Already His (The Caversham Chronicles - Book Two) Read online

  She stamped her foot, her complete annoyance giving rise to a flourish of unladylike manners. “Damn his uncle for dying last night!”

  Beverly gasped at Elise’s invective. “The man couldn’t very well plan the time of his departure from this world, Elise.”

  She sat at her dressing table, her shoulders slumping in dejection. “I’m sorry for my selfish tirade. The old earl really was a dear man.” A pin stuck her in the waist and she pulled the offensive thing from the dress.

  Beverly nodded, “You know, that dress has turned out better than we originally thought.” Her friend eyed it closely. “But, something is still missing.” She shook her head. “Perhaps after you have your jewels and your mother’s tiara on, it will complete the effect.”

  Elise contemplated her friend’s words. The as-yet unfinished dress she planned to wear Saturday was completely conventional, and the latest fashion among her set. It gave her the appearance of a proper young lady. The lady her brother wanted her to be. She did want to please him—all of them really—and make he, Lia and Grandmother proud of her on her special night.

  The skirt was crushed white silk with rows of narrow rose-colored satin ribbons ringing the skirt up to the knee. The same colored ribbons ringed the puffed white silk sleeves at the edge. The bodice of rose-colored silk ended just below her less than acceptable bust line. It successfully created the desired effect of a more abundant cleavage than God had provided. A wide band of silk rosettes, precisely three shades lighter than the ribbons, intertwined with satin greenery at the hem of the floor-length creation. More of those same rosettes were sewn into the folds of ribbon gathered on the sleeve, and on the same material gathered between her breasts.

  Looking at herself in the mirror with a critical eye, she realized that the dress she once adored, she now hated. The exquisite, one of a kind creation from Madame Fuichard made her look just like all the other girls out on the marriage mart this season. She would be unremarkable among the herd of other chits being paraded about by anxious mamas.

  “What am I going to do, Beverly? How ever will I get him to notice me?” She stamped her foot again. “You more than anyone know I have the worst luck where Michael is concerned. Now to be forced to catch his eye while all the other unmarried ladies out there do likewise.... Why, I could never compare! I am not as pretty as they are.”

  “You are so,” Beverly argued.

  Elise cut her off, “Not to mention that he remembers every misdeed and prank I’ve executed on him since I was ten.”

  “He doesn’t know about Attila,” Beverly said with a confident smile.

  Elise remembered seeing Michael at Tattersalls that day three years ago and laughed. “No! He doesn’t know that was us, and it’s best left that way.” She began to pull pins from the dress, removing all the rosettes as her imagination began to wander. “I knew Attila was perfect for Michael when I started him under saddle. And I was right, for Michael loves that horse.” She smiled as she pulled pins from a ribbon and tossed it onto the table. “To this day, the man has no idea I was the one who trained him.”

  They were silent a moment as Elise continued removing adornments from the unfinished dress. Their eyes met in the mirror, and Beverly asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve been fretting over this for the last hour.” Elise pointed at the pile of rosettes and the ribbon from the hem she’d just pulled. “There is far too much frippery on this dress. It isn’t what I normally wear, so why pretend I like it?” Their eyes met in the mirror again. “I need a dress that reflects me. The old me and the new me. Who I have always been, and who I am today.”

  Beverly’s eyes grew wide with excitement. She smiled and nodded. “More important than a just a dress, what you need is to come up with a plan for making him take notice of you. Though nothing like you did when you were fifteen. That little act nearly got you killed and it was over a year before Michael returned to Haldenwood.”

  “I did not nearly get killed. I was barely scratched. And I never would have fallen off that trellis if it wasn’t rotted to begin with.” Elise remembered all too well how fabulous Michael looked when stripped to the waist, baring that magnificently muscled chest and back of his. She had stared, mouth agape at the beauty of him. As she felt the vines ripping away from the stone, and the remnants of the ancient trellis crumbling beneath her, her friend screamed, alerting him to her presence as she dangled from his balcony. He’d come running to the rail and looked down just in time to see her land flat on her back in the freshly weeded flower beds below.

