Temptation & Twilight

Such a strange observance, for she was far from a young girl. In truth, she was only a few months shy of her thirtieth birthday, and most firmly on the shelf.

If her age hadn’t turned her into a spinster, then her infirmity most certainly had. To put it bluntly, she was as blind as a bat. But Elizabeth didn’t care—not tonight. Tonight she had the strange sense that anything was possible. She had not felt that way in a long, long time, and the sensation was a welcome one. She had never wallowed in self-pity, but would be a fool not to admit there were times when she hid her true feelings behind a shield of strength and determination—a shield that was sometimes little more than a thin veneer.

But she would not think such things now. Tonight she would let herself imagine that she could be as beautiful and desirable as any woman present.

“Ah, let us stop here.”

And that lovely deep rumble was the reason for the impulsive giddiness currently ruling her. The Earl of Sheldon was escorting her about the room as if she were not an old maid, and disabled, too. It was worthy of a girlhood swoon—something the spinsterish Elizabeth would never contemplate, most especially before her peers, who, she was certain, watched her with rapacious interest as she made her way, arm in arm, around the room with the earl.

“Lovely.”

“It must be a portrait, then?”

She got the impression that they had stopped their promenade for a reason. Since she couldn’t smell any food or wine, she assumed it was not so that he could hand her a refreshment. The way he stood silently beside her, as if studying something, gave her pause, made her think that something must have caught his interest.

“Indeed. A rather interesting one.”

His voice seemed strained, and she thought she knew the reason behind it. Swallowing hard, Elizabeth felt some of the giddiness leave her. They had only been introduced, and he had asked Sussex for permission to escort the duke’s sister about the room. After Lady Lucy, her friend and companion, had most effectively catalogued the earl’s every feature, Lizzy had allowed her imagination to run rampant. Silly fool. Men like Sheldon didn’t need a blind woman hanging on their arm.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” She felt the muscles of his forearm tense under her fingertips. “I quite forgot that I am to describe the art to you. What a great clod I am.”

“It is a queer concept, I grant you,” she murmured, hating that she was right about Sheldon, “but it is the only way for me to see—through your eyes. My friends Lady Lucy and Lady Black have quite a skill with descriptions. I feel as though I can actually see when they describe something.”

She sensed his gaze studying her profile, and fought back a fierce blush. Women of her age did not blush, for heaven’s sake!

“Well, then, let me see if I can at least meet them in skill.”

Perhaps she was wrong about him, after all? Smiling, she nodded for him to proceed, while waiting to hear more of his delicious voice, and to feel again that tonight anything was possible.

“We are standing before a classic Greek portrait. Atlas, I think.”

“With the world perched laboriously on his shoulders?”

“Indeed. Zeus is in the background, floating about on his cloud throne, with an ominous lightning bolt in hand.”

“Oh, yes, I can see it now. Poor Atlas grimacing beneath his agonizing effort, and Zeus, the pompous God, snarling at his success.”

A soft chuckle whispered between them. “Yes, that’s it exactly. Oh, and did I tell you that this portrait is a classic nude? Atlas appears quite as he did upon birth.”

“Scandalous!” she teased, her mood improving by the second. “Although I won’t ask you for the description. But rest assured, I would not allow Lucy and Lady Black to get off so easily without parlaying the particulars.” A whisper of breath, a pulse—a wave of something …

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I’ve shocked you,” she said.

“No … Yes …” His voice sounded strained. “Of course not.” She heard the fabric of his coat move, and imagined him raising his arm to run a nervous hand through his hair.

And that moment was lost….

“Forgive me for speaking so bluntly,” she exclaimed. “A terrible habit, I’m afraid. I have just recently begun reacquainting myself with Society. It’s been rather more difficult than I first believed, but I had not thought my manners had deteriorated to this extent.”

