Chapter Three #2
Phillip remembered all the things he had hated about London Society as he came down the stairs.
The gossip. The expectations. The matrons who eyed him as a prize for their daughters.
Gretel had largely protected him from it all when he was here last but with her gone…
He was engulfed by the crowd that swelled around him as he reached the bottom step.
The invitation to the Wilsons’ ball had come unexpectedly and he’d felt it was probably time to make some sort of an effort to participate again in the world he’d been born to. Still, this whole journey into London seemed misguided and he wished he’d stayed in Hampshire, away from it all.
Tobias Wilson, the Earl of Hammond, was suddenly there, his sister beside him.
‘It is good to see you again, Elmsworth, though I was sorry to hear the news of your wife.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But we are very honoured that you decided to grace our ball as your first outing back in Society.’
Phillip smiled, not because the thought pleased him but because it was expected. The prodigal son coming home, so to speak, after a long time in the wilderness.
‘And things have changed in your absence, although by all accounts it seems you have returned to an estate that has prospered without you.’
‘My brother’s good choices. The manager Oliver put in place at Elmsworth is more than competent.’
‘A fortunate happenstance, then, for others have not been anywhere near as lucky when they have forsaken all responsibility and ventured elsewhere.’
The sentiment was loud and clear and Phillip remembered why he had never been that fond of Tobias Wilson. He’d been a jealous, difficult youth and had grown into the same sort of man.
His sister, Miss Clementine Wilson, placed her hand on his sleeve.
‘There has been much talk about when you would appear in London for the season, Lord Elmsworth. We all knew you were finally back, of course, but no one had seen you. Are you planning on staying in the city for long?’
‘Just a few days. I have some business with my lawyer to attend to and after that I will return to Hampshire.’
A servant bearing a tray approached them and he took a glass of champagne. He needed fortification in a room such as this and gratefully took a sip.
‘It is French,’ Clementine said. ‘My brother has it brought over especially.’
‘Then he has good taste in fine wines. From memory, the Hammonds had some interests in the vineyards of northwestern France. I am presuming they still have them.’
Tobias had rejoined their conversation and began to laugh.
‘You were always surprising people at school with your recall, Phillip. Do you remember that card game we used to play, the one where you had to match the images, and you always came out on top? Benjamin Harcourt thought you had marked the cards until he got hold of another pack and you beat us all just as convincingly. God, those were the days, were they not, when we were young and free and the world was at our feet, no problems anywhere in sight? Benjamin is here tonight somewhere, though God knows how long he will stay, for he is known for leaving every social event as early as he is able to and creeping back to Richmond.’
Interested, Phillip looked around in an attempt at locating his old friend, and frowned as he saw Mrs Wilhelmina St Claire on the other side of the room, a strange feathered cap on her head and a gown a few shades lighter than the green on the salon walls.
The group around her were animated and she was reaching now for a glass of the same champagne he’d just been commenting on.
When her eyes caught his she looked away first, colour washing into her cheeks, her jaw held tight and her fingers grasping the fluted glass with fervour.
He knew instantly that she was horrified to see him there and that thought brought him sorrow, though he could not fathom as to why it should.
Perhaps it was because she had been the first person in a long time that he had been truthful with, a woman with whom he had shared a few hours in the middle of a lonely night without interruption or expectation.
The man beside her watched her closely. Lord George Fitzgibbon. He recognised the fellow as the youngest sibling of one of his Eton classmates. But when gloved fingers were placed on his sleeve Phillip looked away. Lady Leggett beamed at him, a wide smile on her face.
‘Lord Elmsworth, it is so good to have you back in England. Have you seen your brother yet?’
He remembered that she and Oliver had once been a pair.
‘Oliver and his wife live near me now in Hampshire and their brood of children is increasing with each and every year.’
Leave her with no question as to Oliver’s situation, he thought, somewhat disconcerted when she laughed.
