April 20, 1843
Parham Hill Estate
East Suffolk County, England
Deception played an elegant game.
To Elizabeth’s mother, Eleanor Meade, the Dowager Countess of Davies, the matrimonial pieces were artfully placed so no one should learn the extent of depravity to which she and her only daughter had fallen. But to Elizabeth, a life reduced to scraping in society’s shadows was less severe a reality than her mother’s view of it.
In truth, she was not sorry to put distance between them and their crumbling estate.
An invitation to a spring ball in Mayfair would have been a tricky venture to navigate—even for an earl’s daughter of good standing. But to attend such a one at the reclusive Parham Hill Estate nestled in the Framlingham countryside provided better odds that no one from Yorkshire—or London society, for that matter—would travel so far. That, her mother hoped, would preserve their ruse.
For Elizabeth, it might offer a chance to finally exhale.
Rail lines were springing up in the English countryside like ivy ornamenting a garden, yet the price of two train tickets to Cambridge might as well have been to the moon for what they could manage. They’d boarded a mail coach under cover of night, the deep lingering of shadows ensuring they’d not be recognized on their way down the north road. They’d spent the next several days and nearly every quid they possessed traveling to their destination. Another day of wheels cutting through mud, frequent stops for water though a spring rain was driving it down upon them in sheets, and three changes of horses had drawn out the last leg of the journey, now east, to an exhaustive degree.
The cramped quarters of the mail coach had been exchanged for a roomier coach that afternoon, and though her taffeta ballgown was starched and stiff, and made her feel every bump in the road, Elizabeth preferred it to sitting in a soiled traveling frock as she had for three dreary days in succession.
Outside the coach window, the final landscape beckoned with orchards primed for a fresh planting season. Rolling hills buffered the horizon in a vibrant Kelly green. Rock-wall fences cut geometric shapes of the landscape in a severe gray. And a long willow-lined road stretched a lazy welcome, transfixing Elizabeth with the unexpected peace of such a view.
It felt like home—almost.
Yorkshire was more than ten years behind them now—her childhood estate in its prime barely a blot on her memory. If Elizabeth could only take out a brush and capture the faint lines and play of light that now cut golden patches through budded limbs . . . Or the diamond flutter of ripples across the surface of the lake they’d passed by . . . Even the melodic clip-clop of the horses’ hooves proved a diversion, helping Elizabeth escape the mire of her thoughts—enough that she wished the moment could last forever.
“We’ve arrived,” Ma-ma announced, as though the looming manor of Parham Hill hadn’t enough of a punctuation on its own.
Ma-ma patted the coif at her nape, making tidy what had once been rich chocolate brown now tinged with gray. She leaned forward, ignoring the ornate stories of beveled stone and leaded glass in favor of tugging Elizabeth’s skirt into submission. She pressed a palm against a crease, smoothing the length of her gown.
“Do sit up, Elizabeth. You cause more wrinkles than the bench seat ever could. I cannot hope to save you from them all.” Ma-ma spotted the inevitable sight of a leather-bound sketchbook in Elizabeth’s gloved hand and grimaced. “What is that?”
Elizabeth slipped it out of view against the coach seat, used to the long-standing practice of defending an old friend from insult. “Nothing to fret over.”
“Fret indeed. Do away with it or we shall feed it to the fire. I indulge your fancies with sketching because it is a proper pastime of gentle ladies, but not a substitute for necessity. Marriage is a tricky business, both to acquire and then to manage. You’d best remember your duties.”
“I remember,” Elizabeth whispered.
And she did, because she was allowed to forget nothing.
It was another ball.
Another gentleman of eligible age and situation.
Another glimmer of hope that had morphed into a dramatic scene played over and over: she must secure a match, and fast.
