“This is more complicated than I thought,” Rufus said absently, all the while imagining his bride-to-be as a small, brightly coloured budgie, pretty to look at and pleasing to listen to as it chirped and tweeted, but also easily silenced by simply throwing a black cloth over its cage.
He began to feel a little depressed by the notion.
“It is not so complicated, Your Grace. I suppose I am merely saying that you do not want a young lady who is too gregarious.”
“Oh, I suppose that makes sense,” Rufus conceded, wondering if it really did.
“And, I daresay, you might quite like her to be pretty.”
“Yes, I daresay,” Rufus said and smiled.
However, Rufus knew that beauty often changed into something else altogether when the personality became apparent. He had spent a good deal of time in the company of young ladies who were truly beautiful on first glance and, no more than an hour later, suddenly unattractive when some disagreeable part of their personality became known to him.
Rufus did not consider himself to be particularly discerning. He did not have a list of wants in a woman at all. All he had ever really wanted was a certain amount of truth and openness, combined with the sort of intelligence that made a young woman more interesting. Instead, he was often presented with young ladies of great beauty and little else. Unless, of course, you counted their ambition as a quality.
And Rufus was so attuned to the idea of ambition that he very quickly spotted it in others. It was as if the more he looked for it, the more he found it, and yet he yearned for something else, for something completely different.
But, in the end, perhaps that was the lot of the man who held so high a title. Competition for his attention was generally fierce, and it was no doubt born of nothing more than ambition itself. Quite where he was supposed to meet a young woman who did not care about such things was a mystery to him. For surely such a woman, one who did not search for status, wealth, and title, would not seek him out in the first place. He felt as if he were trapped inside a great ball, being rolled down a hillside as his thoughts, the same old thoughts, tumbled all around him repeating themselves over and over again.
It was nothing new, nothing that had not existed for fifteen years or more. So, just thinking over old ground again would change nothing. Identifying the problem would not suddenly result in a solution. It was not as if by knowing that he did not want an ambitious young woman that suddenly an unambitious one would appear before him, for that had yet to happen.
“So, as you see, there is not really so much to it. I am sure that we will have identified just the right young lady for you in no time at all,” Henry said when Rufus had not spoken for a while.
“And how are we to go about it all?”
“Well, I shall set a little gossip abroad that the Duke of Hillington has finally decided to look seriously for a wife.” Henry laughed. “And such gossip is, believe me, Your Grace, very easy to spread.”
“But once the gossip is out in the atmosphere, what are we to do next?”
“Well, I propose you hold the ball here, or something similar. A big event such as you have not held for a good, long while. It will attract a great deal of interest, I have no doubt, and you can invite a great many young ladies whom you might care to consider. From there, we shall have something of a list, I think. Or at least a very good idea of which young ladies you might wish to see again. And then, once we have narrowed it down, I think it would be prudent to spend a little time in the company of each of them before making your final decision.”
“You make it sound very much easier than I suspect it is.” Rufus laughed. “But that is not to say that I am not grateful to you, Henry, for I am. I must admit that this very question has been playing on my mind for some time, and it is a tremendous relief to me to have your help and guidance in it all.”
“Not at all, I am only too pleased to be of assistance.”
“So, how soon should I arrange the ball?”
“Oh, I think you may go ahead and begin to make preparations immediately, Your Grace. It will not take long for the entire county to be aware that you are actively seeking a bride. I can hardly think there will be a household untouched by that particular piece of information inside of a fortnight, and that is the truth.”
“I still cannot help thinking that there is something rather tawdry about all of this,” Rufus said and looked downcast.
“Your Grace, you must stand firm. You came to this conclusion for a reason, and I think you have come to this conclusion very well. I understand your misgivings, truly, for they are quite natural. But they are only the misgivings of any man when he is embarking on the quest for the perfect wife, I assure you. Marriages are made in this way every day of the week, Your Grace, and they almost always turn out for the best, do they not?”
“I suppose they do,” Rufus said, hearing the surprise in his voice as he thought of the myriad of marriages he had seen made in just such a way, marriages which ostensibly seemed to thrive.
And yet, despite all of that, Rufus still would have given almost anything to have crossed paths with a young woman with very different ideals. But, of course, he knew he was back inside the ball again, rolling down the hillside with yet another repetitive thought. He was not going to meet such a woman, not now, and he would do well to give up on the idea and get on with things.
“So, is it settled, Your Grace? Might I go ahead and propagate my little bit of gossip?” Henry looked amused, and Rufus was glad of it.
It had somehow taken the edge off his melancholy, and he was pleased to have Henry Mercer there with him. There was not another man with whom he would entrust such a task, and he knew it. He had known Henry Mercer all his life and, if anybody knew Rufus Darnley well enough to be able to find him a suitable bride, it was his father’s old attorney.
