A Marriageable Miss (29 page)

A
lmost a year to the day of the explosion the Earl and Countess of Markfield decided to hold a celebratory ball. The renovations to the Hall were now complete and to commemorate this happy event—in addition to the happy event who lay sleeping peacefully in his cradle in the newly furbished nursery wing—the idea of so grand a celebration seemed entirely appropriate.

Thanks to Helena’s prompt intervention, Ben Fuller had survived his injury, the rapidly fading scar on his left brow being the only reminder of that dreadful time. Having managed to persuade his old master, Hector Tobias, to come down from Leicestershire to examine the Hall’s damaged panelling, it seemed that the elderly woodcutter could hardly wait to get down to work and restore it to its original magnificence, adding insets of his own exemplary carving, in those cases where the damage was too far gone to repair. In addition, after seeing some examples of his ex-apprentice’s work, he had agreed to take Fuller back on again—on condition that he didn’t decide to go off and join another war!

Several of the other men, Rueben Corrigan amongst them, having managed to save much of the generous wage that Helena had allotted them, had opted to go back and seek employment in their own home towns—Richard having assured them that should
they be unsuccessful in their search, he would always be glad to find work for them on the estate.

Bet and Cissie, along with the other females who had come from Chelsea, had been happy to remain at Markfield, working either in the kitchens or the laundry room—although Cissie, who seemed to have developed a certain affinity with the dairy herd, had elected to become a milkmaid!

As soon as the earl had deemed it suitable to move himself and his family into the grander quarters of Markfield Hall, Helena had taken advantage of Westpark’s lack of tenancy to finally persuade her father to quit his London residence and retire to the countryside. And so, under the doughty Mrs Wainwright’s care, there he had ensconced himself and was often to be seen casting a line into the little river that ran between the two properties or merely sitting and smiling his contentment, as he watched the passing wildfowl at play.

Southpark, once Charles Standish’s property, had also become vacant, due to his mother, Mrs Adelaide Standish—gladly accepting her nephew’s kindly offer to provide her with a generous annuity—having chosen to spend the rest of her days in the company of her widowed sister in Bath. The redecoration of the house having met with Lady Isobel’s approval, it had been agreed that it should be kept for her future use, should she ever feel the need to remove herself from Standish House.

Richard’s stud farm had grown into a thriving enterprise, much as it had been in his grandfather’s day, and his racing thoroughbreds had succeeded in winning many a useful purse throughout the past year, helping to fill both the estate’s coffers and the earl’s pockets alike—a source of great satisfaction to Richard, since it made him more or less independent of his wife’s unstinting generosity—this having proved to have been the only sticking point in what had become an otherwise perfect marriage.

Possibly the most unexpected development that had occurred as a result of Helena’s leaving London, however, had been one that had caused her an occasional moment of deep mortification, it having turned out that Thomas Redfern’s numerous visits to
Cadogan Place had been on behalf of her cousin Lottie and not herself, as she had, at the time, supposed! It appeared that the doughty doctor had decided that the vicar’s daughter possessed all the necessary qualifications to make him the most excellent of wives. Giles Wheatley, on being informed of this happy news, had immediately made over the lease of his London house to the young couple, in addition to providing his overjoyed niece with a handsome dowry.

And so, as, with a smile of deep satisfaction on his face, the earl led his wife out across the floor for the first dance of the evening and the great hall rang once again with the happy sound of music and the appreciative murmurings of the one-hundred-and-twenty guests who looked on with such approval, he could hardly wait to draw his countess into his arms to whisper into her ear how utterly ravishing she looked in her ball gown of white silk and silver gauze; how extremely proud he was of her and—most importantly of all—how very deeply he loved and adored his dearest angel of a wife.

Helena, for her part, had never been as happy as she was at that moment and, as she raised her glowing eyes to meet her husband’s ardent gaze, she felt bound to admit that the contract that her father had drawn up had not been such a bad idea after all—despite the fact that the earl had never got round to signing it!