The Marquess Who Loved Me by Sara Ramsey

Author:Sara Ramsey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance - Regency Historical, Romance - Historical
Publisher: Spencerhill Associates Ltd
Published: 2013-04-20T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hours later, after another of her chef’s delectable but interminable dinners, Ellie wanted wine. Great, overflowing vats of wine, in such quantities that the fumes alone could cloud her judgment. She would drink to excess, flirt and laugh and dance until she could no longer stand, and confront reality in the morning. Or the afternoon, when her head stopped spinning. If she waited long enough, she could repeat the cycle again without confronting reality at all.

Could she spend the four months Nick demanded in a state of utter inebriation?

She suppressed a scowl and reached for her teapot, part of the Spode service that had been a wedding gift. Her father had commissioned it for her and Charles, and she had received it long after she’d already put off her mourning. “May I refresh your cup, Aunt Sophronia?” she asked.

Her aunt held up her cup with an irritated sigh. “I know you’ve found your respectability now that your sisters are with you, and I applaud you for it, but I had hoped for stronger stuff. Where are the perfectly matched footmen bearing chalices of wine?”

“Packed up and put away, your grace,” Ellie said as she poured. “But the tea is excellent, don’t you think?”

Sophronia sniffed. “I don’t wish to waste my remaining years on tea. And from the way your fingers are drumming the pot, you don’t wish it either.”

Ellie deliberately set the teapot aside and folded her hands in her lap. “You are a terrible influence, aunt.”

They were sitting slightly apart from the rest of the women in the company, who had spread themselves throughout the connected drawing rooms after dinner as they waited for the men to join them. But Sophronia was formidable enough to say anything she pleased, whether she had an audience or not. “I am above reproach,” Sophronia declared. “And if I say we should have wine, then no one would think to question it.”

“Very well, I shall summon the butler. You are not making it easier for me to reform myself.”

Sophronia sniffed. “You never did invite me to one of your bacchanals. I refuse to allow you to reform before I attend one.”

Ellie looked through the connecting doors to where Kate and Maria sat together, giggling and sharing secrets. Even if they had both set their caps for Sebastian, it was all innocent — not the kind of trouble they would have found themselves in at one of her earlier parties. She turned back to Sophronia with a small shrug. “You are too late for a bacchanal, aunt. And anyway, I couldn’t play the jade forever. Everyone must change eventually.”

Sophronia leaned in, suddenly serious. Ellie had seen the liver spots hidden under Sophronia’s gloves, but her grip was still strong as she took Ellie’s hand. “You can change however you wish, Elinor. I admit, I would rather see you become a patroness of Almack’s than some dreadful, loose-moraled minx. But I thought you’d learned this lesson already — be who you want to be, not whatever someone else would make you.

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