Eleanor, the Duchess of Haverford, looked around with interest at Miss Clemens’ Oxford Street Book Palace and Tea Rooms. Long ago, in the early miserable days of her marriage, one of Haverford’s elderly aunts had told her to always look for the silver lining. Aldridge had been born later that year, the first silver lining in the dark cloud of her life as a duchess.
More than thirty years had passed, and she was usually able to arrange her life just as she liked it, but every now and again, the game of hunting silver linings still kept her calm and sane.
The current cloud was Haverford’s dictate that she have nothing further to do with her two closest friends because they were sisters to the Earl of Sutton, on whom he had declared war.
The silver lining was all the places she was discovering. Duchesses, in His Grace’s view, sent for anything they needed, and so she had ever since she wed the duke. The modiste came to her. Books were ordered from a catalogue and delivered. When she chose to redecorate, she selected what she wanted from samples and someone made it all happen.
Shops were a revelation. In all Eleanor’s life, she had never been to a fabric emporium, such as the one where she and her friends met two weeks ago, or a millinery—last week’s meeting place. Both had been fascinating, but today’s book shop surpassed them all.
Now that she had discovered the activity, she was going to continue to go out to shops, and not in disguise, either, except to meet forbidden friends. She would adore the opportunity to stroll, as other ladies were doing, taking a book from the shelves and reading a few pages. But the veil that kept her from being recognised was too heavy to allow her to read.
Instead, she followed the shop assistant to the private room where she was to meet Lady Sutton and Lady Georgiana Winderfield. The shop also served refreshments and had rooms that could be hired for meetings. This room was set up with comfortable chairs, and the table was already provided with all appurtenances for making and serving tea.
Eleanor was the first to arrive. She seated herself before reaching up to lift her veil, and had no sooner cast it back over the bonnet, and sighed with relief at being able to see clearly, when the door opened behind her back. Just to be careful, she did not turn. “Grace? Georgie?”
“Your Grace.” The deep voice was male. “My sisters send their regrets. They left yesterday for Winds’ Gate, and asked me to convey their apologies.” His tones warmed with humour. “I gather the usual channels of communication depend on the social calendars of my nieces and your goddaughters.”
Eleanor stood and turned, her heart in her mouth. “Ja— Lord Sutton.” If Haverford found out… No. She had taken every precaution. She let go the breath she had not known she was holding and held out her hand. “How are you?”
Eleanor could not take her eyes off him. She had seen him, of course, since he had returned to England; not just at that memorable ball when they stood face to face for the first time in nearly thirty-five years, then passed without a word, but also in the distance on the street, in the park, even at other social events they accidentally both attended at the same time.
She had not stood close enough to catalogue all the ways he had changed and all the ways he was still the young man—almost a boy—whom she had loved and lost.
She had not felt his hand, his fingers gently pressing hers. Even through two layers of glove, she felt a jolt, as if all the barely contained energy that gave him such presence and power had discharged up her arm and through her— through her torso.
“James,” she said again, her vocabulary deserting her.
His eyes were the same warm brown, but the face from which they smiled had matured into a shape distant from her memories. His height had not changed, nor were his shoulders broader. Indeed, if she ignored the maturity lines, and the wisdom and knowledge in his eyes, she would not believe him to be nearly sixty. He had been a handsome youth, almost pretty. The prettiness had worn into something more solidly hewn, something stronger.
“I waited,” she said, not knowing the words were in her mind until she heard them leave her tongue. “I insisted if they dragged me to the church, I would refuse Haverford at the very altar. Then they told me you were dead, and I did not care whom I married. It did not matter” It didn’t matter now. More than thirty years had passed. She had two sons. He had married a woman he loved and who had borne him ten children. How could Eleanor possibly care what he thought about the actions of that girl from so long ago? But somehow, she did care for him to know she had tried to be faithful to their love.
His gaze had not left her face. “Winshire had reason to believe that I was dead. My captor said he would kill me if Winshire did not pay the ransom he wanted, and Winshire refused.”
