Chapter One #3
“And you prefer dark hair, while I like all the colors. I am very liberal about my preference in hair color. They all have their merits, to my mind.”
“I cannot help being drawn to dark hair,” Pansy said. “I never really decided it, I just am.”
“Gracious, when and why have you been discussing such things?” Miss Millthorpe said.
They both shrugged. They discussed quite a lot of things out of earshot of Miss Millthorpe.
“I know what we will have to do, Pops. We must have a pact. If we both fall in love with the same gentleman, both of us will have to walk away.”
Poppy nodded. “We will walk away and live in misery forevermore.”
“We can cry together,” Pansy said.
“And have a sad cake on the anniversary of our walking away.”
“Iced with our tears.”
“A proper pact.”
“We could sign it in blood.”
“And use Papa’s seal to make it official and binding.”
“Never to be broken.”
Miss Millthorpe heavily sighed. “As usual, far too dramatic.”
“Perhaps,” Pansy said. “But we are both very feeling people, so our pacts are bound to be dramatic.”
As Miss Millthorpe was looking rather cross over it, Pansy glanced at Poppy. Poppy nodded. It was a moment when The Millthorpe Tactic was called for. It was their longstanding strategy for cheering the lady up when she was disappointed in them.
They leapt to either side of her on the sofa and covered her in kisses and compliments until she relented, laughed, and called them the worst young ladies living.
Edmund Lelander, only son of Viscount Pepperdon, vaguely remembered his mother’s friend, Lady Ainsworth, who had come to visit last year.
As happened when his mother hosted another lady, the two had spent the majority of their time in the drawing room talking, walking in the garden and talking, setting off for the village and probably talking there too.
At dinner, they talked some more and it was inevitably a long and winding journey through their youths.
He’d got very good at thinking about other things at such a moment so he would not be able to recall any of those memorable journeys.
Lady Ainsworth had left and he’d only noticed it when she did not turn up for dinner.
He’d not thought a thing about her since.
Therefore, he’d been rather surprised to receive a letter from the lady’s son, Viscount Smythesdon, eldest son of the Earl of Ainsworth.
The fellow wrote that his mother had spoken very highly of him and the lord had been meaning to introduce himself, though Lelander could not think why. Was he planning to travel to the area and looking for a place to put down his trunks?
Then the bigger surprise had come. Would he like to visit Chemsworth Hall, the seat of Viscount Mulholland, in Oxfordshire? Lord Smythesdon would be there on a visit to his in-laws and it seemed an ideal arrangement.
Of course he would. He could not fathom why Lord Smythesdon thought of inviting him to his in-law’s estate, nor why Oxfordshire would seem ideal, but that did not mean he would not go. It was somewhere new and he’d had a dearth of new somewheres in his life.
He had always wished to attend the season in London, but the viscount would not fund it.
He could afford to fund it, but he said London was the road to ruin for a young gentleman.
The temptations, particularly of the gambling, drink, and actresses variety, were too alluring to risk.
Most importantly, his father had no intention of his son bankrupting them by wagering high during one drunken night in Town.
Lelander knew that fear was at least partly true.
He corresponded with friends from Eton who attended the seasons and some of them had got in rather deep.
Particularly, Hemstone. The fellow could not even precisely say how it had happened and just blamed it on wine, dice, and Watier’s.
Would Lelander himself have fallen into such a trap?
He’d told his father a very forceful no.
Privately, he thought it was more of a maybe.
Oxfordshire would not have the excitement of London, but it was somewhere unknown.
He liked his estate and there was plenty to do of the riding and shooting variety, but they rarely encountered new people.
He would really like to wed and he did not see how that would happen with no likely person nearby.
The Lancashire ladies within reach were few and not to his liking for one reason or another.
Their estate was unfortunately situated nearby Lancashire’s border with Yorkshire and there was no point in even suggesting a lady from Yorkshire.
It would cause too much strife within the family.
Though the Civil Wars were long over, feelings still ran deep over it.
It ought to be long forgotten, but those Yorkshiremen were sore losers who could never let a thing go.
Henry VII had even been so gracious as to wed Elizabeth of York as a balm to soothe the loss, but those people were so ungrateful!
The Earl of Westport and his annoying heir, Viscount Burkhart, were prime examples of the problem.
Pepperdon Hall and Westport House were six miles apart, he in Lancashire and Burkhart in Yorkshire.
The feud between their two families was longstanding.
It was an accepted thing that the House of Westport and the House of Pepperdon were on either side of a very high fence.
Nobody could say if the enmity had established itself back in 1455, or sometime before or after, but the Roses War was at the bottom of it.
His father thought the feud had really taken off during Henry VIII’s reign.
The Yorkists frowned over all the queens disposed of for one reason or another.
Lelander did too, though if he were confronted about it by a Yorkshireman he would surely shout, “There were reasons for all of them and only two were executed! A king must have a son!”
As a matter of signaling their stance on the matter, Lelander’s estate only grew red roses. He understood the earl did the same with white roses.
If Lelander were trotting down a lane, he might be hailed by a fellow he knew, passing by on a farmer’s cart.
The man would say, “One of them ahead.” Them was always a Yorkshireman.
If the farmer added, “One of ‘em what’s too big for his britches,” that was probably Burkhart.
As was tradition, he and Burkhart would sneer at one another as they passed.
They’d attended Eton at the same time and there had been several scuffles.
It had eventually come to both of them being threatened with expulsion and they’d settled into their separate camps.
The few Lancashiremen were for Pepperdon, the few Yorkshiremen were for Burkhart, and they divided the southerners between them.
Lelander did not particularly view the feud as a hardship.
Burkhart was a rather brutish country gentleman, very much of Yorkshire stock, compared to Lelander’s own more elegant bearing.
At least, that was how his family viewed it—Lancastrians were sophisticated and cultured, while Yorkists were lumbering rubes.
Now he was on his way to Oxfordshire and away from any feud.
Who could guess what ladies might be about the place?
As a further benefit, his family held nothing at all against Oxfordshire.
His father was all for the trip, as he did wish his son to wed and had not had an answer as to how he was to do it with nobody suitable nearby.
Praise God he might meet a lovely lady there.