9
That Eliza slept at all that night was nothing short of a miracle. She could not, for the longest time, and ended up—as had become something of a habit, this past week—taking her portfolio to bed with her, hoping that the lull of pencil upon paper would soothe her mind. But though she intended to capture the elegance of Camden Place, or the exterior view of the Pump Room, both calming, warm images, every time she tried, she instead found herself sketching the drawing room that day: Margaret’s sly smile as she sparred with Lady Caroline, Melville’s attentive eyes upon her bookshelves, and Somerset . . . Again and again, Somerset. His hands clenching at his hat, the furrow of his brow, how he had looked, teasing her . . .
She fell asleep still clutching it in her hands, causing Pardle to cluck over the charcoal smudges it had left on her sheets.
“The bombazine, today, my lady?” Pardle asked.
“I think the silk, instead,” Eliza decided. It was far finer than any Eliza would usually wear to the Pump Room, of course, but given the very special occasion that today marked, it seemed only appropriate. Her eagerness to have Somerset once again within her sights was unequalled, and she had twice to remind herself that the need for such urgency had elapsed. She might see him every day until March, now, at the Pump Room, the Assembly Rooms, at church . . . After years of scarcity, it seemed an embarrassment of riches, and ten o’clock could not come soon enough. As the clock struck quarter to, Eliza and Margaret set out, winding their way through Bath’s cobbled streets with as much briskness as was acceptable in ladies of quality.
They stood at the entrance, bidding polite good days to half a dozen acquaintances, while Eliza scanned the room frantically for Somerset. At last, she laid eyes upon him, standing in the middle of the room, speaking with Mrs. and Miss Winkworth.
“Poor man,” Margaret observed. Eliza heartily agreed and made as if to step forward, but Margaret seized her arm.
“Then we will be embroiled in conversation with her too,” she said, shaking her head. “Let him come to us.”
“How on earth have they been introduced so quickly?” Eliza bemoaned, trying to catch Somerset’s eye. It was not considered good manners to simply walk up to a person and begin speaking, one waited for, or requested from a mutual acquaintance, a formal introduction. As this was a rule that Mrs. Balfour insisted upon in others, but believed herself exempt from, it was perhaps unsurprising that Mrs. Winkworth felt the same. Eliza could only hope Somerset had not been offended by her encroaching nature.
“I imagine Mrs. Winkworth only needed to notice his signet ring to make her own introductions,” Margaret suggested, her thoughts having traveled in a similar direction.
“Perhaps I will invite him to walk with us tomorrow,” Eliza whispered to Margaret, as they stood waiting. “Lady Hurley mentioned that she often walks in Sydney Gardens after the Sunday service and so we could all promenade, together.”
The halcyon vision filled her mind’s eye, just as Somerset looked up and noticed them at last. Excusing himself from the Winkworths, he approached, appearing to Eliza even taller and broader and fairer than he had the day before, the sun streaming in through the large windows gilding him in golden light.
“Good day, my lady, Miss Balfour,” he said. His eyes moved briefly and—perhaps?—appreciatively over Eliza’s dress. “You are looking well.”
“Thank you,” she said. The silk had been the right choice. “I see you have met the Winkworths.”
“Your neighbors, as I understand it,” he said, nodding. “According to Mrs. Winkworth, I have apparently met them both before, at the opera, though as I have no memory of that encounter—and as Miss Winkworth could not have been more than eight years old at the time, I cannot help but wonder at its veracity.”
Margaret snorted.
“I hope they were not too forward,” Eliza said.
“They were perfectly charming,” Somerset said. “Though Mrs. Winkworth did criticize her daughter’s posture, at great length.” He paused, and added, delicately, “You know, I have the strangest feeling that Mrs. Winkworth reminds me of someone . . .”
Eliza saw a teasing smile quivering at the corner of Somerset’s mouth and found her own lips curving in helpless imitation.
“I had the same feeling, upon first meeting her,” Eliza said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“I thought you might.”
Eliza, inordinately pleased to find that Somerset’s reserve had eased even further since their last meeting, could barely contain a smile. The fortnight stretched ahead of her, and she imagined a hundred of encounters such as this, with Somerset all the while growing evermore easy in her presence.
“Have you met with Mr. Walcot today?” she asked.
“I have, yes, much as he might wish me at Jericho,” Somerset said. “There is much to learn about the business of being a landlord, if I am to perform the duty well.”
There were many gentlemen who valued land only for the wealth and privileges it afforded them, but far fewer who placed the duties they owed to their constituents in higher importance. It did not surprise Eliza that Somerset belonged to this second group.
