Edward regarded his friend with a lopsided grin, his head nearly lolling on his neck. “I suppose she expects you to have some good news, too,” he managed to get out before his head hit the back of his chair.
Michael stared at his friend for a very long time. “Good news?” he repeated, wondering what Edward could mean. And he was about to ask, but Edward’s eyes were closed, and a soft snore emanated from him.
Sighing, Michael reached over and eased the half-filled brandy balloon from his friend’s hands, placing it on the pie crust table. “Good night, Edward,” he whispered, draining his own glass before rising to stretch. “Sleep well.”
Chapter 16
Wonderings on a Wednesday
March 22, 1815
The next day, Harold Waterford regarded the stack of letters he had just been given. The mail coach, delayed due to a late winter storm, had just pulled into Shipley as he was about to make his way home from the town’s only bank. He instead stopped at the Ship to have an ale while he waited for the driver to unload the coach. Angus MacFadyen, the barkeep, stood at the tap and gave Harold a nod. “I’d give you two pints if ya’ brought some warmth with ya’,” the man said with a teasing grin.
“And I’d pay for three if you could stop the snow,” Harold countered. “Although snowy nights keep the Gang from raiding our homes,” he said with a cocked eyebrow. The more well-to-do citizens of Shipley had grown accustomed to fearing the sound of hoofbeats in the night, for it meant their pantries and their pens were about to be emptied. Most knew at least a few of the Shipley Gang members, who fancied themselves modern-day Robin Hoods, but capturing the thieves with little in the way of local law enforcement was proving difficult.
“I heard the Laker house was broken into a few nights ago,” Angus said quietly. “No one was hurt, but the bastards took everything from their root cellar. Mark my words, they will be caught, and they will hang for what they’re doing,” he vowed.
“Or transported,” Harold replied, his comment suggesting he didn’t think the thieves would get a life sentence for stealing food. No one had been killed during their raids, after all.
Harold took a long draught and set his glass on the bar top, its surface varnished to a high gloss. “I had news from London a while back. Cunningham said my daughter’s husband died in Belgium,” he said, one eyebrow lifted as if his news might be of special interest to the barkeep. “It’s been, oh, I guess nine months since he died,” he added, hoping the man would realize her mourning period would be over soon.
“Oh?” Angus replied, trying to appear uninterested. For more time than he could remember, he had been attracted to the Waterford girl, hoping one day she would notice him. He ran the taproom for the Ship, a rather profitable inn – the only inn – in a community that might one day be the center of Sussex given how Waterford’s business ventures were developing.
He sometimes spent his late nights dreaming of Eloisa, remembering the one time, when he was twenty, and she was sixteen, when she had asked him to kiss her. He could relive that night over and over as he remembered how he hadn’t said a word, but instead had placed a finger along her jawline and lifted her head so that he could place his lips against hers. He had only ever kissed an older widow, but he knew how to kiss. Knew how to position his lips, how to take hold and suckle them so that it would be difficult for a woman to pull away. And, for a few minutes, he had been able to hold the kiss with Eloisa. But she suddenly pushed on his chest with her palms, forcing him to end the kiss. He found her staring up at him, as if she was stunned that he was capable of such an intimacy.
“My lady?” he had asked then, trying to focus his eyes so that he didn’t look like some love sick puppy. Eloisa stood staring at him as if she was truly impressed by his kiss. But she had never again asked for another, and he had been too much of a coward to ask if she wanted another.
At one time, he could kick himself for not trying. Now, though, he was secretly glad she had opted to move to London. Hannah Coomber, one of the maids he employed to clean rooms at the inn, was proving she had skills in more than just cleaning; Angus planned to ask for her hand at the next district ball in Horsham.
Harold watched Angus as he wiped down the space behind the tap. He knew the barkeep had always had a tendre for Eloisa. At one time, Harold had thought the match would be a good one, except Eloisa always pined for life in the city and a man who could provide more than a business and a bed.
