Chapter 1
“Mama, forgive me, but do you intend to marry Ronald Belville?” Ella Winfield sounded as dejected as she felt.
“We shall just have to wait and see, my dear.” Ariadne Winfield was trying to dissuade Ella from her questioning, and Ella knew as much.
“Mama, it is a simple enough question. After all, he has made no secret of his interest in you, and I can see no sign that you have attempted to escape his interest, even though Papa passed away less than a year ago.” Every time Ella alluded to the death of her beloved father, the familiar grief swept over her, weakening her each time.
“Are you concerned that I would not see out my full period of mourning?” Ariadne looked affronted.
Ariadne Winfield often looked affronted, especially when her motives were being called into question. And when she was not affronted, the wife of the late Baron Winfield was generally dissatisfied with life and everything in it.
Ella had always known that her parents’ marriage had certainly not been a match made in heaven, but she had also known that her father would have given anything for it to be so. Her mother, on the other hand, always had the air of a woman who regretted marrying in haste and wished she had waited for a better prospect to come her way.
But Ariadne had come from much humbler beginnings. The daughter of Sir Robert Addington, she had been forced to work as a governess when her father had died, and the extent of his debts became apparent.
No longer a gentlewoman, Ariadne had not enjoyed her reduced status. When Lord Winfield, a baron and close friend of the family for whom she was working showed an interest in her, Ariadne had jumped at the chance to rescue herself from a life of obscurity, in a world where she was neither fish nor fowl.
The young Ariadne Addington had not languished in the lonely life of the governess for more than six months before she agreed to marry Winston Winfield. But it was clear that she had never loved him; he was simply a means to an end. He was the man who would make her a woman of note again, not a gentlewoman fallen on hard times, but Lady Winfield, a baroness .
Ella had never known if her father had realized it at the time when he had first asked the young governess to marry him, or if he was blinded by his love for her, so much so that he would have taken her on any terms.
But Ariadne’s dissatisfaction had grown and grown over the years until it had become a tangible thing with what seemed like a life of its own. And it was clear to Ella that her beloved father had noticed it then, even if he had not seen it all those years ago.
“Well, is that what is upsetting you so?” her mother spoke again when Ella had been silent for some moments.
“I beg your pardon?” Ella was a little startled by her mother’s sharp tone.
“You are concerned that I am not going to wait out my one-year period of mourning?”
“That is not all I am concerned about, Mama,” Ella said, wondering at her mother’s shallow attention to nothing more than what was considered proper. “And just the idea that you are waiting out your twelve months and nothing more is something that I find extremely upsetting. After all, Papa was very much more than a man whose passing should be hurriedly counted away on one’s fingers.”
“As usual you are being obtuse, my dear,” Ariadne said sharply. “You are not at all practical, Ella, and I feel certain that it will one day be your downfall.”
“I am practical enough, Mama, when there is a need of it. But I do not need to be practical about the loss of my father. He is more than a few months of mourning to me, even now when he is no longer with us. It pains me that you are not struck in the same way.”
“You do not know what does or does not strike me, Ella.” Ariadne glared at her, her dark brown eyes glassy and her features seeming to become more pointed than ever.
It was a tone and countenance which Ella recognized with ease. Ariadne had a vaguely aggressive manner when she could not add anything of worth to an argument and instead sought to put the whole thing to an end.
But Ella had seen and heard it all before and was not fooled by any of it. And she knew exactly what did and did not strike her mother, even if Ariadne herself seemed so sure that she did not.
“Mama, the Earl of Dandridge does not have a reputation as a good man.” Ella was not about to let it go. “He is not spoken of warmly in society.”
“Men of power and wealth seldom are my dear. It is just the way of the world, and you will one day come to recognize the petty jealousies of others,” Ariadne said in a condescending way as she treated her daughter to a smile which suggested she was simply tolerating her daughter’s ignorance of the way of things.