“I am fortunate that Mr. Walcot has the patience of a philosopher,” he added, with a self-deprecating grimace.
Eliza raised her brows. That had not been quite her experience.
“I have no doubt that I am the slower pupil,” she assured Somerset, wryly. In her second meeting with Mr. Walcot, this had been made very clear to her.
“Is your father no longer taking care of your business for you?” Somerset asked.
“No, but I am to meet with a land agent next week,” Eliza said. “I have a great many questions for him. He may think me particularly stupid.”
Poring dutifully over the very dry texts she had taken from the library had impressed upon her quite how much there was to know.
“Don’t be foolish, Eliza,” Margaret said. “You are far cleverer than half the lords I know.”
“Excluding present company, of course,” Eliza added meaningfully, with a nod to Somerset. Margaret turned to regard him, as if she planned to evaluate his intelligence right there and then.
“I beg you spare me whatever conclusion you reach, Miss Balfour, for I feel sure you are not likely to flatter me,” Somerset said, voice serious, but eyes humorous. He turned to Eliza. “I agree that Lady Somerset has a good mind, and a great deal of common sense, although, if I can ever offer any assistance . . .”
Eliza hesitated. She had once again refused Mr. Walcot’s suggestion that her father, brother—or any man at all—might be better suited to overseeing the lands, and she worried that accepting assistance now would amount to capitulation. On the other hand, such a conference with Somerset—their heads bent closely together, going over accounts—might have its own appeal . . .
“That is very kind,” she said. “The lands at Chepstow, in particular, are a little confusing.”
Somerset frowned thoughtfully.
“Perhaps you would be better off consulting my brother-in-law on Chepstow,” he said, “for the lands border with his own.”
Since Eliza heartily disliked Selwyn and since Selwyn would undoubtedly resent such a consultation after all the unpleasantness surrounding the will, this was an unwelcome suggestion.
“A wonderful thought,” Eliza said mendaciously. “I shall certainly do so at our next meeting.”
“You may do so today,” Somerset said, “for he has accompanied my sister on a visit to Bath—there they are now!”
Eliza turned and saw, with dawning dread, that they were indeed being approached by Lord and Lady Selwyn.
“Lady Somerset!” Selwyn boomed. “How wonderful to see you!”
They exchanged bows and curtseys and Lady Selwyn made a point of looking Eliza overtly up and down.
“We were so worried to hear of your ill health, my lady,” she said with transparent insincerity. “But I see now we need not have. You look as fine as five pence!”
She made it sound an insult and Eliza flushed. The silk had been a mistake.
“I had not realized you were visiting Bath,” Eliza said.
“Oh, just for the day,” Lady Selwyn said, with a sharp smile. “As soon as I heard my brother intended to reside at an inn for a fortnight, I knew it my sisterly duty to come and fetch him away!”
“My sister believes the Pelican to be some sort of hell,” Somerset said to Eliza. “But I am quite happy there. It is close to my lawyer, my agent and all my lands.”
“As is Sancroft!” Lady Selwyn insisted. “And you will be amongst family. Here you know nobody except Lady Somerset.”
“You are forgetting Miss Balfour,” Somerset said.
“How remiss of me,” Lady Selwyn said, resting her cold eyes upon Margaret for a moment, before seeming to dismiss her existence entirely. “You ought at least return with us for a short visit—the girls would be delighted to see you again.”
At the mention of his nieces, Somerset visibly softened.
“And I hear . . .” Selwyn said, leaning in as if he were about to import a great secret, “that Cook is preparing veal tonight.”
He gave a significant nod. Somerset laughed.
“I do like veal,” he said.
Eliza looked on, frozen. The Selwyns were going to take him away! He had only just arrived, he had only just begun to act normally in Eliza’s presence, and now, after only one day of the promised fortnight, the Selwyns were going to take him away. For a visit to begin with, perhaps, but Lady Selwyn’s self-satisfied expression told Eliza that once Somerset was in his sister’s home, he would not be returning.
“Come, Lady Somerset, you must add your entreaties, too,” Lady Selwyn said. “Surely you will agree that Somerset ought not be dining alone at such a place? It would be far too tragic.”
Eliza could not let it happen. The old Eliza might have done, might have meekly accepted her fate no matter how unhappy it made her, but the new Eliza would not.
“In truth,” Eliza said impulsively, “I was about to ask—to invite Somerset for dinner at Camden Place, to introduce him into society a little. Tonight.”
To counteroffer in such a way was impolite, and Somerset’s brows snapped together while Lady Selwyn’s eyes flickered very obviously down to Eliza’s black gown but Eliza plunged on.
