A small sigh escaped her, but she quickly tried to smile. “You are quite right. All the same, I confess that there is still a nervousness within me.”
“You need not worry,” her maid promised, stepping back so Eleanor could admire her reflection. “Everything will go very well indeed and I am sure you will return home with a good many stories to tell of all the different gentlemen you danced with.”
Eleanor looked down at her hands, her heart still aching over the loss of Lord Finchley and her own blind trust in him. “Mayhap.” Lifting her head, she saw the maid’s warm smile and felt it lift her spirits just a little. “You are very good, Gillian. I should take my leave. The carriage and father will be waiting.”
Her maid bobbed a curtsy, and Eleanor managed to smile, pausing for a moment.
“And do not think you need to wait up for my return. Take yourself to bed, Gillian. You have no other duties this evening.”
A glowing smile spread across Gillian’s face. “Thank you, my lady. I hope you have a very pleasant evening.”
With a nod and a knot tightening in her stomach, Eleanor made her way from the room and descended the stairs. This was not her first time in London, as her maid had said, but she felt as if it were. The nervousness, the anxiety, and the worry were all the same as the previous year, though Eleanor was quite sure they came from an entirely different source.
What if he is here?
Chasing the thought away as best she could, Eleanor made her way to the carriage, which as she had thought, was already waiting for her, her father inside.
“You are a little late, Eleanor.”
“I apologize, Father,” Eleanor replied, sitting down quickly as the footman shut the door behind her. “I could not decide what necklace to wear.”
The Earl of Hereford cast an eye over her, then nodded approvingly. “You look very well, my dear.”
“I thank you.”
“You must make a match this Season, however. I hope you are aware of that.”
Eleanor swallowed hard as the carriage began to make its way towards Lord Kingston’s townhouse for the grand ball. “I know that you expect me to make a match, Father, but – ”
“It is not an expectation but a stipulation,” he stated firmly. “Your sister was wed in her second Season, and you must do the same. To have a third Season means that your chances of matrimony slip away from you, Eleanor! Your mother and I want to see you wed and settled, just as your brother and sister are.”
Looking down at her hands, Eleanor said nothing. She had not given much thought to her requirement to wed this Season, having been much too distracted by thoughts of Lord Finchley. It was deeply frustrating to her that her heart would not permit him to free himself from her. All she wanted to do was forget him, to step away from all thought of him, but still, he lingered. She would awake in the night, having dreamt of being in his arms, of his returning to her with a deep and painful regret that he had ever treated her so cruelly. Eleanor wanted to hate him, wanted to push him far away from her as best she could, but there was no strength and seemingly no willingness for her to succeed.
“Are you listening to me, Eleanor?”
She lifted her head. “Yes, father. I am.”
“You understand what you must do?”
A tremor ran through her as she lifted her chin and looked straight back at her father, making him out in the slowly dimming light of the evening. “You want me to make a good match with a suitable gentleman.”
“He must be an Earl or a Marquess – or even a Duke, if you can snare one!” Lord Hereford chuckled as if he had made some sort of joke. “You are not to marry lower than your standing, Eleanor. There is to be no talk of falling in love or the like, do you understand?”
This made a short, harsh laugh break from Eleanor’s lips as she kept her gaze away from her father. “Yes, Father. Iunderstand. I can assure you, there is no thought of love or affection within my heart. That is not something I hope for.”
“Good.” He sniffed. “Your Aunt and Uncle are here also. Lord and Lady Cumbria?”
Eleanor looked out of the window. “Yes, I remember them.” Her aunt - her mother’s sister – was the Countess of Cumbria, having married the Earl of Cumbria the year before Eleanor’s own mother had wed. “Is cousin Catherine to be present?”
“It is her first Season, yes,” her father told her. “You will stay near them, for they will chaperone you when I am not present.”
Closing her eyes, Eleanor resigned herself to the fact that her father would not take a good deal of interest in all that Eleanor did or said. There was a clear requirement for her to marry and to marry well, but it was not as if Lord Hereford was going to do anything to try and assist Eleanor in that!
“They will be at the ball this evening,” Lord Hereford finished. “You will stay with your Aunt, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
