She told them about dancing the opening set with Bertrandand feeling quite convinced for the first few minutes—until he coaxed her into relaxing, kind man that he was—that her right foot had turned into a second left foot. She told them about the second set with Owen Ware, whom she had mentioned before when he and Bertrand escorted her to the Trooping the Colour ceremony. She had danced another set with Adrian Sawyer, son of Viscount Dirkson, who was married to Great-Aunt Matilda, Grandmama’s sister-in-law while she had been supposedly married to the Earl of Riverdale.
She expected a long, lazy day ahead since Papa, having decided to take the day off work, had gone somewhere with Uncle Avery, and everyone else would surely be tired after such a late night. It would give her the chance to do some quiet reading and to spend time in the nursery with the five children. She always enjoyed playing with them.
She was not given the opportunity to pursue either activity, however. Just as she was sealing her letter and wondering if Uncle Avery would object to being asked to frank such a fat bundle—it included a double page of sketches for the benefit of her brother Andrew, who had been born deaf and thus could neither speak nor read and write—a footman came to ask Miss Cunningham to join Her Grace in the drawing room at her earliest convenience.
Winifred handed the man her letter before shaking out her skirt and running her hands over her head to make sure no long strands had worked their way free of her bun. She went upstairs to join Aunt Anna and Great-Aunt Louise, the dowager duchess, in the drawing room.
“Oh my!” She stopped abruptly in the doorway, gazing in amazement at the vases of flowers adorning every available surface.
“You have admirers,” Aunt Anna said as Winifred advanced afew steps farther into the room and the butler closed the door quietly behind her.
“I do?” Winifred said, looking incredulously at her aunt. “You mean these are allmine? But what nonsense.”
“Your modesty does you credit, Winifred,” the dowager said—she was another of Grandmama’s former sisters-in-law. “However, calling nonsense the floral offerings chosen and sent by some of the most eligible gentlemen of the crème de la crème of society is perhaps a bit insulting.”
“But I daresay they did it only because it was expected of them,” Winifred said. “It is the custom, is it, Aunt Anna? I did not know.”
The duchess exchanged an amused glance with her mother-in-law. “It is quite as we predicted, is it not?” she said. “It is a customary courtesy but not an obligation, Winifred. Why do you not look at the cards to see who has sent them all? I expect coffee to be brought here at any moment. In the meanwhile, you may wish to take note of which gentleman sent you which bouquet so you can thank them accordingly the next time you see them.”
Winifred was embarrassed by the lavish displays, suggesting as they did that she had been enormously successful last evening and could now expect an army of suitors. Could society really be this…silly? The first card she looked at, which was attached to the largest, most ostentatious bouquet, was from General Haviland. She laughed.
“A most inappropriate response,” Great-Aunt Louise said dryly. “The poor man, whoever he is.”
“General Haviland,” Winifred said. “Do you suppose he harbors a secret passion for me?”
“Well, hedidwaltz with you,” Aunt Anna said. “Though I must confess he probably offered because he was afraid your suppercompanion might forget his obligation to dance it with his daughter and waltz with you instead.”
“Which was utterly absurd of him if it is true,” Winifred said, nevertheless entertaining a brief vision of herself waltzing with the colonel and dancing upon air.
“Only because Colonel Ware has meticulously good manners and would not have forgotten the obligation,” the dowager said. “You looked far more striking last evening, Winifred, than you seem to realize. You have always favored simplicity over fussiness, for which I commend you. And donotlook at me that way. I will not be told that my words are nonsense.”
Winifred smiled at her and read the cards on her other bouquets. Some names she recognized—Bertrand’s, Adrian’s, Owen’s among them. A few surprised her, most notably that from Colonel Ware, though he had just been described to her as having meticulously good manners, and obviously sending flowers to a lady the morning after she had made her official come-out into society was the correct thing to do. Some surprised her even more since she could not even remember the gentlemen from whom they came.
How…Well, absurd. Yet she was pleased by what Great-Aunt Louise had just said—You looked far more striking last evening, Winifred, than you seem to realize. The dowager was not given to flattery.
One more bouquet, arranged as the others were in a crystal vase, was delivered while they were drinking their coffee. She smiled when she saw it was from Papa.
After that Winifred expected the quiet day she had anticipated. It was not to be, however. Early in the afternoon her father was in the middle of telling them about his morning touring the houses of Parliament with Uncle Avery, when he was summoned to the library downstairs.
“To be continued later,” he said before he left.
He returned to the drawing room after half an hour and looked curiously at Winifred. “Go down to the library if you will, Winnie,” he said. “Uncle Avery is there.”
So was a tall, thin, serious-looking young man with a beaky nose and eyeglasses, who made her a stiff bow. Winifred did not recognize him.
“The Reverend Bowles wishes a word with you, Winifred,” her uncle said with what sounded like a weary sigh. “He has your father’s permission.”
Permission? Permission forwhat?
She was to find out as soon as Uncle Avery had strolled from the room and shut the door behind him.
The Reverend Bowles, who had apparently been at the ball last evening, though he had been unsuccessful in procuring her hand for a set of dances, had come to offer marriage.
He was a younger son of a gentleman of property and modest fortune, he explained, and was vicar of a church in a Shropshire village, where he was comfortably settled in a substantial vicarage. He enjoyed the services of a competent housekeeper, who undertook all the menial tasks of the household, including the cooking, but his bishop had pointed out his need of a wife to be his helpmeet in all the numerous duties that attended his position. Most of them were social duties—heading various ladies’ committees, for example, and organizing the volunteers who supplied the floral arrangements that always adorned the church, visiting the local gentry, delivering baskets to the poor and sick, and occupying the front pew of the church during divine services as an example to the parishioners of both the devout worshiper and the perfect wife. In time it was to be hoped there would be children, who would beraised with the modesty and decency and piety expected of the family of a godly minister.
Winifred listened, appalled. She could not remember this man from last evening. She found his manner stiff and somewhat pompous, though no doubt he was nervous. His hands, which might have given him away, were clasped at his back.
“I wish to makeyoumy wife, Miss Cunningham,” he said in conclusion, bowing to her again. Neither of them had sat down, she realized suddenly. “I could not help but notice with approval last evening the modesty of your appearance and manner.”