“So, you think that people only talk ill of him because they are jealous? That they say that he is a man of no loyalty and short temper simply because he is more wealthy and powerful than they are? All of them, Mama?” Ella spoke incredulously, keen to let her mother know that she was not as naive in such matters as she had been accused. “Or do you perhaps hear and see what it is you wish to hear and see, Mama?”
“I have seen nothing in Ronald Bellville’s character which would make me suspect that he is anything other than a good man,” Ariadne said defiantly.
“I think you are just determined to see him so, Mama.”
“And why is that? Why would I be so determined to see him as a good man if he is not?”
“Because I believe that you wish to marry him, Mama.”
“And why would I wish to marry a man if I did not truly think him good?”
“I do not know,” Ella said although the truth of the matter was that she did know.
But, at that moment, Ella could not imagine how it was she would say to her mother outright that she believed her a title hunter, an ambitious woman with little or no regard for the memory of her very fine husband and the welfare and happiness of her own daughter. For that was exactly how Ella saw it, and she knew, deep down, that it was the truth.
Ella was not a naive young woman, far from it. She had a keen intellect and was an extraordinarily good judge of character. These were things that she thanked her father for, blessings which he had passed down to her, she was sure.
And, having only met Ronald Belville on the two occasions he had attended her mother at home, Ella had judged that every misgiving the people of their acquaintance had about the Earl was true. It was not anything he had said, nor anything he had done, but there was something about the man which spoke of an ill temper and ruthlessness that Ella did not want to become any better acquainted with.
“Then you will agree that you are simply being silly, my dear.” Ariadne smiled triumphantly.
Ella was so antagonized that she almost told her everything that had crossed her mind there and then, without sparing her feelings at all.
Instead, she took a deep breath and held it, just as her father had always taught her, and rose from her seat to cross the drawing room and look out of the window.
As Ella stared out across the beautiful gardens, so natural and free, allowing a little disorder here and there, she was struck by the awful feeling that Longton Manor might not be her home for very much longer.
There were trees everywhere and such wonderful arrangements of beds, many of which contained wildflowers. Lord Winfield had always been keen on the garden and had developed a long and respectful relationship with the old gardener, Jameson. Between them, they had created a garden that was just out of the common way. It did not quite conform to the neatness and rigidity that was the current fashion; a fashion which always seemed to Ella to make the outside world look like the inside world. People were so keen to show off fine gardens that they had almost become akin to well-decorated drawing rooms.
But the grounds at Longton Manor were a wonderful break with the new tradition. They spoke to Ella of nature and true beauty, instead of the peacock form of beauty which always seemed to thrive by denying nature instead of embracing it.
To society now, nature was something to be tamed, to be controlled. It had to be cut away and held in check, with every blade of grass standing to attention at exactly the same height as its neighbour. Where was the real beauty in that?
“Mama,” Ella began again in a cautious tone. “We have everything we need here. We have been fortunate that the Manor and all of Papa’s money has been left to us. We have a fine home and our circumstances, in terms of wealth and security, have not changed because Papa has passed.”
“I know,” Ariadne said a little impatiently.
No doubt she thought she had won the argument for that day.
“We do not need to search for security elsewhere.”
“And you think I am searching for security with the Earl of Dandridge?” She arched her eyebrows so high that she looked like a different woman altogether.
“Perhaps.” Ella could feel her confidence waning as she looked at her mother’s fierce expression.
“I do not need security, Ella. But I do want something more than this.” She spread her arms wide and looked disdainfully around her.
“More than this?” Ella was hurt and offended, and it was clear in her voice.
“Oh, you are too much your father’s daughter. You are so painfully content with everything around you that you frustrate me almost as much as he did.” Ariadne was forgetting herself.
“This is a fine home, Mama, and Papa was a fine man.” Ella felt anger surge through her. “How can you look around you with such dissatisfaction?”
“Because I want more than this. I am tired of making do.”
