Page 98 of A Single Obsession

“If she doesn’t believe you care for her, she might suppose she’s doing you a favour.”

Beau looked at him blankly.

“Try to see it from Eliza’s point of view. With the money from the wager, you have no immediate need for your inheritance. She overheard you say you were forced into marriage and thinks you had no intention of proposing until Romeo was stolen. If she believes you don’t wish to be married, she may be giving you what she assumes you want.”

“And what’s that?”

“Freedom.”

As Ant’s words sunk in, Beau remembered all the times he had said as much to his friend and, worse still, to Georgiana. If she had relayed this to her sister, it was no wonder Eliza struggled to trust that he really wanted to marry her.

“She knows you could not cry off, so she’s done it for you.”

“My brave girl. How wrong she is. I must go to her, talk to her, make her understand.”

Beau jumped up from the breakfast table and called for Carrick.

“I can’t visit her dressed like this. Not that Eliza would mind,” he said with a slight smile, “but it is not suitable for paying a morning call on a countess.”

He disappeared into his bedchamber and exchanged his buckskins for a pair of buff pantaloons. Carrick passed him a cravat, and he attempted to tie it, but he botched the first attempt and had to discard it. His second fared no better, and after a third failure, he gave up and put himself in the hands of his valet. In his agitated state, he seemed incapable of tying his neckcloth in any style that would not proclaim him to have been drunk when he tied it.

“May I suggest your coat of blue superfine, my lord?”

Beau nodded and allowed Carrick to ease him into it, but after a moment, he changed his mind and asked for his dark green jacket of Bath coating instead. Five minutes later, he rejected that one, and tried on another, and in the end, he reverted to the blue superfine that his valet had suggested.

“You can’t call on Lady Castleford at this hour, Beau,” Anthony said. “They won’t have finished breakfast.”

“But I can’t sit around doing nothing. I’ll walk there.”

“You’ll still be too early.”

“I can wait.”

Not all Ant’s warnings could deter him from setting out and it was not yet eleven when he arrived at Warren House and rang the bell.

As Lord Castleford’s butler opened the door, Beau’s heart thumped so loudly he thought the entire street could hear.

Would Eliza let him apologise, or had he lost her forever?

The uncertainty was agony.

Chapter 43

Beau’s heart sank as the butler informed him the ladies were not at home to visitors. He couldn’t even leave his card to say he’d called, as he had left his card case in one of the coats he had discarded earlier.

He retreated from the door with all the dignity he could muster, balling his fists in his frustration. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t stomach returning to his lodgings without seeing Eliza.

Hyde Park was nearby. He would go for a walk until he could call again.

It was not busy at that hour, and he was dismayed when a landau drew up beside him, emblazoned with the Earl of Harting’s crest.

He gritted his teeth and turned to face the last person he wanted to see.

“Good morning, Mother. How unexpected. I thought you were still in Alton.”

“Come and sit with me, Beaumont,” she said to him, as if he were a boy of six instead of a grown man. Accustomed to obeying his parent’s wishes, it did not occur to him to refuse. He had nothing to do for the next hour anyway, so he might as well do what she asked.

He climbed into the carriage and sat down opposite her.