1
HAREFIELD HALL, 1819
Come now, Eliza, surely you can manage one tear?” Mrs. Balfour whispered to her daughter. “It is expected from the widow!”
Eliza nodded, though her eyes remained as dry as ever. However many years she had spent playing the part of obedient daughter and dutiful wife, weeping upon command was still beyond her.
“Recollect that we may have a fight on our hands today,” Mrs. Balfour hissed, sending a meaningful glance across the library to where the late Earl of Somerset’s relations sat. Nine months after the funeral procession, they had all gathered again at Harefield Hall for the reading of the will, and from the frosty glances being sent their way, it seemed Mrs. Balfour was not the only one preparing for battle.
“Eliza’s jointure was agreed in the marriage settlement: five hundred pounds a year,” Mr. Balfour reassured his wife in a whisper. “Somerset has no reason to dispute that; it’s the veriest fragment of the estate.”
He spoke with bitterness, for neither he nor Mrs. Balfour had fully reconciled themselves to Eliza’s severely changed circumstances. A decade ago, the marriage of timid, seventeen-year-old Miss Eliza Balfour to the austere Earl of Somerset—five and twenty years her senior—had been the match of the Season, and the Balfours had reaped its rewards quite comprehensively. Within a year of the wedding, their eldest son had married an heiress, their second had been secured a captaincy in the 10th Foot, and Balfour House had been recarpeted entirely in cut-velvet.
But no one had expected the earl, with so strong a constitution, to succumb so quickly to an inflammation of the lungs last spring. And now, widowed at seven and twenty years, and without a child to inherit the title, Eliza’s position was far less desirable. Five hundred pounds a year . . . Persons could and did live on far less, but on this subject Eliza agreed with her father. Ten years of marriage to a man who had shown more affection to his horses than his wife, ten years of near isolation in the cold, forbidding Harefield Hall, ten years of yearning for the life she might have had, if only circumstances had been a little different . . . Given exactly what—given exactly who—Eliza had been forced to give up, five hundred pounds a year felt a pittance.
“Had she only given him a son . . .” Mr. Balfour bemoaned, for perhaps the fifth time.
“She tried!” Mrs. Balfour snapped.
Eliza bit her tongue, hard. Miss Margaret Balfour—Eliza’s cousin—pressed her hand under the table, and the clock struck half past twelve. They had now been waiting half an hour for the new earl, whose presence would allow the reading to begin. Eliza’s stomach clenched in anticipation. Surely—surely—he would arrive soon.
“Disgraceful,” Mrs. Balfour muttered, her face still fixed in placid, smiling repose. “Nine months late already, and late today, too. Is it not disgraceful, Eliza?”
“Yes, Mama,” Eliza said automatically. It was always easiest to agree, though the unnatural delay was truthfully the fault of the old earl, not the new. For it was the old earl who had stipulated his will not be read until all parties named within it were assembled. Since the new Earl of Somerset—Eliza’s husband’s nephew, previously the heir presumptive Captain Courtenay—had been stationed in the West Indies when his uncle died last April, and since sailing conditions in ’18 had been unprecedentedly slow, his delayed return was understandable. Torturous, but understandable.
All assembled in the library had already been waiting many months and the lateness of the hour today was taking its toll: the Honorable Mrs. Courtenay (sister-in-law to the old earl, mother to the new) had her eyes fixed on the door, her daughter Lady Selwyn was tapping her fingers impatiently, while Lord Selwyn sought to soothe his own nerves by regaling the room with various tales of his own superiority.
“And I said to him: Byron, old boy, you simply must write the thing!”
Beside him, at the center of the room, the Somerset attorney, Mr. Walcot, shuffled and reshuffled his papers with a pained smile. Everyone was impatient, but of all of them, surely none more so than Eliza, who felt—with every tick of the grandfather clock—her nerves reach new, dangerous heights. After ten years—ten long years—today she would see him again. It did not feel real.
He might still not come. A lifetime of disappointments had taught her the virtue of preparing for the worst: perhaps he had mistaken the date, or perhaps his carriage had suffered an awful crash, or perhaps he had decided to return to the West Indies rather than have to see her again. It was unlike him to be late, he had always been so punctual. Or, at least, the gentleman Eliza had once known was punctual. Perhaps he had changed.
