When the prancing and sidestepping eased, James slowed Seastar to a walk, letting his thoughts return to the problem of the London house. It had been built during the Regency, and it needed work as much as Rosefield Hall did. The window casings were beginning to splinter, and the brickwork on the upper floors was stained by coal dust. Here and there bricks had fallen from the walls, and rust grew on the ironwork balustrades.
Perhaps, he thought, he could find the courage to tell his mother they must sell it after all. He could stay at his club when he went up to town, and she—well, they would have to find a hotel or persuade a friend to accommodate her. They could save hundreds every year in upkeep and staff salaries.
He shuddered to think of Lady Eleanor’s ire if he were to announce such a move, but her anger wouldn’t last forever. He would just have to endure it. It was far worse to think of enduring a marriage made for money, and a marriage with a girl whose appearance was only “acceptable,” to boot. Surely, in this new age, marriages should be chosen, not arranged.
He urged Seastar into a canter, for his own sake this time, hoping to push all of it out of his mind before it drove him completely mad.
14
Harriet
Harriet took a second-class stateroom on the Majestic. In second class no one would remark on the fact that she traveled without a lady’s maid, and there was no chance whatsoever that Frances would venture below the first-class deck, so there would be no accidental encounter. She spent the voyage reading and resting as the ship carried her to Liverpool, gathering her strength for the conflict to come.
When they docked, it was easy to follow Frances and her frantic entourage. Harriet wore unremarkable clothes and a hat with a thick veil. She had laughed when Grace suggested she pack a tea gown. She dressed simply, a woman of no particular class, a tall, solitary American spinster come for a visit to England.
Secure in her disguise, she hired a cab to follow the Allington one, and she waited in an alcove of the Swan while Frances and Annis and the maids resolved their many issues with the staff. Once they finally disappeared upstairs, Harriet secured a room for herself, careful to ask for one much more modest than anything Frances might have considered. Her only request was a view of Regent’s Park. She settled into a small single room on the fourth floor, where she could watch the comings and goings from her window.
She began her stay by lavishly tipping a bellboy and a housemaid, and this turned out to be a wise use of her money. Both were delighted to gossip about the hotel’s residents, and in particular the demanding Americans on the second floor. Harriet knew when they were going out, knew when they were dining in, and knew when they were to travel down to Dorset for a long weekend at a marquess’s country home.
“Such a fuss now, miss, you wouldn’t believe it!” exclaimed the housemaid one day as she made up Harriet’s bed. “Trunks turned out, wardrobes emptied, then filled again, everyone rushing here and there as if they was going to meet the Prince of Wales instead of some old marquess!”
“I believe a marquess is quite grand, though, is he not?” Harriet said, slipping a coin into the little woman’s pocket. “Just below a duke, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Oh yes, miss, that’s right, but still!”
“I gather you don’t think much of marquesses, Violet.”
“Nobs,” Violet said instantly. “More money than sense, most of ’em.”
“You meet a great many of them, then?”
Violet patted the side of her nose with a stubby finger and grinned. “Too many, in my line o’ work, miss. Far too many!”
The bellhop was useful, too, because he had managed the hire of a carriage to take the Allington party to a Lady Whitmore’s house, and he and the hired driver were friendly. The driver told the bellhop all about the conversation the ladies had on their way back to the hotel.
“It’s that new one, the new marquess, Mrs. Bishop,” he said as she tucked another coin into his palm. He hadn’t seemed to grasp that Harriet was unmarried. “Rose-sumfin, can’t quite remember the name. His daddy just died, and now he’s got the title and the estate, too. Young gentleman, only twenty-one years