Her mother reminded her in regular fashion that she’d been blessed with fair gifts of honey hair and porcelain skin with only a few freckles to mar the bridge of a pert nose—which they could hide with the right maquillage. And she still possessed the glow of youth beset by rose cheeks and a radiant smile. But they would not last. With no dowry, no title, and one Yorkshire estate that had secretly fallen into utter disrepair, Elizabeth hadn’t much by which to rescue them.
Save for one ballgown.
It was a muted cranberry from two seasons prior that was still presentable, but not bold enough to be labeled as showy. Even though that’s what it was. All it was, really—a bit of show enabling her to play a part, weave a masterful deceit, and ensnare her a husband.
Time had wings and they knew it full well.
“Now, Elizabeth. The estate owner is a Viscount Huxley—one of the Suffolk Jameses. I believe he is the great-nephew of your late pa-pa’s distant cousin.”
“Has he any family?”
“Both parents dead. No siblings, so he’ll inherit everything. The viscount is still young. Unmarried, but he’ll have to acquiesce to that soon if he wishes to produce an heir—which he must. The invitation declares this ball is a birthday celebration in honor of his lordship’s friend. The man is said to be an old bachelor himself. Whispers say he is a struggling portrait maker the viscount seems to have taken into his acquaintance. No doubt he is a disreputable man with a lot that cannot be redeemed even by such a grand occasion.”
Even if it were true, something fluttered in Elizabeth’s midsection.
A portrait maker?
Trying not to give note that her interest was piqued by the mention of an artist in residence instead of by the most eligible ball giver himself, Elizabeth cleared her throat, adding a layer of singsong to her voice. “To be a portrait maker, would this man not have some provision to be commissioned by clients who must be in a position to pay for his services?”
“Oh, they have their wretched ways. Painters . . . vagrants.” Ma-ma wrinkled her elegant nose and Elizabeth could have laughed aloud. Her mother did believe such wild tales of those who did not fit her mold of polite society and its upper crust.
“Have you the artist’s name?”
Ma-ma waved her off with the flick of her wrist, instead giving ardent attention to the ruffle encircling Elizabeth’s hem.
“What are they all named? Sir something or another. Lord this, His Honorable that. An artist of no consequence, I’d wager, if he attends a ball this far into the wilds of the East Suffolk countryside.”
“Does that reflect poorly then on those in attendance?”
“Certainly not for us. Though it is said the artist is quite eccentric, he and Viscount Huxley are close in acquaintance—to the tune of the artist offering counsel on matters of both a business and even a personal nature. And to date, the viscount has selected no bride. That cannot be coincidence. So this penniless artist could prove a profitable confrère in the end, if we draw him out early.”
“Perhaps the artist’s affinity for portraiture would give us something by which to converse. I’ve never met a real artist—not one who makes a living by the brush at least.”
“Penniless is not a living.”
Elizabeth exhaled, frustration battling to escape her and finding only a pent-up breath by which to do it. “Ma-ma, do you really intend to force me into this? Might we consider the fact that Viscount Huxley has no desire to wed?”
“Your father had no desire to wed when we were united either.”
“What in heaven’s name does that mean?”
“Not a thing, save that you ought to heed my warnings to mind your duty, and mind it well.”
“What is duty, when I, too, have heard rumors that the viscount is most austere in the company of eligible ladies? I heard tell of Lady Michaels’s daughters who were so ill received not two seasons back, they escaped the estate before dawn to avoid the unpleasantry of engaging him in the same breakfast room the following day. I suspect the viscount needs no acquaintance to speak for him if houseguests choose to flee his estate of their own volition, and in the dead of night no less. It appears his manners are able to accomplish that all on his own.”
“Then it is you who will prove those rumors false by dutifully changing his mind.” Ma-ma offered a polished smile, as if her efforts in encouragement were best served in their last moments before they stepped into the throngs of the big show.
When Elizabeth did not reciprocate, Ma-ma forfeited pleasantries in favor of a grim countenance. “Elizabeth . . . you know our circumstances full well.”
“I do.”
