‘So when my uncle proposed, it was a wish come true?’
Kate shook her head. ‘What I’m trying to say, Estelle, is that your uncle didn’t propose to me. Daniel balked at the idea of depriving me of children—I was only twenty-two at the time. So I proposed to him.’
‘You have never told us that before,’ Phoebe exclaimed, startled.
‘It has never been relevant until now.’ Kate laughed at the twins’ identical expressions. ‘That is what comes of being practical and pragmatic, my dears. As I pointed out to Daniel at the time, it was an eminently sensible arrangement, with both of us gaining. I would secure my independence, I’d be free to carry on doing the work I loved and I’d be able to restore this beautiful house, while he was free to pursue his career abroad, knowing that his estates were in the best possible hands.’
‘And you have never regretted it?’ Eloise asked, though she was fairly certain she knew the answer to the question.
‘Never,’ Kate said firmly. ‘As it happens I would have liked children. But I got them, didn’t I, only a year after I was married? All three of you at once.’
‘We were hardly children,’ Eloise said drily. ‘I was nineteen, the twinnies were fifteen.’
‘And you were all three of you quite devastated.’ Kate shook her head. ‘Even now, to think of what you’d been through, losing both your parents and your poor little brother in one tragic accident, with all of them lost at sea. As if that was not bad enough, to be evicted from the only home you had ever known, and packed off from Ireland to come all the way here to live with a complete stranger who happened to be your only relative’s wife. If I hadn’t already been married to Daniel, I’d have married him then, just to give you all a home. Now for heaven’s sake, there is no need...’
But Kate’s voice was muffled as the three sisters enveloped her in a hug, and it was some time before they separated, to return to their seats. ‘Goodness,’ she said, emerging very ruffled, ‘I did not mean to upset everyone, dredging up the past. I was trying to explain why I thought that Lord Fearnoch had chosen to speak to Eloise rather than any other woman, wasn’t I?’
‘Let me, because I think the explanation is quite simple. Think about it,’ Eloise said, addressing her sisters. ‘We know from our uncle’s letter that when he met Lord Fearnoch in Egypt five months ago, he had only just heard of his brother’s death and the terms of the will. It will have taken him some time to secure return passage to England, no doubt to become embroiled in a legal wrangle to avoid the need to marry, because we also know from our uncle that he had no wish for a wife. And now, having realised that he either marries or loses his fortune, he’s up against the clock and since Uncle Daniel has already presented him with a potentially suitable candidate...’
‘Who, thanks to the poor example set for us by our dear departed parents, has absolutely no desire whatsoever to become either a wife or a mother,’ Estelle interjected grimly.
‘No one who witnessed what we did would ever want to marry.’ Phoebe clasped her twin’s hand. ‘Do you remember, Estelle, how we used to pretend we had been adopted, and that one day our real parents would arrive to claim us?’
‘And how we vowed we wouldn’t leave unless they promised to take Eloise too?’
‘We did. We vowed we would never, ever leave you behind.’
Phoebe’s tragic little smile touched Eloise’s heart. She had tried so hard to protect the twins from the worst of her parents’ vicious bickering and confrontations, and in turn they had tried to protect her, pretending that she’d succeeded. They almost never talked of those days, but they all three of them bore the scars, buried deep. She thought she knew everything about her sisters, but she hadn’t heard this sad little story before. ‘Thank you,’ she said, swallowing the large lump which had risen in her throat and trying for a watery smile. ‘I am touched that you were so intent on keeping me with you, though you were by implication disowning me as your sister.’
‘No!’ the twins called in unison.
‘And to think that just a moment ago, you were telling me that no one would ever mistake us for anything but sisters too.’
‘We didn’t mean...’
‘She’s teasing,’ Estelle said sheepishly. ‘Anyway, Phoebe, we knew at the time it was just a pipe dream.’
‘Yes. Though we also knew that if someone did come along to claim us, our actual real parents would probably have handed us over gladly,’ Phoebe said bitterly.
‘Or they wouldn’t have noticed we’d gone.’
