Page 3 of Scandalous Nights With the Earl

Her smile was immediate.

‘I would, indeed.’

The lack of hesitation heartened him, for he’d never had time for the wiles of women. His wife had been direct as well.

He watched the stranger pull her night attire closer as she sat, a careful movement with slight embarrassment evident and a large dollop of wariness. She obviously knew of his reputation but it felt good to have someone to talk with on the first night of his long-overdue return to Elmsworth Manor. A scent of gardenias wafted around her.

‘You look much healthier than you did this morning, at least.’

She blushed at that and he wondered if such words were a misstep.

‘I could not look worse even if I’d tried, my lord.’

‘Phillip,’ he gave back. His time in the Americas had allowed him to understand that the fussy insistence on titles and manners was rather outdated.

‘Phillip,’ she returned. ‘And I am Wilhelmina. My companions and I stopped at a tavern on the road, The King’s Way, I think it was called, and they served chicken pie for supper. No one else got ill save for me, which in its own way is a blessing, given the age and frailty of my three travelling companions.’

‘Where were you coming from?’

‘My husband’s estate outside of Winchester. He died just over two years ago.’

‘I am very sorry.’

She looked at him then and frowned. ‘Thank you, but I suppose I should also say that ours was not a love match. By the end of our union Lionel, that was his name, liked me as little as I liked him.’

‘Lionel?’

‘Mr Lionel St Claire from Belton Park. He was a friend of my parents’ and he was lonely.’

‘And in the end you were, too?’

She laughed so unexpectedly it made him smile. ‘The lesson I learned was that one should not marry to make others happy.’

‘I hope you have better luck next time, then.’

‘Oh, there will not be a next time, I can assure you of that. One thing my husband did possess was wealth and he has left me an independent widow of some means, which is an enormous relief after the constrictions of those lost eleven years.’

‘A fair amount of time?’ He liked her returned humour.

‘Too much entirely but there was no one else to blame, for it was my own mistake. Had I been like other young girls with dreams of more I might have waited and made a better match.’

‘But you did not?’

‘Mama and Papa were scientists. Their world was of insects and habitats, all practical and rational things. So in effect mine was, too.’

‘And Lionel?’

‘Loved astronomy. He was well regarded in his field but the smallness of the earth in the universe depressed him and he could never be happy. In the end I think he was largely irritated because I could be. It pays not to think too much of the inequalities in this world, you see, my lord, for in reality all the worry in the heavens will not change anything save to leave one with a spiralling anxiety and an ever-present dread.’

She nibbled at the bread and cheese as she said this. Phillip noticed her fingers were long, her nails short and neat.

‘I decided a long time ago to simply be content with my own company, you see, and so far such a resolution has worked out well. If it were not for the infamous chicken pie, I should now be in London in my town house, scouring the shelves of my library for the next wonderful story to read.’

‘You enjoy books, then?’

‘Immensely. I love the places one can escape to within them. When I was married escape was…more difficult. Lionel thought a woman’s work in her house should never be done and even a speck of dust annoyed him. It was a very large house and so there was bound to be some encroaching detritus that blew in no matter how hard one endeavoured to banish it, but he was not a husband who enjoyed paying servants for doing the jobs he thought a wife should manage.’

Phillip could not remember a time when he had spoken to a female of such candour. Mrs St Claire was a woman who did notembroider things and one who owned up to the mistakes she had made with a quiet truth. In this she was like no other woman he had met. But she wasn’t yet finished.