Page 13 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

Willa was interested in this titbit from Anna. She herself was just seventeen when she had said ‘I do’ in the small church at Belton with her parents and a few of Lionel’s friends present as witnesses.

‘The Society wedding of that year, it is said.’ This came from George. ‘My oldest brother was sure every man in London was half in love with Gretel Carmichael, with her classical looks and pale hair, but Moreland was leaving nothing to chance and popped the question before anyone else could. And then they disappeared into the wilds of Hampshire, returning to London only for a month of each season before going back.’

‘A love story,’ Anna sighed. ‘A wonderful tale of two people meeting who were destined to be together right until death parted them, a state of affairs that completely broke his heart.’

Willa looked away, a faint niggle of shame inside her which was difficult to banish. Did ruined people like her have a propensity to tarnish those who were unsullied? She had neverloved Lionel right from the beginning and had given up trying to in the first few months, much to her mother’s dismay.

Gretel Carmichael, on the other hand, had loved her husband well and properly and had led a happy and unblemished life.

Lionel’s anger and her own were the very opposite, the discord of hate and fear. When he had fallen down and down until there was nothing of life left in him, the angels of freedom had danced around her in utter relief.

She pulled herself back into the moment, clamping her teeth together and trying to smile, the shock of memory leaving her chilled here in the laughter and noise of an enchanted woodland ballroom.

As the musicians at one end of the room began to play George Fitzgibbon held out his hand and, needing the distraction from Anna’s words, she went into his arms for a waltz. She had known him ever since she had arrived in London and he had pursued her from the first moment they’d met. A man who liked grand gestures and great emotion and one whom she had never encouraged in any way, save in friendship.

The music of the flute rose high above the violins, the scent of flowers pinned amongst the greenery and candles infused with lavender oil. This was her life now, independent and strong. She was a lot different from the woman she had once been, a young woman beholden to her husband and to her parents and isolated essentially from all others in their efforts to control her.

‘Marry me, Willa, and we can leave for the Americas in the spring.’ Horror ran through her at his words.

‘If I did not know you better, George, I might almost think you meant it.’

‘Perhaps, my love, I do. My mother and father are insistent on a bride before the end of the year and I cannot think of a girl I could do better with.’

‘A girl is something I hardly am, George.’

‘A woman, then, a beautiful and interesting woman.’

She shook her head. ‘Miss Leonora Blanchard over there is the female you should pursue. She is both kind and clever and I have it on good account that she is an avid reader. Like you.’

‘She is young.’

‘You are not yet twenty-seven.’

‘So you are refusing me?’

‘I am indeed but only because I know I would shatter your heart if I had the temerity to accept.’

‘I met your husband once. Did you know that?’

Left speechless at his admission, Willa waited to see what he might say next.

‘I remember Mr Lionel St Claire as a stern, upright man of strong opinion.’

‘That is a reasonable description.’

‘I could not see him enjoying a London salon with discourse that edges on radical debate.’

‘I agree. My late husband would have struggled in this company.’

‘Struggled as you did perhaps in his estate of silence and rule?’

Willa kept smiling because it did not pay to let too much out to a man like George, as he had a memory that stored everything.

‘How long have we known each other, George?’

‘A little over two years, Wilhelmina. I met you on the first night you arrived in London. I remember it like it was yesterday.’

‘One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.’ She uttered this with a smile on her face.