“Now I am ten months into my mourning, my mother has suggested I ought host a few quiet dinners at home—just five or six close friends, nothing in the least formal.”
Her mother had recommended no such thing, but if Mrs. Balfour, the highest stickler imaginable, felt it acceptable, then surely Somerset could have no objection.
“I should not, of course, like to deprive you of a visit to Sancroft,” Eliza added. “But if it is dining alone that Lady Selwyn wishes you to avoid . . .”
Somerset’s brow cleared.
“How fortuitous,” Lady Selwyn said silkily. “May I ask who else is attending?”
Eliza stared at her, stricken.
“Why, of course, our very dear friends . . .” she began, mentally flicking through all the persons she could hope to depend upon for a dinner party that very evening and landing, unfortunately, upon . . . “The Winkworths! Our neighbors. And of course, also the, ah . . .”
“Melvilles,” Margaret said smoothly.
“The earl?” Lady Selwyn demanded.
“In Bath?” Selwyn sounded thunderstruck.
“Yes—they are recently arrived,” Eliza confirmed, trying not to sound alarmed herself. Somerset’s brows had re-furrowed. Blast. Did Margaret have to say the one family Somerset seemed already to dislike? The only persons of their acquaintance with whom Somerset must certainly not want to dine!
“And we are serving veal, too,” she added desperately.
“I should be delighted to join you,” Somerset said. “And my sister can rest easy that I am not to be abandoned to the tables of the Pelican.”
Eliza smiled in relief. There was a pause as the Selwyns and Somerset looked at her expectantly. Oh.
“We would have of course invited you to join us, had we known you were visiting,” Eliza said reluctantly. “It is a shame you are returning to Sancroft tonight.”
It was not a shame.
“Why, that is easily resolved!” Lady Selwyn said. “We shall simply delay our return until morning—the Pelican can easily accommodate us.”
“A wonderful suggestion, my dear,” Selwyn said, and he had stolen Eliza’s smile. “What time shall we arrive?”
“With Bath hours being so early, I should not imagine you will seat us later than six o’clock,” Lady Selwyn interjected.
Eliza could not see a way out. Her quick thinking had deserted her.
“Half—half past six,” she said weakly. “How delightful that you are able to join us.”
And after curtseying deeply, she and Margaret excused themselves.
“I beg you will not think me boorishly practical,” Margaret said, as they walked away. “But may I ask why you have invited them to what seems, by all accounts, to be a largely fictional soiree?”
“You were there!” Eliza hissed back. “The Selwyns were going to—to tempt him away with veal and I panicked, Margaret, and I just spoke—”
The full force of the consequences of such a rash invitation began to dawn on Eliza.
“What have I done?” she said, stopping on the top step. “To host a dinner party, still in full mourning! My mother will have my head. We must cancel it, at once. Oh, but then Somerset will go to Sancroft and the Selwyns will be victorious . . . But how on earth can we not?”
“It will be all right,” Margaret said soothingly, pulling on Eliza’s arm. When Eliza did not obey her pressure, Margaret clucked her tongue as if she were encouraging a horse and pulled harder. Eliza began to walk. “It is in the privacy of our own home, and half of the attendees are practically family!”
That was stretching matters, though Eliza could take her point, except that . . .
“We have no other guests,” Eliza moaned.
“You will go straight to the Winkworths and then to the Melvilles,” Margaret said. “I will speak to Perkins and it will soon not be in the least fictional.” Margaret nudged her. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Eliza said, thankfully. “Yes! Did I—did I also say that we were serving veal?”
“You did,” Margaret said, pressing her lips together as if she were trying not to laugh. “Even I thought that was bold.”
It was almost eleven on a Saturday. The chances of their cook securing a cut of veal were slim to none and Eliza let out another disconsolate groan.
At Camden Place, she and Margaret parted ways. Eliza—accompanied by a perplexed Pardle—went first to the Winkworths, hoping the invitation could be quickly given and easily accepted, but no one was at home. Eliza left a note begging their presence and excusing the late notice—if Mrs. Winkworth received it in time, Eliza knew she would come. But if she did not . . .
Eliza hastened next to Laura Place, where she realized she could not, in fact, remember on which side of Lady Hurley the Melvilles lived. Was it number four or number eight? She paused, thinking wildly of demanding Pardle start banging on doors, when the sound of a door opening made her turn her head, to see Melville stepping out onto the pavement of number four, evidently speaking to someone over his shoulder.
“Melville!” Eliza cried, brightening immediately.
Melville gave a start.
“Good God,” he said, looking around at Eliza and clutching a hand to his heart. “Do you mean to kill me?”
