Once Upon a Maiden Lane (Maiden Lane #12.5)(43)

The footman stationed by the buffet stepped forward to take the rods and the wicker basket holding the morning’s catch. Julian washed his hands in the basin provided, and Radnor did likewise.

As Julian reached for a towel, Radnor flicked water at his face, a taunt they’d been exchanging since childhood. Julian passed Radnor the towel rather than retaliate.

They weren’t boys, and would never be boys again.

Over beef pastry and mashed potatoes, Glenys launched into a discourse on the best preparation of estate trout for a buffet. The topic left Julian bilious. If Glenys had her way, he’d be hooked, landed, and filleted by the conclusion of her infernal party.

He complimented her ideas, and mentally refined the list of bachelors he’d recruit to distract her ladyship from her matchmaking. He also created a sub-list of young ladies who might suit Radnor, who had depths beyond his charm.

Lists, plans, budgets, and unwavering attention to detail were slowly but surely bringing the Haverford finances to rights, and they would see Julian through this farce of a house party as well.

He would make sure of it.

*



“Shoot me,” Charlotte Windham moaned. “Please, if you have any love for me at all, take out the coach pistol and end my torment.”

“I could read to you, Charl,” Elizabeth Windham replied from the coach’s backward-facing seat. “Everybody is taxed by long journeys.”

Charlotte sprawled on the opposite seat, one foot braced on the floor, one hand on her middle. “I am not taxed, I am dying. Why did nobody warn me that the roads in Wales are instruments of torture?”

Elizabeth put her copy of Childe Harold aside. “It’s not the roads making you ill, it’s probably the ale you had at the last inn.”

Charlotte was pale, dyspeptic, and had stopped to visit the bushes three times in the last five miles. Thank goodness, bushes were in generous supply in this part of Wales. Aunt Arabella had chosen to ride in the second coach with the ladies’ maids, so that “poor Charlotte” had room to stretch out on the bench.

“I look a fright,” Charlotte said, “and I feel worse than I look. A lady isn’t supposed to perspire, much less cast up her accounts, much less—dear God, have we arrived?”

The coach had turned up a long drive shaded on both sides by towering oaks. In deference to Charlotte’s condition, progress was stately.

Haverford Castle was—unlike many buildings referred to as castles—splendidly regal. Crenellated turrets stood at either end of a golden fa?ade five stories tall, and the circular drive curved around a fountain that sprayed water twenty feet into the air. Potted salvia adorned a raised front terrace and circled the fountain, creating red, white, and green splashes of color against the stonework.

“Haverford owns all this?” Charlotte asked, sitting up to peer out the window. “Moreland isn’t half so grand.”

“Moreland is probably two centuries more modern. You’re at death’s door, so what do you care?”

“I feel a miraculous revival coming on,” Charlotte said, straightening her skirts. “Or I might presently. Ye gods, I shall never drink another drop of ale.”

The coach lurched forward, and Charlotte’s pallor became more marked.

“Lie back down,” Elizabeth said. “The bushes are disobligingly sparse along this drive.”

Charlotte subsided to the bench. “I’m to be humiliated before all of society, dragged from the coach in a state of obvious ill health. Perhaps I will die in Mama’s homeland, and out of guilt, Papa will grant you the spinsterdom you long for.”

“Spinsterdom is not a word. If you die, may I have your mare?” Perhaps teasing might hurry along Charlotte’s miraculous recovery.

“Cousin Devlin has prior claim on my horse. You may have my jewels.”

“You have the same pearls and pins I do.”

Charlotte put her wrist to her brow. “I yield my entire treasure to you. Please have the coach circle around to the back of the castle. I cannot appear before the most eligible bachelors in the realm looking like some cupshot chamber maid.”

Vanity was a reassuring sign when a sister professed to be expiring. “I’ll get you up to a bedroom, and nobody will think you’re anything but travel weary.”

“I must write to Mama of the foul brew served to the unsuspecting in her homeland. Rest assured the Welsh bachelors have lost ground in the race to offer for my hand. Such misery would never befall me in England.”

As the coach lumbered along the drive, Elizabeth made out a sculpture of a rampant gryphon at the center of the fountain. Bright afternoon sunshine combined with the fountain’s mist to create a shimmering rainbow over the creature.

Maybe Mama was right when she claimed that Wales was enchanted.

“We’re almost there, Charlotte.” Despite the magical fountain, Elizabeth felt nearly as dyspeptic as Charlotte appeared. House parties were the consolation rounds for debutantes who’d failed to secure a marriage proposal during the season. For Elizabeth, house parties were a special purgatory.

A woman who remained unmarried despite a decade of seasons wasn’t quite a spinster, but she was so far from a debutante as to be a different species of female altogether.

The coach swayed to a halt, and Charlotte pressed a wrinkled handkerchief to her lips. The vehicle rocked as footmen climbed down, then the door opened and the steps were unfolded.