Finally, however, as the clock struck quarter to the hour, the door opened.
“The Right Honorable, the Earl of Somerset,” Perkins, their butler, announced.
“My sincere apologies for the lateness of the hour,” the new Lord Somerset said, stepping into the room. “The rain has made the roads treacherous . . .”
Eliza’s reaction was instantaneous. Her heart began to beat faster, her breath became labored, her stomach clenched, and she stood, not because it was polite, but because the force of recognition reverberating through her meant she simply had to. All the months she had spent imagining this moment—and she still did not feel at all prepared for it.
“Oliver, darling!” Mrs. Courtenay hurried over to her son, eyes shining, Lady Selwyn close behind, and Somerset embraced his mother and his sister, in turn. Mrs. Balfour clucked her tongue in disapproval of this breach of etiquette—he ought properly to have addressed Eliza first—but Eliza paid no heed. In many ways, he appeared the same. He was still very tall, his hair was still very fair, his eyes the same cool grey as the rest of his family, and he still carried himself with an air of calm assurance that had always been decidedly his own. Under the effects of a decade-long naval career however, there was a greater breadth across the shoulder which had not existed in him as a younger man and his pale skin had darkened under the sun. It suited him. It suited him very well.
Somerset released his sister’s hands and turned to Eliza. She was suddenly horribly aware that the years had not been nearly so kind to her. With a small stature, brown hair and uncommonly large and dark eyes, she had always resembled some sort of startled nocturnal animal, but now she feared—with the all-black ensemble of her widow’s weeds, and a figure drawn and tired from the uncertainty of the past months—that she appeared positively rattish.
“Lady Somerset,” he said, bowing before her.
His voice was the same, too.
“My lord,” Eliza said. She could feel her fingers trembling and fisted them in her skirts as she curtseyed shakily, bracing herself to meet his eyes. What would she see in them—anger, perhaps? Recrimination? She did not dare to hope for warmth. She did not deserve it. They rose from their bows as one, and at last, at very long last, their eyes met. And as she looked into his eyes, she saw . . . nothing.
“My most sincere apologies for your loss,” he said. His words were civil, his tone neutral. His expression could only be described as polite.
“Th-thank you,” Eliza said. “I hope your journey was pleasant?”
The pleasantries tripped off Eliza’s tongue without thinking, which was a good thing indeed, because at this moment she was not capable of thought.
“As much as could be, with such weather as we have had,” he said. There was no evidence, in his manner or deportment or tone, that he was sharing in any of the turmoil churning through Eliza’s mind. He appeared, in fact, totally unaffected by seeing her. As if they had never met before.
As if he had not, once, asked her to marry him.
“Yes . . .” Eliza heard herself say, as if from a great distance. “The rain . . . has been most vicious.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, with a smile—except it was not a smile she had ever seen directed at herself before. Polite. Formal. Insincere.
“Good to see you, old boy, good to see you indeed.” Selwyn had come forward, hand outstretched, and Somerset reciprocated the handshake with a smile that was suddenly warm again. He moved toward the middle of the room, away from the Balfours—leaving Eliza blinking after him.
Was that it? After all their years apart, all the time Eliza had spent wondering over his whereabouts, his happiness, poring over every memory of their time together, of all the hours spent regretting every single one of the events that had conspired to keep them apart—this was to be their reunion? A single, short exchange of commonplaces?
Eliza shivered. The January chill had pervaded the air all morning—her late husband’s diktat that fires remain unlit until nightfall had outlived him—but now it seemed to Eliza veritably icy. A whole decade of existing literally oceans apart and yet Oliver—Somerset—had never felt more distant to Eliza than in this moment.
“Shall we begin?” Selwyn prompted. Even before Selwyn had married the late earl’s niece, the two gentlemen had been close friends, for their lands shared a border—but for the same reason their relationship had also been temperamental. Indeed, their last business meeting before the old earl’s death had deteriorated into a quarrel loud enough to deafen the whole household—and yet, from the eagerness in Selwyn’s face, he was clearly expectant of a great bequeathment today.
Nodding, Mr. Walcot spread out the papers in front of him, and the Balfours, Selwyns and Courtenays watched from their respective sides of the room, wolfish and hungry. The scene would make for a dramatic tableau. Oils, in high color, perhaps. Eliza’s fingers twitched for a paintbrush.
