Page 66 of Bookshop Cinderella

“That long? Heavens, time flies. Nan, do allow me to present my friendMiss Harlow. Evie, my cousinLady Moseley.”

Lady Moseley, a dark-haired beauty who bore a decided resemblance to Max, held out her hand to Evie with a friendly smile. “How do you do, Miss Harlow? Welcome to Idyll Hour. My apologies that my brother is not here to greet you personally, but my husband insisted upon a drive in the duke’s motorcar this afternoon, and they had a puncture, ended up in a ditch, and came back looking like a pair of farmers who’d been in the pigs. They went straight up to change for dinner.”

Turning, she gestured to the tall, dignified man and rotund, beaming little woman who stood slightly behind her. “This is Wells, Miss Harlow, the butler at Idyll Hour, and Mrs. Norocott, the housekeeper. They can assist you with anything you need during your stay. Do come in, please.”

Lady Moseley led them into a dazzling entrance hall of creamy limestone and golden Siena marble. To the left and right, staircases with ornate wrought iron railings curved upward, leading to the second floor of each wing. High overhead, blue sky could be seen through the many glass panes of the domed ceiling.

“Would you like tea, Miss Harlow?” Lady Moseley asked as they paused between the staircases. “Or would you prefer to go straight up to bathe and change?”

“I’d like to bathe and change, please, if you don’t mind. The train journey was a bit hot.”

“I’ll do the same,” Delia said. “I’d like to lie down for a bit and have a rest. Send my maid up, will you, Mrs. Norocott, as soon as the footmen have brought in the luggage? And I hope you can spare a housemaid to do for Miss Harlow? Her maid was obliged to remain in London.”

“Of course. I’ll send Josie up with Miss Chapman.”

The housekeeper bustled off and the butler returned outside to supervise the footmen as Delia returned her attention to her cousin. “I’m sure you’ve got heaps of things to do, Nan, and other guests to see to, so I can take Evie up. Where are we?”

“Venice and Athens.” Lady Moseley turned to Evie. “Dinner is at eight. We usually begin gathering in the drawing room about half an hour beforehand. I shall see you both at dinner.”

The Venice Room, Evie was glad to note, wasn’t so far away that a horse might be needed. It was about halfway down the wing and lived up to its name by being decorated with some truly beautiful pieces of Venetian glass. Paintings by Italian masters hung on the wall, and a jar of Italianpesche dolcibiscuits stood on the mantel.

Evie walked to the window, which overlooked an enormous knot garden, and as she studied the intricate pattern of perfectly cut boxwood, she appreciated once again how vastly different her life was from that of her host. Royals, prime ministers, and titled nobility from all over England had strolled those gardens. Some, no doubt, had slept in this room. And here she was, an ordinary middle-class girl, with only seventeen shillings in her bank account. What was she doing here? Turning away, she leaned against the window, staring at the luxurious draperies of pink and gold that surrounded her bed, trying to imagine living one’s whole life like this. What would it be like, she wondered, to be a duchess?

It wouldn’t be all beer and skittles, she knew. Not even for the people who had been born to it. As for her, well, she knew she’d be in way over her head. Straightening, she pushed away pointless speculations and reached for the bellpull to summon her maid.

An hour later, bathed and dressed in a dinner gown of blue ciselé silk, Evie left her room and went downstairs. A footman directed her to the drawing room, but the journey there took her through a wide gallery at least forty feet long where family portraits were displayed. It took several minutes to find Max’s portrait, for the serious young man staring down at her looked far too dignified to be the passionate man with unruly hair who had held her in his arms and kissed her and confessed carnal thoughts.

I am a man, Evie, God knows, as weak as any other...

“Admiring my handsome countenance, are you?”

Evie jumped at the softly murmured question, and she glanced sideways to find the man who’d been dominating her thoughts for days standing right beside her.

She ought to be accustomed by now to how devastatingly handsome he looked in white tie, but she wasn’t, for as she turned to face him, her breath caught in her throat, and her heart started thudding hard in her chest. She sucked in a shuddering breath, and as the luscious scent of him filled her nostrils, she was suddenly as skittish as a colt.

“Heavens,” she breathed, laughing a little to cover her nervousness, pressing a gloved hand to her chest. “How you startled me.”

“Sorry.” He grinned, giving a nod to the portrait on the wall. “What do you think?”

Seizing on the distraction, she turned toward the painting.

“It’s very...ducal.”

He gave a shout of laughter. “Well, I should hope so,” he said. “I’d hate to look earlish. And to look baronish would be a fate worse than death.”

She laughed, too. “I only meant that it looks a bit haughty.”

“Haughty? You think so?”

“Yes. And not much like you.”

He studied his portrait for a moment, considering. “Perhaps you’re right. It looks far too much like my father, really.”

Evie looked to the portrait he indicated of a far haughtier man with Max’s dark blue eyes, a stern face, and an ermine-trimmed robe around his shoulders. “It sounds,” she said, looking at him again, “as if you didn’t get on with your father.”

“He was a hard man, uncompromising, determined to have his way. He wasn’t cruel, but nonetheless, we had many, many battles, for I was both wild and reckless when I was young, with all his stubbornness, to boot. He died when I was nineteen. That,” he added, pointing to a painting of an equally haughty-looking woman with auburn hair and a long, very English nose, “is my mother.”

“Goodness, why does your portrait painter insist on making all of you look so out of sorts?”

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