“I can tolerate soaking a dozen handkerchiefs while I am reading a book,” Maria said on behalf of them all, “but I absolutely cannot abide weeping at the end unless it is with happiness. What is the point of sad stories? They ought not to be allowed. Or there ought at least to be a warning on the covers, and then no one would bother reading them and getting depressed by them.”
Miss Goddard also read novels, but not often. When she did, she also preferred a happy ending provided it was a believable one and not of the happily-ever-after variety. She preferred reading that was instructional and educational, however, on a subject that made her think, that stretched her mind, that told her something interesting about life and the world that she had not known before.
She ought to have been an utter bore, Angeline thought. And she ought to be detestable for other reasons—not least the fact that she was Lord Heyward’s friend and that he called her Eunice. Her father was a Cambridge don, for heaven’s sake. She spoke quietly and with very precise diction. She never giggled, and when she smiled, it was with quiet warmth rather than with a bright sparkle.
Angeline actually liked her. And she hung upon her every word, encouraging her to talk more and more about the books she read. She would wager that Miss Goddard talked to Lord Heyward about books. It was no wonder he liked her so much.
Did he do more than like her?
Did he love her? It would not be at all surprising.
“You were very kind last evening,” she said, “to converse with Lord Windrow at the supper table and then to dance with him. He is very silly. I daresay Lord Heyward told you what happened on the road to London a few weeks ago. He was obliging enough to insist that Lord Windrow behave like a gentleman after he had started to behave more like a rake.”
Martha and Maria, both of whom knew the story, giggled.
“Kindness had nothing to do with my behavior last night,” Miss Goddard assured her. “I could see as soon as we joined you that you were perfectly capable of handling Lord Windrow’s sort of gallantry. He is silly. It is a good word to describe him. He is also mildly amusing. Must I confess that I rather enjoyed dancing with him and matching wits with him? I had only ever been able to observe rakish gentlemen from afar before last evening.”
“I have two of them for brothers,” Angeline said. “They are very exasperating. I love them to pieces.”
“Lord Ferdinand Dudley is very handsome,” Maria said with what seemed to be a barely suppressed sigh.
Miss Goddard smiled warmly.
“I have enjoyed this,” she said. “Thank you so much for including me in your outing. But I must return home now. My aunt will be wondering what has become of me.”
And that was the end of that. She left and it was time for them all to gather up their respective maids and make their way home.
“Is she a bluestocking, do you suppose?” Maria asked after Miss Goddard was well out of earshot.
“I would not be surprised,” Angeline said. “I rather like her even so.”
“But poor lady,” Martha said, “feeling obliged to read those dreadfully dull books instead of the novels from the Minerva Press.”
Angeline held her peace, but secretly she thought that she might try one of those books for herself the next time she went to the library.
The excitement of her day was not over after she had sent the Marquess of Exwich on his way later in the afternoon. Half an hour after that a note arrived from Cousin Rosalie to inform her that they had been invited to take tea the following afternoon with the Marquess and Marchioness of Beckingham. They were the Earl of Heyward’s maternal grandparents, the note explained. Lord Heyward was to be there too, and Angeline must be prepared to drive in the park with him afterward, weather permitting. It would be a positive step forward in a possible courtship, Rosalie had also added, for Hyde Park was where everyone of any consequence went during the afternoon to see and be seen.
Whose idea had all this been, Angeline wondered. His? His grandmother’s? She would wager it had not been his. But did it matter? She would see him again regardless. She would drive with him in the park, converse with him. Everyone would see them together.
Oh, she could scarcely wait.
She could make him fall in love with her, even if she did look like a swarthy gypsy.
Of course she could.
If only it did not rain.
IT DID NOT rain. And it would not. There had been scarcely a cloud in the sky all day.
The Earl of Heyward was the last to arrive for tea, but Angeline did not mind, as long as he did come. And he surely would. Half his family was there.
The Marchioness of Beckingham was a small, slender lady with regal bearing, very white hair, and a long-handled lorgnette, which she used more as a baton to be waved about than as something to see through. She settled into conversation with Cousin Rosalie and Mrs. Lynd, the earl’s sister, but not before looking Angeline over from head to toe and nodding.
“You look nothing like your mother,” she said almost as though it were a compliment. “Your face has character. And I have always envied tall ladies. I envy them even more now that I have started to sink in the opposite direction.”
She had not called Angeline either pretty or beautiful, but her words had felt like approval.
The marquess was tall and thin and slightly stooped and white-haired like his wife. After greeting Angeline and Rosalie, he returned to what appeared to be an engrossing discussion of politics with Mr. Lynd, who apparently was a government minister.
The widowed Countess of Heyward, Angeline noticed with interest, sat a little apart with Cousin Leonard. They had been something of an item five years ago when the countess had made her come-out, Rosalie had told her during the carriage ride here. Then the late Lord Heyward had come along to sweep her off her feet, and Leonard had not looked at a lady since. Not in the way of marriage, anyway, even though he was now close to thirty.
For five years Rosalie had not looked kindly upon the countess. But so many foolish young ladies fell for handsome rakes, she explained, married them, doubtless with the conviction that they could reform them, and then regretted it for the rest of their lives.
“I do hope, Angeline,” she had said, “you will prove to have better sense than to allow that to happen to you. I am very pleased that the Earl of Heyward has shown an interest in you, despite what Tresham says.”
The dowager countess and Viscount and Lady Overmyer, also Lord Heyward’s sister, engaged Angeline in conversation after the greetings were over, even though the viscount sat a little distance from them, having explained that he had a slight cold and did not wish to pass it on to either Lady Angeline or his mother-in-law. All three of them were flatteringly attentive to what she had to say, and all three of them complimented her on the success of her ball. The viscount expressed a hope that she had taken no permanent harm to her ankle and suggested that even now it might be wise if she kept her foot elevated whenever she was not forced to use it.
Lord Heyward had asked her last evening if she had been prodded into encouraging his courtship, Angeline remembered. Was he being pressured by three generations of his own family into courting her? It would hardly be surprising. He was in need of a bride, Rosalie had explained to her, as there was no heir of the direct line remaining, his brother having fathered only a daughter before his untimely death. And Angeline was perhaps the most eligible young lady on the market this year.