8
Though the traditional hours of calling—between midday and three o’clock in the afternoon—left plenty of the day remaining, she and Margaret did not attend to any of their usual errands. Instead, to be sure not to miss Somerset’s visit no matter what time he called, they arranged themselves patiently in the drawing room to await his arrival.
“What do you think you will speak of?” Margaret asked, from beside her.
“The usual subjects, I suppose,” Eliza said. She had compiled just such a list that morning. “I shall ask him for news of his family, of London, of . . .”
Margaret made a face.
“What did you used to speak of?” she asked next. “When you were courting, I mean.”
“When we were first acquainted?” Eliza said. “We spoke of books, our friends in common, the progress of the war.”
“And then?” Margaret prompted.
And then . . . Somewhere through the snatched pieces of conversation, at the balls, at the garden parties, at the theater, his natural reserve and her natural shyness had eased sufficiently for them to discover not only the analogous turn of their minds, but the depth of their mutual regard.
“What has you so interested in the affair?” Eliza said, instead of answering. To indulge in such nostalgic yearning now would only serve to make her more nervous.
“Having no past loves of my own, I am left with no option but to take an interest in yours,” Margaret said, shrugging.
“Have you truly never had a decided partiality for anyone?” Eliza asked.
“There were certainly those I enjoyed flirting with,” Margaret said, considering the matter. “But certainly not enough to seriously consider any of them. I suppose, to be a rich widow, as you are, is aspirational—but could one ever be certain of the gentleman dying early enough?”
“Not without risking a rather long visit to Newgate Prison,” Eliza said.
The clock struck twelve. There was a sound from below. The door.
Eliza stood. She had dressed very carefully today, in a robe of clinging black crêpe—made demure by its high collar—and she smoothed a hand down the front of her gown.
“You look very becoming,” Margaret whispered.
Eliza could hear Perkins’s murmuring voice, then footsteps upon the stairs. She had instructed him most firmly to bring up visitors as soon as they—he—arrived. She took a deep breath. Today, there was nothing to be nervous about. It was simply a morning visit. It was everything of the most usual.
Perkins opened the door.
“Lord Melville and Lady Caroline Melville, my lady,” he announced.
“No!” Eliza blurted out, utterly thrown.
“Good afternoon!” Margaret attempted to cover this gaffe.
“Good afternoon,” Melville said as he wandered into the room, a somewhat quizzical look in his eyes. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“N-no, of course not. We are not expecting anyone!” Eliza said, too loud by far.
“Melville, you said we had been invited,” Lady Caroline said, turning to her brother.
“We had!” Melville said. “Though now I reflect on it . . . Perhaps only tangentially.”
If that! Eliza had merely mentioned the possibility, in passing.
“Ought we to leave?” Lady Caroline asked, raising a brow in question at Eliza.
Eliza wanted more than anything to be able to answer honestly. Somerset might arrive at any moment and Eliza did not feel at all prepared to juggle two such disparate sets of visitors—let alone what Somerset might think, if he were to find Eliza sipping tea with two of the most accomplished flirts in England.
“No, no, of course not!” Eliza said instead, twisting her hands into her skirts. “Please, do sit down. May we offer you refreshment?”
“That would be very kind,” Lady Caroline said, falling gracefully into the chair opposite Eliza, while Melville, ignoring Eliza’s invitation, wandered over to the window to look out on the street below.
“Charming!” he said.
Eliza stared helplessly at Lady Caroline, without a single thought in her head. With other visitors, she might comment on the disappointing nature of today’s pallid grey sky, but knowing Lady Caroline already thought her insipid did not endear such a subject to her.
“I owe you an apology, my lady, Miss Balfour,” Lady Caroline spoke first, in the end. “Melville informs me that you overheard our terribly rude conversation at the assembly. How churlish we were—I don’t know how you could ever forgive us!”
“We haven’t,” Margaret said promptly, before Eliza could answer. “Perhaps in time.”
Eliza held back a groan, but Lady Caroline did not look offended. Rather, she was looking Margaret slowly over, as if recalculating her in some way.
“You have teeth,” she said approvingly.
“Thirty of them, I’m told,” Margaret shot back.
“And yet there were none to be seen on Wednesday night.”
“On Wednesday night I was on my best behavior.”
“A horrendous affliction,” Lady Caroline said. “I am pleased to find you now cured of it.”
