Chapter One #2
Swallowing back the tears she could feel welling behind her eyes, she took in a deep breath.
She hardly ever cried and almost never felt overwhelmed by circumstance, for eleven years with a difficult husband had cured her forever of passionate feeling.
When Lionel had slipped off the balcony and died she had simply tidied him up and called the undertaker before making arrangements for his burial.
Then she had left Belton Park and never returned until this journey, taken to dispose of unwanted possessions before the sale of the property.
After Lionel’s passing she had made a troth to live every subsequent day in her life as if it was her last and she had made a fine job of such a promise thus far.
Well, not today, obviously. Her stomach growled and the ceramic bowl wiped with strong alcohol and mint made her heave.
She felt like death. She wished she were home in her rented town house in London. She wished her companions were all returned to their shared abode and that she could be completely by herself with no one at all to see her or hear her.
Then she might be able to cry properly, she mused, that observation so ridiculous that she smiled for the first time in hours.
One day this might all seem like an amusing story, the gloriously handsome Earl of Elmsworth, her plight, the basin, the competent servant and the three fussing old sisters.
But right at this moment, it was not even remotely humorous.
She wondered where Phillip Moreland had disappeared to and hoped that she would not see him again before she left Elmsworth, which would be as early as feasible on the morrow.
It was late. The clock had just chimed out the hour of two and Phillip knew he should be making an effort for bed and sleep, but he felt out of kilter and restless.
The cognac had knocked the edge off his tiredness and this house, for all its faults, was a solid enough place when set against the rising north-west wind.
He had returned home without servants and so he had no one to answer to, which was a relief, though the housekeeper had been here a few hours ago informing him of the presence overnight of the unexpected guests and asking if he would like a manservant sent up to see him to bed.
He’d refused and instructed her not to have a servant remain to attend to him. He had been largely alone during his last two years’ travelling around America and had grown to appreciate the lack of being beholden to anyone for anything.
But he was hungry after partaking in his study of an early dinner and Mrs King had informed him that there was bread and cheese left out on the bench if he did find himself with an appetite in the middle of the night.
The kitchen was fairly dim when he walked in but a movement to his left had him turning, and there, standing very still, was the young woman who had been the patient this afternoon.
She looked completely different. A little pale still perhaps but greatly recovered, a dressing gown pulled tightly in and her hair down.
It was the colour of autumn, browns and reds and blackness curling thickly to her waist. For a second he wondered what it would feel like to run his fingers through such abundance and was disorientated by the thought.
Gretel’s hair had been pale and thin, and, threaded as it was in gold and white, she had never been able to grow it past her shoulders as much as she had tried.
The surprise of seeing him here was in her eyes, darkened by the lack of light.
‘I am sorry, Lord Elmsworth. I was hungry and so I came down. I will leave.’
‘No.’ The word stopped her and he wondered why he had said it with such force. ‘I need to eat, too, and there is cheese and bread here. Would you like some?’
Her smile was immediate.
‘I would, indeed.’
The lack of hesitation heartened him, for he’d never had time for the wiles of women. His wife had been direct as well.
He watched the stranger pull her night attire closer as she sat, a careful movement with slight embarrassment evident and a large dollop of wariness.
She obviously knew of his reputation but it felt good to have someone to talk with on the first night of his long-overdue return to Elmsworth Manor. A scent of gardenias wafted around her.
‘You look much healthier than you did this morning, at least.’
She blushed at that and he wondered if such words were a misstep.
‘I could not look worse even if I’d tried, my lord.’
‘Phillip,’ he gave back. His time in the Americas had allowed him to understand that the fussy insistence on titles and manners was rather outdated.
‘Phillip,’ she returned. ‘And I am Wilhelmina. My companions and I stopped at a tavern on the road, The King’s Way, I think it was called, and they served chicken pie for supper.
No one else got ill save for me, which in its own way is a blessing, given the age and frailty of my three travelling companions. ’
‘Where were you coming from?’
