Chapter Four
Phillip Moreland’s name was everywhere in the next few days.
It was in the broadsheets and on the lips of Anna Cherton when she came for a visit.
Even Willa’s seamstress, Miss Brigitte, was spouting out the wonderfulness of his arrival in the Season because his presence had resulted in a number of young women coming by to order new gowns.
Indeed, it was as if London Society had become a seething bed of tittle-tattle.
Gossip about his beautiful deceased wife was most prevalent, but so were the stories about the wealth of his estate.
People commented endlessly about his handsome looks and easy bearing and about his being so very highborn.
The arrogance he was once accused of was dismissed in favour of his miraculous return and he was not a man it seemed to be censured by anyone. Society now loved him, each rejoinder she heard more flattering than the one before it, and the fact that he was now a widow only added to his allure.
He was the prize catch of the Season and every ambitious mama was out a-hunting.
Wilhelmina went riding five days after seeing the Earl.
She needed the exercise and the freedom and she enjoyed the calibre of the horses for rent from the stables in Mount Street.
Back at Belton Park horse riding had been the one true escape from all she had to deal with and here in London it had continued to be both a balm and a solace.
Her meeting with Phillip Moreland at the Wilsons’ ball had set her on edge. She reasoned it was because she did not know what she expected of him and because their kiss had blurred the lines to such an extent that she was now trying to find ways to actively avoid him.
Thus when coming down the path in Hyde Park and seeing a lone rider in the distance she was shocked to see as she drew closer that it was the much admired Earl of Elmsworth.
He wore his hair longer than most did here, the darkness cast into lighter shades today by the first rays of sun as it was ruffled by the wind.
There was no way she could ignore him or he her without its appearing most odd and so she pulled her mount to a stop when he was a few feet away.
‘My lord.’
‘Mrs St Claire. You left the ball the other night before I had the chance to say goodbye.’
‘As you were in great demand I hardly thought you would have noticed my absence.’
‘I had hoped to ask you for another dance.’
‘Most unwise, I fear, sir. Two dances with the same partner on one night might have been remarked upon.’
His returning smile was full of humour and out here in the open air Willa felt her heartbeat race. It was more than disconcerting.
‘I was introduced to a close acquaintance of yours after you had left. A Mr George Fitzgibbon.’
She could not quite work out what he was saying, for there was hesitation in his words.
‘He thinks very highly of you.’
‘He is a good friend.’
‘He told me that he had asked for your hand in marriage.’
Shock hit her forcibly. ‘And did he relate to you my feelings on the matter?’
‘He intimated he was finding it hard to persuade you to answer in the affirmative.’
Willa could not believe that George would be so careless with his confidences.
‘Mr Fitzgibbon was foolish in allowing such a private matter to stray into a public sphere. I should never have made any such confession.’
‘Because you value your privacy?’
‘I do and I have heard it said that you feel much the same, my lord.’
‘Once upon a time I used to worry more about what was said of me but now…’ He stopped before going on. ‘Now I barely listen to any disapproval.’
‘Oh, you need not be concerned. In my experience money and a title talk the loudest of all things. No one would dare criticise you.’
‘Even behind my back?’
‘Even there, I think. People here do not irritate anyone perceived to have more power than they do.’
‘And do you follow such rules, Mrs St Claire?’
‘I do, my lord. On the social ladder I have entered upon the very bottom rung. A widow. Untitled. Opinionated. Old. Though moderately wealthy at least, which is one mark in my favour.’
He laughed again and the sound rang out around them, caught on the wind in a singular note.
‘How old exactly are you?’
‘I am almost thirty-one years old. The age for a woman of no return and well past my prime.’
He did not let her finish.
‘You are also, by all accounts, a woman who has turned down many a proposal of marriage?’
‘Being a wife never suited me but I have told you that before.’
‘At Elmsworth?’ His voice was soft.
She looked around. There was no one in front of them or behind. Perhaps it was the hour of the day or the strength of the wind because the park was generally busier. She decided to take a chance.
‘I often think of that night, my lord.’ She wanted him to know that to her this memory was precious and that she was not ashamed.
He was silent but once she had started she could not just leave it there.