  “Perhaps it was a little embarrassing for him, but I was duly punished.... after father ascertained I was indeed well and truly alive.” Elise closed her eyes and sighed. “I remember thinking I’d died and gone to heaven.” Meeting her friend’s blue-eyed stare, she added, “That was before I fell!”

  Beverly threw her arms up and flopped back on the mattress. “You’ve been falling for him since you were ten. One day I’m afraid you might fall too far and get hurt.” Her friend turned a worried expression to her and said, “you must, I implore you, endeavor to restrain yourself. The consequences are too severe for us now.”

  “I shall, I promise, but I need your help devising some way to make him notice the new grown-up me, and not remember the irritating little brat I was.” Elise clasped her hands together in a praying fashion and brought them to her breast. “I so desperately want him to realize that I have waited for him all these years, and I am already his.”

  “What we need is a plan,” Beverly said.

  “Yes, you’ve said that.” Elise stared at her short, mousy-brown hair in the mirror, now wishing her hair were longer, her face prettier, her features more feminine, and her nearly non-existent bosom, more full and lush. Anything so he would see her as a beautiful, desirable woman. Michael was so perfect in her eyes that he deserved a charming, ladylike wife. Granted, she could do nothing about her actual looks, but what about her clothes? Could her clothing help portray her in a more desirable light? A tighter fit to the bodice? A dropped waist perhaps?

  But more important than her looks and clothing, she understood it was her behavior that must be tempered. To that end, she vowed to continue to work on that part of her personality. It often felt like a sisyphian task she undertook, with the hope that one day Michael might think her worthy.

  After several minutes of complete silence while both girls contemplated the problem, Beverly leaped from the bed, startling Elise. “I’ve got it! Or, at least, I think I do.”

  Eyes closed, Beverly paced the long hand-tied Turkey rug, rubbing the bridge of her delicate nose with the thumb and forefinger. “What we want is for Michael to see you for the woman you’ve become, and not as the girl you were. Right?”

  “Yes, of course. You said as much a few minutes ago.”

  “You know me, Elise, everything has to be mapped out, the goal identified and a plan put into motion to accomplish the task.”

  “Yes, yes, you have always been the planner. But what have you come up with?” God, she hoped it wasn’t too unorthodox. With her brother overseeing every move she made, she’d never get away with anything outrageous. If she even tried, Bridget was right, he’d send her to that box of rocks he used as a hunting lodge up in Scotland for sure.

  “You must not only behave differently, but look different as well,” she said. “Stand up.”

  Elise did. Beverly walked around her. “You look just like every other chit at every other ball we’ve been to this past month.”

  Elise resisted rolling her eyes. She knew that. Hadn’t she just been thinking it all morning? Beverly tugged at Elise’s short, straight locks. “Granted, your hair is shorter than the other girls’, but it is very much the trend now that you and your sister-in-law started the fashion. Why every woman with a backbone is liberating herself of the nuisance of long hair.”

  Elise smiled at her best friend. “Yes but my hair just sit there, where your hair is fabulous, curling like it d
oes.”

  “Elise, this will become a mutual admiration session if we let it. We simply must stay on task.”

  “Right.”

  “Now, let’s start with this dress. It’s all wrong. It’s a debutant’s dress. What you want is something more... womanly. A sheath of a dress. Something that will maximize what figure you do have with less frills and flounce. Something a tad more daring. Are you following me?”

  “I believe I am,” Elise whispered, staring at the dress in the oval pier glass. “You’re right. That is what has been bothering me since I saw myself in the mirror.”

  “You need something plain, but not white,” Beverly said as she continued to scrutinize Elise’s figure and dress. “No pastels, either. The only people who wear pastels are little girls and wall flowers.”

