Chapter Seven

Haverford House, London, October 1812

Despite hundreds of servants, the house seemed quiet. Haverford was in Kent with his own attendants, though his condition appeared to be improving. Aldridge was touring the ducal estates, keeping a tight hand on the reins of the vast lands that underpinned the Haverford wealth.

She was used to their absence. But for once, she had no one else. Her current companion was off with friends, finishing the initial planning for this year’s Christmas house party and New Year’s Eve Ball, and the girls were visiting friends in the country.

She had seen James again, today. This time, it had been planned. She had sent him a note to tell him she would be at the bookshop, and giving the time her meeting ended. Afterwards, she had been sure he wouldn’t come, and if he did, he would think she was chasing after him.

She pushed away the tea tray; she didn’t want it. What she wanted was in the secret compartment; a memory she could not quite believe and could never forget. She found the little box, and extracted a crumbling faded rose. She had plucked it from her garden at Haverford Castle after a memorable dream, as a reminder that James had given his heart elsewhere.

Haverford Castle, near Margate, July 1795

Cecily was older. Of course, she was. More than fifteen years had passed since the season they shared; the season that ended with Eleanor’s broken heart and Cecily’s marriage. She and her husband Alec had taken a long wedding trip, to see the Orient, they said. And then… nothing. Until she appeared again in England, just a few weeks ago.

Through the ritual of greeting, of inviting her guest to be seated, of preparing a cup of tea for each of them, Eleanor kept shooting glances, comparing the composed and still lovely woman before her with the gangling clumsy teen Eleanor had taken under her wing at first meeting. She glowed with happiness, but the lines barely visible on her brow and around her eyes spoke of suffering and pain. What had happened in all those years away?

They spoke of nothings: the weather, the fashions, who was and who wasn’t in Town, until all of the maids had left the room and they were alone. Then they both spoke at once.

“Did you wish to hear of…?” Cecily began.

“Lady Sutton and Lady Grace Winderfield tell me…” said Eleanor, stopping herself and waving her hand for Cecily to carry on.

Cecily nodded, as if Eleanor had confirmed what Cecily had been about to ask. “I met with Lord James Winderfield late last year. That is what you wished to know, is it not, Your Grace? Where I saw him, and how?”

“It is,” Eleanor agreed, grateful that decades of training and practice allowed her to keep her face and posture from reflecting her inner turmoil. “His sisters told me he was alive, but little more.” Married. To an Eastern princess. With children. Happy, or so Cecily had told them. It was silly to feel hurt. Did she expect him to wear the willow for her for a lifetime? She did for him, but look at the alternative! She had never been given the least incentive to fall in love with the tyrant she had been forced to marry. She was glad James was happy. Of course, she was. Or would be, given time.

Cecily had kept on talking while she scolded herself, asking her something. Ah. Yes. Was she certain she wished to know the details?

“You loved him, once,” Cecily said, her voice kind.

She could answer that. “He was a dear friend, Mrs McInnes, and I have grieved him as dead these many years. I would dearly love to know how he survived, and how he now lives. And he has children, his sisters say. Many children. Please. Start at the beginning and tell me all about him.”

That night, Eleanor had a very vivid dream.

She found herself in a beautiful garden. It was a long rectangle, walled on three sides and on the fourth bounded by steps up to a house. Or perhaps a castle, though unlike any castle Eleanor had ever seen. A fort of some kind, its arches and domes giving it an exotic air entirely in keeping with the garden.

A pool divided the garden in half; no, in quarters, for it had two straight branches stretching almost to the walls from the centre point of the walled enclosure. Eleanor had woken to find herself in one quadrant of the garden, surrounded by flowers in a myriad of colours, some familiar and some unknown. Not woken. She could not possibly be awake. Nowhere in England had the mountains she could see over the walls, and nor was this an English garden.

She must have spoken the last thought, because a voice behind her said, “Not English, no. Persian, originally, though I am told they are found from Morocco to Benghal. It is a chahar bāgh; a Paradise garden.”