“Georgie explained.” She flushed, suddenly aware she was gawking like a giddy girl. “Please, Lord Sutton, do have a seat.”
“I have a letter from Grace and Georgie,” he said, reaching inside his coat to retrieve the correspondence and handing it over before he lowered himself into the indicated chair.
Eleanor arranged herself in the chair closest to the tea makings and cast a quick glance over the four closely-written pages. “Nothing that requires a reply, my lord,” she told him. “May I pour you a cup?”
“Thank you. Black, please. No milk, cream or sugar.” His lips curved just a little as he added, “Are we to be formal, then, Eleanor? Or should I say ‘Your Grace’?”
No. Never that. For James to address her as Haverford’s duchess struck her as a perversion of all things righteous and good. Floundering to regain her balance, she thought again of his wife. She had suffered decades of marriage to a monster, but James had loved and been loved, and she was glad of it. Truly, she was. “I was sorry to hear about the death of Lady James. When Georgie told me she had died, I so wanted to write, but…” She gestured meaninglessly with one hand, unable to find the words to explain the social constraints she would have needed to ignore to write a condolence letter to her first love on the death of his beloved wife, especially when his continued existence was a well-kept secret supposedly known only to his father and sister.
He seemed to understand. “Thank you. It has been ten years…” He put out his hand to receive the cup she passed and her hand touched his. Another jolt. She snatched her hand back, and only his quick reflexes allowed him to take a firm grip on the cup in time to prevent more than a slight slosh into the saucer.
“I am not sure if you would want to know…” James hesitated.
“Go on,” she urged.
“In the letter refusing to pay my ransom, Winshire mentioned that you had wed Haverford. I do not suppose it matters, now, but until then, I intended to return.”
Eleanor’s hand shook as she lifted her own cup to her mouth and she set it down again, ignoring the rattle as it settled into the saucer. “They told me you were dead,” she said, again. Something didn’t add up. “But you were not,” she mused, working it out as she spoke. “If Winshire knew you were being held for ransom, he knew you were alive. They lied to me, James.”
James nodded, his lips tight. “Or to me. I was told of my fate in seventeen seventy-nine.”
“Winshire went into mourning in seventeen seventy-eight, and I was married later that year.” They had lied, the three cronies, to get her to the altar. She picked up her cup and took a sip of her tea. She could not change the past.
“Your father is answering for his crimes before God,” James pointed out, “and my father will soon join him. His doctors do not expect him to see out the year.”
Which still left Haverford alive to plague her, though the life of self-indulgence he had pursued since he was a youth was likely to carry him off sooner rather than later. Rather than say so, Eleanor changed the subject.
“Tell me about your family, James. I have seen the two daughters you have with you, and Lord Elfingham and Lord Andrew. They appear to be fine young people. And you have another six, I believe!”
For the next fifteen minutes, they talked about their children and the grandchildren James had left behind in Para Daisa. James had almost certainly heard the rumours that Eleanor’s three wards were the natural daughters of Haverford; Georgie, who knew the rumour to be true, may have confirmed it for him. If so, he was too well-mannered; too kind; to allude to their clouded birth in any way.
Neither did they mention Haverford, though his existence was a spectre in the room. How could it not be so, given that his determination to have Eleanor to wife had changed the direction of their lives? How could it not be so when they shared stories about their eldest sons? James’s namesake, now Viscount Elfingham, currently enduring the ambitious mothers of Society in order to find an English bride of impeccable lineage; the Marquess of Aldridge, clinging to the reputation of heedless rake years after it ceased to apply, so that even the most determined mothers had no expectations of him.
Both young men hoped for love and passion in their marriage. Neither, given their circumstances, could expect it.
At last, after a second cup, James stood to leave, and Eleanor escorted him the short distance to the door. He put out his hand to take hers. “Eleanor, thank you for sparing me a few moments of your time.”
