A Capital Arrangement: A Traditional Regency Romance (The Ellsworth Assortment Book 6) by Christina Dudley

Author:Christina Dudley [Dudley, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

This is no very great mistake, but it is always ominous to stumble at the threshold.

— Thomas Baker, Reflections upon learning, wherein is shewn the insufficiency thereof, by a gentleman (1699)

Until the night of Lady Aurora Robillard’s rout, Beatrice’s stay with the Huftons had been no bed of roses. The redbrick townhouse they had taken in Green Street was both elegant and convenient, to be sure, and Beatrice was given her own pink-and-yellow papered room overlooking a pocket handkerchief of a back garden, but these domestic pleasures had been counterbalanced by the shock of London itself and her stepcousin’s hostility.

Lady Hufton called the West End the “quiet part of town,” but to Beatrice’s provincial ears they were nothing of the sort. All through the night the watchman’s voice called the hour, giving way in the early morning to the coal wagons, bumping along and stopping at every house to shovel out the day’s rattling load. Then came the milkmen, followed by the tradesmen’s carts along Oxford Street heading for the markets. In between jolted the mail and flyer coaches delivering their burden of post and people. While the residents of Mayfair rose late following their nightly entertainments, when they were at last ready to face the world, they swept into the streets, walking, riding, driving, observing, shopping, and talking talking talking. Beatrice had never seen so many people in so small a compass, nor heard such a din which never fell completely silent. It was alternately stirring and irritating, depending on her mood; nor could she prevent herself from wishing to take part in the social mill, though she both dreaded glimpsing Mr. Clayton and hoped for it. A dozen times a day she thought the moment upon her, imagining him in every tall figure which strode by or emerged from a hackney coach.

But more trying when they first arrived had been Miss Hufton’s conduct. The young lady obeyed her parents, but only just, her demeanor sulky and speech gruff. Beatrice’s timid but friendly overtures met with the minimum of courtesy, and this unaccustomed coldness made her more than once wish herself back in Winchester, even as she grew more used to the noise and hubbub of the capital. Therefore her stepcousin’s sudden warming at the rout had been as welcome as it was unexpected, but Beatrice did not dare to hope it had outlasted the night.

“Good morning, Beatrice,” Lady Hufton greeted her when she descended for breakfast. “You look rather pale today. Did you not sleep well?”

In fact she had not slept much at all, being too full of excitement from seeing Mr. Clayton again and from revolving plans to save his canal project, but Beatrice assured her hostess she was perfectly well. Accepting a cup of chocolate and several slices of toast, she took her usual seat across from Marjorie, gaze lowered because she had learned the girl was more apt to snarl than to smile in the mornings.

But not this morning.

“Mama proposes we go shopping again,” Marjorie accosted her.

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