  “I don’t think my brother will allow me to make my debut in a scarlet peignoir, Beverly.” Just because she’d been daring in the past, she had to remember her goal—to become someone Michael would desire. She wanted to be the kind of woman he would be attracted to, and proud to marry.

  “No, I shouldn’t think he would. But he needn’t know what your gown looks like does he? And what about the duchess, or your grandmother? Will either of them be assisting you on Saturday evening?”

  “I suppose I could manage with just Bridget.”

  “Yes you can. Now about your dress....”

  After several more minutes of staring into the mirror, Elise and Beverly concluded the current dress just would not do. So they sketched a design for a new dress. A dress that was sure to catch the eye of every man in attendance. Most hopefully, the new Earl of Camden.

  “What if we’re wrong?” Elise asked. She realized, for the first time, that this feeling of doubt was foreign to her. If the stakes weren’t so high, she’d throw caution to the wind and go with her heart. “What if this backfires? This is my entire future we’re placing in the hands of a modiste.”

  “This will work, Elise. There is nothing in this design that is unorthodox. The dress is not immodest in any way. It is simply... simple. Which allows you to shine as the jewel you are. This,” her friend pointed at their sketch, “Lord Camden, will appreciate. I promise you.”

  Elise pulled her bell cord and Bridget, Madame Fuichard and the seamstresses returned. Elise showed Madame the sketch and asked if it could be ready by Saturday afternoon, five days away. Madame looked about to faint, declaring the task impossible in the few days before her big ball.

  “This is a not a dress fit for a young mademoiselle making her debut to the world. This.... This ‘creation’ is perhaps something fit for a married woman wishing to court scandal.”

  “My lady,” Bridget stated, “One look at ye, when you come down to dinner in that, and they’ll be sending you right back up here to change into another gown.” The servant shook her red curls while she studied the drawing. “Ye won’t get away with it, I tell you.”

  Then it hit her. Why not two dresses?

  She took Beverly aside and asked, “What do you think about changing gowns? I mean to have one for dinner and another for the ball.”

  “Well,” Beverly mused, “as I see it, your biggest obstacle is your maid. We can’t have her leaking our secret. Then, all we need to do is calculate the time it would take to come upstairs after dinner, change, then reappear in the receiving line. We cannot do it without Bridget’s help.”

  Elise nodded then turned back to the modiste. “Could you do both?”

  The modiste looked from Bridget to Elise. “There simply is not enough time to find the material and sew another new dress.”

  Not about to let her plan be defeated, Elise gave a winsome smile to Madame Fuichard, then added, “I have enormous faith in you and your assistants, Madame. But, if you don’t think you can do it, would you be upset if I ask Madame Robillard if she could squeeze me into her busy schedule?”

  Madame closed her eyes tapped her pencil on the dresser. Elise could sense the other woman’s agitation with her. “I shall pay you handsomely Madame, if you could make this dress also. I truly do not wish to go to another modiste.”

  “If I do it,” the other woman said with some reservation. “I will need to hire two more seamstresses to have just your two orders completed in time.” The modiste studied the sketch closely, saying, “The dress appears simple and easy to make, and we already have your measurements. We would need the fabric selection.”

  Elise clapped her hands together and grinned. “Wonderful! We shall go shopping for new fabric this very minute. Unless Madame has something suitable for this design, in a color to complement my complexion already in her shop?”

  The woman returned Elise’s smile, either because of the opportunity to double her fee, or because she instinctively loved the idea of being known as dressmaker to this sister of a duke. “It just so happens I received a bolt in my latest shipment from the east. In fact, it is so newly arrived I have not even cut into it. It is a dark ivory silk, the color will be a perfect highlight for your hair, skin and eyes, and because you are so willowy and graceful, you will carry this masterpiece with exceptional flair. There will be none to match you on this night or the rest of the season, Mademoiselle.”

  “I wish to purchase the entire bolt, as I trust your judgment completely, Madame. Now, if you could create this dress,” she held up the sheet of heavy vellum, “for me alone, you will have my gratitude, as well as exclusivity as my dressmaker for the rest of the season.”

