“Then I’m glad.” He nodded and moved away.
He was being polite; she’d failed to capture his interest. She fingered her fan and sighed, wishing she were more practiced at flirting. She would have to learn the art very smartly indeed.
After supper, the men remained at the table with their port while the ladies drank coffee in the drawing room. The conversation soon settled on household matters: where to find the best staff and how to deal with a difficult governess. As there were no other young women present tonight, Bella quickly grew bored. She wished she could join the men who were guffawing at some joke in the dining room, where cigar smoke wafted out.
She tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. How could she manage to get Lord Eaglestone alone?
Her mother eyed her. “You are fidgeting, Bella.”
“It’s hot and stuffy in here, Mama.”
“I don’t find it so. I hope you’re not sickening for something.”
Bella was most definitely. “It’s the cigar smoke. I’ll feel better if I get some fresh air.”
“I’ll come with you.”
As her mother began to rise, Mrs. Burdon asked her if she had a good recipe for cockle sauce, as her efforts were always disappointing. “The addition of tarragon vinegar makes all the difference,” her mother said, sinking back into her chair.
Blissfully alone, Bella slipped through the French doors onto the deserted terrace. She leaned against the cool stone balustrade and took grateful breaths of humid, fragrant air. Louring clouds in the early evening sky heralded rain. Applying her fan, she discovered the source of the scent to be fat pink roses climbing a trellis.
The cosseted Belgrade garden faded into the twilight. A widowed peer, Lord Maudling was positioned at the top of her father’s list of future husbands for her. Alarmingly, it had now become a list of one, as other possible candidates faded away or had fallen into disfavor with the vagaries of life, the ’Change, death, taxes, and the like. Maudling was wealthy, his country estate known to be one of the finest in Surrey. There was the added attraction of their more modest property adjoining his on the eastern boundary. And due to her mother’s illness, of which she had now blessedly recovered, Bella had missed several seasons and had scant opportunity to meet possible suitors.
Her father was determined to marry her into the aristocracy. He’d rejected the few men who’d showed an interest in her. Twenty years her elder, at forty-two, Maudling greyed at the temples and was known for a cold fish. A nasty story had it that his wife died to escape the boredom.
Bella shook her head. Was it fair to hold a man such as Lord Maudling in high esteem just because he purported to be a stalwart supporter of the church and a sober stickler for convention, when he merely lacked the vigor to be otherwise? And there was Lord Eaglestone, a bon vi’vant with a great passion for life, who had purportedly left dozens of women in a swoon. One should applaud the energy of such a man.
Bella reached over the balustrade to pick a vibrant rose but couldn’t quite reach it.
A waft of citrus cologne drifted in the air as a hand, attached to a crisp, white cuff and dark, superfine sleeve, plucked the rose.
Lord Eaglestone handed the bloom to her with a small bow. “I have a moment to learn more about your charity, Miss Lacey. If you will be so good,” he said in his husky voice, a voice that had graced many bedrooms, Bella thought with another delightful shiver.
“Thank you, my lord. I am most eager to do so.” She held the rose to her nose, resting her back against the stone balustrade and launched into the description she’d used with bank managers and possible creditors—producing more amusement than interest in her orphaned children and the orphanage’s desperate need of capital. Hartnoll House wasn’t exactly an orphanage, more a small group of homeless children she’d rescued off the streets and sheltered in a house her grandfather had bequeathed her. He’d planned to help her but had passed away before much could be accomplished. He’d left her enough money to employ a housekeeper and a maid and keep the children well fed. There was so much more to be done. If unable to find each of them a loving home, she did want to teach them skills to keep them out of the workhouse.
Eaglestone listened without interruption. His expression, for all his ready charm, seemed guarded, with no softness in that chin, which might have been chiseled for a marble statue. His eyes held a glimmer of alert intelligence as she described the inadequate bedding, the rats in the cellar that resisted all efforts to remove them, and the money needed to repair the leaking roof. She paused and waited for a response, a positive one she hoped.