“Yes, you may go ahead and propagate your little bit of gossip.” Rufus laughed and felt a little lighter. The time had come for him to move along, and he knew it. He knew it well enough that the idea of it, the acceptance of it all, strangely gave him a little peace. “And I shall arrange a ball. In fact, I will speak with my housekeeper and butler today and start things moving.”
“Now that is the spirit, Your Grace. That is the spirit indeed.” Henry nodded his approval and rose from his chair on the opposite side of the Duke’s desk. “Now, I daresay I ought to get started on things myself.”
“Yes, of course.” Rufus nodded, releasing his attorney for the day. “And thank you, Henry. Really, I do appreciate it all.”
Chapter 3
Ella sat alone in the immense drawing room of Dandridge Hall. Afternoon tea was not due to be served for another half an hour, but she had been keen to get herself settled and spend some time in quiet contemplation before the rigours of tea and company were upon her.
Ordinarily, Ella was not opposed to company at all, but the last few weeks had been a great trial to her, and she felt her spirits flagging daily.
Her mother had been right; Dandridge Hall was just about the most impressive sight Ella had ever seen. The drawing room was so large as to be impersonal, or at least Ella thought so, and she wished with all her heart that she and her mother had never left Longton Manor. The drawing room there was small, but not so small that they had not been able to receive a good many guests. And it was only really small in comparison with the one in which she now found herself.
For all its heavy oak paneling and impressive, immense portraits, it lacked something. The great curtains were made from a rich, golden velvet, the same velvet that all the couches were covered in. But there were so many couches, so many armchairs, and so many little side tables, that there really did seem to be too much of one colour. The room seemed to elaborately lack warmth of any kind.
Ella thought that it might have benefitted from having the occasional armchair picked out in a very deep blue. Then she reminded herself that she did not care anything about Dandridge Hall, not for its drawing room, it
s ballroom, and certainly not its occupants.
Why did she care about the somewhat ostentatious decoration of the drawing room when all she really wanted to do was go home again? But, of course, this was her home now. For all that she would ever sleep under the roof at Longton again, it might just as well not exist.
Just as she had predicted, the moment her mother had become the Countess of Dandridge, she had surrendered all rights to Longton Manor. And, worse still, she had surrendered those rights on Ella’s behalf also.
In the end, it was that which finally broke Ella’s heart. She had not been so very surprised when her mother had married, and even less so when it had occurred within days of Ariadne’s period of mourning reaching its conclusion. She had even let go of the hurt of what she had known was the most dreadful slight to her father’s memory.
But when she had it confirmed that the marriage had seen the transfer of all property rights fall into the hands of Ronald Belville, Ella had been beside herself. She had known all along that it would happen, it was the way of things after all. But still, it had hurt her to hear it out loud, to know it for a fact. The home that had been her father’s, that had been in her family for generation after generation, was now simply an adjunct to the great estate of Dandridge. It was nothing more than an outbuilding to the Earl, a man who owned so much and cared so little.
When Ella had cried at the news, just days after the wedding, Ronald Bellville had just studied her with open contempt. It was clear that he had no concept of the attachment a person could form to their family home and all the memories trapped within it. And it was equally clear to her that her own mother had no concept of that attachment either, providing yet further proof that mother and daughter had very little in common.
“You are very early to tea, my dear.” Her mother appeared as if she had been pulled right out of Ella’s thoughts.
“As are you,” Ella said slowly. “Why are you here so early, Mama?”
“I just want to make sure that all is well with the room before our company arrives.” And it was clear that she had come to do just that as she cast a critical eye around the place, ready to find some little fault with it, something that she could berate the staff for to satisfy her own need for that little bit of power.
“There is never a thing out of place in this room, Mama. I should think the staff never dare to put a foot wrong for so scornful a master.”
“Ella, you must not speak in such a way,” Ariadne hissed at her. “You must not speak of your stepfather like that.”
“He is by no means my father, step or otherwise. He is simply the Earl of Dandridge and your husband, Mama. He is no relation of mine, and neither are his dreadful daughters.”
“Really, I must beg you to stop this immediately.” Ariadne looked suddenly desperate and began to look over her shoulder towards the door.
“Just three weeks, and already you are afraid of him, Mama. How much you must regret this hasty marriage of yours.” Ella could not help it, she wanted to say something hurtful.
Her mother had pulled the rug from beneath her feet, the rug that had been her life. Yes, its delicate weaving had been tugged dramatically when her dear father had died, but her mother had seen its complete removal when she had denied Ella her childhood home as well.
And, despite every protest, Ariadne had gone ahead with it all. She wanted to be the Countess of Dandridge, and nothing would stop her, not even her daughter’s broken heart. If she was starting to pay the price for it all, then so be it.
