The Honourable Earl. Mary Nichols

T he girls were putting the finishing touches to their ball gowns, although no decision had been reached about whether the ball was going to take place. Rumours were flying about the village that the new Earl had arrived, but no one had seen him.

      ‘I saw a grand carriage turn into the gates of the Hall earlier today,’ John said over supper the previous evening. ‘It wasn’t the old Earl’s because everyone knows that was falling to bits. This was much newer and it had four matched bays and two postilions.’

      ‘Did you see anyone in it?’ Annabelle had demanded.

      ‘No. Whoever it was was sitting back in the shadows.’

      ‘That doesn’t mean it was the Earl,’ Lydia said, hoping that it wasn’t. She didn’t want to see him, ever again. ‘It could have been Mr Falconer, his lawyer. They say he is staying at the Hall, for there is so much to be done, especially if the Earl is not coming home.’

      ‘I doubt there will be a ball now,’ Annabelle said, snipping off her thread and looking at her beautiful pink gown with her head on one side. ‘And I did so want to wear this and dance the latest dances. How am I to find a husband if we never go anywhere? Caroline Brotherton is to have the Season in London.’

      ‘Caroline Brotherton is the daughter of a marquis, Annabelle,’ their mother said gently. ‘We cannot aspire to such things.’

      Annabelle had met Caroline at the school for young ladies they had both attended in Chelmsford and had subsequently been invited to a birthday celebration at her home when both girls, their education supposedly complete, had left school for good. She had talked of little else ever since and Lydia suspected that was where all this talk of husbands had come from.

      ‘I don’t see why not. Susan is going to London for the Season.’ Annabelle pouted. ‘I could stay with her.’ Susan had written to say she and her husband were going to stay in town for the summer months and she was looking forward to attending a few of the Season’s social occasions.

      ‘Dearest, even if you stayed with your sister, I could not buy all the gowns and frippery you would need. And besides…’ She paused, wondering how to go on. ‘We are not aristocracy, my love, and though you are very pretty, you would not be considered. We must keep to our station in life, for otherwise lies misery, believe me.’

      She spoke so firmly and with such conviction, it made Lydia look up from her work in surprise, wondering what had caused such strength of feeling. She came to the conclusion her mother was thinking of the friendship between Freddie and Ralph Latimer and what it had brought them to.

      ‘We are not common people,’ Annabelle said. ‘Papa’s family is one of the oldest in the kingdom, Grandpapa used to say so at every opportunity. He had a title—’

      ‘It was only a minor one as you very well know, child. And in any case, ever since…’ Anne paused. The old man had died six years ago, only a year after his wife. His older son and heir, her dead husband’s brother, had declined to do anything to help them and rarely communicated. She smiled, knowing how disappointed her youngest daughter was. ‘You may go with Lydia to the lecture tomorrow evening at the Assembly Rooms in Malden. I must confess I am feeling too tired to accompany her and you may use my ticket.’

      ‘A lecture! What would I want with a lecture? I am given far too many of them at home to want to go to Malden to hear one.’

      Anne sighed. She had expected Lydia to be difficult, but not Annabelle. ‘Go, for Lydia’s sake. She cannot go unaccompanied and you would not deprive her of an outing, would you?’

      ‘Oh, very well. But no doubt I shall be bored to death.’ She turned to Lydia. ‘What is it about?’

      ‘The title is “With Clive in India”. The lecturer has just come home from there after many years with the East India Company. I think it might be vastly interesting.’

      She did not go on to explain why she thought it might be interesting, but ever since she had met the young man in Chelmsford, she had been wondering if he might be the speaker; it was surely no coincidence that he had arrived in the area just before the lecture. And she had to confess to a desire to see him again, if only to confirm or deny the original impression she had had of him.

      Unwilling to admit why, even to herself, she dressed with especial care the following evening. Her gown was of a fashionable mustard yellow silk; the narrow boned bodice had a wide décolletage infilled with lace, gathered into a knot in the cleft of her bosom. The back was pleated from the neck to the floor and the sleeves had wide embroidered cuffs. Like so many of her gowns, she had made it herself with the help of her mother and it meant she could appear far more richly dressed than they could really afford.

      Janet arranged her hair in a thick coil at the back of her neck and decorated it with two curling white feathers which were all the rage. She had a fan of chicken feathers which had been brought out of her mother’s trunk at the same time as the old gowns. She knew she looked well and smiled at herself in her dressing mirror as Janet put the finishing touches to her toilette and then bent to slip her feet into tan leather shoes. She would have liked shoes to match her gown, with embroidered toes and painted heels, but that was not to be and she hoped, in the crush, no one would notice her serviceable footwear.

      Partridge harnessed the cob to the battered chaise and drove them to the Assembly Rooms. ‘I hope he does not mean to take us right up to the door,’ Annabelle whispered to her sister. ‘It would be too mortifying to be seen arriving in this.’

      ‘Why?’ Lydia asked, amused. ‘Everyone knows us and they know our circumstances. Why pretend to be something we are not?’

      ‘We do not have to advertise it. And supposing the Earl is there?’

      Lydia laughed. ‘Of course he will not be there. Why should he interest himself in a country lecture?’

      ‘Then why have you dressed yourself in your best gown? I thought—’

      ‘Good heavens, Annabelle, I would certainly not dress to impress that fiend. How could you think it? I hate him and all he stands for. You know that.’

      ‘Oh. Then why? Have you got a beau?’

      ‘Annabelle,’ she said impatiently. ‘You know very well I have not.’

      ‘What about Sir Arthur?’

      ‘What about him?’

      ‘Mama thinks you should set your cap at him.’

      ‘What a vulgar expression! And I shall do no such thing. Now, may we drop the subject?’

      They had arrived at the meeting rooms and Partridge drew up behind the carriages already standing in line, waiting to discharge their occupants. Others of the audience had walked from houses nearby and were jostling their way into the building. Lydia and Annabelle followed them in and found their seats. There was a great deal of noise in the hall as friend greeted friend and exchanged news and gossip, but when the town mayor, who was acting as master of ceremonies, walked on to the stage followed by two or three other dignitaries who took seats arranged behind the lectern, everyone became silent and turned to listen.

      Lydia, who had been holding her breath for this moment, let it out in a sigh of disappointment. The speaker, when he was introduced and stood to begin his talk, was not the young gentleman she had been hoping for, but a middle-aged man with a red, bewhiskered face and a huge stomach which threatened to burst the buttons off his black waistcoat. There was nothing she could do but appear interested in what he had to say, but appearances were deceptive because her mind was miles away, in a rainy street in Chelmsford.

      Oh, why had she not provided her name when asked for it? Even the name of her village would have been enough if he had meant it when he said he hoped to see her again. But had he meant it? He was doing no more than enjoy a little harmless flirtation with a young woman. Not a lady, for all he called her one, for he would never have presumed to speak so familiarly to anyone highborn. But would anyone highborn have been standing in the rain and not a carriage or servant in sight? She was becoming