MAKING A LIST
Meanwhile, in the study at Bostwick House
“Am I in some sort of trouble?” Adeline asked as she made her way into her father’s study, pausing when she was far enough into the oak-paneled room so George could close the door. The Aubusson carpeting seemed to swallow the sounds of the household beyond the door.
“Of course not,” her father replied as he made his way to stand behind his desk. He motioned for her to take the chair in front. “I merely wished to learn what happened yesterday.”
Adeline blinked. “Yesterday?” she repeated as she sat down.
“At the garden party.”
Relief settled over his daughter as George settled himself into his brown leather chair and leaned back. Adeline was about to chide him—he loved hearing the lateston-dit—but she knew if she accused him of being a gossip monger, he would merely pretend it was information that could benefit him in Parliament.
There were times she wondered if he secretly wished to be a matchmaker. He seemed most interested in learning who was courting whom before he would make mention of who he thought might be a better match. “The weather was fine, so it was well-attended,” she said with a shrug. “Grandmother was most pleased.”
George simply stared at her. When she didn’t say more, he said, “Go on.”
Adeline huffed. “No one announced any betrothals, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “It’s too soon.”
Grimacing, George sat up straight. “Were your friends there?”
She shrugged. “Most of them. Rose, of course,” she said, referring to the daughter of the Duke of Ariley. “Lily...” She paused for a moment after mentioning the oldest daughter of Baron Theodore Streater and his wife, Daisy. “Oh, and Lucy Turnbridge and Hope Batey.” Lucy was the oldest daughter of the Earl of Fennington, and Hope was the youngest daughter of Viscount Lancaster.
When her father continued to stare at her, she sighed. “Helen and Eva haven’t yet returned to the capitol,” she said, deciding the cousins were the reason he asked. “They’re due back sometime soon.”
Helen Tennison, the only daughter of Harold and Stella, Earl and Countess of Everly, was a few years older than Adeline and had made her come-out in 1839. Despite having a half-Greek mother and a dark-haired father, her blonde hair, blue eyes, and facial features made her appear as if she could be her Aunt Evangeline’s daughter.
Helen’s cousin Eva, a proud bluestocking, was the daughter of Jeffrey and Evangeline Tennison Sommers, Baron and Baroness Sommers. Fair of skin, she took after her father with her dark brown hair, and although she was four years younger than her brother, Charles, she behaved as if she was far older.
Deciding they couldn’t abide another Christmas in London, the cousins had spent the winter at the Tennison country estate in Shropshire with two trunks of novels they had managed to procure from the Temple of the Muses before the huge bookshop burned down in 1841.
“Is either one of them being courted by anyone?” George asked.
Adeline stiffened in her chair. “Not that I’m aware,” she replied. Her eyes rounded when she realized why he was asking. “Oh, Father, what are you conjuring now?” she asked in alarm.
Although she was of an age to marry, anyone she might have hoped to wed had already married, leaving mostly older men who were delaying their marriages until they were closer to thirty years of age. With her unmarried brother home from the Ottoman Empire, she realized her father’s queries had more to do with David than they did with her.
George gave a start. “Nothing,” he claimed. “Nothing at all. I just... I hadn’t seen them of late and wondered is all.”
Not convinced, Adeline considered what to say of her other unmarried friends. Those she frequently hosted in her salon and with whom she shared the spaces next to the potted palms at balls. The areas in which could be found the wallflowers.
“If you must know, no one is courting Lady Rose,” she stated. “Ever since the accident...” She left the comment hanging. Although Rose and her mother had survived when the duke’s traveling coach was upended when a wheel broke, Rose’s leg had suffered a break, and despite a doctor seeing to it later that day, it apparently hadn’t healed correctly.
Straightening in his chair, George leaned his elbows on the edge of his desk. “She’ll be on the shelf soon,” he murmured. “How old is she?”
“She’s... six-and-twenty, I think,” Adeline remarked, “and I rather doubt her father is going to allow her to wed anyone less than an earl.” Given the young lady was sometimes forced to walk with a wooden crutch or be pushed about in a wheeled chair, Adeline had the impression Rose had given up on the idea of ever being married. “Which means she’ll be holding off until...” Adeline rolled her eyes and waited while her father furrowed his brows.
“What do you know?” he asked in alarm.
“You’ve obviously not seen the list,” she said.
George’s eyes darted sideways. “The list?” he repeated.
“Yes. The list of eligible sons of aristocrats who are known to us and who are still bachelors but of an age to marry.”
George blinked, wondering if perhaps his wife had seen to compiling such a collection. If so, was it the same list the Duke of Ariley had alluded to when he’d come to the club the week before? “How... how many men are on this list?” he asked.
“Seventeen, I think,” Adeline replied. “Young men born between eighteen-sixteen and eighteen-twenty who have returned from their Grand Tours and are still unmarried.”