“And you face destitution because of them.” She paused, as if to let the cold reality sink in to Elizabeth’s innermost being—as if the loss of her father before her eyes had not done that on its own. “We face it.”
“I know that. But I am not unhappy. At least, not due to our circumstances.” Elizabeth turned her gaze down through the remark, hoping the true nature of her interest would be kept well hidden.
“Have you a wish to become a country schoolmarm?”
“The thought had crossed my mind . . .”
“You—the daughter of an earl—would presume to begin boarding round at the mercies of a county’s charity or to submit to the cruel insecurities of poverty’s whims? That is tantamount to ruin.”
“What a relief,” Elizabeth allowed, finding her mother’s brand of destitution a far more intriguing prospect than she’d clearly intended. “I believed marriage to be my only option. Please excuse me while I search my reticule for a ruler and chalk.”
“Do not attempt to be clever. That is not the life your father wished for you.”
“And yet this is what it is. Pa-pa is gone. I have no title, no prospects, and an estate in ruin all because I had the great misfortune of being born female.”
“Hush, Elizabeth,” Ma-ma shushed, looking out the window as if the entire countryside were listening in on their plight.
“But, Ma-ma, if we could only go back and open an inquiry into Pa-pa’s death . . . I believe there is more to what happened than a robbery. I told you, there was a man. I saw him standing by, waiting for Pa-pa to emerge from the tea shop, and if we just—”
“Stop this at once!” Ma-ma balled a fist in her lap as her voice caught on the ragged edge of emotion.
The coach jostled over a rut in the road, punctuating the silence her mother’s outburst had cut between them.
Elizabeth had never told her mother about the street urchin’s eyes. She’d never told anyone, in fact. A child wasn’t thought to have any information of grand importance, and though he was an earl, her father’s death was dealt with swiftly and in quite a forgettable manner. The authorities hadn’t any inclination to investigate a man standing on a street corner. A vagrant had been charged. Justice was done, what little there was for them in it.
“We cannot go back, Elizabeth, even should we wish to. We must move forward.”
“But inheritance is of public record. Anyone making a basic inquiry might learn of our present circumstances. We cannot hide the fact that we live in a grand hovel. An estate house with nothing left in it but empty rooms and a skeleton staff.”
“Who would inquire? Your father’s name still holds merit with these people, even ten years after his death. That name garnered an invitation to this ball, and the few we’ve received this season. But even that good fortune cannot sustain us forever. We must move quickly if we are to secure your future.”
“And if I wish to be more than my father’s name?”
“To be that name is the only hope we possess.”
Reading the pain in her mother’s look, Elizabeth tucked the sketchbook in her reticule and pressed her fingers to her mother’s gloved hand. Straightening her spine, she allowed her face to become a mask of serenity and her posture ready to submit to duty’s demands.
“Forgive me, Ma-ma—it has been a tiring journey. I meant no ill reply. The sketches are away. See? And old ghosts buried. I shall be at my best.”
Sated, Ma-ma squeezed Elizabeth’s hand in return and then released it, hope back in her smile. She watched out the coach window as the horses slowed and they stopped at a grand portico. “I have a feeling this is the night we’ve been waiting for, Elizabeth.”
“I pray you are right.”
Elizabeth brushed her gloved hand over her reticule, feeling the sketchbook that held the old drawing she’d pasted in the back cover, right next to the solid metal of the tiny revolver she’d hidden inside.
Perhaps this was the night she’d been waiting for.
One day Elizabeth would find him.
She’d look into the eyes of a murderer, and though she hadn’t a clue whether she was brave enough, bold enough, or made wretched enough to do so, she’d deal a blow of justice that was long overdue to the man who had ruined their lives. Until then, Elizabeth would hold fast, readying her resolve in subservience to her mother’s game, as long as the invitations came in and her best gown stayed in fashion.
The façade would not crack until it was time. But when it was, Elizabeth would find a way to avenge Pa-pa’s death if it was the last thing she did.