The conversation was running away from them—and Melville had still not sat down; instead, he was now inspecting the bookshelves.
“My lord, can I interest you in some plum cake?” Eliza asked, desperately.
“Well, where are all these paintings?” he asked. “I see no sign of them here, at all.”
“She has stacks of them upstairs,” Margaret put in. Eliza glared at her.
“May I see?” Melville said immediately.
Eliza shook her head. “You will forgive, I hope, my reserve. I am not in the habit of sharing my paintings with those I barely know,” she said.
“Then we shall simply have to get to know one another,” Melville said, at last moving toward the sofa. Eliza looked to the clock. They were back on schedule. Everything would be fine.
Of course, it was at this moment that Eliza heard the unmistakable sound of hooves from outside and jerked her head wildly toward the door.
“Good lord, whatever is the matter?” Lady Caroline asked.
“That must be Somerset,” Margaret blurted out. Eliza looked to her in panic—how on earth was she to manage such an encounter in front of the Melvilles? And would Somerset be shocked, disapproving even, to find Eliza in such unusual company? She wished Lady Caroline did not look so very beautiful, in her fashionable London dress—the likelihood of his falling immediately in love with her seemed very great indeed.
“Oh, a family visit, then,” Lady Caroline said.
“He is not family,” Eliza refuted instinctively.
Lady Caroline quirked a curious brow and Eliza flushed again at her rudeness.
“That is to say,” she said hurriedly, “since he has been away so long, it does not feel . . .”
Eliza craned her ears, trying to make out sound from below, but to no avail.
“You are not well acquainted?” Lady Caroline asked.
“Not as such,” Eliza said. “When he was Mr. Courtenay, wh-when he was in England,” Eliza had turned into a gabster, it seemed, “but only a little! And that was of course many years ago now, and—”
“I shall be very interested to hear more of his travels,” Margaret cut in firmly, before Eliza could offer any more unnecessary, nervous detail. “He will have some exciting tales, no doubt.”
“Shouldn’t get your hopes up,” Melville advised her. “I hear he’s a dreary fellow.”
“He is not,” Eliza said hotly and both Lady Caroline’s eyebrows rose now.
There was the sound of a loud knock from downstairs and Eliza looked reflexively and eagerly toward the door.
“Oh, I see,” Lady Caroline said, sounding very much as if she did. “Come, Melville, we must be going,” she said, standing.
“But I have not yet had any cake,” Melville objected.
“Oh, do not feel you have to leave . . .” Eliza said.
Somerset’s voice could be heard below, and Perkins’s too.
“I have recalled some errands I must fulfil urgently,” Lady Caroline said firmly. “Come along, Melville.”
Eliza could not tell if she were more mortified or grateful. How embarrassing it was to have been read so easily, and yet how kind of Lady Caroline to help.
“The Earl of Somerset, my lady,” Perkins announced.
Somerset hesitated on the doorway for a moment, seeming startled by the fullness of the room.
“Good day, my lord,” Eliza said, voice tremulous. There was no way to avoid it. “May I introduce you to Lord Melville and Lady Caroline Melville?”
“Good day,” Somerset said. Halfway through a bow, the name seemed to register properly in his mind. “Melville?” he repeated.
“Yes, do you know me?” Melville said, inclining his head in return.
“Only by reputation, my lord,” Somerset said obliquely.
“Ah, it stretches all the way to the Americas, now, does it?” Melville asked. “How marvelous to have transatlantic reach at last.”
Somerset’s expression flattened. He had always disapproved of gentlemen who trifled with women’s affections.
“Marvelous is not the word I would have chosen,” Somerset said slowly.
Eliza could not tell if Melville had perceived the coldness in Somerset’s voice, but if he had he did not seem at all bothered.
“I admire a man with strong views on vocabulary,” he said, in apparent compliment. “What think you then of ‘remarkable’? Or ‘pioneering’?”
Somerset’s expression hardened even further.
“No—I have it—‘extraordinaire’!” Melville said. “If you don’t mind borrowing from the French?”
“We were just taking our leave,” Lady Caroline said, cutting in.
“Not on my account, I hope,” Somerset said.
“No, we are in pursuit of an urgent—though as of yet unnamed—errand,” Melville said, affording Eliza a jaunty bow. “Lady Somerset. Lord Somerset. Miss Balfour.”
They left. There was a long, long pause in their wake.
“I had not realized Lord Melville was in Bath,” Somerset said, frowning toward the door as if the Melvilles were still standing there.
“He and Lady Caroline arrived only recently,” Eliza hastened to make clear. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“And you are well acquainted?” Somerset said, sitting.
“Not at all,” Eliza said.
“Though they appear bent on changing that,” Margaret added, a pleased curve to her lips.
“I see,” Somerset said.
“Is everything at Harefield well?” Eliza asked, adding quickly, “I forgot to ask, yesterday.”
Pleasantries would surely settle the strained atmosphere in the room.
“Yes, very well,” Somerset said, though his brow was still furrowed. “We are renovating the East Wing—the damp was getting a little . . .” Perceiving that this could be taken as an insult by Harefield’s former mistress, he hastened to add, “So common, of course, in these ancient houses!”
But it was not that part of the sentence that she had noticed.
“We?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“Yes,” he said. “The steward is overseeing, of course.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, much relieved. Of course: he couldn’t have married, or even become engaged, without her knowing—what a foolish fear to have crossed her mind. “Though I hope it shall not make you uncomfortable, to have such industry around you.”