Chapter Three
The Wilsons’ ball in Mayfair in the second week of June was a huge affair, the rooms decorated in dark green so that the whole place gave the effect of an enchanted forest. Great fragrant boughs of pine had been placed in every corner of the adjoining salons to add to the illusion.
Willa, by chance, had on a dress of mid-green, a flouncy number that she was not all that keen on but felt the need to wear a few times at least in order to justify its expense.
She smiled at such a thought now that she was moderately wealthy, but old habits were hard to break and her mother’s parsimonious ways were difficult to simply ignore even though she had been dead for nigh on eight years.
She had pinned her hair up tonight, eschewing the more feminine style of the moment, and the earrings she wore were her very favourite, long pearl drops with stones of amber at each end.
The feathers she had attached to her cap were probably a bit much but she had long since disposed with the worry of fashion and had liked the way the colour in them matched the amber.
A good friend, Miss Anna Cherton, joined her before she had gone ten yards.
‘You look like a rare bird of prey, Willa. I love the way your maid has done your hair.’
Willa waved her hand. ‘Oh, no, this is my doing. If I left things to Hetty I would have a veritable waterfall of ringlets falling on each side and a pink silk rose tucked into the top of it.’
‘Like Miss Violet Broome?’ Anna returned and they both watched as the youngest daughter of Lord Broome crossed the room before them.
‘Well, she looks attractive in anything, really.’ Willa seldom said things that could be construed as criticism, and besides, the girl was young and rather sweet.
For a moment she felt as old as she had ever felt, her thirty-first birthday in a few months feeling suddenly close. Perhaps she should have dressed with a little less oddness and followed the fashions in the way every other female in the room seemed wont to do.
‘Did the final viewing of Belton Park go well?’
‘It did. The lawyers only have to complete the documents and then they can all be signed.’
‘Will you be sad never to go there again?’
‘Not at all. In fact, the truth is it will be a relief to have it off my hands.’
Anna threaded their fingers together. ‘I was speaking with the middle McAllistair sister the other day and she said you had been laid low with a stomach ailment on your way back to London. She commented on the Elmsworth estate with a particular tone.’
The mention of the place in which she had taken shelter jolted Willa. She had thought of the Earl’s kisses every night since they had happened and could not make any sense of her reaction.
George Fitzgibbon and Freddie Boucher had now come over to join them, two men whom Willa had known ever since moving to the city.
‘Did I hear you mentioning the Elmsworth estate, Anna? Then you must know that the eighth Earl has finally returned to these shores. Word has it he is installed in Hampshire after the loss of his beautiful wife in the Americas, though as yet he has not ventured across to the city.’
‘My goodness, it’s been years since he left England, hasn’t it?’ Anna asked this and Freddie was quick to supply an answer.
‘At least four. The family was odd, a fractured family who seemed to be both melancholic and arrogant, if such a mix is possible.’
‘Yet Lord Phillip Moreland was more than handsome, Freddie, for I remember him vividly. He was a man who had the hearts of the female gender fluttering everywhere but he chose Miss Gretel Carmichael before either of them was even twenty and married her within a few weeks, much to the chagrin of all the girls and women left.’
Willa was interested in this titbit from Anna. She herself was just seventeen when she had said ‘I do’ in the small church at Belton with her parents and a few of Lionel’s friends present as witnesses.
‘The Society wedding of that year, it is said.’ This came from George.
‘My oldest brother was sure every man in London was half in love with Gretel Carmichael, with her classical looks and pale hair, but Moreland was leaving nothing to chance and popped the question before anyone else could. And then they disappeared into the wilds of Hampshire, returning to London only for a month of each season before going back.’
‘A love story,’ Anna sighed. ‘A wonderful tale of two people meeting who were destined to be together right until death parted them, a state of affairs that completely broke his heart.’
Willa looked away, a faint niggle of shame inside her which was difficult to banish. Did ruined people like her have a propensity to tarnish those who were unsullied? She had never loved Lionel right from the beginning and had given up trying to in the first few months, much to her mother’s dismay.
