She sniffed.“I can.Though I don’t know who’s to pay for it.”
“That need not concern you,” said April, who saw no reason why Piers should.“In the circumstances, would you like to put dinner back by half an hour or more?”
The cook’s shoulders began to unstiffen.Her eyes softened very slightly.“Half an hour would be welcome,” she allowed.
“Then I shall keep you no longer.Thank you, Mrs.Riley.”April sailed out of the room and left the kitchen.Behind her, she heard the low voice of the footman, and one of the maids giggling.And then Mrs.Riley’s snap of orders.
Perhaps all would be well.
***
FROM THE WINDOW OFher charming bedchamber, Claudia Algernon gazed down upon the lawn at the side of the house, where Grant Fosterson—who must have just arrived—and Piers Withan, were playing a bizarre game of pall-mall that more closely resembled cricket with no rules.The ball flew through the air, landing nowhere near any of the hoops, and both men leapt after it, swinging their sticks as though they were now playing golf with the same ball.Gales of laughter accompanied the raucous game and Claudia, transported back several years, found herself smiling.
The ache of childish, unrequited love grew stronger.She had been a mere girl when she had first fallen for Piers Withan, the shy, eccentric young man with good manners and an unexpected sense of the ridiculous.She had been delighted when he became a fellow because it had kept him in Oxford and his friendship with her father had continued.But she had hoped against hope that he would eventually leave and be able to marry her...
There had been many occasions when he had seemed susceptible to her charms.She had liked that he and Joseph Hale competed for her favours.Only then Piers stopped coming to the house, and after several more months, Papa had told her he had been summoned home as head of the family.He was now Viscount Petteril.
And she had dared to dream she could be a viscountess one day.
It had been a silly dream, of course, one largely in her head, for he had never come back.She could have lived with that had he not married someone else...Eventhatshe could have endured, had he not married so far beneath him.Claudia was at least a gentleman’s daughter.Rumour was wild as to whose daughter Lady Petteril was.Some said she was a foreign countess, though most deemed her a kitchen maid or even a courtesan.
Why on earth had he married her?
Lady Petteril now wandered into Claudia’s line of vision, and Piers walked toward his wife, still laughing.This was the old Piers, before troubles and dying family members had taken away his smile...
She had not anticipated that he would still have this effect on her.She had come to show him she was happy, that she would be Mrs.Joseph Hale, that someone had considered her worth leaving academia for.And perhaps she wanted to remind him who and what he had left behind when he had chosen his ridiculously unsuitable bride.
But the casual looping of his arm around his wife’s waist, the intimacy of their few exchanged words, proved the opposite.It was Claudia who longed for the past.Piers was glad of his present.
No wonder.Claudia knew she should not have made a fuss about her bedchamber.Some imp of mischief had inspired her for there had been no real reason beyond seeing what Lady Petteril would do about it.
Nothing, of course, for her own father had taken the viscountess’s side.And if Piers even noticed the exchange, he would have seen Claudia as merely discontented, rude, and carping.Turning away from the window, her face heated with shame.
The next time they met, she would be kind to his low-born, uneducated wife, who had no idea how to run a household, and Piers would smile upon her again,seeher again...
She opened the wardrobe door and decided which evening gown to wear for dinner.Lady Petteril had worn some loose, old travelling dress this afternoon.Claudia doubted she could have much taste.
But when they gathered in the drawing room before dinner, Claudia could find no fault in either the viscountess’s taste or her beauty.She wore a simple, high-waisted gown of exquisite cut.Made from sky-blue silk that emphasized the deep colour of her eyes, it fell from beneath her breasts in full, generous folds.Her un-aristocratic face with its almost snub nose seemed to glow, and she easily held the attention of both Joseph, whom she sat beside, and Piers, who leaned across the back of their sofa.
Claudia’s spurt of helpless jealousy was not helped by the fact that the conversation was clearly lively and amusing and included everyone in the room but her.Her plan to make her entrance last had fallen flat, for no one noticed her.
Even more humiliating, it was the viscountess who saw her first and with perfect manners came to greet her, “I’m afraid we won’t be dining for half an hour yet, so I hope you’re not too hungry.”
A lady never admitted to hunger.But before her disdain could show, Piers was pushing a glass of sherry into her fingers.
“Just like the professor’s old sherry parties,” he said with a quick smile.“I never thought to be returning the favour.As you see, Fosterson and Hubble have arrived, too.Are you acquainted with Mrs.Hubble?”
Claudia was not, so she courteously condescended to be introduced.Hubble, of course, was not a gentleman by birth, although Papa had always admired his brain.“A sad loss to the college,” he had said when Hubble had left them.Hubb had married a short, dumpy woman in frills, whose face was pretty enough but whose conversation, Claudia suspected, was vapid.
Among the women—the gutter viscountess, the merchant’s ill-educated wife, the housekeeper Meg Tilney—Claudia’s education should shine.She alone would understand the gentlemen’s classical quotes, allusions, and jests.
But it seemed the men were now catching up with each other’s lives.
“So, marriage, Hale,” Fosterson said amiably.“Congratulations and every happiness, of course, but what will you do?”
Joseph coloured slightly, almost as if he was ashamed.“I have taken holy orders and have obtained a living just north of Oxford.”
He had to face a lot of ribbing for that, of course, for he had once been the loudest advocate of free thinking.
