“In that case,” Eleanor said, “I shall be very pleased to accompany you, Mr. Ormston.”
“How was it?” Anne demanded the moment Eleanor entered the house. “Oh, I can see from your face that it went well! You look happy again!” She pulled her into her arms. “You see? Men really are quite interchangeable. A woman merely needs to find the one who promises to adore her without being too irritating.”
Eleanor smiled at her. “He asked me to accompany him to a chess exhibition tomorrow.”
“Well, better you than me,” Anne said. “How utterly tedious. You didn’t talk about chess with Mr. Ormston, did you, Eleanor? He won’t like it when he finds out how good you are. Men never like being beaten at games. If you play, you’ll have to fudge it.”
“I can do that,” Eleanor said, and disappeared, rather dreamily, up the stairs.
Mr. Ormston’s landau appeared the next afternoon, promptly at two. “I’m really not sure about this person,” her mother said fretfully. “Anne, if you don’t get away from the window, I shall bar you from this house. You’ll have to ask him to tea, Eleanor. You can’t continue to see this gentleman whom we haven’t met.”
“Oh, but you have met him, Mother,” Eleanor said.
“I’m quite sure I have not!” the duchess retorted.
“It was some years ago…but of course one must make allowances for one’s memory as the years pass.”
The duchess threw her a glance of total revulsion. “I suppose I met the man. Ormston…it sounds vaguely familiar.”
“I assure you that you did,” Eleanor said, smiling widely.
Mr. Ormston was waiting by the landau, of course, and handed her up with the utmost courtesy. For a moment Eleanor thought that perhaps he was even courteous to a fault, but then she decided to simply enjoy it.
Hyde Park was crowded with open carriages and gentlefolk; every person in the ton seemed to be promenading, or waving from a carriage.
Mr. Ormston didn’t appear to have that many acquaintances—though he did receive a few puzzled glances—but she, of course, saw many friends.
“The chess exhibition is on Buck Hill Walk,” he said as his landau came to a halt.
Eleanor climbed down, dropping his hand the moment her toes touched the ground, as was proper.
A few moments later they found themselves watching a chess match between a Russian gentleman and an elegantly-clad young courtier. The courtier looked up and gave a little start. “Dashed if I didn’t think for a moment that I recognized you, sir!” he said, laughing.
Mr. Ormston bowed without speaking, which was a good idea because his voice was altogether too recognizable.
The Russian gentleman looked up for a moment and then back at the board with a faint smile.
“I’m demned if I haven’t lost to you again, Potemkin,” the courtier said discontentedly.
“Surely not,” Eleanor said sweetly.
The young man took a good look at her extremely fetching walking dress, with particular attention to the low bodice, and quite visibly made up his mind to smile. He would have been surprised to learn that the exquisite lady before him considered his gesture condescending.
He rose and bowed, and even brought her gloved hand to his lips. “Alas, I am already despairing,” he said, giving a charming little shrug.
Eleanor leaned forward and said, “Queen to Rook Four, then he’ll move pawn to King’s Rook Three. You take his pawn with your bishop, he will recapture. Then you play Queen takes pawn. His King is laid open and your attack is invulnerable.”
The man blinked.
“Dear me,” Mr. Ormston said with a glance at the sun, “it’s looking alarmingly cloudy.”
The courtier sat down.
“You are a formidable opponent,” Leopold said as they walked on.
“He might still lose,” Eleanor said.
“If he misplays the attack.”
“My dear Mr. Ormston,” Eleanor cried. “Surely you jest. The moves are devious. White simply brings his pieces to bear on the denuded King, one by one.”
“I must be distracted,” he said.
Eleanor threw him a teasing glance. “My sister gave me firm instructions not to play chess with you, for I may frighten you. Are you afraid, Mr. Ormston?”
“Yes.”
They walked a pace or two and then she took his hand. “Leopold?”
He spun her off the path and behind a thick lilac hedge so quickly that she didn’t breathe. “I’m afraid, Eleanor. I’m afraid that you don’t love me as much as I love you. I’m afraid that you won’t believe me, that you’ll think I want you merely for the benefit of my children. And oh God, Eleanor, I’m afraid I can’t live without you.”
She reached out and slowly, very slowly, undid the pearl buttons on his very proper right glove. Then she peeled back the heavy gray silk—far too fine, really, for a plain Mr. Ormston—and gently pulled it off his hand.
She raised his hand, still without meeting his eyes, and kissed each finger. They trembled slightly in hers. She turned over his hand and pressed her lips to his palm. Only then did she meet his eyes. “I am not afraid, because I love you. And I will always love you. Always. Your love stands between me and fear.”
His face transformed itself—without a smile, of course. Then before she realized what was happening, he went down on one knee.
“Leopold—”
“Will you do me the inexpressible honor, Lady Eleanor, of becoming my wife?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yes, I will, I will.”
Then he was on his feet again and holding her tightly, and kissing her with that sort of passionate force that made Leopold…Leopold.
“I have a ring in honor of our betrothal,” he said some time later.
Eleanor was nestled against his chest, his arm around her.
“You may not feel it is fit for a duchess,” he said, just a touch of doubt in his voice.
She opened her eyes to find that he had pulled the glove from her left hand and was sliding a ring over her finger. It was made of pale gold, shaped into the petals of a lily, with a beautiful diamond in the center. It was neither ostentatious nor lavishly ornamental. It was the kind of ring that delicately heralded true love. It was elegant; it was subtle. It was everything the Duke of Villiers wasn’t, and Mr. Ormston was.
Tears welled in her eyes. She put her arms around his neck. “Oh, Leo,” she said, “it’s absolutely perfect.”
Had she ever thought his eyes were cold? “I could get you a marquise-cut diamond as big as—as a mouse,” he said. “If you would prefer?”
“So I could impress everyone with my glittering rodent?” She managed to smile even though tears were slipping down her cheeks. “This is utterly perfect.”
“May I speak to your father?”
She couldn’t help laughing a little. “He returns on the Saint Esprit, due to dock tomorrow, if it’s on course.”
He wiped away her tears and replaced her glove. Then they stepped out from behind the hedge and decorously made their way back to the carriage.
When Eleanor walked through her front door, she almost felt as if the past hour had not happened. Her hair was unmussed. Apparently Mr. Ormston did not believe in twisting his hands into a lady’s coiffure when he kissed her. He had kissed her…but only on the lips.