Belinda’s joy at arriving matched Sophie’s, but it sprang from an entirely different source.
The door, opened by a footman, let in a blast of frigid air. Bel stepped down and shivered. The weather had been unusually freezing for days, especially here in Northumberland. A light snow covered the ground and more threatened.
The carriage bringing Susan, their shared maid, and footmen on loan from Aunt Flora for the house party, as well as their luggage, pulled up behind the cousins. The swift and attentive reaction to their arrival, a bowing butler and swarming servants, showed Aunt Violet’s household stood on full alert. Guests must have been arriving in number that afternoon.
“Good day, Carlton!” The butler responded to Belinda’s greeting with a proper bow and murmured “Welcome, Miss Westcott, Lady Sophie,” while discreetly directing the disposal of baggage, horses, servants and carriages.
Aunt Violet fluttered about the entrance hall complimenting arriving debutantes, sympathizing with weary mamas, and preening over the apparent success of her party, if attendance could be the sole criteria.
Sophie spied friends from London and scurried off to join a giggling gaggle of girls. Belinda slid quietly toward the stairs.
“Belinda!” Aunt Violet’s sharp call stopped her in her tracks. She sighed deeply, pasted a serene smile on her face and turned to greet her aunt.
The countess approached with a mixture of a dignified glide and unladylike urgency.
“Oh, my dear, thank goodness you’re finally here. Flora kept you in London so long to spite me. I know she did,” Aunt Violet said with a scowl and shuddering sigh. “Well, you’re here now, and we’ll make the most of it.”
“How can I help, Aunt?”
Aunt Violet patted Belinda’s hand where it lay on the banister. “I know you want to rest after that tedious journey, but I must trouble you to speak to Cook immediately. She won’tlisten to me; I don’t know why I tolerate the woman, except she does so much better when you are here.”
“Won’t it keep for an hour or so?” Belinda asked plaintively. She really had hoped for a nap.
“You can rest after you speak to her. Last night’s dinner was a disaster. Underdone potatoes, tasteless mutton, mushy fish,” Aunt Violet hissed, attempting to whisper. “The earl frowned at his plate the entire meal. I wouldn’t have asked him a day early if I knew you would be delayed.” She glanced frantically around to see if she was overheard.
Ah yes. The eligible earl. Aunt Violet’s “coup.”
“I’ll change my clothes and wash up. I can be down to the kitchen in a half hour,” Belinda said, calculating how much time she needed to produce a decent dinner. She touched her aunt’s arm. “Not to worry, Aunt Violet.”
The countess didn’t stop to thank her. She turned to greet more guests, and Belinda trudged up the stairs.
And so it begins,she sighed.
Chapter 2
“I should never have letyou spend so much time with my grandfather’s valet!” John Conlyn, Earl of Ridgemont, scowled at the giant of a man who had once been his batman, with no more duties than to keep his uniform brushed and his gear packed for sudden moves. They had spent the previous year at John’s grandfather’s seat, Wynnwood Hall. Graves had become a fashion tyrant under the tutelage of the knowledgeable valet.
Graves frowned back. “Hold still. Ye need a decently tied cravat for dinner with those peers.” He finished his efforts, stood back, and viewed his handiwork, nodding as he did. “Y’ll do for a dinner. The ladies will approve.”
The ladies. Graves never let an opportunity to remind him why they were here pass him by.Grandfather’s marching orders: find a decent girl of good family and marry her.His emphasis was on decent, not bloodlines, thank the benevolent Providence. John smiled to himself.
The death of his cousin Frederick had pitched his grandfather into a year of mourning, and the old man dragged John with him. His grandfather had used every day of it to poke and prod John into what he said “will make you into a finerheir than Frederick ever was.” Given the pox-ridden degenerate that was Frederick, John knew himself to be better the day the heirdom passed to him, but grandfather wasn’t taking chances. He’d pulled John from the fleshpots of London to the family pile for a full twelve months of badgering—affectionate, but badgering all the same.
“Lift y’er chin, Jonny,” Graves growled. “The old boy and that man of his pulled y’out of the muck you’d sunk into in Lunnan, and my job’s to keep you up to snuff now we’re on our own again.”
Graves must be irritated if I’m Jonny again. John lifted his chin and Graves topped off his handiwork with a diamond pin, one of many gifts from his grandfather. “There. Now you look fine as can be, my lord.” Graves gave a jerky nod.
A man might envy all those gifts if he didn’t know every one of them came with strings tying John tighter and tighter to the Wynnwood estate. At least he had felt that way at first, while he mourned the loss of his military career, but, as the year went on, Grandfather’s pride and the obvious needs of the tenants seeped into his soul. It would be a worthwhile life. Eventually. If only he could get used to it. Grandfather deserved his gratitude.
He sought his way down to the drawing room designated for pre-dinner gathering. He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs watching a group of young women—girls—tittering together as they entered the room, followed by two stately matrons, obviously the proud mothers of at least two of them.
Babies the lot of them.John couldn’t imagine taking one to wife.Courage, Conlyn!He stood straighter, but stayed fixed in place.
As he paused, a footman rushed out the dining room door, leaving it open. He watched the staff preparing for the guests and groaned.
The previous night’s dinner had been so atrocious he regretted coming.Surely it won’t be as bad tonight.At least he prayed so. He’d had his share of awful food in the Peninsula; he couldn’t take a week of bad dinners.
He was about to move on when the woman directing the work caught his attention and his breath held. He couldn’t say why. She was no diamond, and yet she was too well dressed to be cook or housekeeper. Too well even to be a governess or other upper servant. Still, she wasn’t garbed as fashionably as the other guests either.
