A Lady's Point of View by Diamond Jacqueline

Author:Diamond, Jacqueline [Diamond, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: K. Loren Wilson
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

In the days following the garden party, Edward Cockerell became a stranger to himself. In outward appearances, he was much the same. He arose early, breakfasted alone, and went to the City to conduct business and talk with his man of affairs. Or, if that wasn’t necessary, he remained in his study reviewing the rents and other matters of the family’s estates.

Yet his mind betrayed him. Deucedly annoying, how he fussed now with the cravat that had never troubled him before; how he vexed his valet by rejecting first one waistcoat and then another; how, when driving, he found himself watching for someone or something he couldn’t identify.

It was time to put his life in order.

Having received an apologetic note from Lady Darnet explaining that she had suffered from a toothache, he visited her to see if matters between them might be restored. She received him in her gold parlour, with an elderly female cousin dozing in one corner for the sake of propriety. Gowned in dark blue satin, the countess reigned as an Incomparable.

Why, then, could Edward not forget how rough her skin had appeared in the daylight and the hardness about her eyes? The toothache was the explanation, perhaps for her appearance as well as for her display of temper. The explanation should have sufficed to ease his doubts, but it did not.

He noted for the first time the absence of warmth between him and the countess, the lack of any spark when their eyes chanced to meet, the way she confined her conversation to malicious on-dits. Oddly, Edward felt as if he were comparing her to someone. It was not until he was returning home in his phaeton that he realized who that someone was.

Angela Linley.

She was the figure who haunted the corners of his mind. She was the ghost who shadowed his dreams.

The discovery rocked through him like cannon-fire. Angela Linley? That young girl, his sister’s barely acceptable friend? It could not be, must not be. The chit was entirely too lively and unrestrained to meet his standards for matrimony.

He was, after all, heir to considerable monies and served as trustee for not only his sister, but also his aunt and two young cousins. There were tenants to consider, and dozens of servants, including some who had waited upon his parents and grandparents. If Edward lost his good sense and allied himself with an unpredictable, overemotional wife, great harm might come of it.

He recalled only too well the plight of a schoolmate of his at Eton, Jamie Winter. When Jamie’s mother lost her temper and insulted Queen Charlotte, he had been removed from school, and his sister’s engagement to the eldest son of a duke had been promptly terminated. After the family was forced to retreat to the country, the daughter had died of a fever—some said she committed suicide—and Jamie had departed for America, never to be heard from again.

Such, Edward reflected grimly, might be the fate of his own offspring if he married Angela.

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