Chapter 5
Dear Miss Foxley,
Alas, we cannot guarantee the villa to be yours until you have sent a deposit.
As soon as you have, we will, of course, put it in your and your friends’ names.
The villa is an excellent place, as you have been told.
And once you arrive, you will be quite pleased to see that it is upon the coast and there is a small staff that will look after you.
There are many wonderful walks, and we do believe that you shall enjoy it immensely.
Ernestine folded the letter up and clutched it to her bosom.
The villa was to be hers. It had to be.
She had read the description not long ago. One of her aunt’s friends had stayed there while recovering from a lung complaint.
How could the villa not be hers?
It was a villa with a beautiful hillside, surrounded by Tuscan trees and vineyards. It was everything she wanted. It was a place in the sun away from London, away from the grime and the dirt and the rain and the misery and the cold.
Oh, how she longed to go live a life of warmth and rest and enjoyment.
She could not wait for rich purple grapes and good food and good conversation with her friends, where they would no longer be judged by the silliness of London society.
But she could not secure the new home for herself and her three closest friends, who were also wallflowers and unlikely to make good matches, until she reached her majority, which was in but two weeks’ time.
And once she did, she would be gone.
Yes, she would be on the first boat with her trunk packed, away from this terrible island, which had so many awful memories.
It wasn’t her aunt’s fault.
No, her aunt and her cousins had done everything that they could to make her life bearable here. They had bathed her in love, given her friendship and kindness, and they had taken care of her when she had had no money.
Her father, her darling, wonderful father, and her mother had both died in a boating accident. It had been a terrible tragedy, one in which her mother had gone overboard and her father had tried to save her. A storm had come up on the lake, and neither of them survived.
They had both been tangled up in the rigging when the sailboat had toppled over and that had been that.
She had been on the shore with her governess.
The horror of it, those gray skies. The sudden storm that had come up… She’d seen it all while standing in the slashing rain. Helpless.
And the agony of that day had never left her.
The agony of the days after still haunted her.
Her father, being a romantic sort, had spent all the money he’d had in the world investing in unfortunate businesses and giving it to friends.
And sadly, she had been left entirely penniless.
And she would have remained penniless except for the fact that her mother had managed to hide away a portion of her own inheritance, which had been left to her by her mother and father.
She had then left it to her daughter in the event that something should happen.
But Ernestine would not receive that money until she was old enough.
And it was only her aunt’s generosity and goodwill that had saved her from the poorhouse.
Now, she was about to be old enough to have that small inheritance, and she could not wait to escape away to a much better place than this.
“My dear,” her aunt called as she whooshed into the parlor overlooking the square, her plum skirts dancing about her. “Are you ready for the callers to come?”
“Oh, Aunt. They never do,” she said.
Her aunt tutted. “Today will be different. I feel it in my bones. Something will occur. You and your cousin, Delia, will have a host of callers today.”
Delia was quite pretty and good with people, so, of course, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if Delia had callers today, but it was highly unlikely that Ernestine would.
Whenever a ball occurred, she happily stuck to the wallpaper and observed the company or thought of Italy, its statues, its paintings, its food, and its people.
She’d read every single history she could find on that land and, of course, the ancient Romans. It made her rather annoying to people, because she did love to talk about the emperors of old and the madness that they all got up to.
People sometimes thought that the French were wild, but they had nothing on the ancient Romans.
Delia, who was a copy of her mother, bounced into the room in a very similar but slightly more youthful fashion than her mother had just done.
Delia swept to the settee by the windows and all but threw herself down upon it, wiggling her slippered feet from under the pink cloud of her skirts. “Do you think we shall have good cake today, Mama?” she asked.
“No. No cake today. We have been overindulging in cake,” her aunt said.
Delia pouted. “Are you certain, Mama?”
“We must keep our figures, my dear.”
Ernestine let out a sigh. She did not want to restrict herself from cake. She wondered if she would be able to sneak down later in the afternoon and convince Cook to give her a good slice.
She knew Cook would have cake.
The servants always had a little bit of a sweet. And frankly, she thought it quite annoying that Roland got to have cake and the ladies did not.
She understood that her aunt was doing everything that she could to get her and Delia married, but she didn’t see how marriage could be better than a slice of cake.
Gentlemen were all well and good. But frankly, she thought sugar was likely better.
Except, perhaps, not better than the Earl of Seaborough. He had been quite a surprise. She had not expected a gentleman to be so interesting. So compelling. So delicious.
“My dear, your cheeks are turning a bright shade of pink,” her aunt observed. “Are you sitting too close to the windows?”
Sun was pouring in on this particularly bright London day, something that she was grateful for because she did suffer terrible ill effects from the gray weather. And, unfortunately, English summers were often quite gray, and those days did bring her down substantially.