They smiled at each other. That is, Eliza chose to think of it as smiling, and not, as might perhaps be more accurate, baring their teeth.
“May I offer you a refreshment?” Eliza said again, as Perkins swept back into the room. His tray of refreshments, normally a gloriously laden affair, was sparser than usual, with only a pot of coffee, and slices of cake and fruit. Seeing this, Eliza sent him a look of speaking gratitude, which he returned only with the slightest of nods—she could always trust Perkins to be awake on every suit. Now, she must hurry the Melvilles through the visit as quickly as possible. It was only twelve; there was no reason that the two visits need overlap in any way.
“Do you take milk, my lord?” Eliza said, handing Lady Caroline a cup.
“I am disappointed,” Melville said, from where he was now examining the painting on the wall, a fine landscape she had purchased from an artist displaying his work at the Pump Room last week.
“Oh, well if you would prefer tea, I can . . .” Eliza began.
“I hoped to find the walls bedecked with your own artwork,” Melville said, as if Eliza had not spoken. “But I do not think this is your hand.”
“No, no, of course it is not,” Eliza said, surprised that Melville had remembered such a detail. “That is far superior to anything I could achieve.”
“You draw?” Lady Caroline said, regarding Eliza over the rim of her cup.
“A little,” Eliza said.
“She paints too—beautifully,” Margaret put in.
“Watercolors?” Lady Caroline asked.
“And oil, a little,” Eliza admitted.
“Impressive. It is not a medium oft taught to women.” Lady Caroline looked at Eliza and then to Margaret. “You are both a great deal more interesting than you first appear.”
Eliza was not sure this was a compliment, so she sipped at her cup rather than answer.
“I am not sure that is a compliment,” Margaret said.
“I am not sure I meant it as one,” Lady Caroline returned. “You ought not to be hiding it.”
The conversation was running away from them—and Melville had still not sat down; instead, he was now inspecting the bookshelves.
“My lord, can I interest you in some plum cake?” Eliza asked, desperately.
“Well, where are all these paintings?” he asked. “I see no sign of them here, at all.”
“She has stacks of them upstairs,” Margaret put in. Eliza glared at her.
“May I see?” Melville said immediately.
Eliza shook her head. “You will forgive, I hope, my reserve. I am not in the habit of sharing my paintings with those I barely know,” she said.
“Then we shall simply have to get to know one another,” Melville said, at last moving toward the sofa. Eliza looked to the clock. They were back on schedule. Everything would be fine.
Of course, it was at this moment that Eliza heard the unmistakable sound of hooves from outside and jerked her head wildly toward the door.
“Good lord, whatever is the matter?” Lady Caroline asked.
“That must be Somerset,” Margaret blurted out. Eliza looked to her in panic—how on earth was she to manage such an encounter in front of the Melvilles? And would Somerset be shocked, disapproving even, to find Eliza in such unusual company? She wished Lady Caroline did not look so very beautiful, in her fashionable London dress—the likelihood of his falling immediately in love with her seemed very great indeed.
“Oh, a family visit, then,” Lady Caroline said.
“He is not family,” Eliza refuted instinctively.
Lady Caroline quirked a curious brow and Eliza flushed again at her rudeness.
“That is to say,” she said hurriedly, “since he has been away so long, it does not feel . . .”
Eliza craned her ears, trying to make out sound from below, but to no avail.
“You are not well acquainted?” Lady Caroline asked.
“Not as such,” Eliza said. “When he was Mr. Courtenay, wh-when he was in England,” Eliza had turned into a gabster, it seemed, “but only a little! And that was of course many years ago now, and—”
“I shall be very interested to hear more of his travels,” Margaret cut in firmly, before Eliza could offer any more unnecessary, nervous detail. “He will have some exciting tales, no doubt.”
“Shouldn’t get your hopes up,” Melville advised her. “I hear he’s a dreary fellow.”
“He is not,” Eliza said hotly and both Lady Caroline’s eyebrows rose now.
There was the sound of a loud knock from downstairs and Eliza looked reflexively and eagerly toward the door.
“Oh, I see,” Lady Caroline said, sounding very much as if she did. “Come, Melville, we must be going,” she said, standing.
“But I have not yet had any cake,” Melville objected.
“Oh, do not feel you have to leave . . .” Eliza said.
Somerset’s voice could be heard below, and Perkins’s too.
