Now for something different — the scene is about the Duchess of Haverford, but she only makes a brief appearance. This is an excerpt from the rewrite of what used to be The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. In To Wed a Proper Lady, the Earl of Sutton meets the woman he once loved at a ball, and afterwards thinks about the days of their youth.
The muttering of the assembled guests swelled and then stopped abruptly when the Duke of Haverford crossed the floor, and stopped in front of the Earl of Sutton.
Sutton inclined his head, his face impassive.
Haverford sneered and turned on his heel. Sighting his wife at one side of the room, talking to their hostess, he marched twelve paces and spat out, “Lady Finch, that man is an imposter. The duchess and I will not visit any home where he and his devil-spawn are welcome. Duchess!” He beckoned to Aunt Eleanor, as Sophia called her godmother, and stalked off up the stairs.
The duchess followed, hesitating for a moment as she passed Sutton. Their eyes met. Sophia could have sworn that his had a question. If so, the duchess didn’t answer. She hurried up the stairs after her husband. Most of the room watched the earl’s party crossing to Lord and Lady Finch, but Sophia continued to watch the duchess, and may have been the only person who saw her stop at the top of the stairs, to look after the earl.
***
“It went well,” Georgie proclaimed, once Drew and the girls had retired and only the older members of the household remained to consider the evening. “Haverford was a horse’s rear end, but that was to be expected.”
Yousef, the head of Sutton’s household staff, had been leaning against the back of his wife’s chair, but he came alert like the old campaigner he was. “What happened?” They had all agreed only the family would attend the ball, the first social outing from the house of Winshire since Sutton and his children arrived in England. Sutton’s closest friend and advisor had clearly been fretting the entire evening.
Sutton answered before his sister or one of the other ladies could. “Nothing much, Yousef. He left when we arrived, after announcing that the Haverfords and Winshires were at odds.” He took a sip of his drink. “I agree the evening was a success, Georgie.”
“Our girls made an impression,” Grace commented. Her smug smile at Lettie hinted at the hours the two women had spent concocting the scene that began the evening: the four Winderfield cousins at the top of the stairs, each beautifully coiffed and dressed in vibrant colours that contrasted and complimented each other.
“Keeping young Jamie in reserve was a good idea, Patience.” Georgie raised her glass to Yousef’s wife, who made a return salute with her teacup. “It worked just as you suggested,” Georgie continued. “They are intrigued. If I had one person ask me if the heir was as good looking as Drew, I had twenty. And I told the biggest gossips in the ton how glad I was that you were so wealthy!” She grinned at her brother. “When Jamie arrives back from the errand you sent him on, make sure he knows not to be alone with any marriageable female, anywhere, at any time.”
The others continued to dissect the evening, prompted by questions from Yousef and Patience. Haverford’s claim that Sutton was an imposter could be ignored, they all agreed. If recognition by his father and sister was not enough, at least a dozen people at the ball last night had known him as a young man. Sutton did his best to pay attention, but his mind kept drifting back to the encounter with Haverford and the glimpse he’d had of Haverford’s duchess.
The old man, he’d called him when he was twenty-four and a fool. “You can’t marry her to that old man,” he’d screamed at Eleanor’s father when his own suit had been rejected because she was already promised. Haverford was thirteen years his senior, and that seemed old to him then, especially compared to Eleanor’s seventeen. The man would be in his seventies now—an old man in truth, gnarled and bent as an old tree, the once handsome face withered and twisted into a peevish mask.
Eleanor, though… Sutton would have known Eleanor anywhere, as soon as her lovely eyes met his. Through a long and happy marriage to the mother of his children, the bittersweet memory of the young Eleanor had lingered in a corner of Sutton’s heart, and seeing her had brought all those memories flooding back.
She was older, of course, though if he’d not known she was approaching her fifty-second birthday he’d have guessed her no more than forty. Time had delivered on the promise of great beauty and grace.
From what his sister-in-law said of her—they were dear friends, it seemed—time had also honed the strength under the softness that made her submit to her father rather than run away with Sutton. His Eleanor had become the Duchess of Haverford, a grande dame known for her works of charity, her kindness to those who fell afoul of Society’s censure through no fault of their own, and her generosity to her husband’s poor relations and a whole tribe of godchildren.
Such a pity that the feud with Haverford would mean they could not meet. He would have liked to know the woman his Eleanor had become.