She had sent her reply using the same caddy, one who identified himself as “Freddy” and who claimed to be the fastest of all the street urchins who delivered messages about town.
The post might be more reliable, but that was only delivered once a day.
“Well, it’s past time you consider a new husband,” Jane said. “You’re still young. You could give him children.”
Eliza gave a start, her gaze locking on Jane’s in the mirror. “His daughter is nearing thirty,” she argued, referring to her best friend, Catherine. “Well, I should be more charitable. Cathy is eight-and-twenty, but she has declared her intention to remain a spinster on several occasions, insisting no man wants a bluestocking for a wife,” she explained.
Jane’s arched brows suggested she sympathized with Catherine. “But does Mr. Kingston have an heir?”
Stiffening on her tufted chair, Eliza would have dipped her head if Jane didn’t have a lock of her hair rolled onto the hot iron. Cornelius Kingston, the owner of Kingston Publishing, didn’t have a son. She knew Catherine assumed she would inherit the publishing company upon her father’s death—she had been planning on it for years.
Even if she didn’t work in the Kingston offices in Paternoster Row, Catherine knew every aspect of the publishing business, from acquiring manuscripts from writers to the typesetting,printing, binding, crating, and finally to the delivery to booksellers. Later, there was the process of remaindering, which involved collecting the unsold volumes and destroying them.
This last step was no longer a given, though, thanks to Eliza’s favorite bookshop. Publishers could now sell their remaindered books at a steep discount to the Temple of the Muses. They were then sold to customers at a price much cheaper than what they had been listed when they were new.
“You could give him a son,” Jane said, interrupting Eliza’s brief reverie.
Eliza inhaled softly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He’s not even declared his intention to court me.” Perhaps he never would. The two had known one another for years, Eliza a frequent guest of Catherine’s for either tea or dinner at Kingston House. The invitations had not been so frequent during her brief marriage to Lieutenant Aloysius Buxton, but certainly more so these past two years—the time since she had received word of his death at Quatro Bas.
The man’s family had seen to his burial and then left her with only his townhouse, most likely because his solicitor insisted. Aloysius’s last will stipulated she keep their modest home in Mayfair, probably since nothing else was included in the bequest.
“Mr. Kingston escorted you in Hyde Park and has taken you for ices at Gunter’s,” Jane stated. “If that’s notcourting, then he has something else in mind, and if that’s the case, then he isnota gentleman.”
Eliza widened her eyes at hearing her lady’s maid’s implication. “He is most certainly a gentleman,” she claimed. Apparently Jane was under the impression the older man intended to employ Eliza as his mistress. Although she wouldn’t necessarily turn down such an offer—the money would allow her to keep her modiste and her entire staff with pin money to spare—she preferred the idea of becoming Mrs. Cornelius Kingston. She would enjoy all the benefits of a married wife without the gossip.
She wondered if Cornelius had brought up the subject with Catherine. What would a woman only a couple of years younger than her think of having Eliza as a stepmother? How would Catherine react when learning her services as a hostess for her father’s dinner parties and literarysoiréeswere no longer required?
Would Catherine elect to remain in residence at Kingston House? Or would Cornelius bestow her with her marriage portion, allowing her to take her own lodgings elsewhere?
On the one hand, her father’s marriage might provide Catherine the impetus she needed to finally be open to courtship and to marriage. She had declared she was a spinster and happy with the choice, but perhaps time had changed her mind.
On the other hand, Catherine might react quite differently, withholding her blessing for the union. She might declare their friendship over.
This last had Eliza inhaling an unsteady breath.
A knock at her bedchamber door had Jane placing the iron on the fireplace hearth before she answered.
“Mr. Kingston has paid a call,” the butler stated.
Eliza gasped, her attention going to the Baroque mantel clock.
Six o’clock.
Unlike the gentlemen in the Bluestocking Literary Society, Cornelius Kingston was prompt. “See him to the parlor and offer him a drink,” she ordered. “A brandy. It’s rather chilly out there this evening.”
“Very well, ma’am.”
Jane finished pinning up her hair and pulled a black shawl from the wardrobe. She held it up by the corners.
Wincing, Eliza shook her head. “Not black,” she said on an exaggerated sigh. Even though she had been out of widow’s weeds for a year, she found she still despised wearing anything black. “There’s a blue one that matches this gown,” she added, glancing back to see her reflection in the mirror. The cobalt-blue silk de Naples gown was simple but elegant, its trimming only cobalt satin roses around the neckline and at the top of the round sleeves. “He told me he has something he intends to ask me this evening.” She didn’t add that her first thought had been that he wanted to make her his mistress. Her preference was of course to be Mrs. Cornelius Kingston.
Jane placed the blue silk shawl on her shoulders. “Well, if he doesn’t propose marriage tonight, you should pay a call on that matchmaker in Cleveland Row,” the lady’s maid said, motioning to the white pasteboard card that was lying on the dressing table.
Eliza scoffed softly. “I’m afraid I don’t have the funds necessary to employthatparticular matchmaker,” she countered. “I’ll need to see to my own betrothal.” She made her way out of her bedchamber and down the stairs to the parlor.
She paused on the threshold until she had Cornelius Kingston’s attention.
Tall and lanky, he was everything her late husband wasn’t—confident, amiable, and fairly handsome. His gray eyes widening with appreciation, Cornelius quickly stood and bowed.
