Page 6 of The Earl’s Second Chance

Herfershire Hall stood in a green valley west of London, built of honey-coloured stone and softened by centuries of ivy. It possessed eighty-three rooms, a library with two galleries, a portrait hall, a chapel, a lake, formal gardens, tenant farms, stables, and enough servants to send Mrs. Bennet into a fresh attack of nerves.

Yet security changed even her nerves.

At Longbourn, every mishap had seemed proof that calamity waited just beyond the hedgerow. At Herfershire, when she forgot the housekeeper’s name, no one would starve. When she confused the order of precedence at dinner, the roof remained over her daughters’ heads. Her anxieties no longer had a financial echo, and gradually they ceased to fill every room.

On their first evening, Lord Herfershire found her alone in the countess’s sitting room, staring at shelves of household ledgers.

“I cannot do this,” she said.

He sat beside her. “You managed Longbourn on an uncertain income while raising five daughters.”

“Badly.”

“Loudly. Not always badly.”

She looked at him, suspicious of kindness from a husband who had so often offered cleverness instead.

“Lady Ambrose will help,” he continued. “Mrs. Harcourt has governed this household for twenty years. You need not know everything tomorrow.”

“Will you laugh when I make mistakes?”

He took her hand. “Not unless you laugh first.”

Her eyes filled. “I do not know how to be a countess.”

“I do not know how to be an earl. We might learn together.”

That became the quiet foundation of their second marriage to one another.

Lord Herfershire began rising before eight. He met the steward, Mr. Howard, examined drainage plans, reviewed leases, and listened to tenant petitions. At first he was exhausted by noon. Then the old pleasure he had taken in understanding books awakened in the understanding of systems, people, and consequence.

At dinner he spoke to his family about what he had learned.

“The west farms lose nearly a quarter of their crop because the lower fields flood,” he said one evening. “The late earl delayed the drainage expense for six years.”

Elizabeth set down her fork. “Will you approve it?”

“I have. Mr. Howard believes the cost will be recovered within four harvests.”

Mary asked, “Is it morally preferable to assist tenants if the improvement also enriches the landlord?”

“A useful question,” her father said. “Read Smith as well as Fordyce, and then tell me what you think.”

Mary stared. He had not mocked her.

“I shall.”

The tutors arrived in October. Lady Susan Ambrose was fifty, elegant without fuss, and possessed the rare ability to correct without humiliating. She assessed each girl separately.

Jane and Elizabeth required refinement, not reconstruction. Their French was excellent, their Spanish credible, their manners natural. Jane began the harp and Italian; Elizabeth undertook German and more serious pianoforte study. Both practiced court forms, precedence, formal calls, and the intricate politics hidden inside apparently idle conversation.

“A salon,” Lady Susan explained, “is not dangerous because the ladies are cruel, though some are. It is dangerous because everyone remembers what you say, to whom, and after whose remark.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Then it resembles Meryton with better upholstery.”

Lady Susan’s mouth twitched. “Precisely.”

Mary’s music master discovered that she had diligence but no understanding of restraint. Herr Vogel stopped her midway through a thunderous passage.