He laughed. A deep, full laugh that was rich and warm. “No, it is I who must beg an apology. You did shock me, Lady Elizabeth, but I must admit, it was not in a negative way.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Oh, indeed. I think you a woman who knows what you’re about, and it’s rather refreshing. Puts a gentleman a bit behind, in a way—we’re only taught how to converse with silly young women who are searching for husbands. There is never any fun in the conversations. I usually find myself drifting off to some other time and place, I’m afraid.”

“I do that frequently, too. Tell me, what place do you drift away to?”

“The Middle East. I spent most of my childhood and youth there. Egypt and Jerusalem, mostly.”

“Ooh,” she whispered, and heard his neck crack as he whipped his head in her direction. “How I envy you. I have long dreamed of travelling to the East. I might have gone, too, with my brother, if I had not lost my sight.”

There was a period of silence—not borne of discomfort, but of thought. “If you might permit me to call on you, Lady Elizabeth, I would greatly fancy an opportunity to tell you some stories, and draw you a picture of the East through my eyes.”

She did blush then, a flush she hoped wasn’t discernible. While she tried to keep her composure, inside she was dancing for joy. Her emotions were suddenly volatile, something she never permitted herself. But then, she hadn’t allowed herself to think of a future in a long time. “I think that would be most lovely, Lord Sheldon. I anxiously await your call.”

“Will tomorrow do, or does that smack of a sort of desperation?”

“Not desperation,” she said with a smile and a slight lift of her chin. “But an eagerness to share a part of the world that few see, and even fewer Englishmen get to experience.”

“Indeed,” he murmured, and the sound slithered down her spine, awakening something dormant deep inside. Careful now, she warned. It was far too soon for feelings like this. She was being fanciful, allowing herself to be swept away. She had been impulsive and fanciful before, and it had ruined her.

“Zeus appears to be frowning even more now,” he murmured in a most becoming baritone rumble. “Do you think it a reflection upon our unseemly conversation, or is it the way our heads are bent together while we whisper?”

“Oh, dear, are we causing talk?”

She heard the smile in his words. “Talk of any sort is much better than the music we were forced to listen to tonight.”

“Do you not like Mr. Mozart?”

He shrugged; she felt the movement. “I have spent too long in the East. I prefer, I think, or perhaps I have just grown used to, the sounds of the doumbek and the darbuka. There is a haunting sensuality about it. Even having never been there, one may close one’s eyes and listen to the sounds and imagine silk veils and dancers before you. But that is a story for a visit, is it not?”

“Yes,” she said, and frowned slightly when she heard how breathless her voice was. “What is it?” she asked suddenly, aware of a sensation that swept the room. “I hear rumblings.”

“I fear that we were lost to all but our conversation.” The earl shifted beside her and Elizabeth sensed that he half turned away from her. “It appears as though the majordomo is preparing to announce someone.”

“Really?”

“Quite a character, it seems. Decked out like a marauding Scot, actually. Has an expression that would have given Genghis Khan fits of apoplexy.”

“Oh, dear,” she whispered. There was only one character of the ton who fit that description, and she wanted to be far, far away from him. “Well, I think it’s grown rather close in here, don’t you? Perhaps we should heed Zeus’s silent counsel and stroll to where a window might be cracked open, or perhaps a strategically placed terrace door?”

He was very intelligent, the earl was. He took her hand and deftly but discreetly manoeuvred her to the periphery of the room, where she could sense a door awaited their escape.

Suddenly, there was an almost violent brush of air that forced their hands apart. Then Sheldon was snatched from her side, right before she heard the thud of his body hitting something solid.

“I doona know who ye are,” Alynwick growled in his unmistakable brogue, “but yer hands are no’ where they belong.”

The earl tried to reply, but his rasping voice alerted Elizabeth to the fact he couldn’t take in air. The wave of shock from the crowd told her that the Highland beast was either choking him with his bare hands, or had thrust his arm, which she knew was as thick as a tree trunk, against poor Sheldon’s windpipe.