“I certainly hope I’m not weak enough to be unable to entertain my own sister, Eleanor,” he said with dignity.
She flushed. “I didn’t mean that. I know how nervous you were about Lord Henry’s visit, and I just thought… but perhaps you are right, Aunt Florence’s visit will cheer us all up.”
Charles smiled weakly, and they fell back into silence.
Aunt Florence was, as always, late. Dinner had been delayed by half an hour already, and Eleanor’s stomach rumbled. She’d been in such a flurry to get things ready for Lord Henry’s visit that she had missed luncheon entirely, and breakfast was never more than a few bites of porridge and perhaps an apple.
The widowed Mrs Florence Everett was the opposite in every way to her older brother. She had married well, and now was a wealthy woman in her own right, with a determination to enjoy life. Eleanor liked her aunt very much, although sometimes it did feel like tackling a hurricane head-on.
“You know, if this business with Lord Henry does not work out,” Eleanor said, slowly and hesitantly, “perhaps we could…”
“If you’re about to say we could borrow capital from your Aunt Florence,” Charles said heavily, “I would advise against it.”
Eleanor bit her lip. “I don’t understand why you won’t even consider Aunt Florence. She’s kind, and generous, and it is a family business, after all.”
He sighed. “Florence is not – and has never been – interested in the business. The only time she ever thinks about porcelain at all is when she’s buying a new tea-set. Eleanor, I will not – I willnot, hear me – go to my little sister and beg for money.Perhaps you have no pride, no sense of what’s owed to others, but I certainly do.”
Eleanor’s cheeks burned at this stinging scolding. She crouched on a footstool by the fire, keeping it banked and hot. Charles was so cold these days, especially when the evenings drew in.
For a few moments, there was silence, broken only by her aggressive poking of the fire.
“Why don’t you tell me why you think Lord Henry would make a poor partner?” He said at last, sighing. “It’s clearly bothering you.”
She bit her lip. “I… I don’t have anything against the man himself, I just… I just wanted to keep the business in the family.”
I wanted to inherit it one day. My sister is married and settled, so why shouldn’t I have this?
She didn’t say it, though. Better to dream than to have an outright refusal.
“A noble goal,” her father responded. “But not realistic. We need money, and we need a proper investor. Lord Henry is a suitable match. I thought he was a very pleasant man, with plenty of money at his back, and a good deal ofrespectability.”
Eleanor said nothing.
She was uncomfortably aware that her own behaviour had been less than impeccable. In fact, she’d been rude, distinctly unwelcoming, and worst of all,unprofessional.He, on the other hand, had been nothing but pleasant to her, all smooth, polished gentlemanly manners.
Ugh. It would have been better if he was some awful old man, leering at her and talking over her whenever she tried to say anything of importance. Instead, he’d been a perfect gentleman, listening carefully, never contradicting her, and not full of himself at all.
He was handsome, too.
Eleanor bit hard into her lower lip. Society was full of handsome men, just like it was full of beautiful women. Lord Henry had thick dark hair, and large green-brown eyes, more brown than green in her opinion, framed with black lashes. He had tanned, olive-hued skin, implying that he’d been somewhere hot up untilrecently. He certainly hadn’t been here, under the miserable grey skies of London.
There was something steely in Lord Henry’s face, too, although she hadn’t been able to work it out. Something had tightened around his eyes when she’d all but called him a spoiled brat.
That particular embarrassment was going to last for a long time, she was sure. Lord Henry could have made things very difficult for her right then and there, simply by turning and informing her father exactly of what she’d just said.
He hadn’t, though, and she was annoyed at having to be grateful for that.
“Papa,” Eleanor began hesitantly, not exactly sure what it was she planned to say. “Papa, I think…”
There was no time to say it, naturally, because at that moment the drawing room door flew open and Aunt Florence strode in, talking to the butler over her shoulder.
“Not to worry, Wooster, I’ll introduce myself! They know me well enough by now, ha-ha!” she boomed, ending the sentence with her trademark rattling laugh, the same laugh that could be heard halfway across a crowded ballroom.
Aunt Florence was a tall woman, and stocky into the bargain. She preferred expensive gowns, satins and silks, decorated with beads, pearls, feathers, ribbons, every bauble and trinket one could think of. She had the money for it, too, and that money was shown in the priceless jewels she wore so carelessly.
A few of the more prim-and-proper matrons and dowagers of Society sniffed at her and called hervulgar, but Aunt Florence didn’t much care about that, and neither did her adoring gaggle of friends.
She held out her arms, and Eleanor scurried forward into her aunt’s crushing embrace.
