Today, it had been a croquet match at Lady Turbity’s estate a mile outside Town. The older lady continued to invite Adelia in kind memory of her mother, who had been friends with Lady Turbity when they were young. The countess also hoped to do a little matchmaking by putting Adelia in a group with two bachelors, Lords Roleston and Whitely.
The fourth member, Miss Darrow, was a few years younger than Adelia, infinitely more social, and she entirely mesmerized Lord Roleston. Lord Whitely, like Adelia, was only there as a kindness to the hostess, filling in for his good friend Lord Burnley, whom they all knew had recently suffered a death in his family. And Adelia had made it an even number.
Because of his friend’s bereavement, Lord Whitely was distracted and quiet, thankfully not interested in flirting. All Adelia had to do was keep her head down and hope no one spoke to her. As it turned out, she played a very good game of croquet.After all, shouldn’t that be the point?
When it was over and the others all headed indoors to eat, drink, and do more of the dreaded socializing, Adelia had made her escape. She’d done her part by making sure no one went without a partner, and she could force herself to do no more.
“Tea, Mr. Lockley, would be most appreciated in the drawing room,” she told her butler. “Is my brother at home?”
“No, miss. Not expected until dinner.”
Unlike herself, if Thomas wasn’t expected, he would rarely return early and throw the household into disarray.Poor Mr. Lockley!He’d probably had his feet propped up in his private basement sitting room whilst enjoying his own cup of tea.
“If you send in Meg with the tray, I won’t need anything further from you until dinner,” she assured the butler, who nodded, took her gloves, bonnet, and mantle, which she held out to him, and then disappeared.
The event was over!Adelia wanted to whistle a happy tune, except she couldn’t whistle to save her life. Still, she had a skip in her step as she crossed the tiled foyer and entered the drawing room in its calm green and cream colors. In a few minutes, Betsy brought in tea, but she also had mail on the tray. And it looked like…invitations!Drats!
A shiver of dread ran down Adelia’s spine, and she ignored the thick envelopes, some lightly tinted, some scented, all with their wax circles stamped by an aristocrat’s imposing seal.
As soon as Thomas returned, they must have a chat about how she could start to graciously decline these.
Yes, she was an earl’s daughter. Yes, she had social responsibilities.
Nevertheless, it seemed to Adelia, since both her parents were now deceased, she ought to be given leave to beg off pointless evenings after enduring four years of them. She would ask her brother to let her retire and become his permanent lodger. If she were capable, she would offer herself as his hostess until such time as he married. As the most awkward, inept female to ever grace London’ston,however, that position was anathema to her. Thus, while Thomas had continued to urge her to make a marriage arrangement, as her father had done before dying a year and a half prior, her brother had never forced her to host an event at their home. He was too kind for that.
Two years younger than she, Thomas had taken up the Smythe earldom and, as he’d been trained to the position, was more than adequately managing the family business from what she could tell. They had a shipping manager who guaranteed coal reached the storage facilities at the great docks for steamships and at the train stations for the steam locomotives. Additionally, they employed a labor overseer who kept the miners happy, and their father’s accountant, Mr. Arnold, managed the ledgers as he always had.
Thomas also had good friends in their mining company, chief among them Victor Beaumont. The man had been particularly useful when the son took over from the father, as Mr. Beaumont was also their company’s chief engineer.
All Thomas had to do was keep his sweet nature intact and, eventually, find a wife.
Adelia wanted her brother to be happy. Nonetheless, she hoped he would wait until his early thirties before marrying the woman who would be the new Countess of Dunford, mistress of their townhouse and country estate.
The very notion sent Adelia into a tailspin of doubt and anxiety.Would a new wife want an old sister hanging about? Unlikely.
She withdrew a leather folder from a drawer in the sideboard as well as a nearly empty tablet of paper. From under the sofa, she slid out her rosewood, portable writing desk. Sitting on a winged chair, she set the desk upon her lap and lifted open its cover to create a tidy, compact workspace—the tool for creating her only hope for a future, her writing.
She had two novels already completed, and the current story about the villagers from their country estate in High Wycombe was three-quarters finished. As a youngster, after closeting herself in her room, away from the loud shouting of her father, Adelia had read voraciously whatever books she could gain access to. She still did, although with much more freedom as to what she could consume. When she found she had a knack for storytelling, she began to spend her allowance on books, tablets of paper, and the best Perry & Co. steel pens.
Keeping her own counsel, she’d shared her scribblings with no one, not even Thomas. And whenever she could escape from a ballroom or a dinner party, or a croquet tournament as she had today, she immediately returned to it. Only her personal maid, Penny, knew about her mistress’s secret passion and kindly gathered the pages together in a tidy bundle if Adelia ever fell asleep writing.
Thus, while she waited for Thomas, she wrote. It came easily. She had many stories, mostly of human drama, gleaned from her years as the perfectly invisible wallflower. People stood close by and told the most appallingly personal tales of romance and deception. As long as Adelia remained quiet, her head inclined so her good ear was positioned outward, she could catch almost all of what was said.
And although only she had read her stories, she hoped they were suitably entertaining, in the rustic vein of George Sand, who was widely known to be the French woman, Dudevant. Adelia had read every one of her novels from the past twenty years and hoped she was honoring the genre with her own attempts.
Tapping her page with her pen, she reread the last few paragraphs and began to write.
Hours later, her forgotten tea long since grown cold, she heard Thomas return. Adelia’s stomach grumbled as she shuffled her pages into order and slid them between their leather cover.She would need another tablet soon, she thought, tucking everything away slowly and casually under the chair while her brother strode into the drawing room.
Strange how he never asked what she was working on, probably assuming she was writing vapid letters to flighty female friends she didn’t actually have.
He crossed the room as she stood, and they embraced. She could smell a little brandy on his breath. She sighed.
“Why the sigh, Dilly-girl?”
“You were out drinking,” she said, yet relieved it wasn’t whiskey or gin.
He smiled and shook his head. “I was at White’s talking business with Victor. Naturally, we had brandy.”