“My apologies,” she said.
“To what do I owe the—somewhat dubious—pleasure, my lady?” Melville said, sweeping his hands down his topcoat as if to brush off his surprise. “I would invite you inside, but you find me on my way into town.”
“May I escort you?” Eliza asked—instantly flushed at the awkward phrasing.
“Escort me?” Melville repeated, amused. “Do you mean to protect my virtue from bandits?”
But he offered an arm, and Eliza took it without answering. They fell into step together, and Eliza considered how best to word her invitation, ideally with charming spontaneity rather than hapless dilatoriness.
“I was hopeful, this afternoon, of paying you another visit,” he said. “One that might last, perhaps, a little longer than the first.”
In all the excitement of the day, Eliza had entirely forgotten about the rushed conclusion of the Melvilles’ call and her face flamed now in renewed mortification.
“You have my sincere apologies,” Eliza said. “It was not my intention to make you feel as though you had to cut your visit short.”
“It’s no matter,” Melville said. “Caroline explained to me that you’re in love with Somerset . . . I’m curious; would you call him your nephew?”
Eliza choked on air.
“I—I—I,” she stammered. “H-how dare you! He is certainly not my nephew! And I am not in love with him!”
“I shan’t mention it to anyone, if that is why you are concerned,” Melville said.
“If that is why I am concerned?” Eliza repeated. “My lord, you seem to be going out of your way to ask me the most intrusive, most indelicate . . . many people would consider it a great impertinence.”
“I hope you are not one of them,” he said. “They sound tedious.”
“Perhaps we might instead speak on more traditional topics,” Eliza said, trying desperately to grasp back the reins of the conversation. “Such as the very fine weather we have been enjoying?”
“And how long must we speak of the weather,” Melville asked, with a dubious look up to the sky, “before we can return to more interesting matters? What caused you to marry his uncle instead? The title?”
It was decided. Eliza could emphatically not, in good conscience, invite this man to dinner. She would have to cancel the whole endeavor. Perhaps she could pretend to Somerset that their guests had all called off due to illness . . . But that lie would have the immediate threat of discovery. She could pretend that she was ill, instead—Somerset already thought her so, after all—but even then, could she trust that the Winkworths, forward as they had already been to Somerset, would not mention the lately delivered and quickly retracted invitation? In all possible outcomes, Eliza was left humiliated. Eliza imagined the smugness upon Lady Selwyn’s face, if she heard the dinner party had been called off at such a late hour, the frown on Somerset’s face at such inelegant behavior.
She shook her head. She could not. She would simply have to try and make the best of it.
“My intention in visiting you today,” Eliza said doggedly, “was to invite you and Lady Caroline to a small dinner party I am hosting.”
“Will there be dancing?” Melville asked.
“Certainly not!” Eliza said. One could not dance in black.
“A shame,” he said. “When is the blessed event to occur?”
“Ah—tonight, in fact,” she said. “A spontaneous decision—I hope you will forgive the very short notice.”
He looked at her sideways, as if suspecting there was far more to the story.
“Is anyone else attending?” he asked suspiciously.
“Somerset,” she said. “And the Selwyns. And, I hope, the Winkworths.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, after a great deal of consideration—and due attention paid to all my previous engagements—I am afraid I cannot attend.”
“What previous engagements?” Eliza demanded.
“I have engaged myself to spend as little time with the Winkworths as possible,” Melville said. “I find that I despise them—all save for Miss Winkworth, who I merely find dull.”
“You have only met them once!”
“And I find that sufficient.”
“It is not a proper excuse,” Eliza protested.
“Why should I need an excuse?” Melville said. “The simple fact of the matter is that it does not at all sound like something I would enjoy. Why should we attend?”
Eliza stopped abruptly in the street, and turned to face Melville, feeling so frustrated with him—with everything—that she might just cry.
“I had thought you desired my friendship, my lord,” she said, desperately. “And what is friendship, if not kindnesses such as this?”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Perhaps we could strike a bargain,” he suggested.
Eliza raised her eyes to heaven, silently asking the lord for patience.
“What kind of bargain?” she asked at last, still with her eyes upon the sky.
“If we attend . . .” Melville said slowly, as if he were trying to think of what he wanted, “then you must show me your paintings.”
Eliza looked at him in surprise.
“Why, that is very easily done,” she said. She would have expected something far more outrageous.
“That,” Melville said, “is what I have been saying all of this time.”
“Then I accept,” Eliza said, ignoring this. “Please arrive at half past six.”
She hurried away.
“Half past six in the afternoon?” Melville called after, horror plain in his voice. Eliza did not turn back to answer.