Sherry Thomas: Ravishing the Heiress

A fortnight after the dinner, lawyers from both sides sat down once more at the negotiating table. But while the new earl had capitulated to the demands of his estate, the price he asked for his surrender was as steep as the Matterhorn.

Such was the influence of youth and beauty that Mr. Graves barely grumbled over having to pay nearly twice as much for this earl. The negotiations concluded quickly and Millie once again found herself engaged to marry.

Throughout it all, she never once heard from Lord Fitzhugh himself. There were no notes, no flowers, and no engagement ring. Citing his studies, he declined a second dinner with the Graves. For the Fourth of June, the biggest holiday at Eton, a time when friends and family flocked to the school, the Graves received not a single invitation to participate in the festivities.

And why should he act differently? Were Millie Lord Fitzhugh, she, too, would furiously enjoy the final days of her freedom and waste not a precious second on those to whom she’d soon be shackled for the rest of her life.

But understanding why he was so distant only made things worse. When she wasn’t buffeted by misery, she was overcome with shame. To him, she would always symbolize everything that was un appealing about coming of age: the crushing pressures of duty, the paucity of choices, and the appalling necessity to forgo dreams to pay creditors.

No aloofness on Lord Fitzhugh’s part, however, could dissuade Mrs. Graves from dragging Millie to Lord’s Cricket Ground on the day of the Eton and Harrow game.

Cricket was popular, a pastime enjoyed by young and old, gentlemen and laborers. More easygoing parsons sometimes joined their parishioners for a Sunday afternoon match. And certainly it was the dominant game in the lives of schoolboys.

The Eton and Harrow game at Lord’s, however, was not a sporting event. Or rather, the sporting event was but an excuse for all of Society to gather for a merry daylong picnic under a fair summer sun. And since no invitations were needed at Lord’s, it was also one of the few opportunities for the merely rich to rub elbows with the blue-blooded.

For that reason, Mrs. Graves always began planning for what she and her daughter would wear to the grand event months in advance. But two years in a row, they’d had to abstain, first because of the passing of Millie’s maternal grandfather, then due to severe abdominal troubles that had left Mr. Graves in need of his wife’s and daughter’s tender attention.

This year, with no one expiring and no one remotely under the weather, Millie could only watch helplessly as Mrs. Graves, in a burst of energy, orchestrated the outing.

On the first day of the match, their beautiful landau, its boot laden with picnic baskets, was dispatched to St. John’s Wood before the crack of dawn, to secure a place for the ladies at the side of the cricket ground. The ladies themselves, however, did not leave the house until eleven o’clock, arrayed in the latest gowns from Worth’s Paris atelier.

Cricket was not the point. The point was to see and be seen—and that was best done during the luncheon hour.

They arrived just as the players were walking off the field. With an alacrity that belied her complaints of arthritic joints, Mrs. Graves leaped down from the second-best carriage that had conveyed them to the outskirts of the cricket ground, which was now ringed by carriages three, sometimes, five deep. Pulling Millie along, she joined the great stampede of spectators making for the playing field that the two teams had just vacated.

The sky was a flawless blue, the clipped lawn a lively green. Thousands of ladies in their spring best milled about, splashes of pastels everywhere one looked, set off all the better against the somber black of the gentlemen’s day coats, like gems upon the dark velvet of a jewelry box.

It was a marvelous sight, if one were of the mind to enjoy the day. Millie was not. She’d never been one to relish public attention, especially not the kind of sidelong glances she gathered in her extravagant clothes that were beyond the means of many wellborn ladies. Worse, Mrs. Graves had turned into Parvenu Mother.

Mrs. Graves was not normally Parvenu Mother: She was proud of the haute bourgeoisie respectability from which she came. Social climbing was never foremost on her mind. She did it out of duty to her husband’s kin, especially his dead father and brother, both of whom had longed fiercely to ally the family with noble blood.

But this particular occasion seemed to turn her head. She informed everyone who would stand still that her daughter, paired with the winsome Lord Fitzhugh, was going to take Society by storm. Oh, my Millie has the most charming figure on the dance floor. Oh, my Millie has the most captivating way with conversation. Oh, the worst snobs among them will admire my Millie and she will be invited everywhere.

Millie’s protestation of her mediocre appeal only made Mrs. Graves scale ever greater heights of hyperbole.

Finally Mrs. Graves ran into an old friend who knew all about Millie’s imminent ascension as the Countess Fitzhugh and who was already convinced that Millie would set a new standard of popularity as a Society hostess. As a result, their conversation revolved around Millie’s trousseau, her wedding breakfast, and her honeymoon.

As Mrs. Graves waxed poetic about a honeymoon in Rome, which she herself would have enjoyed, were it not for Mr. Graves’s virulent objection to eating nothing but macaroni for two continuous weeks, the crowd shifted, revealing Lord Fitzhugh.

He stood amidst a flock of uniformed Eton students and their butterfly-bright sisters. There were at least five girls, but he had eyes only for one, a beautiful young lady with jet-black hair and lips of the loveliest pink Millie had ever seen, the color of Mrs. Graves’s prize peonies.

Millie was envious, but not overly alarmed at first: It was only too normal for a young man’s attention to be drawn to a beautiful young woman. Then she saw that the earl’s gaze was not one of mere interest, but of desperate yearning, as if he were a prisoner in his cell, staring at the tiny square of sky allotted him.

It shattered Millie. For all her hair-rending over his reluctance to marry her, she’d yet to consider that he might be in love with someone else. But he was, wasn’t he, desperately in love? And desperately unhappy for the loss of his beloved.

She was frantic to hide herself. He must not see her. He must not think that she’d come to be near him. And he must never, never know that she felt anything for him besides a polite obligation.

God heard her prayers: The warning gong sounded. Millie tapped Mrs. Graves on the sleeve. “The game is to resume soon, Mother. Shall we return to our carriage?”

Mrs. Graves scoffed at her suggestion. “No one gets off the field until at least the second gong.”

A look around showed that, unfortunately, Mrs. Graves was right. The happy crowd remained firmly affixed. Laughter boomed like artillery shots all around her, each one leaving a new dent on her heart.

She glanced toward the earl, hoping he hadn’t seen her. But just then he looked in her direction. Their eyes met. And the expression on his face—a recoil of the soul—told her everything she already knew and could no longer deny.

She wrenched her gaze away, crushed beyond all endurance.

T he second warning gong rang, louder and more strident. And with it came the police, ready to enforce the resumption of the game, if need be. But of course the elegant crowd who attended the Eton and Harrow game would never be mixed up with the police. Ladies and gentlemen melted from the playing ground, back to the stands, the benches, and the carriages.