There was no denying the truth of this, and Eloise felt no inclination to defend the indefensible as she inspected the stocking she had been darning before snipping the cotton and tying it off. But nor was she about to let those skeletons creep back out of the closet and colour the present. ‘I think that’s enough talk of those times.’
‘I agree. Let’s talk instead about what it will be like when you are rich beyond our wildest dreams,’ Estelle said, taking her cue and rubbing her hands together gleefully.
Phoebe giggled. ‘You will be able to buy up a whole warehouse of silks to make gowns.’
‘She’ll be far too much a lady of leisure to sew. Besides, I’m not sure it’s the done thing for a countess to make her own gowns. Do you know how to attach a sprinkling of diamonds to a décolleté, Eloise?’
‘Oh, I’ll have a maid for that sort of thing. I shall be too busy, just like Cleopatra, bathing in asses’ milk.’
‘A rather rare commodity in London, I should think,’ Kate interjected wryly.
‘London!’ Phoebe clapped her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘And you’ll be a countess. To think of our big sister being a countess! Will you go to lots of parties, do you think? And will you live in a palace?’
‘A town house,’ Estelle said reprovingly. ‘Though a very large town house. With—oh, I should think at least a hundred bedchambers, and a thousand servants, and a French chef.’
‘Who will never be able to bake a cake as delicious as Phoebe can,’ Eloise said. She stuck her darning needle into the pin cushion and closed the lid of her sewing box. ‘One thing is certain, I will never have to darn another stocking. As for the rest—I am not particularly interested in draping myself in ermine and diamonds.’
‘No,’ Estelle agreed, ‘you’re more likely to spend a portion of your immense fortune on your own loom.’
‘I don’t see me taking up weaving, not even if Lord Fearnoch turns out to be as life-threateningly tedious as his title of Victualling Commissioner suggests,’ Eloise said tartly. ‘But it is no exaggeration to say that the settlement he is proposing is life-changing, for all of us. If this marriage works out, I will be able to provide Estelle with the funds for her own private orchestra if she likes, and you, Phoebe, could set up in competition to the legendary Gunter’s tea rooms. We could travel. We could do anything we want, or nothing at all if we choose to. The future will be considerably brighter than any of us ever imagined.’
‘And all you have to do is put up with a toothless, tedious earl,’ Estelle said, chuckling.
‘Heavens though, what if he turns out not to be toothless but cut from the same cloth as our neighbour, Squire Mytton?’
Kate, Eloise and Estelle gazed at Phoebe in horror. ‘Surely there is only one such. I heard from one of our tenants, who heard from his sister in Leamington Spa, that the squire rode his horse into a hotel there. Right up the grand staircase Mad Jack went,’ Kate said in a hushed tone, ‘and from the balcony he actually jumped down into the restaurant below, then back out of the window.’
‘I heard,’ Eloise said, ‘that he likes to ride a bear around his drawing room to alarm his house guests.’
‘He supposedly set fire to his nightshirt in an effort to stop a bout of hiccups,’ Estelle added, stifling a giggle. ‘Surely that cannot be true?’
‘Nothing about that man would surpri
se me,’ Kate said drily. ‘But what would surprise me very much would be your uncle suggesting such a man as a suitable husband for Eloise. And although I don’t know what a Victualling Commissioner for the Admiralty actually does, I think he’d have to be of sound mind to do it, don’t you?’
‘That’s true,’ Phoebe said, heaving an exaggerated sigh of relief.
‘I promise you that if I find I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of living under the same roof as Lord Fearnoch, if I consider his nature unkind or in any way brutish, or if I feel that I cannot trust him, our first meeting will be the last. I will not be a sacrificial lamb.’ Eloise got to her feet. ‘But I will not rule him out as a husband if he has wooden teeth, or a wooden leg, or even if he is simply a stranger to the bathtub. If we find we suit—and let us not forget that, astonishing as it may sound to you, he may not take to me—but if we do find we suit, this is the chance of a lifetime for us. I have to embrace it.’
