Luckily, the Baron was too busy staring at a beaming Lady Louisa to notice anything amiss. The young woman looked at least five times more beautiful than she usually did.
Yes, happiness will do that to a woman,Lizzie thought.
“I’m so happy for you, Lady Louisa,” she told her with a squeeze of her hand.
Louisa tearfully thanked her, and the Talbots moved away from the couple to allow others to extend their felicitations as well. Lizzie’s husband was silent for the rest of the meal, only speaking when directly spoken to, and even then without any of his usual spark and wit.
“Are you feeling all right? Did we jostle your hand this morning?” Lizzie whispered to him when they exited the dining room.
“I’m not an invalid and I’m perfectly capable of bedding my wife,” he said rather crossly, but immediately shook his head. “I apologise. I am feeling rather downcast, but at the same time, I feel like I don’t have the right to feel that way.”
“Please explain,” Lizzie urged.
He pulled her into a small room next to the dining room, which looked like another sitting room.
“The news of Waldegrave’s engagement made me realise that you never got to announce ours so happily and so proudly, and that is solely my fault. And not only that,” he said, and the tension on his face reflected all of his anguish, “I never asked for your hand and you never accepted mine, and I have only myself to blame. I am begging your forgiveness and I shall apologise for it in word and deed for as long as I live, but I am fully prepared for you to never ever forgive such a vile offence.”
“Oh, Colin…” Elizabeth didn’t know what to say.
Saying everything was all right would be a lie, as would promising him forgiveness. So she hugged him. And held him for several minutes, until she felt his tension bleed from his body and his arms wrap around her.
“Better?” She asked.
“Much. Thank you.”
“I would like to think about this and talk some more,” Elizabeth proposed, and he nodded.
They exited the small room and were soon approached by their host.
“Talbot! I was looking for you!” The Earl said. “We are all going to the stables; we were just waiting for you.”
“All right,” Talbot said slowly and suspiciously. “Let me just walk my wife to wherever she needs to go, and I shall join you.”
“Luckily, she doesn’t need to go far. All the women are still at breakfast, listening to Lady Louisa’s tale of love,” Sinclair said a little too brightly.
The two men escorted her the three steps back to the dining room, and then Sinclair practically dragged Talbot away.
What an odd man,Lizzie thought. The dining room was empty, and a maid informed that the ladies had decided to move over to the Blue Room.
“I’ve just had a letter from Sophie yesterday,” Isabella was saying when Lizzie entered. “I cannot wait to tell her about your engagement,” she told Louisa.
“How is Sophie?” Lizzie asked as she sat down. “Did she tell you the baby’s name yet?”
“Not yet, she’s an odd one, my Sophie,” Isabella smiled and then glanced at Louisa with a question in her eyes.
Louisa nodded eagerly.
“Since we’re sharing good news today, I must inform you all that after our visit to Ashbury, I shall make my way to Winchester, for my… confinement!” She announced dramatically.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Lizzie clapped her hands together, and almost everyone else in the room started talking at the same time.
When the congratulations died down, Isabella turned to their hostess and said, “Charlotte, you should come too! We can all spend some time together before I’m locked away at Winchester.”
Lizzie nodded, but Charlotte didn’t seem as enthusiastic as the two of them.
“You’re both so lucky,” she said petulantly, and somewhat despondently. “Sophie has just given my brother an heir, and you are with child.”
Silence fell across the room.
