Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(4)
It was an arrangement that somehow suited them both and aroused little adverse comment among their neighbors. The earl was admired for doing his duty without complaint, while the countess was commended for keeping her children in the country, where they had far more fresh air and freedom than they would find in town. Despite the enforced separation of a few months each year, the earl and his countess were widely believed to be a close couple, warm and charming, with a happy family.
While the countess was busy with preparations for the fete, the earl spent his time inspecting his farms, which Ben Ellis and Devlin ran flawlessly between them, and calling upon his neighbors to catch up on all their news, which in most cases was in short supply, though the tellers generally made the most of what little there was. He enjoyed listening to their stories and eating the cakes that were offered him and drinking ale, and even cups of tea when there was no other beverage on hand. And he called upon everyone, regardless of age or social status. He called upon his family members and upon Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys. He called upon the blacksmith at his smithy and the blacksmith’s wife and mother-in-law in their home. He called upon the doctor, a single man he had known from boyhood, and upon his old nurse, now retired and living in the village with her great-niece. He even called upon the widowed Mrs. Shaw, a recent newcomer to the village, whom most of her neighbors treated with some reserve since they did not know her or anything about her except that her husband, an officer with the East India Company, had been killed in action during the Indian wars, poor man.
And the earl assured everyone, as he did each year, that this summer’s fete would outshine all others because his wife was planning it more meticulously than ever. No one must even think of missing it. If anyone did, he would come in person to fetch them. Let them never say they had not been warned.
No one, as it happened, was thinking of missing the fete. Everyone looked forward to it as the high point of their summer, perhaps of the whole year, and smiled at the earl’s needless threat and at his beaming pride in his wife’s efforts.
Chapter Two
One person who was waiting with more eagerness than usual for the Ravenswood fete was Gwyneth Rhys, daughter of Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys. A gentleman of Welsh birth and upbringing, Sir Ifor had inherited his title, land, and fortune from an uncle who had never married. At the time Sir Ifor had already owned land in Wales, and he had had a beloved younger brother with no land of his own and with a growing young family to feed. With the full knowledge and agreement of his wife, Sir Ifor had sold his land and home to his brother for five guineas and moved to England with her and Idris, his infant son. The following year Gwyneth had been born.
Sir Ifor missed Wales, for he had a large family of relatives there and a wide circle of friends and had lived a rich life in his home country. Wales returned the favor and missed him too, or at least the southwestern part of it, in which he had grown up, did. For as well as being a sociable, good-hearted gentleman, he was an organist of considerable talent and local renown. And he was a singer and a conductor of choirs. Music was in his soul, as was the case with many of his fellow Welshmen. And Welshwomen too, of course—that went without saying. He had brought his passion and his talents with him to England, however. Having discovered that there was no sizable pipe organ within an hour of his home in any direction, he had purchased one and had it installed in the village church, where he played it for Sunday services and upon numerous other occasions too.
He had inherited a church choir, all boys, and had trained them until they sounded like junior angels instead of a pack of disgruntled, growling dogs that would not have recognized a tune if one had tapped them on the shoulder. Soon after, he had added a few girls to their number, despite the misgivings of the elderly man who was vicar at the time. Sir Ifor had fixed him with a long stare, and the vicar had capitulated rather than find himself embroiled in an argument concerning the inferior status of women in the church. These volatile Welsh persons must be humored, he was rumored to have explained to a deputation of elders who had called upon him to question his decision. Sir Ifor had trained an all-women’s choir too and a mixed choir, and occasionally an everyone-together choir. So far he had been unable to gather enough men for a choir of their own despite his rapturous descriptions of the male voice choirs in Wales.
Most of the residents of Boscombe and its surrounding areas considered Sir Ifor Rhys something of a local treasure. For everyone who did join his choirs—even the boys, for the love of God—actually enjoyed going to practice. Sir Ifor made them all laugh. More important, he made them want to sing. He convinced them that they could sing even though they suffered from that dreadful handicap of being English. And if they genuinely could not—there were, after all, a few people who were born with the affliction of tone deafness—there was nothing that could be done about it except to let them sing anyway.
It was not just Sir Ifor people valued, however. Lady Rhys—Bronwyn to her husband and close friends—had a lovely soprano voice, and Idris was a fine tenor. Gwyneth, after being dismissed for a few years by her fellow sopranos as one of those rare Welsh persons without a distinguished singing voice, had been discovered as she grew older to have a rich alto voice. But even apart from that, she was a fine harpist, though she was not heard nearly as often as many people would have liked, because the instrument was big and heavy. It could not simply be hauled about for all the impromptu concerts with which people entertained themselves at private gatherings.