“This is the last will and testament of Julius Edward Courtenay, tenth Earl of Somerset . . .”
Eliza’s attention faded as Mr. Walcot began to list the many ways in which the new earl was about to become very, very rich. Mrs. Courtenay looked about to cry in delight, Lady Selwyn was biting back a smile, but Somerset was frowning. Was he daunted at the vastness of the hoard, perhaps even surprised? He should not be. Even despite the late earl’s austerity, Harefield Hall was still a veritable shrine to the family’s affluence: from its walls of horns, hides and hunting trophies to its exquisite porcelain tea sets, from the parade of Persian helmets and Indian swords along the great staircase to the oil landscapes displaying sugar plantations they had once owned, Harefield wore its loot proudly. And in the work of a few short sentences, this new Somerset owned it all. He was now one of the richest and most eligible men in England. From this moment on, every unattached lady in England would be falling at his feet.
Whereas Eliza . . . After today, she could remain at Harefield, to act as the new earl’s hostess until he married, remove to the Dower House on the edge of the estate, or return to her childhood home. None of these options was particularly thrilling. To return to Balfour to live under her parents’ watchful eye once more would be ghastly, but to remain here, in such close proximity to a man who clearly felt nothing for her, while she had spent a decade yearning for him? It would be its own kind of torture.
“To Eliza Eunice Courtenay, the Right Honorable Countess of Somerset . . .”
Eliza did not even focus her attention at the sound of her name—but from the way Mr. Balfour had leaned back in his seat, whiskers relaxing, it was clear that everything Mr. Walcot had reported was in line with the marriage settlement. Her future—such as it was—was secured. In her mind’s eye, the years stretched out ahead of her, grey and uninteresting.
“In addition, and in respect to her duty and obedience . . .”
How depressing, to be described in such terms, as one might a faithful hound, but her mother visibly perked up, eyes brightening with greed, clearly hopeful that the old lord had bequeathed Eliza something additional—an expensive jewel from his collection, perhaps.
“. . . and conditional upon her bringing no dishonor to the Somerset name . . .”
How like him to attach a morality clause to whatever small bequeathment he had thought appropriate—ungenerous to the very last.
“All my estates at Chepstow, Chawley and Highbridge, for her use absolutely.”
Eliza’s mind came to sudden attention. What had Mr. Walcot just said?
All at once, a room that had been quiet and still became very loud.
“Repeat that last, would you, Walcot? Must have misheard!” Selwyn boomed, taking a step forward.
“Yes, Mr. Walcot, I’m not sure that can have been right!” Mrs. Courtenay’s voice was high and piercing as she raised herself from her chair. Mr. Balfour stood, too, hand reaching out as if about to demand to read the document himself.
“To Eliza Eunice Courtenay,” Mr. Walcot repeated obediently, “in respect to her loyalty and obedience—and conditional upon her bringing no dishonor to the Somerset name—I bequeath all my estates at Chepstow, Chawley and Highbridge for her use absolutely.”
“Preposterous!” Selwyn was having none of it. “Julius was to bequeath those lands to our younger son, Tarquin.”
“He told me so, too!” Lady Selwyn insisted. “He promisedme.”
“Lady Somerset’s jointure was agreed at the marriage settlement, was it not?” Mrs. Courtenay added. “There was no mention of this, then!”
“Are the Somerset lands not all entailed on the title?” Margaret said, puzzled, only to be loudly shushed by Mrs. Balfour.
“If that is the late earl’s bequest, if it is in the will, then you can have no issue with it!” Mr. Balfour insisted to the room in general.
They seemed to have entirely forgotten Eliza was there.
“The estates at Chepstow, Chawley and Highbridge were inherited by the earl through his mother’s line, and therefore were his to do with as he wished,” Mr. Walcot said calmly.
“Preposterous!” Selwyn said again. “That cannot be the correct document!”
“I assure you, it is,” Mr. Walcot said.
“And I’m telling you it is the wrong one, man!” Selwyn said heatedly, all pretense of joviality gone. “I saw it before—and it named Tarquin, I saw it!”
