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...this is the ’pointed day...

“ E lizabeth!” Lord Monweithe’s voice bellowed up the stairs. “Elizabeth! Confound it, girl, hurry up! We’ll be late!”

Elizabeth returned no comment, but continued to move very slowly. It was agony to move so slowly. Her tense muscles screamed at the discipline; however, she persevered. She wanted to be late to the wedding, to force that arrogant Viscount to cool his heels while he waited upon her!

The previous week had been a nightmare. All society seemed to come to Rasthough House to offer felicitations, ogle, raise eyebrows, and whisper behind open fans and sheltering hands.

Elizabeth had refused to come down when she could, and sat stoically quiet through those visits she could not avoid.

Only once had she openly responded to the many arch questions and innuendos cast in her direction, and that had been to smile triumphantly at one particularly vicious matron with two marriageable daughters and remark graciously, “While I feel it is beneath one to bandy words and frowns,” a feeling she certainly did not feel, but rather did with a certain amount of relish, “I feel compelled to remind you that I, at least, have ended this season betrothed.” Affronted, the matron promptly quitted Rasthough House with an harrumph and dark mutterings of future comeuppance.

So relieved were all with her departure that even Lady Romella did not frown for long at Elizabeth.

Save for her small victory, she felt she was riding in a poorly sprung runaway carriage.

When the household was not besieged with visitors, Lady Romella and Helene towed her from one dressmaker and milliner to another, shopping for her trousseau.

Her father had been adamant that she should have a large and rich trousseau.

Whether that gesture was out of guilt or sincerity, Elizabeth did not venture to guess.

During these enforced shopping excursions, she followed apathetically along, merely grimacing as more and more frivolous pastel colors were purchased.

For Lady Romella and Helene, surprised by Elizabeth’s perceived docility, were soon emboldened to choose anything they themselves admired without querying her at all.

On solely two occasions did Elizabeth voice her opinion—once again quite in her old spirit—and that was in the choice of nightgowns and her wedding dress.

She refused filmy muslin nightgowns in favor of a more sturdy lawn material, and insisted on an ivory-colored wedding gown over a stark white, which she knew, while highly flattering to Helene, would cause her to appear insipid.

She stared now at the wedding gown reflected in the mirror, unconsciously stroking the fine material.

It was of ivory gauze, with silk applique petals and leaves sewn in tiers at the hem and on the puffed upper portion of her sleeve.

The bottom of the sleeve fitted snugly to her arm, fastening with ten tiny pearl buttons.

The gown’s small, high bodice was plain.

On her head Elizabeth wore a small brimmed hat of ivory silk plush, decorated with the same silk petals and leaves as were on her dress.

Attached to the brim and allowed to fall over her face to her shoulders was a sheer gauze veil, edged with tambour work.

Elizabeth, turning slightly so she could see the gown from all angles, was pleased with the overall effect.

The maid sent into her that morning by Lady Romella fussed about her, straightening a petal and seam while chattering of her mistress’s good fortune.

“And to think, my lady, one day you’ll be a Countess!

” She clucked her tongue. “Lawks a mercy, all a’ Lunnon a been buzz’n about this wedd’n.

It’s the affair of the season, that’s what they do say—even if it do seem a might unseemly in its haste,” the maid remarked ingenuously, hoping for some reaction from Lady Elizabeth that she could take below stairs.

Her chatter fell on deaf ears. Around and around in Elizabeth’s mind the one single unanswered question whirled.

Why me? She had tried to dissuade St. Ryne, had tried to show him only her nastiest side, only to find herself tongue-tied before him, impotently raging within herself.

She refused to analyze her reasons, knowing if she did so, she would discover she had met the one man who mattered.

No! she thought sharply, tossing her head, which sent the maid into another bout of clucking. No man mattered! For her sanity she repeated the litany in her mind. She wondered how late she dared be before her father stormed up the stairs.

Elizabeth fervently wished Hattie were here. Her old nurse was the only person she ever laughed with, the only person to understand her and love her unreservedly.

To be unloved was agony. She had borne it from her father since her mother’s death.

She could even say with conviction it didn’t bother her anymore.

At nineteen she had learned to accept what she could not have, though she still railed against it.

She trembled at the thought of being thrust into a new life with a man she didn’t know and who couldn’t possibly love her.

Her eyes misted, their gold lights turning to amber.

Her waspish tongue and rude attitude had developed as a young girl's ploy for attention from her father. At least if he ranted, railed, and punished her, he had to acknowledge her existence. Hattie had often lectured on the futility of such a strategy, but her words were to no avail. As Elizabeth grew older, her rudeness and cutting tongue became a habit and a defense. She learned to consider herself unlovable, for she was the one blamed for her mother’s death.

She remembered the day well—she could scarcely forget, for it was carved in her memory and often haunted her dreams. It was her fifth birthday, and nature was helping the family celebrate by offering up an unusually warm spring day.

The past winter had been particularly severe, and for a time Lady Susan Monweithe, Elizabeth’s mother, had been extremely ill and not expected to survive.

She had, nonetheless, recovered splendidly, leaving the family doctor awed and her family joyful.

As the weather was sunny and mild, it was decided Elizabeth’s birthday party would be out-of-doors; consequently, a family picnic was planned.

Her father was jolly then, tossing first her, then Helene in the air.

After lunch, he dozed in the shade of a large tree while their mother watched as she and Helene, a golden-haired toddler then, explored the edge of the lake.

Mama had warned them not to go too close; however, with youthful impetuousness they did not heed her.

While Elizabeth gathered flowers by the water’s edge, Helene squatted on an overhanging rock to watch some frogs.

From her great maturity at five, Elizabeth knew it was dangerous to get so near the water, so she jumped onto the rock to scold her baby sister.

Suddenly the rock tipped forward, and unthinkingly, she pushed her sister to shore before she tumbled backward into the water.

Though afterward she could see there had been no danger, for the water was not over her head, she panicked, and her mother ran to pull her out.

Somehow—Elizabeth was never sure how—her mother also lost her balance.

Screaming, Elizabeth clung to her like a mad thing.

Her mother tried to get up, but her long skirt tangled her legs, and Elizabeth was thrashing and kicking too much.

Her screams and Helene’s crying woke her father, and he came charging down the bank to haul his wife and daughter out of the water, just as dark clouds closed over the sun and a sharp spring wind kicked up to remind them of the season.

The drenching and the return of the cold spring weather caused Lady Susan’s illness to return.

This time she did not recover. While she was ill, Lord Monweithe banished his children to their nursery and haunted his wife’s room.

Lady Susan tried to tell him in a hoarse, cracking voice how Elizabeth had been protecting Helene.

He shushed her and begged her not to strain herself.

In the nursery, Elizabeth sobbed and clung to Hattie.

There was no calming her, for she knew something dreadful was going to happen.

Four days later, her mother passed away in her sleep.

From that day, and for many years, Lord Monweithe could not bear to look at Elizabeth.

In his mind he knew he could not blame the child for his beloved wife’s death, but in his heart he did.

As he could not reconcile his feelings, he chose to pretend Elizabeth did not exist. Over the years, though the pain grew less, his manner of ignoring his elder daughter became habit.

He ceased even to realize what he was doing.

Elizabeth’s maid was putting the final adjustments on her hat when there was a sharp rap on the door.

Before she could respond, it was flung open, banging against the wall, and Lord Monweithe angrily strode into the room.

He had waited fifteen minutes, and now they would be twenty minutes late.

Though Elizabeth wished she could be late forever for this wedding, she was resigned to the event now.

She took heart and drew strength from knowing they would be twenty minutes late to the church.