‘My husband’s estate outside of Winchester. He died just over two years ago.’
‘I am very sorry.’
She looked at him then and frowned. ‘Thank you, but I suppose I should also say that ours was not a love match. By the end of our union Lionel, that was his name, liked me as little as I liked him.’
‘Lionel?’
‘Mr Lionel St Claire from Belton Park. He was a friend of my parents’ and he was lonely.’
‘And in the end you were, too?’
She laughed so unexpectedly it made him smile. ‘The lesson I learned was that one should not marry to make others happy.’
‘I hope you have better luck next time, then.’
‘Oh, there will not be a next time, I can assure you of that. One thing my husband did possess was wealth and he has left me an independent widow of some means, which is an enormous relief after the constrictions of those lost eleven years.’
‘A fair amount of time?’ He liked her returned humour.
‘Too much entirely but there was no one else to blame, for it was my own mistake. Had I been like other young girls with dreams of more I might have waited and made a better match.’
‘But you did not?’
‘Mama and Papa were scientists. Their world was of insects and habitats, all practical and rational things. So in effect mine was, too.’
‘And Lionel?’
‘Loved astronomy. He was well regarded in his field but the smallness of the earth in the universe depressed him and he could never be happy. In the end I think he was largely irritated because I could be. It pays not to think too much of the inequalities in this world, you see, my lord, for in reality all the worry in the heavens will not change anything save to leave one with a spiralling anxiety and an ever-present dread.’
She nibbled at the bread and cheese as she said this. Phillip noticed her fingers were long, her nails short and neat.
‘I decided a long time ago to simply be content with my own company, you see, and so far such a resolution has worked out well. If it were not for the infamous chicken pie, I should now be in London in my town house, scouring the shelves of my library for the next wonderful story to read.’
‘You enjoy books, then?’
‘Immensely. I love the places one can escape to within them. When I was married escape was…more difficult. Lionel thought a woman’s work in her house should never be done and even a speck of dust annoyed him.
It was a very large house and so there was bound to be some encroaching detritus that blew in no matter how hard one endeavoured to banish it, but he was not a husband who enjoyed paying servants for doing the jobs he thought a wife should manage. ’
Phillip could not remember a time when he had spoken to a female of such candour. Mrs St Claire was a woman who did not embroider things and one who owned up to the mistakes she had made with a quiet truth. In this she was like no other woman he had met. But she wasn’t yet finished.
‘I always think it rather an odd thing that one must be forever on one’s best behaviour in a relationship.
A quiet, restful acceptance of each other would have been far more to my liking but Lionel had other, more brittle wants, and his constant needs were of no help to me at all.
I think had he been born a monk he might have been more at peace with himself.
A different life so to speak and one where he needed to make no human contact. ’
‘The mantra of solitude?’
‘You know of these teachings, then?’
‘Once I did.’
He had not meant to give such raw truths but her honesty had made him less wary than he usually was. Biting down on other words, he tried to find a balance.
Lord Elmsworth watched her with uncertainty.
She had probably been far more honest than she ought but all those silent years with Lionel had taught her the value of words.
Besides, she would never see the earl again after this, for was it not said that the Moreland men always were seen with the most beautiful women in the Ton on their arms?
She was reasonably plain, a little overweight and far too old to be thought desirable, so this midnight supper in an ancient family pile with the most handsome man in all the world was a moment out of time and one which would never be repeated.
There was an ease in such knowledge. Changing the subject, she sought for a lighter topic.
‘Your house is a very interesting place and, even given my poor health on arrival, I saw some of the views as we swept down the drive, and they were vistas, by the way, that were in every direction spectacular. Have you always lived here?’
‘Up until the last few years I have.’
‘Your housekeeper said that you have recently been in America and I certainly hope it is not the biggest of inconveniences to have us here. We will be gone by mid-morning at the latest, I promise. It would be sooner if our departure time was left solely to me but I doubt the McAllistair sisters are early risers and so…’
‘Are they relatives of yours?’