“Oh, no. Not a bit of it,” Ernestine rushed, feeling quite embarrassed to have been caught thinking of the earl.
“Well, you must come away from the window, my dear,” her aunt urged. “You are clearly overheating. Perhaps you need a lighter gown. I would be more than happy to get you a new muslin.”
“No, this is perfectly serviceable,” she said swiftly. She hated the idea of using any more of her aunt’s money, though her aunt had always been terribly generous. Somehow, it bothered her, the idea that she needed help from other people, that her parents had not been able to take care of her.
But she knew how much her aunt loved her, cake or no cake. She’d spent every spare coin she could taking care of her niece. And there had not been many spare coins.
There was a rap at the door.
Her aunt’s eyes lit. “There, my dears. I told you a caller would come.”
Her aunt sat up in her chair, whipped out her fan, and handed it to Ernestine. “Please, my dear. Fan yourself. You do look a bit overborne.”
She took the fan and began dutifully waving it in front of her.
Her cousin draped herself in a most flattering position upon the pink settee which matched her gown. And they all waited for the sounds of steps to come down the hall, which was not a very grand hall or a very long one, but perfectly serviceable.
When the door opened and their butler popped in, gone was his usual look of stoicism. Instead, he looked positively astonished.
The butler sucked in a breath, then all but bellowed, “The Earl of Seaborough!”
If her aunt could have fallen off her chair, Ernestine was fairly certain that she would have done.
Her cousin jolted upright on the settee, and she herself let out a peep of shock.
She had not thought to see him again. Why would she? An earl coming to see her here? It made absolutely no sense. She had only been on his property because of the exhibition.
The Earl of Seaborough strode into the small parlor door in a magnificent costume of emerald green embroidered with gold. His cravat pin gleamed in the morning light. And he? Well, he looked like a Roman god.
Vulcan came to mind, and she suddenly did feel quite hot indeed, as if she had been thrown into the volcano in which that particular god worked.
“Ladies,” he said, his voice a low rumble that crackled in the air. “It is a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for allowing me to call upon you, Mrs. Foxley.”
Mrs. Foxley nodded, apparently barely able to comprehend what was occurring.
After all, earls did not just wander about this particular part of London calling on houses willy-nilly.
“I am most pleased to have you here, my lord,” Mrs. Foxley said, her voice vibrant but shocked.
She cleared her throat. “But I must be so bold as to ask, have I made your acquaintance and forgotten it? I don’t usually imbibe so much wine that I cannot recall meeting someone of your status and presence. ”
The earl gave her a kind smile and then crossed to her and bowed over her hand. There was something about him that was so easy in their company that they all began to relax by degrees.
“Madam,” he said. “Forgive me. No, we have not become acquainted, but I do know your niece here, Miss Foxley. We met at my exhibition yesterday.”
Mrs. Foxley swung her gaze back and forth. “She has not mentioned it. I thought perhaps you had met my daughter.”
“Alas. No, I have not had the pleasure.” The earl turned to look at said daughter.
Said daughter’s mouth was gaping before she sat up a little straighter and did her very best to sparkle as her mother would want her to do.
“How do you do, my lord?” Delia said.
“I do very well. Thank you. And I am glad to see that you are thriving here in London for your first Season. Are you attending any balls?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Delia rushed. “We will be going to the Germaines’ party tomorrow night.”
“And this evening?” the earl queried. “Do any of you have plans for this evening?”
Her aunt gave a tremulous smile. “We were thinking of having a small card party. Of course, you must join us, my lord, if you would like to.”
The earl smiled slowly. “I have come bearing an invitation, actually. I have decided to be my good friend’s footman. It gave me an excuse to come and make certain that your niece was well.”
“Well?” her aunt echoed. “Is something amiss?”
“I had the good fortune of being there yesterday during a difficult moment, and I provided support. That is all.” The earl smiled graciously. “Although, I do not think she actually needed a gentleman’s support at all. She handled herself quite admirably.”
The earl folded a hand behind his back and continued as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
“The Duke of Rivers and I were speaking of how we very much admire a young lady of such qualities and thought it would be best if all three of you, and your son, Roland, were invited to his ball this evening.”
The three of them stared at him, astonished, hardly daring to believe the words that had just tripped out of his mouth.
The Duke of Rivers was one of London’s most important gentlemen. And it seemed as if, this year, he had decided to be one of its most important social members, for he had already given a ball, and now he was giving another.
And everyone wanted to go, but almost no one could, and now, suddenly, they, who would never be in a duke’s notice, were going to go.
But Ernestine had a feeling that, really, it was the earl’s notice. And that made her very nervous indeed.