Page 12 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

A good choice with the view reaching down to the lake. Had there been a moon that night? He could not remember but hoped there had been as it would have been visible across the soft folds of the countryside to the east.

All the landmarks that he recognised. Nothing foreign or unfamiliar. He knew the trees and the smell of the seasons, he understood the patterns of rain and wind and snow, the soft heat in summer and the colour of the changing leaves in autumn.

My place.

In place.

Home.

It had been so long since he had felt such a belonging.

The silence he’d often hated here was replaced by known sounds, comforting in the way they belonged to no one time, no one person, no one truth. They were here before him and they would be here after. The flow of nature and time and earth. It made one’s problems seem smaller and less significant and allowed acceptance and relief to gather. Even the lake tonight looked silver and calm, all of its uneasy black depths hidden.

The conversation with Oliver today had allowed an easing, though, a way of understanding his wife’s actions and Oliver’s too. They had all been caught in a tangled web that was now loosening, and communication would allow him a way of moving on from the guilt that always overshadowed any thought of his brother.

He needed a change. He needed to step out of anger, sadness and shame. Looking at the lines on his left hand, he hoped that whatever came next would allow him the strength to live well and with honour.

Chapter Three

The Wilsons’ ball in Mayfair in the second week of June was a huge affair, the rooms decorated in dark green so that the whole place gave the effect of an enchanted forest. Great fragrant boughs of pine had been placed in every corner of the adjoining salons to add to the illusion.

Willa, by chance, had on a dress of mid-green, a flouncy number that she was not all that keen on but felt the need to wear a few times at least in order to justify its expense. She smiled at such a thought now that she was moderately wealthy, but old habits were hard to break and her mother’s parsimonious ways were difficult to simply ignore even though she had been dead for nigh on eight years.

She had pinned her hair up tonight, eschewing the more feminine style of the moment, and the earrings she wore were her very favourite, long pearl drops with stones of amber at each end. The feathers she had attached to her cap were probably a bit much but she had long since disposed with the worry of fashion and had liked the way the colour in them matched the amber.

A good friend, Miss Anna Cherton, joined her before she had gone ten yards.

‘You look like a rare bird of prey, Willa. I love the way your maid has done your hair.’

Willa waved her hand. ‘Oh, no, this is my doing. If I left things to Hetty I would have a veritable waterfall of ringlets falling on each side and a pink silk rose tucked into the top of it.’

‘Like Miss Violet Broome?’ Anna returned and they both watched as the youngest daughter of Lord Broome crossed the room before them.

‘Well, she looks attractive in anything, really.’ Willa seldom said things that could be construed as criticism, and besides, the girl was young and rather sweet.

For a moment she felt as old as she had ever felt, her thirty-first birthday in a few months feeling suddenly close. Perhaps she should have dressed with a little less oddness and followed the fashions in the way every other female in the room seemed wont to do.

‘Did the final viewing of Belton Park go well?’

‘It did. The lawyers only have to complete the documents and then they can all be signed.’

‘Will you be sad never to go there again?’

‘Not at all. In fact, the truth is it will be a relief to have it off my hands.’

Anna threaded their fingers together. ‘I was speaking with the middle McAllistair sister the other day and she said you had been laid low with a stomach ailment on your way back to London. She commented on the Elmsworth estate with a particular tone.’

The mention of the place in which she had taken shelter jolted Willa. She had thought of the Earl’s kisses every night since they had happened and could not make any sense of her reaction.

George Fitzgibbon and Freddie Boucher had now come over to join them, two men whom Willa had known ever since moving to the city.

‘Did I hear you mentioning the Elmsworth estate, Anna? Then you must know that the eighth Earl has finally returned to these shores. Word has it he is installed in Hampshire after the loss of his beautiful wife in the Americas, though as yet he has not ventured across to the city.’

‘My goodness, it’s been years since he left England, hasn’t it?’ Anna asked this and Freddie was quick to supply an answer.

‘At least four. The family was odd, a fractured family who seemed to be both melancholic and arrogant, if such a mix is possible.’

‘Yet Lord Phillip Moreland was more than handsome, Freddie, for I remember him vividly. He was a man who had the hearts of the female gender fluttering everywhere but he chose Miss Gretel Carmichael before either of them was even twenty and married her within a few weeks, much to the chagrin of all the girls and women left.’