His thoughts here interrupted when the driver of the postal coach entered the pub, a swirl of snow and cold following him into the cozy tap. “Here is your bundle,” the man said before giving Angus a nod as the barkeep held up a pint glass and an eyebrow in query. Surprised by the stack of letters, Harold gave the man a nod and six shillings to cover the postage. He glanced through the correspondence, recognizing the script of his sister-in-law and two of his nieces. The bright white linen parchment with the red wax seal caught his eye, though. He flipped it over to study the seal embossed in the wax. Ducal, but not Chichester’s, he thought with some puzzlement. He turned it over to see its addressee wasn’t him but his daughter, Olivia.
Damn!
Realizing immediately that it was a response to her application for the position of governess, Harold thought at first to simply discard the missive. But it might be a letter of rejection, he realized. Of course, it was a rejection letter. What chance did Olivia have of securing a position as a governess? he asked himself.
Every chance, a part of him answered.
He had seen to her education, after all. An education far too good for the life of a typical woman in England.
Sighing, Harold put the letter at the back of the stack and hoped it contained bad news for his daughter. Michael Cunningham would be turning eight-and-twenty this year, he thought with a wan smile. The man was probably going to ask for her hand when he was next in Shipley to pay him a visit and go over business concerns. Next week!
When he gave the letter to Olivia after dinner, she thanked him and held the folded paper in both her hands for a long time before breaking the wax seal and unfolding the missive.
Harold watched her surreptitiously, expecting to see an expression of disappointment appear on her features. Instead, Olivia seemed to stare at the parchment for a very long time before one hand went to her suddenly opened mouth to stifle a shout of, “Thank the stars!” From the way her entire body seemed to quiver, Harold realized his daughter had been selected for the position. Damn! he thought as he worked hard to keep his face impassive.
For the first time in all the years he had spent money on governesses and tutors, Harold regretted his decision to educate his daughters.
Chapter 17
Time with a Sister on a Thursday
March 30, 1815
“I know you have come with good news to share, but I finally have some good news, too,” the duchess said with a happy sigh as she moved to sit on a chaise overlooking the large manicured backyard of the Wiltshire estate. A maid followed her carrying a silver tray with lemonade, crystal glasses and lemon biscuits, and a footman was behind the maid with a large parasol that he planted firmly in the ground behind the chaise. The shadow cast by the canopy perfectly enveloped the duchess right down to her slippered feet. Below them, several children played on an expansive lawn, their small voices and high-pitched laughter occasionally drifting up the grass covered hill. From the scent that filled the air, it was evident the lawn had recently been trimmed.
“Another niece or nephew on the way, perhaps?” Michael wondered, accepting a glass of lemonade from the maid as he took the chair adjacent to the duchess. He vaguely wondered what good news she expected him to have. This visit to Wiltshire was merely a brief stop on his way back to London from Sussex; he hadn’t planned the visit much in advance, so his sister hadn’t known he would pay a call on the ducal estate.
Michael took a momen
t to admire the woman he had known most of his life. As children, they had occasionally been playmates. As teenagers, he’d been her escort and sometime protector. But as adults, the two led lives that were so different, it was hard to believe they were brother and sister.
Elizabeth, now married to a duke and the mother of four children, was still radiant with her honey blond hair swept up in a mountain of curls and dangling ringlets. A pink pastel day gown made of fine lawn complemented her blue eyes and fair complexion, its not-so-modest bodice, which featured a ruffle lace trim along the neckline, just barely hiding her cleavage. Small rubies clung to her plump earlobes and hung from a fine thread of gold around her neck. Michael wondered if their mother had looked like her when he and Elizabeth were babes.
