“But you will return soon, won’t you? You’re good at fixing things, so it shouldn’t take you long a’tall to fix whatever is wrong and be on the next ship back to us. Then you won’t miss all of the Season. And bring your brothers back with you, your father, too. It’s been five years, and we’re their family, too!”
“I’ll ask them, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be back before the end of this Season, not when it takes three to four weeks just to cross the ocean. Tonight I should be finishing my packing, not socializing. Shall we see if your mother is ready to go downstairs? I hope she didn’t invite many people to this bon voyage party.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, Cousin. The Season does start next week. Besides, a lot of the ton lives in London as we do and others come early to make sure the hostesses know they are in town. At least you will meet a few of them tonight.”
Violet laughed. “I’m going to meet them just to say good-bye?”
“No, no, you can assure them you’ll be back soon. Or not tell them a’tall. Mama didn’t exactly mention this is a good-bye party in the invitations, she just so wanted you to enjoy at least one party before you sail off tomorrow. And you’re so pretty, Vi. You were destined to break some hearts this summer. And no, I’m not the least bit jealous. You can only have one, after all. There will be plenty of young gentlemen to go around. And maybe you’ll meet the one you want tonight. Wouldn’t that be splendid! You’ll be yearning to return quickly,” Sophie ended with a laugh.
“But the packing—”
“Is mostly done and the servants will finish that while we’re downstairs. There’s no help for it, Cousin. You’re destined to simply enjoy yourself tonight.”
Enjoy herself? Violet thought. Maybe if she hadn’t been worried about her brothers and her father since Daniel’s letter had arrived four days ago. And maybe if she didn’t feel like crying herself because she had to say good-bye to her family here whom she’d come to love so much. But she’d been keeping these feelings to herself, mostly. If she’d learned anything during her stay with the Faulkners, it was how to put on a good face for all occasions.
Aunt Elizabeth did that now. She’d dried her tears before Sophie knocked on her door and offered a brilliant smile as she looked over her two favorite girls. Sophie was blond and blue-eyed and wearing an evening gown of palest aqua. Violet was also blond but favored lilac, the color of many of her new gowns, since it went so well with her dark-violet eyes. Tonight’s gown was trimmed in white satin and she was wearing her mother’s cameo on a ribbon about her neck. She hadn’t had much occasion to wear any baubles until now.
Her father had sent her all of her mother’s jewelry for her sixteenth birthday. She had hoped he would surprise her with a third visit to London that year, but he didn’t. Her father actually expected her to return home about this time, now that her schooling was done and she no longer needed Elizabeth’s mothering. He’d said as much the day she’d left home. But he hadn’t mentioned it again in those few letters that he actually wrote himself, merely saying that he loved and missed her. She really was going to give all three of them a good scolding when she got home for not writing more often, particularly Daniel for not explaining what required her to rush back to Philadelphia. She’d hoped he had immediately sent off another letter with a full accounting, but no further missives had arrived in the last four days. And while she had come up with all sorts of reasons, she could never, ever have guessed what awaited her at the home where she was born.
Chapter Two
HIS NAME WAS ELLIOTT Palmer—actually, Lord Elliott Palmer. And Violet decided that very night in the Faulkners’ elegant parlor that she was going to marry him one day. Instantly smitten, she gushed, she giggled, she blushed repeatedly, which was so not like her, but she couldn’t seem to control her emotions in his presence. And he proceeded to monopolize her at the party, more than was proper, so she was quite sure he was smitten with her as well.
Blond with green eyes, and three or four inches taller than she, Lord Elliott was charming, debonair, and humorous. He regaled her with tales about his previous three Seasons, which accounted for all her silly giggling, even though she wouldn’t normally have found some of the tales amusing as they focused on other people’s stumbles, mishaps, and mismatches. But he seemed to find these faux pas so funny that she laughed with him. She simply couldn’t help herself!
“I’ll be turning twenty-one this summer,” Elliott confided at one point, then leaned closer to whisper, “I suppose it’s time I start looking for a wife.”
She nearly swooned in delight at such a provocative hint as that!
Sophie tried to keep her circulating among the guests. More people had come than either of them expected. Violet met all the other young gentlemen present, but Lord Elliott never left her alone for long.
“You’re breaking every rule, you know,” Sophie whispered as she dragged her away from Elliott yet again.
“I know, but no one will remember it by the time I get back,” Violet replied.
“He is handsome, I suppose,” Sophie said grudgingly.
“Incredibly.”
“I wouldn’t go that far—good grief, Vi, you weren’t supposed to fall in love at your very first party!”
“I haven’t—well, I don’t think I have.” But she soon amended, “So what if I have?”
“It simply isn’t done.” But at Violet’s smile, Sophie threw up her hands, conceding, “Well, at least it shall get you back here posthaste, agreed?”
“Absolutely.”
Her aunt, having noticed Elliott’s attention, confided to Violet, “I know his mother well. She has complained quite often that she despairs of her boy ever settling down. I will be happy to inform her that might not be the case after all.”
And her uncle also whispered an aside to her: “Good choice, m’dear. He’s going to be a viscount one day.”
Elliott stole a kiss, but it was a chaste one on the cheek as he was leaving. And it made him blush. Perhaps he’d finally realized that he’d broken more than one rule of etiquette that night. But he left not knowing that she was sailing in the morning. After meeting him, she so wished she weren’t. She’d nearly confided that she was leaving London for a while, but decided not to say anything that might deter his interest in her. She intended to quickly settle whatever needed fixing in America and be on another ship back to London within the week.
ELLIOTT PALMER DOMINATED HER thoughts on the voyage home. Her thrilling memories of him kept her from worrying so much about what she might find when she reached Philadelphia. And Jane Alford, her new maid, provided distraction as well.
Talkative once she relaxed, the portly, middle-aged woman had been hired by Elizabeth to accompany her. Violet wished the maid she knew so well could have come with her instead, but she’d shared Joan with Sophie all these years and couldn’t ask her cousin to relinquish her, even if only for a couple months—not that Joan would have agreed. Her aunt had complained that most of the women she’d interviewed for the position had refused to travel to America. Jane was the only one willing—and only when Elizabeth, desperate by then, had agreed to provide her with money for her own return passage in case she got homesick by the time they reached Philadelphia. Violet had to repeatedly assure the maid that America was a civilized land and Philadelphia was as fine a city as London. Despite Jane’s trepidation, Violet found it hard to contain her excitement about seeing her family again after all these years.