“How on earth can this life we have here be described as making do ? Papa provided well for us both. We have never been without any of the things we wanted or needed. I have never had to make do, as you put it Mama, and neither have you.”
“Do not raise your voice, Ella.”
“Forgive me, Mama, but I am so frustrated. I feel as if you are insulting Papa and everything he did for you.”
“Oh, because I was a governess , you think I ought to be grateful?”
“Not grateful, Mama, but gracious, yes. You talk as if Papa has done you some great disservice all these years. And you talk as if we are in the gutter when the Winfields are a fine old family of wealth and standing.”
“You have no ambition for yourself at all.” Ariadne rose from the neat brocade covered couch and made her way to the fireplace. She pulled the bell rope for tea and turned back to look at her daughter. “I dread to think what sort of a match you might make one day.”
“When I marry, Mama, it will be for love.”
“Then you are as much a fool as your father raised you to be. Really, the times I begged him to urge you into one direction or another regarding a suitable husband, but no, he would not have his precious daughter forced in any way, even for her own good,” she huffed loudly. “And now, here you are, a woman of twenty years with no suitors on the horizon and a romantic notion that the best marriages are made for love alone, without any thought to status, wealth, or the future.”
“Is status so important to you, Mama? After all, you are already a baroness.”
“A Baroness? What is that when I might be a …” At the last moment, Ariadne remembered herself.
“A countess?” Ella supplied a little sarcastically. “After all, if you married the Earl of Dandridge, that is what you would be. You would no longer be Baroness Winfield, but the Countess of Dandridge.” Ella’s voice was almost a whisper.
Would her mother finally admit the truth to her? Or would she continue to try to hide it?
“There is nothing wrong with wanting better, Ella.” Ariadne’s tone was much calmer than Ella had been expecting; it was almost peaceful.
“There is no man on this earth better than my father was.” Ella felt treacherous; she hated her mother at that moment.
“You have a good deal of growing up to do, my dear.”
“No, I do not.” Ella rose from her seat to leave the room.
“Where are you going? I have sent for tea.” Her mother had such a total lack of awareness that she looked most aggrieved that her daughter would think to leave when tea was coming.
“I do not want to sit with you,” Ella said truthfully. “You have already decided to marry Ronald Belville, and the rest is simply a shallow adherence to propriety. You are waiting out your one year, and that is all. And you are waiting it out most impatiently as if the whole thing is not so much grieving as it is an inconvenience.”
“If I marry the Earl, then that is my choice and not yours. But you should think carefully, my dear. After all, you would be coming with me to live in Dandridge Hall.” Incredibly, Ariadne began to sound excited. “Just think of that! What a fine life you would have in so great a mansion.”
“I could not bear to leave Longton Manor. I care nothing for fine mansions and every luxury. I want my life here in the home of my father.”
“If I marry, it will no longer be the home of your father.”
Ella felt suddenly hot and nauseous. She had not even thought about the fate of Longton Manor if her mother married again. But, of course, everything that was now theirs would instantly become the property of the Earl the moment he married her mother.
They would be at that man’s mercy for their safety and security; they would literally be giving up everything. And why? So that her selfish, ambitious mother could be known by all as the Countess of Dandridge and have even more servants at her disposal than she already did.
And Ella would be forced to live in a strange house with a man she did not like and a family she did not yet know.
“Mama, please, you must think about this. We would have nothing of our own anymore. We would be at that man’s mercy.”
“You silly girl! We would have everything our hearts desire!”
“No, we would have everything your heart desires, Mama, not mine. You do not know what is in my heart.”
“And at this moment, I do not care to,” Ariadne said sharply. “For you are not being very sensible and you do not deserve my consideration if you are going to behave like this.”
“I do not remember having your consideration before, Mama, so I shall not notice its loss.”
“Perhaps you should leave now. I do not think I care to take tea with you after all.” Ariadne turned to look across the drawing room, casually dismissing her daughter as if she were staff.
Without another word, Ella quietly made her way out of the drawing room.