“Goodness, no,” his sister answered with a shake of her head, her face coloring to match the gown she wore. “I finally have my figure back, and I’ve no intention of missing another Season of balls and soirées due to confinement.” She blushed even more when she realized what she’d said and to whom she said it. “Oh, gracious, Cunningham. Pray, do not tell Jeremy. He’s got his heir and a spare, but he still hasn’t decided if he wants another,” she said, a bit of concern tingeing her otherwise happy face. “And I haven’t exactly broached the subject,” she added in a voice barely above a whisper.
Her brother suppressed a smile. “My lips are sealed,” Michael promised, helping himself to a biscuit and wondering if her statement meant she was no longer sharing a marriage bed with her husband. “If not news of more children, then what other good news can a duchess have these days?” he asked gently.
How different their lives were, he considered. Despite being the second son of a viscount, he had chosen a path of self-reliance, building his business of investments in iron smelting, coal, and coal gas. Those ventures were finally ensuring a fortune for him.
As the only daughter of a viscount, Elizabeth had fallen in love with Jeremy Statton, the second son of a duke. Their courtship, a fairy tale affair that captivated the London Season in 1809, led to a huge wedding at St. George’s and a year of honeymooning on the Continent. With the deaths of Jeremy’s father and elder brother in a boating accident in 1811, Jeremy was suddenly thrust into the role of Duke of Somerset, and his young bride, Elizabeth Cunningham Statton, was suddenly a duchess. The dowager duchess, overcome with grief but determined to remarry as soon as was socially acceptable, left her remaining son and England to accept an offer of marriage from an aristocrat in Italy. The new duke and duchess were left to run the duchy as they saw fit, managing to endear themselves to their tenants and the villagers by employing a competent estate manager, by paying their bills in a timely manner, and by being fair to their servants. And they had four young, boisterous children who were now happily playing on the manicured lawns below.
“I have finally hired a governess for George and Caroline!” Elizabeth announced happily, referring to her two oldest children. She didn’t invoke the nicknames she sometimes used to describe the spoiled brats, deciding it better their uncle keep his good opinion of them (if, indeed, he had one).
Michael’s eyebrow cocked at an awkward angle. “That is your good news?” he teased, trying hard not to laugh. “However do you react to really good news?”
Elizabeth pinched her lips together and gave him a withering stare. “Cunningham! I have searched for a suitable governess for those two devils ...” she said the word in a whisper, “... For nearly a year, I’ll have you know. ’Tis not easy finding a well-educated woman who is not spoken for, and who is willing to move from her family and live in a drafty manor house whilst attempting to teach a duke’s children everything they need to know to be decent peers of the realm,” she added, a bit of impatience in her voice.
Suitably dressed down, Michael imagined an old maid, long on the shelf, with her hair caught up in a too-tight bun atop her head and wire spectacles resting on the tip of her hooked and crooked nose. He took a sip of lemonade before asking, “So, where did you find her?”
Beaming with her good news, Elizabeth bit into a biscuit and chewed quickly, not wanting to share her information just yet. “Our very own backyard,” she finally hinted, giving him a sideways glance through her long lashes.
Michael’s eyebrows furrowed. “Someone from Horsham?” he wondered, intrigued by the thought that she’d found someone from back home. Even though he visited Cunningham Park every six weeks, he only spent a couple of days there, so he didn’t know any young women from Horsham. Or even any older ones.
Elizabeth was nodding, obviously proud of her accomplishment. “She has the most wonderful surname,” she enthused, her good mood firmly back in place. “Waterford. Like the gentleman who makes the beautiful crystal,” she explained quickly. “But she claims she is not directly related, but only distantly ...”
Michael stared at Elizabeth, his mouth open and his vision suddenly graying at the edges. Is this what it feels like to swoon? he found himself wondering as he barely heard any of her words after ‘Waterford’. She cannot be serious, he thought suddenly, a bit of panic settling over him.