“I am not afraid of him, Ella. Really, what a ridiculous thing to say. But you should be a little more grateful to him than you are, and it certainly will not make for a comfortable existence if he overhears you talking about him in so derogatory a fashion. And, whatever you care to say, he is your stepfather. I have married him now, and he is my husband, and you will simply have to accept it. There is nothing you can do about any of it, so try to make the best of it instead of making things difficult,” Ariadne hissed furiously. “And as for Patience and Georgiana, they are not awful. They are perfectly pleasant, very accomplished young ladies; I think you could learn a good deal from them.”
“There is nothing about those two young ladies I would care to emulate, Mama. And I can assure you that I have absolutely nothing to learn from them, except how not to behave.”
“You have not even tried to ingratiate yourself to them.”
“Why should I ingratiate myself to them, Mama? I am supposed to be a member of the family, am I not? I am not a household servant, after all.”
“No, but this is their home, and you should be very aware of that fact.”
“Is it not my home too? Did you not tell me that Dandridge Hall, once my beloved Longton Manor was stripped from me, would be my home, and a very fine one?”
“I cannot speak to you when you are behaving in such an obtuse manner. But I will insist you behave yourself from here on in. The Earl and his daughters will be here at any moment, ready to receive the Earl of Maybridge.”
“Oh yes, the Earl of Maybridge,” Ella said with a scornful laugh. “What fun it will be to watch Patience and Georgiana vying for his attention like two peacocks strutting up and down a well-manicured lawn.”
“Ella!” Ariadne advanced upon her daughter so quickly that Ella thought she might actually strike her. “You will stop this immediately.”
“I will never forgive you for what you have done, Mama,” Ella said and felt suddenly beaten by it all.
There had never been a need for them to leave their home; there had never been a lack of security. They had everything they wanted, but it would never have been enough. Her own mother had smashed her life to pieces just to satisfy her need to feel like anything but the down-trodden governess she had once been.
Where once Ella had had pity for her mother, now she had nothing but contempt. Surely, there came a time when a person could not blame the past for how they behaved in the present. And, as far as Ella was concerned, that time had long passed for her mother.
“I hear footsteps, so take your seat,” Ariadne said sharply.
Ella took her seat, knowing that she had no other option. She felt as if she had been dropped into the territory of the enemy, a family of people she did not know and whom, thus far, seemed not to like her very much at all. And now her mother, far from looking out for her own daughter’s needs or happiness in any way, had joined their ranks, ready to throw scorn on her if she did anything to upset the precarious nest she had feathered for herself.
How lonely she felt all of a sudden.
“Well, we shall just have to wait and see which of us he prefers,” Georgiana said loudly as the two young women stormed into the drawing room.
“I am the oldest, Georgiana, and you will respect that. It is for me to find a husband first and not you,” Patience said angrily.
“I cannot help it if I am the prettiest,” Georgiana retorted spitefully.
“You are not the prettiest at all,” Patience snapped back. “You are very far from being pretty, Georgiana. In truth, I pity you, you are so ill-favoured.”
As the sisters settled themselves down side-by-side on one of the couches, ignoring Ella completely, she wondered if they would even notice if the Earl of Maybridge himself walked in at that moment. Or would they continue to argue amongst themselves, saying such nasty things to one another in the heat of their tawdry little competition?
They continued to argue about who was the prettiest, and Ella studied them coolly, thinking that there was very little to choose between them. At one and twenty, Patience Bellville was the oldest, with Georgiana at just nineteen. But they both had the same pale blonde hair, very pretty in its own way, but largely used to detract from features that were just a little too large. Both girls had wide mouths, which looked attractive as long as they did not smile too broadly. Their noses were a little thick, and each woman sported a little gap between her front teeth that, in faces much more demure, would have been sweetly a
ttractive. But the girls’ bullish nature seemed somehow to show in their faces and, although they were very well turned out and attractive on account of it, neither one of them was truly beautiful.
The young and handsome Earl of Maybridge arrived in the room at the same time as his host, the two men talking animatedly as they walked in.
“And your mother as well, I take it?” Ronald Bellville was almost convincing; to the casual observer, it would sound as if he truly cared about the old Countess of Maybridge.
“She is as well as can be expected, Ronald. Her health is failing, but not so much that she does not get about anymore.” The Earl of Maybridge seemed to Ella to be a very bright, jaunty sort of a young man.
He spoke with a smile at all times and even sometimes something of a laugh in his voice. He seemed very jovial, even when the Bellville sisters began to aggressively vie for his attention.
“Lord Maybridge, are you to hold a ball soon and at Maybridge Hall?” Georgiana said, and it was clear from his expression that he had not thought of such a thing.
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