Free When It's Perfect by Adele Ashworth Page B

amusing family antics? She was clearly flustered, and the notion made Marcus grin solidly. “The fireworks episode,” he said to his brother.
    George chuckled and stepped closer. “Ah. Yes. The night Christine tried to drown herself.” He shook his head in remembrance. “She kept the laughter in this house.”
    Silence full of remorse reigned for a moment. Then George, in an attempt to lighten the mood, asked, “Have you ever seen fireworks, Miss Marsh?”
    She still held tightly to her skirts. “Yes. Twice, actually, at the openings of both of the Crystal Palaces in London.”
    “How spectacular,” George replied.
    “It was.”
    “How delightful,” George maintained. “I’m rather envious.”
    “Perhaps we’ll have our own fireworks display while you’re in Cornwall, Miss Marsh,” Marcus ventured, looking directly into her large eyes.
    She blinked, glancing from one brother to the other. “That would be lovely, I’m sure,” was her formal reply.
    George walked to the window, peering out. “You’re right about the stars; tonight would have been perfect for such a display of light.”
    Marcus continued to look at Mary. “I’ve no doubt there will be other perfect nights.”
    Mary took another step back, nearly tripping when her hip hit a chair. “Thank you for the delightful conversation, my Lord Renn. But if you gentlemen will excuse me, I must be off to bed.”

    “Without a book?” Marcus commented.
    She hesitated. “A what?”
    “A book?” George repeated.
    Marcus looked at his brother. “She came into the library for a book.”
    “Oh. Would you like a recommendation, Miss Marsh?” George offered.
    She fidgeted with her hands, flushing so deeply her cheeks looked dewy pink by lamplight.
    “Thank you, no,” she returned with a sigh. “I think I’ll embroider instead. Good night, then.”
    “Good night, Miss Marsh,” the men said in near unison.
    She turned and fairly waltzed from the library.
    Marcus stared at the door for a moment longer, feeling a stab of regret for missing an opportunity to do… something.

Chapter 6
    « ^ »
    Baybridge House
    25 August 1854

    …Mother and George have been bickering endlessly of late.
    We’ve lost workers at the mine who’ve joined British forces in the Crimea. This has caused clay production to slow, though Mother and George seem to think I don’t understand such business.
    Rubbish! Sometimes I tire of being told I’m too young and naïve to know what is going on around me…

    G wyneth, Countess of Renn, sipped her first cup of morning tea as she peered out the decorative art glass of her drawing room window, its diamond-shaped design cutting a pattern of sunshine on the floral carpeting from the early rays reflecting off the waters of St. Austell Bay.

    Though she would always miss the excitement, the unique smells and rapid pace of the city, she adored the warmth and quiet of Cornwall, and would remain on the Renn estate till her dying breath. Of course she had prestige here, a home and fortune she had helped to build, regardless of whether others acknowledged that fact. As a woman, she had little influence on town politics, but as the wife of the former Earl of Renn, she had status, especially in the small, local community in which she’d made her home, raised her children, and now belonged.
    Most who lived in or visited St. Austell referred to it as the capital of the “Cornish Alps,” the lovely, shimmering white mountains that retained a vast amount of kaolin , an essential ingredient in the manufacture of porcelain.
    In her time, Gwyneth had seen marvelous growth in the production of their mines, and the near-worship of their name because of the steady work her late husband’s family had provided for nearly three thousand of the seven thousand men, women, and children who extracted, processed, transported, and exported the clay. Made of a rather rare decomposition of granite, it was, in fact, found in few places in the world,