Chapter 22
Whitefawn Manor
Hampshire, England
The Earl of Hayward’s home was even more breathtaking in the light of day.
Built of limestone that shone beneath the afternoon sun like alabaster, the three-storied Palladian estate boasted two curving staircases leading to the front portico, where the front door—painted white to match the trim on the gleaming windows—was framed by no less than six Corinthian columns on either side.
When Calliope and her mother had arrived for the ball, the guests had been directed to use the side entrance into the ballroom, along which the dowager countess had strung miniature lanterns to twinkle like fairy lights in her prize rosebushes and blue hydrangeas.
The flowers had only begun to show signs of wilt from the drought at the time, and Calliope wondered now how they had held up from this unrelenting heat.
Due to this detour, Calliope had not seen the front of the manor for more than the few seconds it had taken for her motorcar to streak past, and even then most of the house had been swathed in darkness, with only the flickering glow of the lamps on either side of the door and a couple squares of lit windows to mark its shape.
Although admittedly, even if every window in the house had been alight, Calliope was certain she would not have paid it much attention; all she could focus on that night was the dread in her stomach, knowing she would spend the entire evening trying to impress people who had already decided, before they had ever even met her, that they would refuse to like her simply because she was an American.
But now she had the opportunity to properly survey the entirety of the drive leading to the estate and could appreciate how beautiful everything would be here in this part of the country once the rains returned.
Dappled patches of shade swayed in the wind beneath tall, proud trees as the trills of birdsong rose melodiously into the air.
The rolling lawn was not as lushly green as she imagined it would be under drought-less circumstances, but it still held a trace of its verdancy, and she could imagine how thrilling it would be to race a horse across the glade when it shone like glittering emeralds beneath an endless sky.
There was a Walden-esque quality to this land, reminding her of the beloved Henry David Thoreau book she and her father would read together whenever they snuck away to their fishing post, pretending they were a pair of transcendentalists living off the earth.
There were times when she thought her father might have preferred such a life—moments when she saw him hanging his head over his desk, clearly exhausted from yet another day hard-won at the office—but her mother loved her palaces and furs and jewels, and her father knew no peace unless his wife was kept happy, and so his dream was only realized whenever he and Calliope sat on a dock in Tuxedo Park, the bobs on their fishing rods bouncing along a sunset-painted lake.
Her father would like it here very much, Calliope was certain.
What was it he had written? That he would wish to visit her three or four times a year, at least, if she married a gentleman of the peerage?
Calliope smiled to herself, thinking that if she did somehow wind up the countess of Whitefawn, her father would probably move in—maybe even realize his dream of spending his days in nature and his evenings idling away the hours with a good book by a roaring fire, rather than looking over mergers and stock reports.
Could she do it? Could she give up everything she loved, everything she was building in New York, in the hopes of giving him a better, more peaceful life?
He had certainly sacrificed everything he loved for her; it only seemed right that she do the same for him.
But not only would she be sacrificing her work, ensuring her book would remain unfinished, she would be subjecting herself to the Lord Wellesbys of British society for the rest of her life.
Every ball, every dinner, every festivity on the social calendar would be spent as the punchline of their jokes, the fodder behind their whispered conversations.
She would never be good enough for them, and she would feel the sting of their rejection everywhere she turned, and for what?
To marry a man who did not love her, who only wanted her for her money?
It was not a life she could imagine enduring, no matter how many stolen kisses or impressive shows of damsel-rescuing Edward threw her way, nor how many sleepless nights she endured for thoughts of him.
As their car drew closer to the house, Calliope glimpsed the weathered stone, the dark patches in the roof, the chipped paint along the windowsills, but these defects only made the property more charming in her sight.
She had always preferred houses that looked lived in, even if a little shabby.
They appeared much more comfortable than her own home on Fifth Avenue, which had cost so much money to build and continued to cost so much to maintain, Calliope was always terrified to walk the halls with too much fervor, or speak louder than a whisper, for fear she would do something to mar the perfection surrounding her.
The manor itself needed some work, and the land would require not a small bit of capital to keep it running, but Calliope could not see, at least from the outside, why Edward felt he needed her money specifically. Certainly another heiress with half Calliope’s dowry would do the trick?
Perhaps he chose you because he wants you.
No, she wouldn’t think that way. The earl had said it himself; their current arrangement was a business transaction, nothing more. If he’d chosen her oversized dowry, then it must have been because he was even more in over his head than she’d realized.
“Just think,” her mother said as the car pulled up to the front of the house, where the dowager countess and her son stood next to a line of servants, waiting to greet them. “This could all be yours.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mother,” Calliope replied.
