Milton's Secret

Milton's Secret.

That weekend we were the envy of the Ton.  My father Lord Hale had invited John Thornton the Earl of Milton to be our guest and his lordship had accepted.

I was twenty years old and on my third season.   My parents had stopped being anxious

for my future and become exasperated instead.

It couldn't be said that a lack of marriage proposals had been my problem.

The simple fact was that I hadn't liked any of the men who had taken an interest in my person.

I'd already had a talk from mama that stated that love has to be worked on in marriage and then nurtured over a lifetime.

That I could understand;  but surely for love to grow one had to begin in a positive frame of mind ?

All I'd felt for my would be suitors so far was disinterest and sometimes even repulsion.

The Earl of Milton  made me nervous;  but it was a different kind of nervousness.  This man   thrilled me.

 He was immensely rich, the owner of vast tracks of land in Lancashire, various properties in other parts of the North of England and a splendid house in Grovenor Square.

This alone was enough to make him one of the season's prime catches;  but he was also tall,

dark haired and staggeringly handsome.

 His blue/grey eyes  could pierce your very soul or drown you like the sea.

They could  freeze you with darts of ice or melt you like ice beneath a summer sky.

They could smoulder with passion, blaze with love and burn with anger or hate.

His voice wrapped round one like velvet and was as delightfully, decadently rich as chocolate.

His lithe, muscular body and noble aquiline profile could well have been sculpted by Michelangelo.

His charm and his anger were both legendary. He was unpredictable and enigmatic. 

Men feared and respected him and women yearned for him.

Small wonder that he was the marriage prize most sought after  by every ambitious mama for her daughter.

My mother was no exception and after his lordship had danced with me at three London balls she urged  papa to strike while the iron was hot.

The weekends entertainments were planned like a military campaign. My ears positively burned from mama's continual  lectures on how I must behave to show the earl  that I would be the perfect Countess of Milton.

I grumbled under my breath that they might as well present his lordship with a clockwork doll that would do and say everything he expected.

I was taken to London for a new gown to wear when Milton arrived on Friday evening  and two more for dinner on  Friday and Saturday.

I kept  my eye rolling to myself.  Mama was doing what she thought best for me after all.

For the first time here was a man who I wanted to marry.  It was beholden to me to present myself to him at my best;   but I was sure that I  could do that all the more convincingly by being myself.

Mama would have me become a  society clone.  She wanted me the mirror of every simpering miss who would hang adoringly on his every word and never, ever disagree with him.

There were legions of just such girls setting their silk, lace trimmed and feathered hats at him and prepared to be extremely artful in order to win him.

Mama never tired of reminding me that I was at the disadvantage of not being

 ' a fashionable beauty '.  I was above medium height and robust, rather than petite and fragile.  I was not blonde but chestnut of hair.  I was not blue of eye but a mixture of gold and green.  My nose was small but retrousé rather than straight  and my mouth was rather too large.

I was intelligent however and quick witted.  Gentlemen had discovered that I could hold a conversation on all manner of subjects other than  fashion and the latest  ' on dits',

both of which frankly bored me.

I had made up my mind that if Milton didn't like me the way I was; well then he was free to hunt elsewhere.

Mama would be furious but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.

TBC