Eleanor curtsied and allowed him to bow over her hand, very properly kissing the air above it. “It was a pleasure to see you, James,” she managed to murmur, her voice creditably even.
But one thought beat persistently in her mind all through the ride home in the unmarked carriage she had borrowed from her son, her entrance into his private wing—yet another anonymous veiled lady visiting the wicked Merry Marquis—and her retreat to her own side of the house. Her attraction to James Winderfield, Earl of Sutton and future Duke of Winshire, was as potent as it had been when she was an innocent girl.
It was foolishness. She was married. They were enemies by her husband’s decree. James was a widower famous for still loving his deceased wife. Foolishness or not, he was still the only man who had ever made her heart race and her body melt. And nothing could ever come of it.
When Parliament closed, releasing the ton to spread out across England, the Belvoirs returned to their country estate. In July, Hythe escorted his sisters to Cheltenham, where their aunts had a townhouse. The Cheltenham Season was in summer, the town’s genteel population swelling, though the aunts pointed out several times a day that it was not as fashionable as Bath had once been, and also attracted many patrons of the middling sort.
“One meets all kinds of mushrooms and parvenu at the Royal Well these days,” Aunt Agnes bemoaned as they sat drinking tea after dinner on the first night, and Aunt Clara joined the chorus with, “All kinds.”
“Would you like me to purchase you a townhouse in Brighton?” Hythe offered. Strictly speaking, his mother’s sisters were not his responsibility, but neither of the gentlemen who were heads of their respective families showed an interest in these two faded leaves on forgotten branches of their family tree. Aunt Agnes’s husband had been succeeded by a distant cousin as had Aunt Clara’s (and Mother’s) brother.
Both aunts were taken aback by the offer, exchanging alarmed glances. “Oh, no, dear,” Aunt Agnes ventured. “We couldn’t possibly impose.”
“Too much to ask,” Aunt Clara suggested.
“Not at all,” Hythe told them. “A townhouse in Brighton would be a good investment. Besides, you are my aunts. I am happy to help you.”
“So kind, Hythe.” Aunt Clara simpered, but her eyes held panic.
“Too many people,” Aunt Agnes declared. “Not good for Clara, at all.”
“Not good,” Aunt Clara agreed.
“Bath, then? Tunbridge Wells? Harrowgate, even?” Hythe’s eyes, Sophia noted, were beginning to twinkle. “Ladies, name the town of your dreams, and leave the rest to me.”
“Very nice of you, Hythe,” Aunt Agnes said, though her tone made a lie of the words.
“Very nice,” echoed Aunt Clara.
“We shall think about your proposition, but for now Clara and I must go to bed. We do not keep the hours that suit you young people.” Aunt Agnes swept her sister before her and left the room.
Felicity barely contained herself until the door closed behind them, her laughter spilling over with the firm click. Hythe grinned. “I will wager I’ll hear no more complaints about Cheltenham during my stay,” he offered, but neither Sophia nor Felicity would take that wager. Just as well, for the aunts said nothing further derogatory about the town in the three whole days that Hythe managed to endure Cheltenham and the aunts before bolting for more congenial company.
“I feel I’m abandoning you,” he apologised to Sophia on the morning he left. “Are you sure you wish to stay? I can escort you somewhere else if you wish.”
He really was the sweetest of brothers. “Felicity and I like Cheltenham,” Sophia assured him. “We will gossip in the spas, stroll the parks and walks, attend the assemblies, visit with our friends, and generally have a capital time.” They would also make several day trips to inspect charitable establishments they supported, but Hythe would fuss if Sophia mentioned that.
“If you are sure…” Hythe heaved a sigh. “It sounds deathly boring to me, and then with the aunts to bear on top of the gruesome social round!”
Sophia laughed. “Poor Hythe. But I assure you, I would very likely be just as bored by your racing, boxing, hunting, and wen— other activities.”
Hythe’s eyes sparkled, but he showed how much he had matured in the last couple of years and didn’t take her to task for nearly saying ‘wenching’. “I daresay,” was his only comment before Felicity and the aunts came to join the general leave-taking.