‘I often think of it because I am usually far more circumspect. I’m not a wanton woman, my lord, and I should not wish you to think that I might be.’
‘I did not.’
‘I also do not have a loose tongue like George Fitzgibbon. I would never say anything about what was, after all, a moment only between us. You have made it abundantly clear to me that you do not wish to marry again and I hope I have impressed the same on you, and so....’ She stopped, at a loss as to where she might take this next.
Part of her urged a certain daring but the larger part understood that he would not want that.
If they had been other people, younger people, less damaged people it might have been easier to take his hand and allow him to know her truer feelings…
but they were not those people. Her teeth worried her bottom lip.
‘I appreciate your candidness, Mrs St Claire, and I assure you that I likewise would do nothing to ever harm your reputation.’
‘I doubt my reputation here is quite as salubrious as you might think it.’ She could not help but smile.
He turned his horse into the wind, a beautiful man framed against the trees behind him.
‘You do yourself a disservice. I have come across not one person in London who would disparage your name. They admire you. Money has a voice, as you say, I do not doubt it, but true admiration has little to do with the size of a person’s fortune.
No, it seems you are kind and clever. And joyous,’ he added.
She smiled. ‘Oh, I do like those words, my lord. Particularly joyous, given I had so many years when I was not.’
She looked so young out here in the breeze and the sun, her golden eyes dancing and her hair full of every shade of brown imaginable. She looked as if she had escaped from the pages of a fairy tale with a happy ending assured and a lifetime of possibility ahead.
No wonder people here were so drawn to her. They wanted the same things that she was full of, the jaded, worn restrictions of London town heavy burdens in the face of such…lightness.
Phillip understood the look in George Fitzgibbon’s eyes at that moment in a way he had not before, for Wilhelmina St Claire offered an uncomplicated honesty that was rare.
And she deserved a man who might give her the same back, which was most definitely not him.
Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to cut her off completely.
‘Your horse looks worn out, Mrs St Claire. How far have you come?’
‘Only from Mount Street, Lord Elmsworth.’
‘Phillip,’ he replied before going on. ‘You give the impression of being a fine rider.’
She looked up at the compliment.
‘I used to ride at Belton, though my husband had no love of the sport at all.’
‘He was too busy searching for stars?’
Her laughter warmed him again.
‘I heard that he had named one after you.’
‘He found it in the early years of our marriage. I doubt he would have been so generous if such a discovery had been made in the latter ones.’
‘What did he die of?’
‘He fell from the second storey balcony at Belton Manor. He held on to life for a few wretched hours and then he succumbed, and now when I look at the night sky I apologise.’
‘To him?’
‘And to our life together. A poor marriage is seldom one person’s fault entirely and I had my part in it.’
When he did not speak she elaborated further.
‘Lionel was an unhappy man and I lost patience with him. It is hard to be with someone whom you fail so badly to understand, even with all the trying in the world. Which I did, I tried and tried and tried,’ she finished off and breathed out heavily.
‘Because to me simply giving up is a failure and life is never a perfect thing, no matter how much one would wish it to be.’
How did he do it? How did Phillip Elmsworth make her admit things she had kept inside and hidden for so very, very long?
Her fingers tightened on the reins and she felt overcome. At the unfairness of everything, at the futility, at the sheer impossible sadness of being lost somehow to the sort of life she had wanted.
Her steed was restless beneath her, whickering under restraint, hooves busy on the hard ground.
She saw the Earl noticing too and his next words were exactly what she needed.
‘Ride with me to that line of trees over there.’
He pointed to a belt of green oaks a good half-mile on and, digging her heels into the mare’s flanks, Willa was away as fast as a side-saddle would allow her.
Even though her steed was not the finest, she enjoyed the ride, the rush of breath making her forget any gloominess, so that there seemed to be only them riding for the oaks, only green trees, blue sky and life.
She reached the trees a moment after he did and saw that he’d barely caught a sweat. Still, her mood had lightened and she was grateful for it.
‘Who taught you to ride?’ His words were soft.
‘Mr Henry Matthers. He was a groom at Belton and he’d been a scout in the Peninsular War, riding around armies and across the terrain.’
‘He sounds a very useful sort of fellow.’