But as Penelope handed her the glass, she appeared to lurch forward, quite by accident, of course, spilling the contents down Eloise’s dress and expressing the sincerest apologies as she did so.
“Goodness me, look at you, you’re soaked!” she exclaimed, as Eloise stepped back and looked down at her dress.
Penelope was right. Her dress was soaked through, and all she could do was pull her shawl around her and hope no one noticed.
“How clumsy of you, Penelope,” Camilla said, shaking her head and smiling apologetically at Eloise, who sighed.
“It’s quite all right, I’m sure,” she murmured.
“A little dancing might help,” Lord Crawford proposed.
The musicians were getting up a waltz. He took Eloise’s arm and led her towards the dance floor. His grip was strong and forceful, and Eloise had no choice but to follow. He was nothing but a rake, and the thought of dancing with him horrified her.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” she admitted, as he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his embrace.
“Your father suggests you’d benefit from some… teaching,” he said, as he whirled her into the waltz.
Eloise gasped. She was not used to men being so forward. What had her father said to him to make him think he could behave like this?
“Teaching? I don’t understand.” She hesitated, and he smiled at her, pulling her into his embrace so that her wet dress was pressed against his shirt.
“The teaching of a man who knows how to please a woman.” He brought his face close to hers, their lips almost touching as she tried to pull away.
“I don’t need anyone to teach me,” she asserted, confused by his words.
“The matter of your sister, your failure to find a husband… your father didn’t need to tell me. I knew it well enough. You’ve been foolish to spend all this time searching for her, Eloise. She’s gone, she’s not coming back. Why not allow yourself some pleasure…” he trailed off, and once again, using the music as a pretext, he pulled her into his embrace. He touched his lips to her cheek, breathing in her scent and exhaling with a deep sigh.
“Please, Lord Crawford, this is too much,” Eloise gasped.
She tried to free herself from his grip. Surely, her father did not want this for her – a man who would behave so scandalously, and in public, too.
“Too much? I’m only just getting started. No, I know what you need, Eloise. You need a man to take charge of you. You’re a shy wallflower, Eloise, but I’ll tame you like a trailing rose and blossom you,” he taunted, leering at her.
She pushed him away, but he caught her and pulled her back into his embrace. No one around them noticed for it seemed they were merely caught up in the dance. She wanted to scream, but the music was drowning out the surrounding noise. He had her in his clutches. He ran his hands up her waist and across her bosom, his eyes glinting with lust.
“Please, let me go, Lord Crawford. I don’t want to dance with you anymore. I want to go home,” Eloise begged.
Her eyes were filled with tears, and she was struggling in his arms.
“Just one kiss, Eloise. Your supple beauty, the look of your breasts through your wet dress, it’s enough to drive a man to ecstasy,” he cried, and now Eloise kicked his shin, causing him to cry out in pain.
For a moment, his grip loosened, and Eloise pushed him away before hurrying off through the throng, glancing behind her to check he was not following. He scowled at her and waved his hand dismissively. Tears ran down her cheeks as she hurried towards a set of doors that led out onto the terrace. She was hot and breathless, the left shoulder of her dress hanging down and her hair disheveled.
“Oh, how awful, how terrible,” she gasped, leaning on the parapet and breathing in deeply.
She had never known such treatment from a man – his words, his actions, his sense of entitlement. She was shaking with fright and looked around her desperately for a kind face or shoulder to cry on. But she was alone, the other guests still dancing the waltz she had just escaped from. She wanted to go home, even though she knew her father would be angry with her for how she had rejected the match he made for her. She would be the one to blame, not the rakish Lord Crawford.
“Wicked man,” she cringed, straightening her dress and sighing.
Her breathing had returned to normal, and now she looked out across the garden, where the moon was rising in the distance as the sun set over the trees. It would have been a pleasant place had its image not been tarnished by the atrocities she had just been subject to. Her dress was still wet, and she dared not return inside lest Lord Crawford seeks her out again. Instead, Eloise made her way down the steps to the garden, which was laid out formally with box hedges and rose beds, the paths leading to a central point with a fountain and a sundial.
It would be pretty… oh, why am I here? Why all this nonsense? I don’t want to marry, and I’m certainly not going to marry Lord Crawford.
She would rather suffer her father’s wrath than give in to his demands. Eloise would never have chosen a man like this, and she could only imagine what venom he was spitting to his two sisters, who would no doubt take it upon themselves to find a way of humiliating Eloise further. The spilled punch had not been an accident. It had been a warning.
But I’m not going to be a pawn in anyone’s game.
She sat down on a stone bench by the fountain and watched as a plume of water spurted up from the mouth of a stone cherub, who was balanced disbelievingly on the lips of a stone fish, which appeared to be leaping from the water’s surface.