Chapter One
Miss Elizabeth Trowbridge never knew what to say to eligible gentlemen.
She had only been out in society for two years, so it was not a huge disappointment to her family that she was not yet wed.
But initially, there had been plenty of interest. She was, she thought it fair to say, attractive, and accomplished in all the things a young lady ought to be: painting, singing, playing the piano, and dancing.
But the one area where she failed miserably was conversation.
Not with young women; she could talk among the ladies surrounding the dance floor quite happily.
But whenever a gentleman was involved, her tongue seemed to get stuck and her mind refused to provide her with any topic of conversation.
She was sure they all thought she was a simpleton, and that was why the requests to dance had become fewer, and callers with bunches of flowers had dried up to nearly nothing.
The problem was, she did not know how one got better at talking to the opposite sex, when one never got any practice outside of a high-stakes situation like a ball, where everyone was looking and appraising and waiting for something noteworthy to happen.
Mama had tried inviting young men to dinner, but even that seemed too much pressure for Elizabeth to be able to think of anything to say.
It really was the most frustrating affliction.
So when the invitation came to the Duchess of Tewkesbury’s seaside house party, Elizabeth was wary. There were bound to be gentlemen in attendance—that was the whole purpose of such gatherings.
And she did not wish to sit like a silent fool for days on end.
But her mother insisted that this was the perfect opportunity.
“Don’t you see, Elizabeth? It’s a chance you will not have again.
Instead of only speaking—or trying to speak—to a gentleman in the space of an evening, or over dinner, you will have several days to get to know them, to become more confident, to have a topic to discuss.
” She smiled as she re-read the gold-embossed parchment.
“Yes, it really is the most fortuitous timing. Your father can travel back to Honiton Hall as planned, and then we can join him there. It is such an honor for the duchess to invite us; I wonder how you caught her eye? And a house in Devon, whilst the weather is so warm—what a pleasure that will be.”
Elizabeth had not spent time by the sea before, but there was certainly something about its wildness and endlessness that she had seen depicted in paintings which intrigued her.
“Yes, Mama. I am quite sure you are right,” Elizabeth said, ever the dutiful daughter.
But she still had her reservations. The Duchess of Tewkesbury was well known as a matchmaker and a meddler, and Elizabeth rather thought that her quietness around gentlemen was precisely the reason she had been invited.
Perhaps the duchess thought she could cure her.
But Elizabeth certainly did not want a marriage resulting from a scandal like the one that had occurred in Vauxhall Gardens a year earlier, during Elizabeth’s first season.
The Duchess of Tewkesbury, along with a group of other matrons, had stumbled across Viscount Walsham and Miss Carrington, and the two had been forced to wed to avoid scandal.
Elizabeth certainly wanted to marry, but she did not want to marry without choice. She rather worried that if she had to marry a man she barely knew, she would never find the ability to speak to him openly, as a husband and wife surely ought to.
But the house party invitation was accepted, and new clothes were purchased, and a month later, she and Mama took the carriage on the long journey to the southwest of the country, lamenting that they must sit in the sweltering heat—but knowing that by the coast, they might get some relief from the heatwave that had taken hold of England.