‘Esther is a friend of mine, my lord, and I am frequently a visitor at Nettleford Park. I also know your brother has been wondering when you would come home for years, for he often mentions you.’
A different reply than he might have expected.
The knowledge that the world here had changed remarkably since he and Gretel had boarded the ship to the Americas left him on edge.
It had been four years ago he’d left England for what was supposed to be only a year to escort his sick wife home to her parents in Virginia.
But Gretel’s death had left him questioning everything and he’d taken to the road to try and sort himself out.
Oliver’s competent stewardship of the Elmsworth estate had allowed him time to come to terms with a return to his old life here but finally he could no longer expect others to do a job he was born to.
‘Would you dance with me, my lord? It is a waltz.’
He could not refuse without sounding churlish and so he took her offered hand and walked towards the floor. Mrs St Claire was closer here; he could see her green dress out of the corner of his eye, though he made an effort not to look directly at her.
The next problem hadn’t occurred to him. Winifred Leggett was a spectacular dancer and he could barely remember the steps but she was also kind in her tutelage and kept him to the rhythm.
‘It’s been a while…’ he began but she did not let him finish.
‘It’s like riding a bicycle, I expect. One only needs to practise.’
Suddenly he perceived she might not only be talking about the dance and when her fingers stroked his own he knew that she wasn’t.
Phillip Moreland was dancing with Lady Winifred Leggett. He looked a bit lost in the intricacies of the steps but his partner was an accomplished dancer and was dragging him through it with aplomb, her laughter heard from where she stood a good ten yards away.
They suited each other, Willa thought, both wealthy and beautiful, attributes that were highly valued within the narrow confines of the Ton.
He looked happier in this setting, the adulation and regard from others around him so discernible that even the trials of his personal tragedies were somewhat diminished.
She was glad of it, for him.
She’d caught his glance before but he had not looked her way since, the green dress probably as much of a mistake as the outlandish feathers in her headpiece.
She seldom thought of her clothing in such a way and admonished herself for the pettiness as George’s laughter brought her back to the moment.
‘One wonders how Elmsworth so easily commands a room, given his lengthy absences and his family circumstance.’
‘What circumstance?’ She could not help but ask this.
‘His mother went mad and it was thought before he left England that he would follow her into such a state.’
‘Why? He hardly looks deranged to me.’
‘The rumour is Phillip Moreland tried to kill his brother after some sort of a fight between them.’ This titbit was whispered so that the others might not hear, and shock ran through her.
‘My goodness. Is this common knowledge?’
‘My older brother was a close friend of Oliver Moreland’s but no one in either circle spoke a word about it, so in truth who knows the full story because no charges were ever laid? It’s just you seem interested in the Earl somehow and I don’t want you hurt.’
The old protections kicked in quickly and Willa laughed, hearing in the sound everything that she wanted him to. ‘Your imagination is misguided. Come, let me introduce you to the lovely Miss Blanchard.’
An hour later Willa was standing alone on one side of the room, having just finished a lengthy and exhausting quadrille with the elderly Lord Hamilton, a man whose company she had always enjoyed because he spoke so kindly of his family as he related all their various amusing escapades.
Anna joined her, frowning. ‘I think that dance gets longer each time I complete it, and Lord Bambrook was hardly an easy partner.’
They both watched Nigel Bambrook threading his way back towards them with a tray of full glasses.
‘At least he is reliable,’ Willa replied, ‘and I’m so thirsty I could do with a drink. Besides, he often looks a little lost in these busy Society settings.’
‘I’m not as generous as you are, Willa. Give me the Earl of Elmsworth any day, a man who looks neither amenable nor kind but is devilishly attractive in that dangerous sort of way that all the ladies love.’
Wilhelmina had to smile. ‘Lord Moreland is by all accounts still deeply saddened about his wife’s passing. I do not think he is in the market for another relationship, no matter how tempting the bait.’
‘You think I am tempting?’
‘Of course you are.’
She enjoyed hearing Anna laugh as Bambrook rejoined them, fussing about whose drink was whose.