Chapter Eleven
The cards and flowers began arriving before Adelaide even awoke the next morning. By the time she joined Alice and their mother for breakfast, a half dozen bouquets awaited them. They were all nearly identical, roses in the latest style from China—fluffy pink blooms with pale golden centers.
“Isn’t it funny,” Alice remarked as she buttered a scone, “how very sheep-like men are? Did no one think to bring lilies? Or violets?”
“Hush. They’re lovely,” Adelaide murmured. She buried her nose in the fragrant blossoms before checking the card. “These are from Duke Montrose. How thoughtful of him.”
Her mother looked up from her tea. “He seemed quite taken with you, dear. You would do well to encourage him.”
Adelaide blinked at the peonies. Encourage…a duke? Surely he could do better than the fallen daughter of a viscount. Or even the unfallen daughter of a viscount.
Alice seemed to be harboring a less generous sentiment. She wrinkled her nose. “But he’s so old.”
“Nonsense,” her mother said briskly. “He’s scarcely a day over fifty. He looks to be in good health, and he has all his hair. What else does one need in a husband, if he is a duke?”
“I daresay a young, handsome colonel would do just as well,” Alice said thoughtfully. “Who else sent flowers?”
Adelaide sifted through the cards. “Mr. Bannet. I don’t recall him at all. Lord Elkstead. I believe he was nice. Wessex—”
“Another duke!” Lady Westsea beamed.
“Not a duke I would recommend,” Alice interjected.
“Colonel Kent, too.” Adelaide glanced at her sister, who grinned. Then she turned to the last bouquet. Her heart stuttered as she saw the familiar handwriting. “And Mr. Eastwood,” she said flatly.
Roses. He had sent her roses. Pink ones, like every other man.
Well, of course he had. That was part of their courtship. They were nice roses, every bit as fragrant and gorgeous as the blooms brought by other gentlemen.
But once upon a summer, he had not brought her roses. He had not wanted to attract attention or give any indication that he sought her out. All part of service to the Crown, he had told her. He could not bring her flowers. Not officially.
Yet every morning she had awoken to find a new cluster of blossoms in the vase on the windowsill of her bedroom. Not tame and cultivated roses, but wildflowers that grew along the Cornish shore, thriving in the salty wind. Yellow gorse and purple heather, white oxeye daisies, and blue sheep’s-bit. The bouquets were not artfully arranged by a skilled hand, and she had treasured them all the more for that knowledge.
Now their courtship was no longer hidden, so he brought her roses. She should not care that they were like all the other bouquets gentlemen brought ladies. Certainly, she should prefer receiving roses in the breakfast room to the wildflowers on her windowsill.
But wicked girl that she was, she preferred the wildflowers.
Aware of her mother’s gaze upon her back, Adelaide turned from the flowers and poured herself a cup of tea.
“You were dancing with Mr. Eastwood when you fainted,” Lady Westsea remarked thoughtfully. “Do you know, I think fainting was rather brilliant. You were so pleasingly frail.”
“Pleasingly frail?” Alice set down her scone in disgust. “Mother, she was starving.”
Their mother lifted her shoulders, unperturbed. “Men enjoy their role as protectors. They like to feel strong. For them to feel strong, sometimes we women must appear weak. Men find weakness charming.”
“Ick,” Alice said.
Adelaide stared at her eggs. Did Nick think she was weak? She did not like that. She wanted to be strong. But since she was not strong—not when it came to Nicholas Eastwood—she would at least like to appear to have an inner steel. He must never know how weak she truly was. He must never discover her lie.
Lies.
“Where is Father?” Alice asked. “I have scarcely seen him since you arrived.”
“Oh.” Lady Westsea glanced quickly at Adelaide before returning her attention to her tea. “At the parliamentary offices. We are so rarely in London, you know, and there is so much work to be done.”
Or perhaps he was avoiding his daughter. Adelaide thought that was the more likely reason. It was not that he ignored her, exactly. Oh, no, he was always scrupulously polite. Last night, when she had bid him good evening before she retired to her rooms, he had looked over her head and nodded. He knew she existed. He even acknowledged the fact.
He simply could not bear it.
“Your father will be quite pleased to learn of your success last night,” her mother said, as though reading her mind. “He is determined you must marry this season, and I agree. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that someone will recognize you and say something they shouldn’t. Sir Ross and his wife—you remember them, don’t you, dear?”
Adelaide nodded. Sir Ross lived the next town over in Northumberland. Her stomach tightened.
“They are in town for the season. They were not great friends of ours, to be sure, but they knew of us, and we of them. I find it highly doubtful that news of your demise did not reach them. Perhaps we can convince them they were misinformed, and it was a cousin who passed, or something of that nature.”
“We don’t have a cousin,” Alice said, ever practical.
“My point,” their mother continued, sparing a glare for her, “is that Adelaide must marry before her trouble catches up to us.”
Her trouble.
That was what bastards were, weren’t they? Unwanted, bothersome creatures that threatened the sanctity of society. The Foundling Hospital in London was where most such babes would be brought, unless they stayed with their fallen mothers. When they reached the age of five or six, those children would be put to work. Boys went to factories or became chimney sweeps; girls were scullery maids. London was full of such unfortunates, their eyes too big for their faces, always full of hunger.
But perhaps not every woman could leave her baby to such a terrible fate. Perhaps, instead, she would look to the villages far away from the gray air that draped over London like a widow’s veil. Perhaps that woman would find herself in a village far from home and learn to trust the generosity of a stranger. And perhaps, if such a stranger had very kind eyes, a woman with few other options might leave her son in that stranger’s care.
Surely, surely, such a baby would be cared for. He would be given thick, warm blankets to protect him from the chill and rain. His face and hands would be scrubbed clean instead of caked in soot and ash. His breakfast would be porridge and there would always be enough to eat at supper. And if he sometimes cried out in the dark night for the mama who had left him behind, one day he would understand how truly fortunate he was to have escaped a life that could only be misery.
He would be glad to have escaped his mother’s wicked trouble.
So Adelaide told herself each night as she tried to fall asleep.
So she told herself now, eating her scone as though her heart and soul were not weighted down with guilt.
Oh, yes, she had been very wicked, indeed.