The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(10)
He entered the hotel, his feet sinking into the almost decadent carpet that covered much of the gleaming marble beneath, and breathed in the scent of beeswax and fine food. A small bit of guilt hit him, that he should enjoy such sensations when so many millions were suffering back in India. His mission was not to bask in creature comforts, but to enlist the help of powerful men to push the House of Lords into providing funding and support for relief. Dr. Cornish was not optimistic about his mission, but Henderson believed passionately that it was every Englishman’s duty to help the poor. Yes, they had run into opposition again and again in India, but that was only because the people back in England did not fully understand the scope of what was happening. When he left England to return to India, everyone would know.
As he waited for the clerk to determine which rooms were available, Henderson pulled out his well-worn list of men who held in their well-manicured hands the power to save the millions of starving people. Eight men who could change the world, who could literally save lives, simply by allowing England’s massive stockpiles of grain to be used by the starving people of India rather than shipped to well-fed citizens of Britain.
“Room four twenty-one, Mr. Southwell,” the clerk said. “If you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask. We’ll have your bags delivered to your room shortly.”
“And a bottle of brandy.”
“Of course, sir.”
After a day such as he’d had, a bottle of brandy was just the ticket.
Mrs. Henderson Southwell. Alice Southwell.
Alice could still remember giggling at her scribblings, then crumpling them up quickly when she heard her brother’s voice right outside her door. The very last thing she needed was for Joseph to discover that she was madly in love with his best friend. She was just fifteen then, and Henderson was already in university.
It happened quite quickly, and was far different from anything she’d ever felt for a boy. For one thing, Henderson Southwell was a man. Or close enough to one. He was tall and handsome and his smile, it was enough to make her heart pound madly in her chest every time she saw it. She fell in love that first night when Henderson had come into the library and spied her there reading. Instead of apologizing and leaving, he had settled into a chair opposite, his own book in hand, and said, “I find reading late at night, when the house is quiet and dark, allows me to enter the author’s world more readily. Don’t you?”
Her heart had stuttered to a stop. This man had actually spoken to her as if she were an intelligent, thoughtful person. Which she was. But no one had ever done so before, at least no man. Her father would have sent her to bed, her brothers would have teased her about what she was reading. But Henderson had asked her opinion, and that was the instant she fell in love.
Of course, no one could ever know, least of all Henderson. Having witnessed the discovery and humiliation of a girl in the throes of a terrible crush, Alice had been adamant that no one, not even her good friend Harriet, would know. It was Harriet’s sister, Clara, who had made a cake of herself over Earnest Franklin, a dashing young man from a well-placed family. He was a bit of a rake, always throwing compliments at girls whether they were homely, pretty, fat, or whisper thin. A single dance with Clara at her come-out and she lost her mind over him. She mooned after him during balls, tried to manipulate seating assignments so she was seated next to him at dinners, and generally was about as discreet with her feelings as a peacock showing its feathers. Alice and Harriet would spy on Clara as she tracked Earnest the way a hound tracks a fox, leaving the two younger girls doubled over in laughter. It all came to a terrible head when Clara snuck into Earnest’s room during a house party and waited in his room. Naked. Earnest, being an honorable man, took one look at Clara in all her glory, and ran down the hall to fetch the girl’s mother, who immediately sent Clara to live with a maiden aunt on the border of Scotland for two years. Thankfully, the Anderson family was able to keep the incident under wraps. Harriet had sworn Alice to secrecy when imparting this scandalous end to Clara’s infatuation, and as far as anyone knew, no one had ever spoken of the event. Not even Earnest.
Alice had never wanted to be laughed at or pitied, and so she kept her wildly beating heart to herself and tried with all her might not to look up and stare each time Henderson walked into a room. Those nights in the library, with just the two of them reading or talking, were the most difficult but she was quite certain she never let on how much those evenings meant to her. How she would wait in anticipation for the rest of the house to go to bed and fly on slippered feet down to the library, breathless and excited. Tucking her feet beneath her dressing gown, Alice would pretend to read, her entire body singing with expectation. And on those nights when Henderson joined her, she would give him a slight look of annoyance for interrupting her reading, sigh, and put her book aside reluctantly to wish him a good evening, while inside she was a jumble of happy nerves. She believed with all her heart that if Henderson had even the smallest inkling that she was in love with him, he would stop coming to the library. And so, she made very sure he was none the wiser.
Chapter 4
Lord Alfred Bellingham was first on the list. He’d met the baron at a summer party he had attended with the Hubbards years ago, and remembered only that he seemed a stern and austere man, one whom Richard Hubbard had disliked, though Henderson had never learned why. Lord Hubbard was one of those gentlemen who seemed to like everyone, and the fact he found Bellingham disagreeable was quite telling. Dr. Cornish had added Lord Bellingham as an afterthought, warning Henderson that it was highly unlikely he would find an ally for his relief efforts in the man. But Henderson had to try. His list of eight, from most likely to support his cause to least likely, was deemed the List of Lost Hopes by Dr. Cornish, who had grown cynical over the years. Every effort the doctor made to save the starving masses was met by resistance from Lord Lytton, the viceroy in India. Cornish had argued passionately that the rations given to those in the work relief camps were hardly adequate to sustain life, but Lytton refused to authorize an increase until pressured to do so. Even then, the rations were hardly adequate and only half of what Cornish had recommended.