How to Marry an Earl (A Cinderella Society 1)

The rivalry between the duke and the Earl of Fairweather centered mostly on a rare sarcophagus. Or was it a cuneiform tablet? Truly, no one could recall.

“I’ll leave you to your work then.”

When Conall had left and Mrs. Hastings had taken her basket of supplies away, the duke nodded to Persephone. “Have some coffee,” he ordered. “I know how you love it.”

“Grandmaman will be scandalized,” Persephone teased, leaning over to kiss his cheek. Behind her, Basil stifled an apoplectic sound at the casualness of her greeting. He had returned with the morning newspaper, freshly ironed. “Ladies are meant to drink tea.”

“Your grandmother is not scandalized, my dear, but rather scandalizing.”

As there was no sense in arguing with truth, Persephone let a footman bring her a cup. She smiled her thanks and added a dollop of cream from a dish painted with violets. The sun came in through the wide windows, touching china, silver spoons, glass carafes and endless bowls of white roses from the gardens. It also found stacks of books, shards of rusted iron dug from some barrow or another, and a disconcertingly full-sized statue of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of death. Most of the footmen refused to look at it directly. Persephone thought it beautiful in the most covetous manner.

Artifacts never sneered at the smudges on her sleeves, or the state of her hem. They didn’t look down at her, or whisper behind their hands when she passed. They only sat patiently while she teased hundreds of years of stories from shards of pottery or twists of glass beads. A crystal egg might have belonged to a Saxon princess, the rusted pommel of a sword to a Viking warrior. A farmer might have dug up that enamel pin only to turn it under again in order to plant his peas. The possibilities were endless.

She was doing it again.

Obsessing.

Her father had passed his joy in digging up the ancient barrows and stone cairns in the surrounding countryside to her. He’d bought a manor house in Little Barrow solely because it afforded him a place to pursue his studies. As it wasn’t entailed, Persephone had inherited the country house and her second-cousin Eustace had inherited the earldom and everything else. He’d declined to follow her father’s wish of setting her up with a hefty annuity and dowry. And legally, he was not required to comply.

Luckily, she vastly preferred the country estate pockmarked with excavation sites and mysterious grassy ringforts to Town. It was no secret that she also preferred dirt to debutante balls. But a lady, even one with her own modest house, was afforded few opportunities to travel abroad to interesting locales such as Cairo or Athens. She could read about them and visit the Elgin marbles, but it wasn’t quite the same.

But now, famous antiquarians would bring their private collections practically to her backyard.

Only a few more days.

The duke smiled at her, as if reading her mind. “It won’t be long now, my dear.”

She wondered once more if she ought to tell him about Henry. He was a duke, after all, he might be able to help. Surely, he had connections at the War Office? And it didn’t take a genius to know that her oldest friend, Henry Talbot, was in a heap of trouble. And when Henry was in trouble, Persephone got him out of it. He was kind and funny but not particularly bold. He looked to her for direction, mostly because his father only cared to provide any at the ends of his fists.

She’d been in paroxysms of fear when he first sailed off to fight Napoleon. A thin boy of barely twenty-one with a knowledge of books and fields and odd neighbour’s daughters who liked to dig up bones. What did he know of muskets? Or sailing with the Navy? Or whatever it was his commission had brought him. His father, the Earl of Culpepper, had been so proud. His son had finally done something for him to boast over. Persephone had cried, privately. Publicly she’d toasted her friend, promised to write him weekly letters, and shot glares at his father until her eyeballs ached.

And then a year later, she’d ruined herself. Henry had been so annoyed. He’d written her his shortest letter yet: I’d have married you, you pea-brain.

A kindness she wasn’t about to repay with an acceptance. Why on earth should she ruin his life as well as her own? She’d said as much. His reply was caustic, at best. He’d been gone for years now. Even with Napoleon finally defeated and sent packing in June, and three months later, still no sign of Henry.

Only that one letter.

“Are you well, Percy?” The duke asked in his booming voice. “You look peaky. Have some more herring.”

Persephone forced a smile. “I’m perfectly well.”

Best to keep Henry’s secrets a little longer.