Roland Trewellian, Earlof Baderston, avoided his mother’s gaze. The dowager countess paced the drawing room, as it seemed she had been doing for months.
“My son,” she said, “I simply do not understand your reluctance to engage yourself to Lady Clara. She comes with thirty thousand and we have known her people forever.”
Roland felt as if he and his mother were strapped to a wheel—just going round and round on the subject of Lady Clara.
His mother had all along presumed he would marry Lady Clara and he had been remiss in not challenging that idea for the past three years. He’d never agreed to it, but he’d allowed her to make those little comments that she thought it must be so without a challenge.
She was an argumentative sort of lady and it was generally prudent to leave her to argue with herself.
Then, without his knowledge, she’d invited that family to a house party. He’d not found out about it until they were at the gates.
What an awkward visit! He and Lady Clara were constantly thrown together in the stupidest manners possible. They had eyes upon them at every moment.
Everybody was waiting for him to declare himself. Toward the end of the visit, Lady Clara’s father had begun to be rather surly.
Roland would have very much liked to pull the man aside and explain the facts of the case to him. He’d had no hand in the invitation and would have stopped the dowager from issuing it had he known of it.
Of course, that was impossible to do without insulting his daughter in some manner and causing a rift between the two families.
The days had dragged on and Roland had sighed with relief at the end of each evening, when his bedchamber door would be closed and the only person looking at him was his valet.
Markson, perfectly aware of the straits he was in, would arrive with a large glass of brandy to assist him in recovering from a long and tedious day.
Lady Clara and her parents had since departed.
In response to his mother’s constant questioning as to why he had not proposed, he’d finally had to confront her with the truth. He would not wed Lady Clara.
This news had not been taken at all well. Particularly since he would not account for his reasons.
He did have his reasons, though. Or, he might better say,onereason.
Lady Viola Bennington. He must return to Town and meet with that lady again.
He had only encountered her very briefly the year before, as she’d not yet been out. But what he knew about her! What he’d thought when he saw her!
Lady Viola’s sister, Lady Rosalind, had told him all about her sister when they had danced at Almack’s. Lady Viola was said to be partial to his particular color of hair and that was no small thing. He’d been called Lord Gingerbread at school and he had not liked it. His friend, Hastings, had informed him that the usual lady preferred black, brown, or fair hair.
He could not know why it was so, but it seemed it was so. He wondered if it might be because Henry the Eighth had been a redhead and had proved himself a rather unpleasant and unreliable husband.
Roland had assumed he’d have to find a lady who would put up with his unfortunate hair. But now, here was a lady who actually sought it out.
Forearmed with that idea, he’d then seen her that day in the park. She was achingly lovely and seemed so genial. And, Lady Rosalind had said Lady Viola was a very loyal person. She’d said that once Lady Viola decided to be for a person, she was for that person forevermore.
He rather liked that idea. He valued loyalty quite a bit himself.
Of course, there had been the matter of his feelings about ham. Lady Rosalind had very specifically said that Lady Viola was excessively fond of ham, and she hoped he was too.
In truth, he had not ever held that meat above all others. However, he was prepared to do it!
He’d eaten more ham over the last months than he ever had in his life. When Lady Viola quizzed him about it, as he supposed she would, he would be able to be truthful about his consumption of that item.
“Now, Baderston,” his mother went on, “I think you might have the wrong idea about marriage. It is to be built on practicalities. You do not suppose your father and I were carried to the church by our feelings, do you?”
“You were not?” he asked. This was a rather new idea. He’d always noticed that his parents had acted toward one another in a painstakingly polite fashion that felt rather distant. He had supposed though, that there had been something more lively between them in their youth.
“Certainly not,” the dowager said. “If I had allowed myself to be carried away by my feelings, I would have collapsed after a particular earl went and married somebody else. I did not collapse. I very sensibly took rational steps. As I could not havethatearl, I had the sense to see I must have somebody and took on another earl. Your father.”
That was ghastly and he dearly hoped his father never knew it. He also wished his mother would stop telling him things he did not need or want to know. It was rather sickening to imagine her a lovestruck young lady who was thrown over, and then looking about herself in a calculating fashion.