“I have recalled some errands I must fulfil urgently,” Lady Caroline said firmly. “Come along, Melville.”
Eliza could not tell if she were more mortified or grateful. How embarrassing it was to have been read so easily, and yet how kind of Lady Caroline to help.
“The Earl of Somerset, my lady,” Perkins announced.
Somerset hesitated on the doorway for a moment, seeming startled by the fullness of the room.
“Good day, my lord,” Eliza said, voice tremulous. There was no way to avoid it. “May I introduce you to Lord Melville and Lady Caroline Melville?”
“Good day,” Somerset said. Halfway through a bow, the name seemed to register properly in his mind. “Melville?” he repeated.
“Yes, do you know me?” Melville said, inclining his head in return.
“Only by reputation, my lord,” Somerset said obliquely.
“Ah, it stretches all the way to the Americas, now, does it?” Melville asked. “How marvelous to have transatlantic reach at last.”
Somerset’s expression flattened. He had always disapproved of gentlemen who trifled with women’s affections.
“Marvelous is not the word I would have chosen,” Somerset said slowly.
Eliza could not tell if Melville had perceived the coldness in Somerset’s voice, but if he had he did not seem at all bothered.
“I admire a man with strong views on vocabulary,” he said, in apparent compliment. “What think you then of ‘remarkable’? Or ‘pioneering’?”
Somerset’s expression hardened even further.
“No—I have it—‘extraordinaire’!” Melville said. “If you don’t mind borrowing from the French?”
“We were just taking our leave,” Lady Caroline said, cutting in.
“Not on my account, I hope,” Somerset said.
“No, we are in pursuit of an urgent—though as of yet unnamed—errand,” Melville said, affording Eliza a jaunty bow. “Lady Somerset. Lord Somerset. Miss Balfour.”
They left. There was a long, long pause in their wake.
“I had not realized Lord Melville was in Bath,” Somerset said, frowning toward the door as if the Melvilles were still standing there.
“He and Lady Caroline arrived only recently,” Eliza hastened to make clear. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“And you are well acquainted?” Somerset said, sitting.
“Not at all,” Eliza said.
“Though they appear bent on changing that,” Margaret added, a pleased curve to her lips.
“I see,” Somerset said.
“Is everything at Harefield well?” Eliza asked, adding quickly, “I forgot to ask, yesterday.”
Pleasantries would surely settle the strained atmosphere in the room.
“Yes, very well,” Somerset said, though his brow was still furrowed. “We are renovating the East Wing—the damp was getting a little . . .” Perceiving that this could be taken as an insult by Harefield’s former mistress, he hastened to add, “So common, of course, in these ancient houses!”
But it was not that part of the sentence that she had noticed.
“We?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“Yes,” he said. “The steward is overseeing, of course.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, much relieved. Of course: he couldn’t have married, or even become engaged, without her knowing—what a foolish fear to have crossed her mind. “Though I hope it shall not make you uncomfortable, to have such industry around you.”
“I should not think—” Somerset started to say, before abruptly changing tack. “That is, yes, it is like to be most disruptive. I shall be remaining in Bath for the fortnight, to avoid the worst of the disorder.”
For a moment, Eliza thought she might have misheard.
“You—you will?” she stammered. “I did not know; you made no mention of it yesterday.”
“Yesterday, I did not yet know of the extent of the repairs,” he replied.
“What fortuitous timing,” Margaret said blandly, and Eliza knew that she, too, suspected Somerset of some dissimulation. But why should he lie? Unless it was because—unless it was for—
But that was surely wishful thinking.
“It will be easier to conduct business from here, anyhow,” Somerset said calmly. “And I should like to be close to . . .”
There was the tiniest of pauses and Eliza caught her breath.
“My sister,” Somerset finished. “She lives only five miles south of Bath, if you remember.”
“Yes, of course,” Eliza said. “Well, I am sure we are most pleased to hear such news.”
It was an understatement. Eliza’s surprise was giving way to giddiness. A fortnight! Two whole weeks of his presence . . .
“My valet is to fetch more of my things from Harefield,” Somerset said, and his voice was lighter now. “I did want to ask if there was anything you should like to be brought to Bath? You took so little with you, though it was your home for so many years.”
Eliza felt a pang in her chest. He was so kind.
“I could not possibly,” Eliza demurred.
“You could,” he said. “In fact, I insist you must take something.”
