C.J. placed her hand sympathetically on Darlington’s arm. “I am so sorry. What became of Jack?”
“At present he is a very healthy vicar in Sussex with four noisy children and a silly wife who dotes on him. He could not be happier. And he has just slaked his thirst for adventure by becoming the partner on a business prospect in the Americas—a mahogany plantation in Honduras—where I imagine he’ll be expected to journey from time to time to inspect his investments.”
At the foot of Union Passage, Darlington stopped abruptly. “I offer my apologies in advance, Miss Welles, for insulting your intelligence, but I confess that even among my set—perhaps especially among my set—gently bred young ladies are . . . how shall I term it? . . . less well read than you appear to be. I have been thinking on our conversation about Shakespeare and Marlowe.”
“I confess I am indeed a great reader. Should you wish to brand me a bluestocking, I would not quibble. And after all, my . . . father . . . quoted Shakespeare to me while I was still in the cradle,” C.J. added, improvising wildly.
“I am a man who relishes discoveries. I consider them one of life’s chiefest pleasures. As an example of my theme, ever since I was a youth I have had a passion for archaeology, Miss Welles. On the rare occasions when I saw my father, his notion of a proper excursion for a father and son was to join in the excavations at Pompeii—certainly not the usual pursuits for earls and their young offspring—although I prized every chance I was afforded to roll up my sleeves and dig deep into the earth of ancient times. The old earl gave Thom Huggins, our steward at Delamere, a head full of thick white hair before poor Huggins turned thirty. My father, the second Earl of Darlington, knew more—and cared more—about amphorae than farmers. He entrusted Huggins with the entire management of Delamere, but the steward was ill at ease with my father’s frequent and lengthy absences. Huggins had a kindly, albeit weak, disposition. He always wanted to please everyone, and he let too many of the tenants gain his advantage. They abused his munificence.”
Darlington glanced at C.J., who had become fully absorbed in his story, and he checked his inclination to reveal even more of his past. “But I fear I bore you with the details of Delamere’s mismanagement,” the third earl said. “I merely thought to explain to you my predilection for the past.”
C.J. found it odd that a man of this era would openly discuss his finances with anyone other than his bank managers, and more particularly a young woman who was scarcely an acquaintance. Perhaps he’d felt the same immediate ease in her company as she had in his. “Then we have a good deal in common,” she exclaimed, spontaneously touching his hand. “A great affinity for the past, I mean.” Their eyes met in mutual understanding. Instinctively, C.J. took his hand in hers. Each could feel the other’s quickening pulse; each noticed the other’s hand was soft and warm.
“You were about to say something, Miss Welles?”
How prescient he could be. The sincerity of the earl’s manner caught C.J. unawares. He was no casual flirt, no light cad like Austen’s Willoughby or Frank Churchill. “I was about to . . .” The catch in her throat surprised her. How could she possibly be considering divulging her greatest secret? “It doesn’t signify, your lordship. Merely a remark on the innocuous delights of the day’s weather.” She let go of his hand.
Much to C.J.’s astonishment, the countess evinced no surprise at C.J.’s reappearance, other than to remark that she was pleased to see that her “niece” had finally elected to take a constitutional after two days spent behind a locked door sleeping off the ill effects of her arduous journey from London. No doubt her ladyship genuinely did believe that C.J. had indeed been exhausted enough to sleep for so long after such arduous servitude for Lady Wickham!
“Ooh, lovely, Cassandra, I see you have found each other!” she exclaimed, her two Pekinese yapping at her heels as soon as she rose to greet her “niece.” The pups immediately scampered toward the earl when they caught the scent of the fresh buns, for which they received a stern rebuke from her ladyship. “Fielding! Swift! Behave this instant!”
The two small dogs ceased their clamor at Darlington’s feet and looked profoundly repentant. C.J. knelt to receive their affectionate greetings.
“Aunt Euphoria, we thought you might like some fresh Sally Lunns. They were to be a treat from me, but his lordship rather graciously stepped in, so you must accept them as his gift.” C.J. rose and bestowed a kiss on Lady Dalrymple’s cheek.
“Percy, it warms my heart to see you so kindly disposed toward my dearest of kin. Come child.” The countess beckoned C.J. with a bejeweled finger. “Handsome devil, isn’t he?” she whispered to C.J., adding with an impish grin, “You make an old woman very happy.”
“You are a wise and wonderful woman, Aunt Euphoria.” The dowager Countess of Dalrymple reminded the young actress very much of her late adopted grandmother. Too often, in the apartment they had once shared, C.J. had lain in bed at night missing the guidance, comfort, and support that had been such a stable element in her life until Nana died. Death had come to Mr. and Mrs. Welles when C.J. was very young, and so she was raised by the mother of her adoptive father, as though she were Nana’s own child. “It’s not the blood that makes you family,” she was fond of saying. “It’s the love.” And here C.J. was, more than two hundred years earlier, finding the same stamp of goodness in Lady Dalrymple, a robust personification of the bountiful Georgian era.
How increasingly impossible it was becoming
