The Earl's Countess Of Convenience. Marguerite Kaye

Chapter Three

      In the kitchen Eloise was immediately waylaid by Phoebe and Estelle, who were sitting at the huge scrubbed table guarding the tea tray which was set out in readiness, waiting to pounce on her the moment she appeared.

      ‘Is he as handsome close up as he looks from a distance?’

      ‘He was immaculately turned out. He does not have the look of a man who is a stranger to soap.’

      ‘You’ve been closeted away with him for an age. Why has it taken you so long to order tea? Look, Phoebe, she’s blushing.’

      ‘Do you like him, Eloise?’

      ‘Do you think he likes you?’

      She refused to answer a single question while setting Phoebe’s freshly baked biscuits out on a plate, and there were a great deal more thrown at her while she waited on the water boiling. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise,’ Eloise said, picking up the tray.

      ‘Chapter and verse!’ the twins chorused in unison.

      Returning to the drawing room, Eloise was even more flustered than when she had left fifteen minutes earlier. The fact that Alexander, when he crossed the room to take the tray from her, looked even more handsome on second viewing, did nothing to improve her fractured composure. It was a huge relief, she told herself, nothing more. It wasn’t that she wanted an attractive husband, but facing this man over the breakfast table would be no hardship.

      ‘Were you thinking that I had fled the country in embarrassment?’ Irked at the breathless note in her voice, Eloise sat down beside him and began to set out the cups. ‘Please try a biscuit. Phoebe made them. They are not sweet, but spiced.’

      ‘I take it, then, that you reassured your sisters, while making tea, that I am neither odiferous nor do I have bad breath. They would have seen for themselves that I don’t stoop or wear spectacles. I spotted them peering out of the window at me when I arrived.’

      Eloise stopped in the act of spooning tea from the walnut caddy. ‘How embarrassing. I am so sorry.’

      ‘There’s no need to apologise. It’s perfectly understandable that they would be protective of their big sister and want to give me the once over.’ Alexander helped himself to another biscuit. ‘Am I to assume, then, that they endorse your decision to meet with me today?’

      ‘Oh, yes, very much so.’ Would he think them all money-grasping harpies? ‘Not that I made the decision lightly, you understand. In fact, we discussed it a great deal.’ Was that worse? ‘What you are proposing—well, it would be to our mutual advantage, wouldn’t it? A—a quid pro quo.’ She smiled, but it felt more like a wince. ‘And it’s not an unfamiliar concept to me, of course. Kate—Lady Elmswood—and my uncle have already made a success of a similar accommodation.’

      ‘Yes. Daniel was quite frank with me on the advantages of his own arrangement.’

      ‘You are old friends, I understand.’

      Alexander smiled blandly. ‘We bump into each other occasionally. Tell me a little more about yourself. I know next to nothing, save what Daniel told me.’

      ‘That I am a mother hen with an overdeveloped sense of duty!’

      ‘Was his assessment correct?’

      ‘No! At least—that makes me sound—I suppose I have been—Kate thinks that my sisters will benefit from being out from under my wings, and I think she might be right. I keep forgetting that they are twenty years old, young women and not children.’

      ‘There are four years between you, I believe?’

      ‘Yes. It doesn’t sound a lot, but when we were little it made a big difference.’ Eloise set her teacup aside. ‘They have been my responsibility since—I was going to say since they were born, but even Mama was not quite so careless as to leave a pair of babes in my charge. We had a nurse, but later, from the schoolroom I suppose, when the first of our governesses left, I have taken care of my sisters.’

      ‘You make it sound as if there was a procession of governesses.’

      Eloise rolled her eyes. ‘We lived in the wilds of Ireland. Not many genteel ladies could endure the life, and when they left, as they invariably did, it was sometimes a while before Mama noticed. She spent a great deal of time with Papa in Dublin, when the—the dibs were in tune—have I that right?’

      Alexander frowned. ‘Your father was a gambler?’

      ‘Well, yes, though not in the sense that your cousin is. He only placed wagers on his own runners—or so he claimed. My mother did not approve of his obsession with the track. He bred racehorses. Papa said that, as an Irishman, the turf was in his blood. Sadly, his obsession outstripped both his luck and his judgement, and he lost a great deal more than he won. When he lost, and had to retrench, then he and Mama would rusticate with us girls.’ Suddenly realising that she had been cajoled into discussing the very subject that she wished to avoid, Eloise picked up the teapot. ‘Would you care for another cup?’

      Alexander shook his head. She was horribly conscious of his eyes on her as she poured herself one, of the spark of anger in her voice which always betrayed her when she talked of those days. ‘Your parents,’ he said, ‘you did not look forward to their visits?’

      ‘It was rather that they did not care for them. Or for us.’ Eloise sighed. He was not going to give up, she realised. ‘Until Diarmuid, my brother, was born, I would have said that my parents were the sort who were indifferent to their children. They didn’t exactly dislike us, don’t get me wrong, but aside from Papa and his thoroughbreds, all they really cared about was each other. But then Diarmuid came along. He is—he was five years younger than Phoebe and Estelle and from the moment he was born, Mama and Papa were quite besotted with him. I have never understood why they did not care for my sisters in the same way, it’s not as if they were troublesome or demanding children.’

      ‘Sometimes,’ Alexander said, ‘it is simply that there is room in a parent’s heart for only one child.’

      His tone was even, his expression neutral, but Eloise was certain he must be thinking of his brother who died and she, who had long ago decided she would not be hurt by her parents’ blatant favouritism, recognised a similar resolve in Alexander. It made her warm to him. Her instinct was to commiserate, but that would be to recognise a scar that he would not acknowledge existed.

      ‘Well,’ Eloise said, ‘in our family that child was Diarmuid. The golden child, quite literally—he had a mass of sunny golden curls. Such an endearing little boy he was too when he was very little, with the kind of smile that no one could resist. We all adored him. I often wonder, if he had not been such a favourite, whether he would have been a more endearing little boy, but he was so very spoilt, the sulks and the tantrums on the rare occasions he didn’t get things his own way were inevitable, I suppose. Mama and Papa were forever telling him how wonderful he was, it’s not surprising that he believed them. Perhaps he’d have grown out of it.’

      ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

      ‘Not really. It’s a dreadful thing to say, but though I loved him because he was my brother, I liked him less and less with every year. He was moulded too much in the image of Mama and Papa. Smothered with love, and quite ruined by it, while we girls were utterly neglected and all the better for it. I am sure there is a happy medium to be found, but I have never been tempted to discover it for myself.’

      ‘That is something else we have in common, then.’

      Eloise gave herself a shake. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean the conversation to take such a melancholy turn.’

      ‘Then let us change it.’ Alexander took another biscuit. ‘These are very good. My compliments to Phoebe.’

      ‘She will be pleased, for they are made to a receipt of her own invention. She is