‘Yes.’ Estelle grinned. ‘Luckily, if he is averse to bathing, that’s the only thing you’ll have to embrace.’
‘That’s more than enough speculation for now,’ Kate said, biting back her own laughter. ‘We will discover the cut of Lord Fearnoch’s jib soon enough.’
‘Kate is, as always, quite right,’ Eloise said briskly. ‘You two, change out of those dresses and let me sew the hems before I become too hoity-toity for such menial tasks.’
Chapter Two
As the ormolu clock on the mantel chimed the hour, a carriage could be heard coming to a halt on the gravel drive outside the drawing room. A cloud of butterflies fluttered to life in Eloise’s tummy, intensifying the faint feeling of nausea she’d woken up with. Today could prove to be life-changing.
A cold sweat prickled at the back of her neck. What if Lord Fearnoch really did turn out to be loathsome? What if he found her repugnant? Now that everyone in the household was reconciled to the idea of her marrying, now that they had all agreed that the benefits by far outweighed the fact that the groom would be a complete stranger, Eloise couldn’t bear the thought of the match falling through.
What would it be like to be married? How much time would they be required to spend together? Would they be expected to have breakfast and dinner at the same table? What would Lord Fearnoch tell his friends, his colleagues at the Admiralty? She had a hundred questions. And right now, bracing herself for the coming introduction and feeling quite sick with nerves, Eloise was discovering that there was a very big difference between the idea of a convenient and advantageous marriage and the reality, in the shape of the man who might become her husband, a man who was at this very moment descending from his carriage.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror set over the mantel. Her hair was still obediently pinned in the smooth chignon, which had taken her three times longer to do than her usual careless topknot. She looked pale, her eyes betraying her anxious state. Pinching her cheeks, forcing her mouth into a semblance of a welcoming smile, she tugged unnecessarily at her gown. It was the one which Phoebe had suggested she wear. Her own creation in ivory muslin, she was rather pleased with the result achieved by twisting emerald and ivory ribbons together to trim the neckline. Triangles of emerald silk fluttered like little pennants around the high waistline, and she had used larger triangles in the same colour to trim the hem. Green suited her colouring, she knew, but she worried that today of all days it would over-accentuate the red hue of her hair.
The doorbell clanged, making her jump. Her heart felt as if it was in her mouth. Upstairs, Phoebe and Estelle would no doubt be peering down from Kate’s bedroom window, which would give them the best, unobserved view of the new arrival.
Alert for the sound, she heard the familiar teeth-grinding grate as the huge front door scraped on the uneven flagstones of the hall. Eloise took several deep breaths in an effort to calm her nerves. Casting her eyes around the familiar room, she first opted to seat herself on one of the chairs at the fireplace, but that seemed inappropriately intimate. She hurried to her favourite window seat, picking up the book she had left there, but that seemed too studied a pose, so she jumped up to her feet again, and was casting about for some other innocuous task to go about when the door opened and Kate’s butler announced Lord Fearnoch. Voltaire’s Candide involuntarily dropped from her hands as a man who bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the abacus-wielding Admiralty bureaucrat her sisters had had such fun imagining walked into the drawing room.
Alexander Sinclair, the Earl of Fearnoch, had cropped dark-brown hair, a high, intelligent brow, wide-spaced brown eyes framed by ridiculously long lashes, cheekbones which were razor sharp and a jaw that made strong seem like an understated description. His mouth, in contrast, could only be described as sultry. His navy-blue coat fitted tightly over a pair of shoulders which would be the envy of a blacksmith, fawn pantaloons encased muscular legs, a fact which she should not be noticing. He was a physical specimen to make any woman weak-kneed and he was in her drawing room, looking at her expectantly.
‘How do you do? I assume you are Miss Eloise Brannagh?’ He took her hand, kissing the air above her fingertips.
His teeth were pearly white and clearly his own. So much for the twins’ wild speculation. He smelled faintly of lemon soap. ‘Lord Fearnoch.’ Utterly confused, because Eloise wasn’t the type of woman to go weak-kneed, she blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. ‘I assume you are Lord Fearnoch? You don’t look at all like someone who works in some rather tedious capacity at the Admiralty.’
