That you could ever be anything but a snake in the grass.”

  It was as if she’d slapped him across the face, and she was quite tempted to do so, now she saw what that must have looked like. “What are you talking about, Elinor? I have changed. You know I have.”

  “Really?” She folded her arms, feeling as though she had just donned armor to stand her ground. “So you have changed, and yet the Spinsters deserved it?”

  He shook his head slightly, confusion radiating from him. Then his eyes widened, and comprehension erased the lines of confusion. “Oh…”

  “Yes, Mr. Sterling. Oh, indeed.” She shuddered in revulsion. “I’d say I feel betrayed, but really, I feel more stupid than anything else.”

  “It isn’t what you think,” Hugh told her as he started to move in her direction.

  She retreated at once. “Don’t come near me,” she ordered, her voice almost thundering off of Deilingh’s walls. “Don’t ever come near me again.”

  Something that looked like real pain seemed to enter his expression. “Elinor…”

  Oh, he was a talented actor. Of course, he was. He’d fooled her, hadn’t he? He had fooled all of them.

  Elinor slowly shook her head. “Despicable. Does your villainy know any depth at all?”

  “Let me explain, love,” he pleaded, his voice harsh in its rawness.

  “No,” she snapped, holding out a hand as if she could force him away by will alone. “No, sir. You’ve said quite enough already. I’ll thank you to never speak to me again, and to leave my family’s home as soon as possible. And may the devil take you on the winter roads, Hugh Sterling.”

  She grabbed the edges of her skirts and marched away in perfect high dudgeon, feeling rather towering in majesty and righteous indignation. Aside from the strange crumbling sensation in her chest and the frantic pressing of her heart against her ribs, she felt perfectly right.

  Tears began to stream again, but surely that was only due to high emotion.

  Angry tears, surely.

  Nothing else.

  That was all.

  Chapter Ten

  Some things are said to be worth the winter cold. This author will remain skeptical unless such things prove themselves. Or we do.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 2 December 1819

  It was astonishing that no one had forced her from her bedroom to participate in the Christmas Eve festivities. Her claim of a fearful headache must have been believed, which was remarkable, as Elinor rarely had even the slightest headaches.

  Had they discussed her while she hid away in her room?

  Had Hugh spread malicious rumors and lies to further his own ends?

  That would have put quite the cap on his plans to end the Spinsters.

  She shifted restlessly in her bed, tossing over, as she had been doing all night. Barely receiving a moment of sleep for the torment coursing through her, and even now, she didn’t feel herself able to relax enough to rest at all.

  The sky was beginning to lighten, she could see through her window, and it seemed pointless to pretend she would gain any respite. She sat up and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, sighing heavily.

  It was Christmas morning, and she had never felt so ill on this day in her entire life.

  She sniffled, surprised there were still tears anywhere within her, and rose from the bed, wearily moving to her bureau to find the most comfortable, drab morning dress she possessed, settling on a dull gray calico with long, thin stripes of black. Seemed rather apt for her current mood.

  Silently, she dressed, putting on sturdy black slippers and grabbing a thick, burgundy shawl before slipping out of her room and down the seemingly endless corridor of family rooms.

  Her footsteps were just as soundless as she wished; imagine having to face any member of her family after missing the entire night, not knowing if she was the topic of discussion. It would have been too much, and she undoubtedly would have found herself either dissolving into tears or lashing out in anger. Not particularly appropriate on Christmas Day, especially if they were to be attending the Christmas Day services.

  “Elinor?”

  She groaned and reached for a long tendril of her loose hair, running it through her hands over and over as she paused a step. She exhaled and glanced towards her sister, not bothering to hide how perturbed she was.

  “Emma?”

  Her sister stood there in her nightgown and wrap, one of the twins asleep in her arms. Emma gave her small smile, gentle in every respect. “May we talk?”

  “I don’t feel much like talking,” Elinor admitted, though she moved towards her older sister anyway. “At all.”

  Emma swayed a little with her dozing daughter, nodding at her. “I can understand that, absolutely. But, if you can bear it, I would like to say a few things. All you need do is listen. Can you?”

  So long as she was not about to be instructed, scolded, or insulted, she absolutely could listen to her. They had been rather close before Emma’s marriage, and it would actually be rather wonderful to sit for a moment with her older sister, even if Elinor had nothing to say.

  She nodded silently and stopped before her, leaning against the wall, reaching for her niece’s pudgy hand.

  “Yes. But only for a moment.”

  “That’s all it will take,” Emma assured her. She indicated her sitting room with a tilt of her head. “Shall we sit?”

  They moved within and sat quietly, the clock in the room ticking almost ominously.

  “I know what happened yesterday, Elinor,” Emma announced in her gentle way.

  Elinor flicked a humorless smile at her. “I thought you might. Nothing else to say to me, all things
considered.”

  Emma gave her a look, clearly choosing not to comment on the statement. “Edmund told me everything.”

  Of course, he did.

  “I’ve never been more disappointed in our brother,” Elinor murmured, shaking her head. “He agreed with everything the blackguard said.”

  “Surely, you know Edmund better than that,” Emma countered as she patted her daughter’s back. “He adores the Spinsters; he finds it all a great laugh. He would never say anything against them.”

  Elinor scowled at that. She really did know it, knew Edmund was a bit of an idiot, but no villain. “So he was merely agreeing to avoid confrontation?”

  Emma sighed as she shifted her hold on the baby, tossing her long plait over one shoulder. “Elinor, forgive my saying this, but are you really so prejudiced that you can’t see the truth in front of your face?”

  Elinor’s jaw dropped and she gaped at her sister, feeling as though her side had been lanced with the accusation.

  “Darling,” her sister went on, her tone sympathetic, “Mr. Davis had asked Hugh Sterling how he had come across the Spinsters in the first place. Hugh was obliging him by relating the tale, every nasty piece of his involvement. He denied nothing and had nothing but praise for the Spinsters.”

  “I heard them,” Elinor reminded her, wagging a finger. “He spoke of the article he wrote and said we deserved it.”

  “After which, he rolled his eyes and shook his head.” Emma tucked a strand of hair out of her face and smiled at Elinor again. “He spoke of your influence with admiration, not grudgingly. And Mr. Davis is a sarcastic man, which you would know if you had spent any time around him. He doesn’t think poorly of the Spinsters, either. He doesn’t even know them, apart from the papers.”

  Elinor chewed on her lip, her sister’s words having more an effect than she would have liked to admit. They chipped away at the walls she had thrown up the night before, and she felt those walls becoming rather unstable.