  This seemed to please Madame immensely, and she assured Elise she would have both dresses for her to try on in two days.

  Later, as the women gathered their belongings to leave the chamber, Elise reminded them of the need for secrecy. The last thing she needed was her brother getting wind of her intention and somehow foiling her plan.

  Once she closed the door behind them, she turned to her friend and said, “That went very well, don’t you think?”

  Beverly smiled and nodded. “I do. Michael will hardly be able to dismiss you once you appear on the landing wearing that dress. His eyes will be riveted on you the entire night.”

  Early Saturday morning, hoping to avoid the amazingly organized chaos that was the preparations for her ball, Elise and Beverly headed out the front door after breakfast, prepared to go for their usual ride in the park. Unlike other young ladies, Elise and Beverly actually rode to enjoy their horses, not to be seen.

  “Thank you, Niles,” Elise said, as the butler held the door open.

  “Yes, thank you, Niles,” Beverly added right behind her.

  “It would not be remiss of me to remind you ladies of the evening ahead.”

  “How can I forget, dear Niles,” Elise replied, “My stomach is roiling because of nerves as it is. I’m hoping this ride will calm them so I can eat something before tonight.”

  Niles watched over the ladies as they waited for the grooms to come up with their horses. But before the grooms arrived, a familiar dark green carriage bearing the gold-inlaid Camden crest pulled in front of the Upper Brook street home of the Duke of Caversham. A groom hopped down, opened the door and lowered the steps, and out stepped the man Elise had fantasized about since she was ten years old. At that time, her papa had just married Amelia and her brother was away at school. Often when her brother returned home he had Michael in tow, and that’s was how she became acquainted with him. But it was the evening of her father’s wedding celebration that she fell in love with him. As soon as she realized she wanted to marry him, Elise did what any little girl would do to force an unwilling young man to come up to scratch—she held his horse hostage by hiding it in another barn until he agreed to marry her.

  Michael removed his hat as he ascended the steps. His cocoa brown hair was slicked back as though he was fresh from a bath. Those familiar greenish-brown eyes, set wide on his face under a strong brow, held an amused twinkle this morning. The grin turning the corners of his well-formed wide lips upward was most contagious. Elise’s fingers just itched to trace
his fine features, including the faint cleft in his chin. Even though he had a tiny ‘v’ shaped scar on his cheek from some childhood accident, he looked too devastatingly handsome for his own good.

  And it bothered Elise that he knew she thought him handsome. Though she hadn’t told him so recently, she had told him just that in the past. She remembered the day many years earlier, when she’d gone into the barn to find an angry Michael waiting on his horse. She told him he was too handsome to go through life scowling. He said nothing to her, just mumbled at her as he took his horse’s reins and left.

  Today he smiled. Which irritated her. Though in his favor, everything was irritating her on this day, and knew she really needed to temper her thoughts before getting on her horse. The excitable little mare was doing well, and Elise really didn’t want to end up on the ground because she couldn’t control her own emotions.

  Michael’s light gray fine wool coat bore a black velvet mourning arm band to match the collar. The fabric stretched across his shoulders as though it was pasted onto his broad back. A silver satin waistcoat adorned with onyx buttons hugged his trim waist. Her breathing stilled as she could almost imagine him unbuttoning them, to relax over a game of cards or chess. What she wouldn’t give to have him relax in such a manner with her.

  Even in mourning, this man looked every bit the handsome rogue. His buff-yellow nankeen breeches looked as though his well-muscled thighs were poured into them, without a wrinkle in sight. She surmised that his fine boots probably took his valet hours to polish to their mirror shine.

  She tried—really, really tried—to appear bored and disinterested in his presence, even so far as feigning interest in the traffic on the street. Elise knew she more than likely was not succeeding.

  He came up and greeted them. His smile warm and genuine.

  Beverly curtsied and said, “Good morning, Lord Camden.”