Page 1 of Lady Elizabeth's Winter Stranger
Chapter 1
Lorimer Square, London, Christmas Day, 1819
Sander Hall, Cumbria
Monday, 20thDecember, 1819
My dearest daughter Elizabeth,
I’m writing to you with the expectation that this letter will reach you after your return from the Wetherbys’ house party and before the family arrive back in London for our usual Christmas celebrations on the evening of the 25th.
My intention is that you have time to mull over what I say and accept that I’m acting in your best interests.Nothing I tell you here is new, but I’m hoping that now you see it in writing, you’ll understand this time, I’m in deadly earnest.I will not be swayed, as you’ve managed to sway me upon every other occasion that this subject has arisen.
You’re twenty-four, Elizabeth, and it’s time you married.So far, I’ve allowed you your choice of a husband, because I’m very fond of you and I don’t want you tied to a man you can neither respect nor love.
But enough is enough.As you’ve seen fit to refuse every one of the many eligible gentlemen who have requested your hand in marriage, I’ve decided that it’s time to step in and accept a young man’s proposal on your behalf.
Stanton Morley-Bridges, Viscount Fairchild, comes from excellent stock.He is heir to the Earl of Blaydon, a gentleman I’ve long admired for his political acumen.Fairchild is twenty-eight, the perfect age to settle down and establish himself as a family man.To date, he has been working on the Continent as a diplomat and I gather doing a brilliant job.Your brother met him in Paris a month ago and Guy speaks most highly of his principles and intelligence.As his father’s health is deteriorating, Fairchild has resigned from the service and is returning to England where he intends to seek a wife.Guy suggested that he joins us for Christmas to meet you, with a view to making you an offer of marriage.This plan has my full support.
At this stage, I’m sure you’re bristling, Elizabeth, but I will not be gainsaid on this matter.From all reports, Fairchild is a sensible man of generous fortune and commendable character.He will make you an ideal husband.Should the young man decide you are a suitable bride, the marriage will take place early in the new year.
You’ve been out in London since you were twenty and you played your part in local society for several years before that.From the first, you were much sought after and the ton has acclaimed you as a diamond of the first water.If you haven’t settled your mind on a match by now, you’re not going to, unless some well-meaning person applies pressure.
Well, I am your father and I am well-meaning and I’m applying pressure.So far, I have tolerated your feminine whims, even if I haven’t approved of them.I will not accept your defiance on this issue.
Should Viscount Fairchild decide you’ll make a good wife, you will accept his offer.If you kick up a fuss, as no doubt right now, you intend to do, I will immediately stop your allowance and remove you from London.Your Great-Aunt Agatha in Caithness requires a companion.You will fill that role until you think better of your imprudent choices and agree to wed Lord Fairchild.I imagine you won’t last long in her ramshackle, waterlogged castle in the coldest part of Scotland with no other company to distract you.
Elizabeth, I repeat that I’m taking this step out of love.Guy speaks in glowing terms of young Morley-Bridges and says he will make you a fine husband.I hope you agree when you meet him.If you don’t, I wish you well of Aunt Agatha and her twenty incontinent pugs.
Your mother and I will see you tonight at our family dinner to mark the festive season.Wear your prettiest dress and prepare to smile for your new suitor, or bear the consequences.
Your loving but very determined Papa.
“My loving Papa!”Elizabeth spat out, screwing up the letter and pitching it into the library fire.“I don’t think so.”
She was so angry that she felt sick with it.As she began to pace across the Turkey carpet, the dark green skirts of her fashionable traveling ensemble swished about her long legs.If she had a tail, it would be lashing.
“How dare he?”she muttered, clenching her fists at her sides.“How dare Guy?”
She and her brother had always been co-conspirators.Knowing that he’d betrayed her like this rubbed salt in the wound.She was almost more upset about Guy’s involvement in this vile scheme than she was with her father.
“Feminine whims?Great-Aunt Agatha?Caithness?I’ll set fire to damned Caithness before I move there.”
She stopped in the middle of the room, gasping for breath as an ocean of rage seethed in her stomach.Rage and, much as she hated to admit it, fear.
Because while her father had made noises before about her taking a husband, something about the implacable tone of that odious letter told her that this time, he wouldn’t relent.She couldn’t distract him with her usual excuses about wanting a love match like her parents’.
Not that that was a lie.But as her father said, she’d enjoyed four seasons that had left her heart resolutely untouched.She’d reached the conclusion that she was immune to romance.As an adult, the closest she’d come to atendrewas her penchant for her father’s handsome American gardener, Caleb Black, three years ago.Even at the time, she’d known it was all a silly fancy.Which turned out to be a good thing when he eloped with her friend, Lady Imogen Ridley.
Assured of her immunity to masculine wiles, she’d continued to dance and flirt and gossip and glitter her way through London’s social whirl.As far as she was concerned, that happy state of affairs could go on forever.
Her father clearly harbored other ideas.Ideas that he’d outlined in writing for the first time, as if he knew that she’d try and wheedle her way out of his ultimatum if they were face-to-face.
She growled low in her throat and resumed pacing.This Stanton Morley-Bridges sounded like a complete pillock.Even his name was enough to make her bile rise.
Elizabeth could already imagine him.Tall and weedy and shortsighted and convinced of his intellectual superiority.A bore who never let anyone else get a word in.There had to be something wrong with him, or else he’d be able to find a wife for himself and woo her in the customary manner.
If her father thought that she was going to accept a prosy windbag as her life partner, he could think again.
