Chapter 1
Although Winton House in Devonshire was very much smaller than her father’s estate in Hertfordshire, Georgina Jeffries instantly warmed to it.
It was a fine old house of many quirks, crooked corridors, and narrow secret staircases here, there, and everywhere. And it was set in the most beautiful grounds, both neat and rambling all at once.
From Georgina’s chamber window she looked down on a small lake surrounded by beautiful trees and luscious green shrubbery. And all around the water’s edge were daffodils, as yet unopened, but with buds enough to promise a fine display when spring began to turn warmer.
“May I come in, Georgina?” came the tentative voice of her cousin Fleur from the other side of the door.
“Yes, of course,” Georgina said brightly and turned to smile at Fleur as she came cautiously into the room. “I have just been looking at the view. Really, I do not think I have seen anything so pretty in a long time.”
“That is why I told Papa you ought to have this chamber. It really does have the nicest view of the lake, and when the daffodils are out, there are so many that they seem to glow when you look down upon them.” Fleur smiled.
Although the two had met many years before, they were but girls, and Georgina could barely remember the experience at all. Fleur’s father, Felix Allencourt, had made the journey from Devonshire to Hertfordshire many years ago to see his cousin, Georgina’s father. He had taken his young daughter with him, leaving his son behind as comfort and company to his ailing wife.
Georgina had never met her second cousin Fleur’s mother, but she knew that she had died some ten years before.
“It really is so kind of you to have spent so much of your day showing me around the place. And I cannot tell you how comfortable I am already here at Winton House, for it really is such a lovely place. I can hardly wait to see the sea; I so rarely have a chance of it, being landlocked back home at Ashdown Manor.”
“If I concentrate very hard, I can almost remember Ashdown Manor,” Fleur said thoughtfully. “Well, I can remember how large it is, at any rate.” She laughed.
“Yes, it is very large. But I cannot think that I have ever seen a house so well situated as your own. Devonshire really is the most beautiful county, is it not?”
“I would never wish to leave it.” Fleur advanced a little further into the room somewhat shyly. “I thought you might like some help unpacking your gowns and what have you.”
“Oh, yes please, that would be most welcome,” Georgina said and looked down at her open and unpacked trunk. “I seem to have brought rather a lot with me.” She laughed.
“Well, that means that you may stay for a long time.” Fleur looked extremely pleased with the prospect. “And I would be very glad of your company. I have friends, of course, but it would be so nice to have a woman of my own age in the house for a while. Jeremy is a fine and attentive brother, but he is a brother.” She laughed. “And Great-Aunt Belle is a wonderful lady with many stories, but alas she forgets that I have heard the stories over and over again.”
“My grandmother was the same,” Georgina said brightly as she thought that she and her cousin might get on very well indeed. “And I am keen to meet Great-Aunt Belle to see if she is anything like my grandmother, given that they were sisters.”
“I must admit that I am not sure that they were the greatest of friends when they were young girls together,” Fleur said cautiously. “And I also must warn you that Great-Aunt Belle often speaks her mind with little thought to the impact it might have on another. She is very old and often very sweet, so I must beg your forgiveness on her behalf in advance.”
“Good heavens, she sounds like my grandmother already. She was also a woman who did not spare anybody’s feelings when she had something to say.” Georgina laughed and reached into the trunk for the first of her gowns. “I am already looking forward to meeting her, and you need not worry about anything. Your family has been so kind already, and I cannot tell you how pleased I am to be here.”
And it was true, Georgina really was pleased to be in Devonshire and the home of her cousins. As the only child of Baron Charles Jeffries and his wife, Jane, Georgina had often felt lonely.
Like Fleur, she had friends of her own, although they were few, but they now seemed so keen to marry that she did not see them anywhere near as much as she might have liked.
She had always wanted a sister, often feeling a little envious of friends who were so blessed. But now that she was at Winton House with Fleur, she had high hopes of finding just that close relationship at last.
“I think the two of us will get along very well indeed,” Fleur said as she gently hung one of Georgina’s gowns. “I say, this gown is awfully pretty.”
“Thank you, it is one of my favourites.” Georgina smiled as she looked at the gown, a well-fitting garment in a very deep blue velvet; a colour which suited her pale complexion perfectly.
“When you are feeling a little better, Georgina, I think we must find a wonderful ball to attend so that you might wear that gown,” Fleur said excitedly. “Or, at the very least, a dance at the assembly rooms.”
“In truth, I am already feeling much better than I have done for some weeks. I think the promise of a change of scenery and a chance to meet family I have not seen since I was a child has done much to improve my health.”
“But we must be careful; we must not set you back in any way,” Fleur said seriously. “As the spring down here can be quite deceptive. Especially being so close to the sea, you must take care to keep well wrapped because there is often a keen breeze.”
“I shall take care, I promise.”
Georgina, ordinarily hale and hearty, had suffered from a lung infection which had seen her bedridden from Christmas until late February.
It had come as a great surprise to all, given that nobody could remember Georgina being ill since childhood.
When she had finally declared that she was well enough to be up and about again, her mother and father had been greatly relieved. But it had been necessary to keep to Ashdown Manor and out of the cold, so much so that Georgina had become a little melancholy.
The stronger she got, the more listless Georgina became. She had not seen friends and acquaintances for several weeks and had the dreadful sensation that the world had moved on without her whilst she had remained standing still.
When her father had suggested writing off to his cousin in Devonshire to ask that she might convalesce in new surroundings, Georgina had felt an immediate sense of excitement. She had never been to Devonshire but had remembered her grandmother telling her what a beautiful place it was. Not only that, but there were cousins of her own age and the prospect of meeting other new people.
Her mother, of course, had been reluctant. The illness had terrified her, especially when it was at its height, and she had feared, secretly, that she might lose her only child.
