The food Eliza had been served in her room was no less delicious, but the luxury of eating a meal in the afternoon, when she had had lunch and would no doubt be eating dinner, turned it into an indulgence.
Henry fell into the role of the visiting gentleman, keeping up a stream of inane small talk about the weather and what flowers one might still find at this time of year. Eliza played the prim little society miss, doing her best to pour tea for Sir Henry just as it had been described in one of the novels he’d lent her. It was easy to imagine herself a lady in Henry’s exquisite drawing room, and easier still to enjoy his gentle teasing.
“That is one splendid cup of tea, my dear.”
Eliza thanked him with a little nod of her head. “Can I interest you in a cucumber sandwich? They are delicious.”
Henry surveyed the food tray carefully before he turned back to Eliza. “I shall indulge my sweet tooth. Those custard tarts look rather good.”
Considering the size of the tiny tartlets, Eliza placed three of them on a dainty blue-and-white china plate matching their tea cups, added a small silver dessert fork, and placed a napkin under the dish before she presented it proudly to Henry.
Henry took the plate and spread the napkin over his knee, but discreetly placed the fork back onto the tray. He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “Tarts are considered finger food, no fork required.” Then he winked at her and bit into one of his treats.
Eliza blushed at the mistake, but smiled at his antics and helped herself to another cucumber sandwich. A thought occurred to her. “Sir Henry, if you could, who, out of all the people we read about, would you like to have to tea?”
Henry didn’t even hesitate. “Rob Roy! He seems an interesting fellow.”
She laughed. “You might have a difficult time getting him to take you up on your invitation; you are English, after all!”
He leaned his head to the side for a moment, considering. “Good point! Who would you want to ask to tea? Mr. Darcy?”
Eliza shook her head in dismay. “Too broody. He would scare me.”
“Mr. Bingley then?”
She shook her head again, but a tiny smile played around her lips. “Too fickle!”
Henry raised an eyebrow and tapped his lip, trying to think. “Dr. Frankenstein?”
Eliza made a big show of swallowing hard but couldn’t quite stop the smile from broadening on her face. “I’m not sure he would be fit company for tea. He seems a little unhinged.”
Henry huffed, feigning impatience with the game. “Don’t tell me you want to have William Collins for tea?”
Laughing out loud, Eliza crossed her eyes at him, which made him laugh.
“Well, who then?”
She smiled and spread her hands out to the side, a little surprised Henry hadn’t guessed. “Colonel Brandon, of course.”
“Ah, the sensible choice.”
It was Eliza’s turn to huff a little. “Sensible maybe, but he is trustworthy and steadfast, a good friend to all around him.” Eliza gave a triumphant nod, believing the subject closed, and helped herself to a scone.
Henry was surprised by her choice, but had to admit he liked it. He, too, would have picked the colonel as the best man out of all the characters they had encountered over the past weeks. Eliza might have been young, but her upbringing had obviously given her a unique perspective on life—and on men.
With their attention back on their food, Henry watched Eliza’s fascinated awe as she took in her surroundings.
The chair Eliza sat in was of dark mahogany. Its legs and dainty arms were inlaid with ivory, and the seat and back were upholstered in a light blue velvet. Two sofas and the side tables were made in the same style, with clean, elegant lines. The exquisite furniture was arranged before a white marble fireplace that had a twin on the opposite side of the room with a writing desk close to it. Above both fireplaces hung huge eight-paneled, gilt-framed mirrors, seemingly extending the room into infinity.
There were three almost-floor-to-ceiling windows facing out to the square, bracketed by silver-blue drapes, and the greenery on the outside was mirrored by a few evergreens in brass containers placed here and there around the room.
The intricate parquet floor was partly covered by a large blue-and-cream Berber carpet. The walls were covered in light blue silk and adorned with painted scenes from around London. Studying them as best she could from her seat by the fire, Eliza declared the Thames at moonlight her favorite.
It felt as if she had stepped into her very own fairy tale. They enjoyed their tea and cakes, bantering back and forth, and Henry did his best to make Eliza comfortable in his stately drawing room. But had Eliza not been as comfortable as she was with Henry at this point, she would have been utterly awestruck by his elevated station in life, brought home by the sheer elegance of his home. She had nothing to compare this room to, but she couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful. That was, until Henry decided to show her the rest of the reception rooms on the first floor, since the rain now falling made a walk in the garden inadvisable.
There was a rose-themed sitting room at the front of the house, also overlooking the square. It was a much more feminine room with its floral prints and rounded furniture, but it was no less elegant than the formal drawing room.
A yellow-and-cream breakfast room at the back of the house looked cozy and promised to be full of sunlight in the mornings. There was also a formal dining room with a table so big Eliza thought it likely thirty people could comfortably be seated around it.
From the music room, French doors led out to a terrace and the garden below, giving the room a light, open feel. Eliza couldn’t help but marvel at the pianoforte, never having seen one before. So Henry sat and played a Beethoven sonata for her while she rested, leaning up against the instrument.
But the library was the room that really took Eliza’s breath away. The place was huge, running from the front of the house all the way to the back. It was also three windows wide on either side. There were two doors into the room, one from the short corridor running parallel to the front of the house and one from the back corridor. Opposite each entrance was a gleaming black marble fireplace with a jewel-like landscape painting above it while the rest of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with oak bookshelves.
The whole room was held in browns, ocher, and reds, with hints of brass and burnished gold. There were sofas and armchairs, upholstered in leather, grouped by the front windows and on either side of the fireplaces, as well as a large table in the center of the room. A big desk and the most voluminous wing-back chair Eliza had ever seen sat by the back windows. The floors were covered with red, cream, and black patterned Persian rugs, and the windows were draped in ocher velvet held in place by silky tassels.
Despite its size, the room was warm and inviting, and the moment she entered, Eliza knew she would spend most of her time in it, if she were allowed. Henry watched her intently as she turned about the room, inspecting some volumes on the bookshelves and looking at a book of prints of exotic animals he had left on the table for her to find. But what really drew her attention was the globe standing in the corner by the back window. Her eyes found his. “What’s this round thing?”
Henry abandoned his post by the door and strolled over to join her. “A globe. It shows you where places are in the world.” He turned it and found England. “This is where we are.”