Gretel Carmichael, on the other hand, had loved her husband well and properly and had led a happy and unblemished life.
Lionel’s anger and her own were the very opposite, the discord of hate and fear. When he had fallen down and down until there was nothing of life left in him, the angels of freedom had danced around her in utter relief.
She pulled herself back into the moment, clamping her teeth together and trying to smile, the shock of memory leaving her chilled here in the laughter and noise of an enchanted woodland ballroom.
As the musicians at one end of the room began to play George Fitzgibbon held out his hand and, needing the distraction from Anna’s words, she went into his arms for a waltz.
She had known him ever since she had arrived in London and he had pursued her from the first moment they’d met.
A man who liked grand gestures and great emotion and one whom she had never encouraged in any way, save in friendship.
The music of the flute rose high above the violins, the scent of flowers pinned amongst the greenery and candles infused with lavender oil.
This was her life now, independent and strong.
She was a lot different from the woman she had once been, a young woman beholden to her husband and to her parents and isolated essentially from all others in their efforts to control her.
‘Marry me, Willa, and we can leave for the Americas in the spring.’ Horror ran through her at his words.
‘If I did not know you better, George, I might almost think you meant it.’
‘Perhaps, my love, I do. My mother and father are insistent on a bride before the end of the year and I cannot think of a girl I could do better with.’
‘A girl is something I hardly am, George.’
‘A woman, then, a beautiful and interesting woman.’
She shook her head. ‘Miss Leonora Blanchard over there is the female you should pursue. She is both kind and clever and I have it on good account that she is an avid reader. Like you.’
‘She is young.’
‘You are not yet twenty-seven.’
‘So you are refusing me?’
‘I am indeed but only because I know I would shatter your heart if I had the temerity to accept.’
‘I met your husband once. Did you know that?’
Left speechless at his admission, Willa waited to see what he might say next.
‘I remember Mr Lionel St Claire as a stern, upright man of strong opinion.’
‘That is a reasonable description.’
‘I could not see him enjoying a London salon with discourse that edges on radical debate.’
‘I agree. My late husband would have struggled in this company.’
‘Struggled as you did perhaps in his estate of silence and rule?’
Willa kept smiling because it did not pay to let too much out to a man like George, as he had a memory that stored everything.
‘How long have we known each other, George?’
‘A little over two years, Wilhelmina. I met you on the first night you arrived in London. I remember it like it was yesterday.’
‘One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.’ She uttered this with a smile on her face.
‘Euripides?’
‘One well-read and loyal friend,’ she amended and allowed him to lead her into a practised and graceful swirl.
Why did men always have to ruin friendship by imagining more?
Why could they not be happy with less? She hoped George might understand that after her refusal to take his offer seriously he should not make it again, though when his hand squeezed her own in a deliberate way she thought she might not be so lucky.
‘Lord Phillip Moreland, the Eighth Earl of Elmsworth.’
The name rang across the room just as the dance ended and the entire salon looked up at the grand staircase to one end. He was alone, dressed in black, a tall, dark-haired man with an air of aristocracy so easily discernible even from this distance.
‘Well, well. The lost Earl is here tonight and we can watch the Society mamas descend on him. It will be fascinating.’ Anna’s words were whispered as she and Freddie rejoined them, but all around the room similar sentiments were being expressed.
Willa could only stand still and observe him, her heart beating fast and her teeth tightly clenched together.
If Phillip Moreland heard the gossip he gave an excellent impression of having no care at all for it as he moved forward to be surrounded by people wanting to speak with him.
Here, he was different, his place in Society cemented perhaps by his recent loss and his long absence. He looked in control too, smiling politely at all those who surged to be near him.
The air all around her was colder, the ease of the night sliding into fear. Would he see her? Would he say something or would he ignore her entirely?
He looked like the veritable definition of a high and mighty lord and one with whom she had nothing in common at all.
Reaching out for a fluted glass of champagne from a passing servant, she drank it quickly, needing the fortification to relax her and enable a smile. She would leave as soon as she was able to go without comment, and next time she saw him she would be able to manage a lot better.