Eliza’s mind went briefly to her grandfather’s seascape hanging in her parlor, the finest piece of artwork in Harefield, not that it was displayed at all to its advantage, before dismissing it immediately. It was too valuable, and while Somerset might not know its worth, Lady Selwyn certainly would.
“What is it?” Somerset asked. He always had been able to read her so easily. “You must tell me.”
But Eliza could not risk Somerset ever thinking her mercenary.
“The teapot in the East Drawing Room,” she said, thinking of her next favorite item from the house. “If no one else . . .”
A smile spread across his face, his first of the afternoon.
“A teapot? You do know that was your opportunity to ask for the family diamonds, don’t you?” he said teasingly. It was not a tone she had ever expected to hear from him again, and her cheeks warmed.
“If you’d ever drunk its tea, you would understand,” she said.
“Perhaps then I ought to try it, before I agree,” he said. Then, entreating, “Are you sure I cannot persuade you to take anything of greater value?”
She shook her head and his smile widened.
“How like you to ask for something so small,” he said, “to want so little for yourself.”
Eliza could have told him that it was not selflessness, that there was nothing she wanted less than the oppressive weight of the family diamonds about her neck, but she would not, not when he was looking at her like that. As he had used to look at her before everything fell apart.
“You have not changed,” he said.
Their smiles faded as they looked at one another, the weight of all that had happened, all that they had once been to one another, seemed to press heavily upon them both.
“I should not mind the diamonds, if no one else wants them,” Margaret said, breaking the moment.
“I see that you, too, are unchanged, Miss Balfour,” Somerset said, shaking his head with a smile. “Your humor is as lively as ever.”
“There are some things even the Bath waters cannot cure,” Eliza said, and Margaret laughed, but Somerset’s smile faded.
“And how is your health?” he asked Eliza seriously, as one might a bedridden and ancient aunt.
“I am well,” Eliza said.
“Does she not look well?” Margaret asked.
Eliza shot her a quelling look.
“She does. You do,” Somerset said quietly, looking Eliza over. “A new gown?”
“Yes,” Eliza said, mouth dry.
“It suits you,” he said, and it was a compliment no less valued for its simplicity. “Are you still partaking of the waters?”
“Yes,” Eliza said. “Though as much to visit with our new friends as anything else.”
“New friends,” Somerset repeated. “And do you count the Melvilles as such?”
“No,” Eliza hastened.
“Yes,” Margaret said at the same time.
Somerset frowned again.
“That is,” Eliza clarified. “We have only met them a handful of times, so I am not sure I would call . . .”
“I should not like to overstep, my lady,” Somerset said. “But I would urge caution where the Melvilles are concerned. The tales I have heard . . .”
The deliberate way in which he was speaking, as if choosing his words very carefully, tickled Eliza’s curiosity.
“These tales are scandalous in nature?” she asked, not wanting to seem too eager for details—but eager for them, nonetheless. What had Somerset heard about Melville, in so short a stay in the country?
“They are not tales I will repeat in front of ladies,” he said firmly.
“How dull,” Margaret muttered. And though Eliza admired Somerset’s sense of propriety, she could not help but privately agree with her.
“I will merely say that I would not recommend such a friendship,” Somerset said. “A woman of your . . . A woman in your position ought to be careful.”
The protective concern was warming and Eliza was briefly tempted to encourage it—but no, that would be too unfair.
“The Melvilles are lively,” she said. “But in our acquaintance, limited though it is, that is the extent of their impropriety.”
There was no need to mention the carriage crash, nor the overheard insults, for both events seemed, all of a sudden, far in the past—irrelevant, even, in the face of the joy Somerset had just visited upon her. Two whole weeks.
“If you spend longer in their company I am sure you will agree,” she added.
“I suppose I shall see for myself,” Somerset said, though with a raise of his eyebrows that suggested he doubted it.
The clock struck one. Somerset stood to take his leave.
“I will bid you good day,” he said. “You intend to visit the Pump Room tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, we do,” Eliza said eagerly.
“I shall find you there,” he said. He gave a short bow, then left.
“Oh, my goodness,” Eliza said, once they had conclusively heard the front door close behind him. He was staying. He was staying and she would see him again—tomorrow. “Oh, my goodness.”
“Matters in Bath are about to get very interesting, indeed,” Margaret said, sounding quite as gleeful as a cat might, upon consuming a large jug of cream.