Christina had spent longer than she ought in the nursery. Not that she need worry about her children feeling neglected for the next week, she had realized. Although there were only four other children there, their presence was likely to prove endlessly fascinating to Rachel and Tess, who had never had many playmates apart from each other. But her daughters had wanted to tell her everything there was to be told about their new friends, and then those children had wanted to tell her everything about themselves. And of course there were their mothers with whom to get acquainted.
There was barely time to dress for dinner and have her hair redone. But perhaps the shortage of time was just as well, she thought as she hurried downstairs. She was wearing an evening gown of emerald green satin, and Sophie had piled her hair higher than it had been during the day. She felt alarmingly exposed to view. Black clothes, she thought again, formed a marvelous mask behind which to hide.
She was not reassured by the greeting awaiting her in the drawing room.
“My dear Lady Wanstead,” Lady Milchip said, coming forward and taking one of Christina’s hands in her own, “I do wish you would tell me who your modiste is. Though I daresay it is a secret. All the most elegant ladies of my acquaintance have secret modistes.” She sighed and then laughed. “You certainly know what to wear to complement your dark coloring.”
“My modiste, ma’am,” Christina assured her, “is the village dressmaker. I will pass on your compliment to her.”
Viscount Luttrell, she noticed without looking directly at him, was surveying her through his quizzing glass again. She remembered suddenly that long-forgotten mingling of excitement and embarrassment at being the object of a gentleman’s notice. He was, she suspected, the type of gentleman Gilbert had always most despised. A rake, no less.
Well, she thought, there was surely no harm in feeling feminine again.
The earl, she saw when she glanced across the room, was dressed with extreme elegance in black and white. He was smiling at something Miss Lizzie Gaynor was saying to him. The girl’s hand was resting on his sleeve and she was looking up at him with a somewhat proprietary air.
Christina remembered again what had struck her earlier in the afternoon when she had watched him lift Miss Campbell down from her carriage and then kiss her on both cheeks. It was something she should have thought of a week or more ago, she supposed, but she had been too wrapped up with painful memory, uncomfortable reality.
He was an earl, a propertied gentleman, a man with two vast fortunes, if it was true that fur-trading was as profitable as she had heard it was. He was one-and-thirty years old, a single man. He had succeeded to his property and title a little over a year ago. He had arrived back in England only a few months ago. What could be more natural than the fact that he was in search of a wife? And what more leisurely way to do it than to invite a number of eligible young ladies to his own home so that he could become acquainted with them in the environment a wife would occupy with him?
It was clear to see that Miss Gaynor was very eligible indeed. So were Miss Susan Gaynor, Miss Clara Radway, and Miss Winifred Milchip. And if Jeannette Campbell was not quite so eligible bytonstandards, her father being in business though he was a gentleman, she was certainly not ineligible. And she appeared to have the advantage of Gerard’s regard in addition to good looks and pleasing manners. And of course she came from the world with which he had been familiar for the past ten years. Even Margaret was not an impossibility, though Christina felt a nasty lurching of the stomach at the very thought. Surely not Meg!
Soon, then, he might be expected to marry. And if he did so, unless his bride was Miss Campbell, he could be expected to remain in England and make Thornwood his home. That would relegate her, Christina, to the rank of dowager countess. She would be even more of an encumbrance than she was now. She would be a hanger-on in the home he shared with his wife.
The prospect was enough to make her feel somewhat light-headed.
Lady Milchip and a few of the other guests had been conversing around her unheard. She had merely been smiling and giving mechanical answers to any question directed her way. But she suddenly heard one question quite clearly.
“Lady Wanstead,” Lady Milchip said, “I can remember your come-out year. You are Lord Pickering’s daughter, are you not?”
“Yes,” Christina said. “Yes, I am.”
“Ah, I was sure of it,” Lady Milchip said. She smiled about the group, including everyone in her remarks. “Such a very charming gentleman he was. And so very dashing and handsome as a young man—you have inherited his dark good looks, Lady Wanstead. There was scarce a young lady in my time—myself included—who did not have a soft spot for him, though he was an unconscionable rogue.”
There was general mirth over her admission. Christina laughed with everyone else.
“I could tell a story or two about Lord Pickering,” Lady Milchip said, wagging one finger. “And I would do so too if I did not think the telling would put Lady Wanstead to the blush. I have not seen him in an age. Whatever has become of him? And I do hope that is not a dreadfully tactless question.”
“Not at all,” Christina assured her. “He is still alive and in good health. But he lives quietly at home most of the time now.”
“Ah, a shame.” Lady Milchip sighed. “Though I am glad to hear that he is alive and well. Perhaps you would send him my regards the next time you write to him. Though maybe he will be coming here for Christmas?” She looked hopefully at the countess.
“No, ma’am, unfortunately not.” Christina smiled. “He has other plans, I am afraid.”
Lady Milchip proceeded to reminisce about her youth for the amusement of her audience. She had grown up in an age when young people had known how to enjoy themselves, she would have them know.
He had been alive at least when she had written a year ago and again six months ago, Christina was thinking. Her father’s name was another that Gilbert had forbidden her to mention after their marriage. More than that, he had forbidden her to write or to receive letters or otherwise to communicate with him. Again she had not argued or felt any inclination to do so for a long time. But the ties of blood were stronger than she had ever suspected—she had discovered that even before Gilbert’s death. Her father was alive and living quietly at home, just as she had just told Lady Milchip. Or so the replies to her letters had stated without adding any explanatory detail. Both replies had been written in the same strange hand and signed “Horrocks.” There had been no explanation of who Horrocks was. She had not tried to find out.
And then she caught the eye of the earl across the room. He was looking intently at her almost as if he could read her thoughts. For a moment, caught unawares, she felt the connection there had always used to be between them. She felt breathless. And then he raised his eyebrows and she recognized his look as a signal. The butler had come into the room to announce dinner, and according to a prearranged plan he was to lead Lady Milchip in tonight while she was to take the arm of Sir Michael.
How foolish of her to have fallen into a dream. She was the Countess of Wanstead, his cousin’s widow. And for this week only, his hostess.
Chapter 8
THE seating arrangement at the dinner table was to change each evening. That had been decided and planned at one of the meetings with the earl. Christina, in her permanent place at the foot of the table, had Sir Michael Milchip on her right for this evening and Mr. Geordie Stewart on her left. The table was too long and the guests far too many for the conversation to be general. She set herself to leading the conversation at her end of the table.
Mr. Stewart she found to be an interesting gentleman. He and his brother had lived in Montreal for several years before retiring from active involvement in the fur trade. He was a widower, whose wife had not long survived their return from Canada. He was a pleasant-looking gentleman whose sandy hair was thinning and receding from his forehead. Without in any way committing the social error of dominating the conversation, he entertained Christina and some of the other guests at their end of the table with stories about Canada and about the year-long, arduous journey into the interior and back that all partners were expected to make at least once in their lives.
“Though Percy—the Earl of Wanstead, that is,” he said, “has done it three times in all, I believe. But then he was always a man to do his duty twice over and once more for luck.”