Georgina, being a bright and perceptive young woman, had recognized her mother’s reluctance to let her go immediately and had done much to allay her fears with promises that she would barely move from Winton House until it was fully summer. She would only go outside for a few minutes here and there to get some fresh air and nothing more.
With her mother suitably placated, Georgina silently hoped for much more excitement than she had promised her mother she would be a party to. She wanted to walk by the sea and take every opportunity to enjoy herself and to meet new people. Still, Jane Jeffries did not need to hear all about her hopes and dreams for her time in Devonshire.
“Although I must admit it would be wonderful if you were able to attend a garden party at Calder Hall in a fortnight’s time.”
“Calder Hall?” Georgina said with interest.
“Yes, it is the home of the Duke of Calder, Emerson Lockhart.”
“Emerson Lockhart? What a fine name,” Georgina said, already determined that she would most certainly be well enough to go to a garden party on a Duke’s estate, even if she did have to wrap up warm for it.
“Yes, it is a fine name.” Fleur smiled.
“And is he a fine man?”
“I do not know as yet, cousin. He is the new Duke, you see, and still very young. He is not much older than we are, Georgina, at perhaps just one and twenty years.”
“Goodness, that is very young to be a Duke,” Georgina said and tried to imagine herself with such a responsibility just two years hence. “His father must have passed away so prematurely. It seems awfully sad.”
“Very sad,” Fleur said solemnly. “But he was not quite as young as you might suspect. The old Duke was easily in his middle fifties, although that is still no great age I daresay.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Especially when you look at Great-Aunt Belle.” Fleur smiled mischievously. “Whose age I cannot even begin to imagine.”
Georgina laughed along with Fleur, pleased to find herself so at ease with her cousin and so quickly.
“But have you not met Emerson Lockhart before? I mean before his father passed away?”
“No, not once,” Fleur said in a gossipy tone. “Although I must admit that my father was not terribly well acquainted with the old Duke and his wife when they were alive. And Emerson Lockhart did not seem to grow up at Calder Hall, as I understand it. There is some talk of him having been unwell as an infant and child, and he did not really appear until he was much older.” Fleur screwed up her face as if she was not entirely sure that what she was saying was correct. “And then I suppose he would have been away at school and what have you.”
“So, he would appear to be quite mysterious.”
“Yes, I wonder if that is why he is giving this garden party. He has invited a great many people from the county, I believe.”
“And when did he become the Duke?”
“But six months ago.”
“I must admit myself already curious to see him.”
“I think much of the county is curious to see him if I am honest. This is to be his first event, for I believe he has kept himself very quiet at Calder Hall these last months, although he is often seen about on matters of Duchy business, or so my father tells me at any rate.”
“Your father has met him then?”
“Once or twice, I believe. They shared the same attorney, and I think that they found themselves in one another’s company on account of it.”
“But they do not share the same attorney now?”
“Unfortunately, my father’s attorney passed away some weeks ago. It was a great shame because he seemed like a very nice man indeed. And he kept working right up until the last, even though I am sure that he cannot have been much younger than Great-Aunt Belle.”
“Oh dear, that is a shame.”
“But listen to me, I am bombarding you with so much information and local gossip that you must already be tired of me,” Fleur said apologetically.
Fleur really was sweet, and she looked so much like Georgina that the two of them really could have passed for sisters. They were both fair, although Georgina’s hair was a paler blonde than her cousin’s. And they both had bright blue eyes, just as each of their fathers did.
“Not at all; I do love to hear gossip,” Georgina said, and Fleur laughed loudly. “I know I should not admit to such a thing, but it is true. And these last months I have been so starved for information of the outside world that I am very hungry for any news I get, even news concerning people I have never met and do not know.”
“Sometimes that is the best news to get,” Fleur carried on, clearly emboldened by her cousin’s open admission. “Because you can hear the gossip first and then get to know the people concerned afterward. I think it makes it much more interesting and exciting.”
“So do I,” Georgina agreed. “Oh, Fleur, I am beginning to feel glad that I fell ill at Christmas.”
“Glad? But why?”
“Because it has brought me here, has it not? I do so love Ashdown Manor, but my few friends are all so keen to marry that they seem to have drifted away from me, even before I became unwell. But to be here now and find that you and I are so alike is such a wonderful thing to me.”
“You really think we are alike?”
“Well, we look alike,” Georgina began. “And we both like a bit of harmless, interesting gossip.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“And we have both missed out on having a sister, so that is just one more thing in common.”
“And I am so glad that you are here too, Georgina. Although I must say that I am sorry that you had to suffer so much beforehand to get here. Your mother and father must have been terribly worried.”
“They were, especially my mother. But then I suppose mothers always are.”
“Yes,” Fleur said quietly.
“Oh, forgive me, Fleur. That was insensitive of me.”
“No, it was not insensitive at all. My mother died so many years ago now that I am over that searing pain. I miss her, of course, but I am able to remember her fondly. I can be grateful now for the time that I did have with her, for she truly was a wonderful, warm mother.”
“I am only sorry that I never had the chance to meet her,” Georgina said truthfully. “But at least I shall get to meet Jeremy when he returns home next week.” She decided to change the subject just a little.
“My brother will like you very well indeed, and I am sure that you will like him once you get used to his silliness,” Fleur said and smiled with an almost motherly indulgence.
“And is Jeremy really so silly?” Georgina said, hoping that he was for she really did like a person with a sense of fun.
“He is, but he is always laughing and is such a nice brother to have around. I only hope that he behaves himself properly at the garden party.”
“Perhaps, between us, we can keep him entertained,” Georgina said, making it clear that she was determined to be well enough to attend.
“I think we have much to look forward to, cousin.”
“We most certainly do, Fleur.”