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It was less than ideal, when Sterling wanted nothing more than to see Elizabeth again. To apologize. To grovel, if necessary.
But he also knew Grace Montrose, having been the adopted daughter of a village parson and that gentleman’s helpmate for several years after her mother died, probably knew far better than he did how Elizabeth was feeling.
“I will take your advice and wait before I visit Elizabeth. But only for one day,” he added decisively.
“Perfect,” the duchess approved. “And when you do see her, could you please ask her if I might be allowed to call upon her once she is feeling up to receiving more visitors?”
“After which, we shall invite both of you to dinner, along with the Prince Regent,” Melborne added briskly.
Sterling felt a warmth of emotion in his chest, knowing that a dinner invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Melborne, withPrinny also present, would act as a social statement to all in Society of their approval of Lady Elizabeth Marshall.
“But for goodness’ sake, make sure the first thing you tell her is what you were doing in Cornwall in the first place,” the duchess cautioned.
“It will be the worse for you if you do not,” Melborne added knowingly.
Sterling nodded. He knew how much trouble Melborne’s and Flint’s initial lack of honesty on that subject had caused between them and their future duchesses.
Whether Elizabeth wished to hear it or not, Sterling intended telling her the whole truth.
Including that he loved her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It felt strange to Elizabeth to be back in her childhood home and occupying the same small bedroom for the past two nights that had been hers through childhood. A small bed for Christopher had been brought in and placed in the corner of the room. Peggy and Mary were sharing one of the servants’ rooms in the attic.
So much had happened to Elizabeth since she lived here with her parents and younger sisters. Her elopement. Her years of marriage. The birth of her son. Thomas’s death. This past ten months of widowhood under the roof of her begrudging and vicious father-in-law.
Even when in the company of her mother, the two of them seated together in the small family sitting room, Elizabeth still felt a shiver of apprehension and fear run the length of her spine merely thinking of Whitlow.
The five days of travel by coach had been every bit as uncomfortable as Elizabeth had suspected they might, and she had fallen exhausted into a bed at an inn every night.
And for each mile they traveled and each night they rested, Elizabeth had feared the Earl of Whitlow catching up with them and demanding she return to Whitlow Grange, where she wouldonce again become his prisoner. Starved of both affection and sustenance.
Worse, she had feared that Sterling might feel obligated to follow her.
In the same way he believed she had feltobligatedto make love to him, out of gratitude for his having offered her and her servants refuge from the Earl of Whitlow!
It still pierced her heart to think of Sterling saying those cruel words. In truth, it hurt far worse to think of that than it did to remember the earl’s many cruelties.
The lovemaking between herself and Sterling had been…magical, so very erotic, and more arousing and satisfying than anything Elizabeth had ever experienced before.
As she had told Bristol, she did not consider that as being in the least disloyal to Thomas or their marriage bed. They had both been very young when they married, almost shy in their intimacies, and being in the army, Thomas had also been away fighting for months at a time during their short marriage. A circumstance which had not allowed them to build up that ease of intimacy that came in a marriage of longevity and a daily closeness, like that of her parents.
Sterling was neither young nor shy. He was an older and experienced gentleman who had tacitly asked for her permission to deepen their intimacies and then forged ahead with taking them, and Elizabeth, once she gave her permission.
Elizabeth still blushed to think of how Sterling had touched and kissed her so intimately, giving her unimagined pleasure—
“The Duke of Bristol is here to see Lady Marshall, my lady,” Riggs, her parents’ butler, announced from the doorway of the sitting room.
As if Elizabeth’s thoughts of Sterling had conjured him into being!
“Do you wish to see Bristol?” her mother prompted, aware of Elizabeth’s current aversion to receiving any visitors.
Her smile was rueful. “If I do not agree to do so, I have every reason to believe that gentleman will simply demand admittance and barge his way in here.”
Her mother placed her sewing down on the stool beside her. “We are very grateful for the duke’s assistance in helping you escape the abuse you suffered in your father-in-law’s household, and I am sure your father will wish to thank him for it. But surely Bristol will understand if your father also explains you are not currently feeling up to receiving visitors?”
Her father had done that several times already, both yesterday and again this morning, after several society ladies had called to see her.