Their days swiftly fell into a routine. A visit to the Royal Well spa in the morning was followed by a walk, calls, lectures, or excursions in the afternoon, and their choice of social engagements in the evening: assemblies several nights a week, and on the other nights, musicales, dinners, and theatrical performances.
Sophia had five charitable establishments to visit, and planned to be in Cheltenham for eight weeks. Fitting the calls into their schedule would be easy. The trick would be to carry out her obligations without alarming the aunts, who shared the common view that small donations of money to the local vicar or the purchase of a subscription to a charity ball was philanthropy enough for any lady.
With Felicity now old enough to be part of the conspiracy, it was even easier than in previous years. As long as they made their excursions with a large enough group of young people and took their maid, the aunts considered their duty done, and were thankful to remain at home.
The Belvoir ladies became reacquainted with people they’d met during previous visits to Cheltenham, and some of the young people they knew from the London Season were also here, including the Earl of Hamner, whose estate was within easy riding distance of the spa town.
They added new friends to the group, too. Felicity, as usual, attracted a train of beaus, none of whom she favoured though she was friendly to them all. Aunt Agnes, with Aunt Clara as enthusiastic chorus, took great pleasure in weighing their respective merits, sometimes within earshot of the specimen currently being discussed.
In the first week, Sophia and Felicity paid a call on a school for young ladies in Cheltenham itself. Several of the students had their fees paid by Sophia’s group of benefactresses, and the charitable ladies had discovered that taking a personal interest in their protégées served to ensure that the girls on scholarships were not treated differently to the daughters of wealthier families with whom they studied.
The village schools they saw in the next two weeks required a bit more effort to slide past the oblivious aunts. A picnic to Barnwood was an excuse to slip away from the main party and drop by the first school, and an all-day excursion to the St Oswald Priory ruins put them within walking distance of the second.
That left two places. The orphans’ asylum in Gloucester would be easy enough. She and Felicity could easily find a reason for a day’s shopping trip to the town. The village they supported in Oxfordshire, on land owned by Lord Sutton, was further away and on the other side of the Cotswolds. No useful ruins or market towns in west Oxfordshire presented themselves as an excuse for a full day’s trip.
“We could go through Oxfordshire after we leave Cheltenham,” she told Felicity, “but I’d rather not wait a month. According to Aunt Eleanor, Lady Sutton and her daughters are at Wind’s Gate for the summer, and the new Lord Sutton has replaced the steward on the estate, who kept Lady Sutton’s secrets. The community is concerned about a stranger interfering in their lives.”
The village was a refuge for ladies whose fear of men was well founded: seduced and abandoned women, abused wives and indigent widows. The previous Lord Sutton had ignored the property, leaving it to Lady Sutton and her steward, but the new Lord Sutton had established his horse herd there, and planned a horse farm to be run by a new steward under the supervision of Lord Elfingham.
“A great deal could happen in a month,” Felicity agreed. “We’ll need to think of a way to make the trip without upsetting the aunts. We can’t have them writing to Hythe!” She shuddered, and Sophia had to agree. For a smart young man, Hythe could be dismayingly conventional when it came to the people Felicity was allowed to meet. A village of fallen women (as he would see it) was certainly not on his approved list.
“I will go on my own,” Sophia decided. “I am past the age where I have to be concerned about what Hythe thinks. How, though?”
They had still not thought of a strategy by that evening, when Sophia caught sight of a recognisable dark head cleaving a way through the crowds in the assembly rooms. Felicity caught sight of him at the same moment. “What is Lord Elfingham doing here?” she wondered.
A moment later, he was in front of them, his smile warm. “Lady Felicity. Lady Sophia. How pleasant to see familiar faces.” Sophia curtseyed in response to his bow, and introduced him to the aunts, all the time wondering what he was doing in Cheltenham. Could Hythe be right? Was he courting Felicity?