“Michael?” The duchess was standing up from her chaise, concern etched on her face as she regarded him. “What ever is wrong?” she whispered, her hand coming out to take purchase on his forehead as if she suspected he might have a fever. “Is the heat too much for you?” she wondered, and then rethought the question when she realized it was barely warm enough to warrant being out-of-doors. She waved to the footman, indicating he should move the parasol so that its shade would cover her brother.
Michael stared at her for a moment longer, taking a deep breath before slumping against the back of the chair and then waving off the footman. “Which Waterford?” he asked then, his face growing paler by the moment. Not Eloisa. She was in London, after all, and she certainly wasn’t a candidate to be a governess. That just left ...
“Olivia Waterford.” Elizabeth replied as she cocked an eyebrow, realizing just then that Michael must have some knowledge of the girl’s family. “Daughter of ...”
“Harold A. Waterford,” Michael completed for her, his head bobbing as if attached to a metal spring.
His sister sat back down and regarded him for a long moment. “Why, yes,” she finally replied with a tentative smile. But her smile faded as she began to wonder if her information was not as accurate as she supposed. “Do you know him ... personally?” she asked carefully. “Is the family ..?”
“Yes, and yes,” Michael responded with a sigh, one hand scrubbing the side of his face. Feeling a hint of stubble, he absently thought of shaving again before dinner. What was it about being in the country that caused one’s beard to grow so quickly? “I have been doing business with Waterford for ... nearly five years now ...”
His sister gasped, a gloved hand coming up to cover her lips. Michael girded himself – he was sure she would scold him for ‘doing business’ when it was considered gauche for a member of the ton to do so. But Elizabeth’s thoughts were still on the topic at hand. “So, you know the Waterfords?” she encouraged, hoping to glean more information about the girl she had hired.
“Oh, yes. Quite well, in fact. I just came from there. I am a guest in their home several times a year,” he acknowledged with a nod, a frustrated sigh escaping. “But, Beth, why Miss Olivia?” he wondered, his brows furrowing into a single line. She actually pursued a position as a governess. Just as she said she would. Michael couldn’t fault the chit for following through on her plans, but hadn’t her father said something to her? Did she have so little regard for me that she would choose being a governess over being my wife?
At least his sister’s news meant there wasn’t a rival suitor for Olivia’s hand.
Elizabeth regarded him as she slowly took her seat on the edge of the chaise. “Well, she responded to my advertisement within a week of its posting date. Her credentials seem impeccable, her style of writing was clear, a
nd her penmanship was very neat,” Elizabeth explained, as if she felt a need to defend her decision. When Michael’s pained expression didn’t change, she lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “She replied to my subsequent correspondence very quickly. And she seemed to be the only truly qualified candidate,” Elizabeth explained, making it clear she had given her decision a good deal of thought. She suddenly straightened. “Now, you must tell me. What do you know of her?”
Michael’s sister seemed to hold her breath in anticipation as she cocked her head to one side. She couldn’t help but notice how his expression made it appear as if he was in pain.
Michael took a deep breath, wondering what to admit to his sister. “She is ... ” He bit his lip as he regarded Elizabeth. “I have thought for a very long time that if ... that is when I decide to marry,” he corrected himself, “When it’s time for me to take a wife, that I will ... well, that she will be my wife,” he stammered, his face coloring to a deep scarlet as he gave his explanation. “But not until I have to get married,” he clarified quickly. When I’m about to be eight-and-twenty and have ensured my financial future, he added to himself, not knowing if their mother had ever told Elizabeth about their agreement.
And then he remembered Eloisa. I still have to find a husband for Eloisa, he thought suddenly. Huntington should be done mourning. Hopefully, Michael’s feeble attempt at playing matchmaker had at least resulted in Arthur noticing Eloisa as they shopped in New Bond Street. Michael had managed to learn Arthur’s schedule during casual conversation as the two sparred at Gentleman Jackson’s. Then he made sure he had Eloisa in a position to be seen by Arthur whilst the banker was on his way to his tailor’s shop.
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