‘I am indeed Lord Fearnoch, and very pleased to meet you, Miss Brannagh. If I may respond in kind, you do not look at all like a dutiful mother hen to twin sisters.’
A startled laugh escaped her. ‘Good grief, is that how my uncle described me? Then I’m surprised you agreed to meet someone so tiresomely worthy.’
He raised a brow. ‘You imagine my predicament must be desperate indeed, to attempt to lure such a paragon from her life of self-sacrifice?’
‘I am wondering why a handsome man who is heir to a vast fortune would choose to marry a—a—how did you imagine I would look?’
‘Older. Fiercer. With spectacles.’
‘Spectacles!’
‘Daniel—that is, your uncle—told me that you were the clever one of his nieces. So I imagined eyes weakened by long hours of study. Hence the spectacles.’
Though his tone was cool, there was, she was almost certain, a hint of laughter in his eyes. A sense of humour was another thing that Eloise had not expected. ‘I hope you are not now imagining me ill-tempered. I should tell you that I consider myself extremely even-tempered, and if you think that the colour of my hair tells a different story, then you are making a common, very facile assumption. Red hair does not denote a fiery temper any more than the looks of a—a Greek god denote a—a romantic poet.’
‘Rhyming cat with mat exhausts my poetic abilities. Shall we sit, or would you prefer to continue trading misconceptions standing up?’
‘I do beg your pardon.’ Her face flaming, Eloise finally remembered her manners. ‘How was your journey, Lord Fearnoch?’
‘Painless.’ He sat down, seemingly at ease, and studied her overtly. ‘It is clear, Miss Brannagh, that your imagination had conjured as inaccurate a picture of me as I did of you.’
If only he knew! Her colour heightened. ‘I did not—I tried not to anticipate—after all, it is not as if we are required to find each other—I mean—I mean you did say in your letter that it would be a marriage in name only,’ she finished lamely.
This time she was certain she caught a glimmer of a smile. ‘Indulge me,’ he said. ‘How would you imagine an Admiralty clerk, I wonder? Dandruff, or a squint? Ink-stained cuffs? A man with a stoop, perhaps, from spending his life poring over dusty ledgers?’
Eloise laughed. Lord Fearnoch steepled his hands, waiting. She could not possibly tell him. The silence stretched. She was
n’t used to silence. ‘My sisters, they cannot understand why an earl with a fortune should wish to marry me.’
‘How very unkind of your sisters to say so.’
‘No, I mean—not me, but anyone. A complete stranger. They think that you must be—’ Mortified now, she broke off, shaking her head, but he simply raised an enquiring brow, and waited. Eloise counted out forty-five seconds before she threw up her hands in surrender. ‘If you must know, they thought you must at least be averse to bathing, or toothless perhaps. We knew that Uncle Daniel would have said in his letter if there had been some—some physical—defect—so it had to be the sort of drawback that men don’t really notice.’ She grimaced. ‘Sorry. You did ask.’
‘I did.’
That silence again. ‘You obviously do bathe regularly,’ Eloise said, trying for a smile.
He nodded.
‘And your teeth are—well, what I can see of them, they are...’
He burst out laughing. ‘All there, and in good condition. You sound as if you are inspecting a horse with a view to buying it.’
He had a very attractive laugh. Relieved beyond measure, Eloise relaxed a little. ‘But that is precisely what we are doing, in a manner of speaking, aren’t we? I hadn’t thought—I mean, I was looking forward—but then this morning it occurred to me that it would be—well, it’s very awkward. You’re looking me over and I’m looking you over, and for the life of me, I can’t understand, now you are here—I beg your pardon, but I think the twins—my sisters—have a point. A man like you, surely there must be women queuing up to be your wife?’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry. You must think I am an idiot, but you are so silent I feel compelled to fill the gaps.’
‘I tend to say something when I have something to say.’
The Earl's Countess of Convenience Page 2