Long-lost love

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 15

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.”

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Tea with James

Eleanor looked around the shop with interest. Long ago, in the early miserable days of her marriage, one of Haverford’s elderly aunts had told her to always look for the silver lining. Aldridge had been born later that year, the first silver lining in the dark cloud of her life as a duchess.

More than thirty years had passed, and she was usually able to arrange her life just as she liked it, but every now and again, the game of hunting silver linings still kept her calm and sane.

The current cloud was Haverford’s dictate that she have nothing further to do with her two closest friends on the grounds that they were sisters to the Earl of Sutton, on whom he had declared war.

The silver lining was all the places she was discovering. Duchesses, His Grace decreed, sent for anything they needed. The modiste came to her. Books were ordered from a catalogue and delivered. When she chose to redecorate, she selected what she wanted from samples and someone made it all happen.

Shops were a revelation. In all her life, she had never been to a fabric emporium, such as the one where she and her friends met two weeks ago, or a millinery — last week’s meeting place. Both had been fascinating, but today’s book shop surpassed them all.

After this ridiculous kerfuffle was over, she was going to continue to go out to shops, and not in disguise, either. She would adore the opportunity to stroll, as other ladies were doing, taking a book from the shelves and reading a few pages. But the veil that kept her from being recognised was too heavy to allow her to read.

Instead, she followed the shop assistant to the private room where she was to meet Lady Sutton and Lady Georgiana Winderfield. The shop also served refreshments and provided rooms for meetings. This room was set up with comfortable chairs, and the table was already set with all the appointments for making and serving tea.

Eleanor was the first to arrive. She seated herself before reaching up to lift her veil, and had no sooner cast it back over the bonnet, and sighed with relief at being able to see clearly, when the door opened behind her back. Just to be careful, she did not turn. “Grace? Georgie?”

“Your Grace.” The deep voice was male. “My sisters say I may have five minutes, provided you agree.” His tones warmed with humour. “I daresay they are watching the door to see whether you will send me off with a flea in my ear.”

Eleanor stood and turned, her heart in her mouth. “Ja— Lord Sutton.” If Haverford found out… No. She had taken every precaution. She let go the breath she had known she was holding and held out her hand. “How are you?”