But her mother continued, “Can’t you picture little ones running around the lawn with your blond hair and the earl’s astonishingly blue eyes?”
So Calliope wasn’t the only woman who had noticed Edward’s eyes. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The flare of jealousy at the thought, though, was certainly surprising, and this only increased her frustration.
“Really, Mother,” she said, doing her best to forget she’d imagined the exact same adorable little children last night in the opera box. “We are not even engaged, and you practically have the names of our children picked out.”
“Martha and Jane for the girls,” her mother said in all seriousness. “Robert and Theodore for the boys.”
Calliope’s brow arched. “And what if the earl and I do not marry?”
“What a silly thing to say,” her mother retorted. “The names can remain the same regardless of the husband.”
Calliope shook her head but let the matter drop.
The car came to a stop in front of the house.
A footman in green-and-gold livery strode forward, opening the door as the chauffeur collected their luggage.
Calliope took the footman’s hand, stepping out of the car and catching Edward’s eye.
Her stomach flipped at the sight of him, but she tried not to let it show, standing with her back so straight, she was certain Madame Dupré would have given her a medal were she here to witness it.
Her mother slid out of the car behind her as the dowager countess, wearing a fine gown of royal purple, strode forward to greet them.
“Welcome to Whitefawn, Mrs. Hart, Miss Hart,” she said.
“Thank you for having us,” Calliope’s mother replied. “We had such a wonderful time at your summer ball, we just had to return!”
The dowager countess smiled politely. “Indeed. It is a pleasure to have you.”
Edward stepped forward then, bowing his head in greeting. “Welcome, Mrs. Hart.” He turned to Calliope and lifted her hand to his lips. “Good afternoon, Calliope.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she inwardly cursed herself for it.
Was she going to blush every single time she was around the earl now? How in the world was he supposed to take her seriously when her face routinely took on the color of a boiled lobster?
“Good afternoon, my lord.” Her voice was harsher than she’d intended, fueled by the annoyance she felt at the betrayal of her palms, which were much too damp all of a sudden, and her heart, which raced for no good reason at all.
Edward caught the bite in her tone and frowned.
“Dinner is in an hour,” the dowager countess pronounced before Edward could vocalize the question forming in his gaze. “If you would like to follow our head housekeeper, Mrs. Drake, she will show you to your rooms so you may rest and change.”
Mrs. Hart thanked her and turned to Calliope. “Come along, dear.”
Calliope felt Edward’s confused stare upon her as they followed Mrs. Drake up the staircase, across the marbled portico, and through the entrance.
Her heart squeezed with the desire to apologize for her rudeness, but in truth, it was better she remain as aloof as possible.
The last thing she wanted to do was get his hopes up that his proposal would be accepted at the end of their time here.
If anything, he’d be better served if she spent her time thinking of other debutantes who would be more than willing to marry him. Rose, for instance.
An unexpected—and highly unwelcome—wave of jealousy flared as images of Rose marrying Edward, having children with Edward, singing carols around the Christmas tree and riding horses across the estate with Edward, flitted through her mind with all the rapidity of hummingbird wings.
All right, perhaps not Rose. But she would think of someone else.
Preferably someone she was not particularly close to, so that she and Edward could go off and live their lives together and Calliope would never have to visit them, never have to keep up correspondence with them, and never have to think of them again.
Calliope followed her mother and Mrs. Drake into the grand foyer to find it also lined in columns reaching to the ceiling two stories above them, just like the ballroom.
The second floor was open to the foyer, with a white marble balustrade framing the balcony.
Potted palms were interspersed throughout the space, just as large as the fern she had hidden behind, and the large windows were cracked open to let in the slightest hint of a summer breeze.
After dropping off her mother in a room decorated in red-and-gold brocade, Calliope was shown to a suite papered in ice-blue fleur-de-lis, with pillowy cream-colored sheets atop a four-poster mahogany bed situated directly across from a white marble fireplace.
Open windows overlooked the parched gardens and a wide browning pasture dotted with sheep.
Calliope wondered if Edward had picked this room for her specifically because the wallpaper had reminded him of the color of the gown she’d worn the night they’d met.
She also wondered if he knew how much she would love this view of the country, a view she did not get to see often, as the majority of her life had been spent in one city or another.
It was a magnificent estate—truly more than Calliope, even with her parents’ fortune, could have ever imagined being the mistress of. But it wasn’t New York.
It wasn’t home.
Knowing Sara would be up soon to draw her bath and help her dress for dinner, Calliope allowed herself the briefest moment to shove the swirling tide of her thoughts away, lean against the window, and breathe, taking in the peace that could only come from clear blue skies and leaves rustling like much-desired rain, and an entire corridor between herself and her proposal-obsessed mother.