“It used to,” Mr. Walcot agreed. “But the late earl instructed me to amend this line only a fortnight before his death.”
Selwyn’s puce face turned white.
“Your quarrel,” Lady Selwyn whispered.
“We were discussing a loan—it was just business,” Selwyn breathed. “He cannot have, he would not have—”
Ah, so that was why they had argued: Selwyn had requested a loan. Eliza could have warned him against such foolishness—indeed, Selwyn must have been desperate for he would most certainly have known that the incurably frugal and exceedingly proud late earl considered appeals to his purse the very height of impertinence.
“I assure you that on this—and every other matter—the late earl was quite clear,” Mr. Walcot said calmly. “The lands are to go to Lady Somerset.”
Selwyn rounded upon Eliza.
“What poison did you whisper in his ear?” he snapped.
“How dare—” Mrs. Balfour was swelling with indignation.
“Selwyn!” Somerset’s voice rang out, cold and remonstrative, and Selwyn took a step back from Eliza.
“My apologies—I did not mean . . . A—a regrettable lapse in manners . . .”
Lady Selwyn was not cowed. “What of the morality clause? Did my uncle give any other elaboration—any indication of what kind of behavior was meant?”
“I do not see how that is relevant,” Mrs. Balfour said, “given my daughter’s reputation is unimpeachable.”
“Given that my uncle felt it appropriate to include in his will, it feels very relevant, Mrs. Balfour,” Lady Selwyn said sharply.
“We intend no disrespect,” Mrs. Courtenay interjected. “Lady Somerset knows we are very fond of her.”
Lady Somerset very much did not know this.
“All the late earl specified is that the interpretation of the clause is at the discretion of the eleventh Earl of Somerset—and no one else,” Mr. Walcot said.
Selwyn, Lady Selwyn and Mrs. Courtenay all opened their mouths to argue, but Somerset interrupted.
“If the bequeathment was my uncle’s wish, I certainly do not have an issue with it,” Somerset said, voice firm.
“Of course, of course,” Selwyn had clawed back some geniality. “But, my dear boy, I think it would behoove us to discuss what sort of behavior would constitute—”
“I disagree,” Somerset said, speaking in a quietly confident manner and seeming not at all bothered by the glares of his family. “And unless Lady Somerset has changed a great deal since I was last upon British soil, she is incapable of causing even a raised eyebrow.”
Eliza looked down, her cheeks reddening. In times past, while she had admired Somerset’s conviction, in her he had bemoaned the opposite.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Balfour agreed, her voice satisfied.
“But given the unusual nature of such a clause,” Somerset went on. “I think it ought to remain amongst us, only. None of us would want to cause any gossip, after all.”
There were nods of agreement from around the room—the Balfours enthusiastic, the Selwyns reluctant, while Mrs. Courtenay looked about to cry again.
There was a long, long pause.
“How much income do the estates yield yearly?” Selwyn asked.
Mr. Walcot made a brief reference to his notes.
“On average,” he said, “they yield an income of just above nine thousand pounds a year. With her jointure, altogether it is an income of ten thousand annually.”
Ten thousand pounds a year.
Ten thousand pounds. Every year.
She was rich.
She was very rich.
Richer than Lady Oxford or Lady Pelham, those celebrated heiresses, the diamonds of their respective Seasons; richer than many of the lords in Whitehall. Could it really be true? Her husband had never given any indication that Eliza was anything other than a perpetual disappointment to him. Inferior to his first wife in every way, and yet similarly unable to give him a son. And yet now, his spite—his displeasure at Selwyn’s behavior—had caused him to show Eliza a generosity that she had never felt in his lifetime. Ten thousand pounds a year. He had made Eliza a very wealthy woman.
Eliza felt as if the thread tying her to normalcy had just been cut, and she was spinning away and away. She could not have repeated a single thing else that happened in the rest of the reading, only registering its conclusion when everyone began to stand and, mechanically, she too followed suit. The refrain of “ten thousand pounds a year” was rebounding around her mind like the loudest of echoes, preventing her from thinking of anything else.
“Ten thousand pounds!” Margaret whispered excitedly in her ear, as they filed out. “Do you understand what this means?”
Eliza twitched her head, whether in a nod or shake, she did not know.
“It will change everything, Eliza!”
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