Page 53 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
“It would be my greatest pleasure.”
Silence fell at the table. Lady Elizabeth allowed her eyes to drop once more. Her skin glowed, giving her a strangely angelic look. Lord Linfield had the itch to stretch his hand across the table and rub his finger across her cheek. How soft it must have been. How feminine.
“But not under my own name,” Lady Elizabeth said with finality, again shoving her fork through another Brussels sprout. “I don’t think the world is ready to give any credit to a woman of my past. Ha. Too complicated, I should say.”
Lord Nathaniel ached to ask her the precise story. He opened his lips, waiting for the question to tumble out. But then, Irene bolted through the space, beginning to discuss some sort of “wretched” writer who used to work for The Rising Sun. “You really can’t imagine a worse writer,” she tittered. “This Marvin Tillman, my goodness.”
“Marvin?” Lord Linfield said, remembering the bumbling man at one of the speeches. He felt the conversation driving far from the topic he so craved. It touched upon other writers at The Rising Sun, on what Everett was currently reading, on what Lord Linfield would do to celebrate when he learned that he’d gotten the seat at Parliament.
In the back of his mind, Lord Linfield knew that Lady Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to take the conversation away from her private affairs. But this meant that if Lord Linfield was ever going to make her his wife (if that was truly what he wanted), then he was going to have to ask these questions of her himself, personally. Perhaps in more of a private setting.
Hours later, after dessert had been served—a wild helping of whipped cream atop cinnamon apples—Lord Linfield and Lord Beauchamp walked the ladies back to the door to dismiss them for the evening. Everett’s voice was jocular and bouncy, speaking once more about a book that both he and Lady Elizabeth had discovered they adored. Lord Linfield’s brain was so scattered, he felt unable to listen properly. And when they reached the doorway, and Lady Elizabeth blinked those big, doe-like eyes up at him, he blurted out what was truly on his mind.
“You really must write what you wish to write, Lady Elizabeth,” he boomed.
Lady Elizabeth’s grin flickered before disappearing. The air was taut between them. Irene’s eyes turned from Lady Elizabeth, to Everett, and back again.
“If you truly wish me to do something like that,” Lady Elizabeth began. “If you truly wish me to write my mind, then I’ll ask for something in return.”
Lord Linfield felt the hesitation in her voice. He squinted at her, almost incredulous at her ability to be so terribly headstrong.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It seems she has something up her sleeve, Lord Linfield,” Everett said, chuckling. “I dare say you should be nervous.”
“Give me one final opportunity to convince you regarding your position on the Judgement of Death Act,” Lady Elizabeth said.
Nathaniel hadn't expected that. In fact, given his stirring thoughts about his feelings for Lady Elizabeth, he’d allowed himself to briefly forget about the divide between their opinions. His lips parted. But unlike other moments when he felt apt to toss out the truth of his father’s horrific death, he stopped himself. He swallowed hard, and then he said, “One final opportunity?”
“That’s right,” Lady Elizabeth said.
“What do you propose?” Lord Linfield asked.
“Meet me at my home Saturday afternoon,” Lady Elizabeth said. “I’ll have Peter send you a letter with my address.”
“Your home?” Lord Linfield asked. He couldn’t very well imagine the sort of shack Lady Elizabeth, Irene, and Peter all lived in together. He imagined it dipping deep into the mud below. He imagined it shadowed and clunky, on its last legs.
“It’s not such a terrible little place,” Lady Elizabeth said, giving him a crooked smile.
That smile made Lord Linfield’s stomach clench. It stirred the very centre of his soul. The magic of it ensured that he opened his lips and said, “Yes. Absolutely,” for how could he possibly refuse her?
When the women clipped the door shut behind them, leaving Everett and Lord Linfield alone in the foyer of his mighty mansion, Everett spun back towards him, clapped his hand atop Nathaniel’s shoulder and spewed, “She has you wrapped around her little finger, my boy.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Lord Linfield offered.
“No, my boy. No, you don’t,” Everett said. He marched back towards the staircase, tapping his hand atop the railing and flashing his fingers as he did it. “You know, that Judgement of Death Act. I was reading a bit more about it.”
“Oh?”
Everett’s face lit up with an almost clownish expression. “I feel as though it’s a dawning of a new age, Nathaniel. With us young men in Parliament, perhaps we can make real changes.” He tapped a finger against his forehead, shrugging. “Perhaps with brains like Lady Elizabeth Byrd at our behest, we can actually make decisions that alter the course of people’s lives—for the better.”
Nathaniel’s head spun with drink and confusion. He churned a finger across one of his rogue curls. “You don’t think my father did everything he could to keep the people of this country safe?”
“I think he was part of the old guard,” Everett said. “Part of the white-haired, tired men who fought for themselves and their wives and the people they saw at galas and balls. Perhaps we have a different duty, Lord Linfield. Perhaps we have to expect something more of ourselves.”
With a strange little shrug, Everett spun back up the steps. His cackle echoed down the hall, just before he disappeared into Nathaniel’s father’s study. How wretched it was that time had to continue forth, that Nathaniel and Everett were no longer the young boys allowed to scamper through the fields—their minds far from the thoughts of men or laws or Parliament seats. Then again, how marvellous it was to be given the opportunity for power.
With that power, Lord Linfield knew he was meant to make well-balanced decisions. That he had to take every mind and position and status in London, no, all of England into account.
