An heiress to one of Britain's most impressive fortunes, Cordelia Gardiner has always done what her strict father expects her to, manage the estate, host dinners, mind her manners. After years of adhering to his demanding expectations, however, Cord...
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Cordelia tried her hardest not to trip over the wobbly and crooked cobblestones that lined the streets of London. A hard breeze had pulled her hair from its originally neat bun, and her hands were aching and calloused from carrying her heavy luggage through the twisted roads that surrounded her mother's townhouse.
On the train, Charles had told her the address of Lord Elderwood's house in town. Now, however, with her brain so very crowded with an overload of thoughts and feelings, she was struggling to remember it. So optimistic about how her first meeting with her mother would go, she had turned away the cab, but now she wished that she hadn't.
The wind was blowing in large, dark clouds, and she could feel that infamous London drizzle begin to fall on her thin coat. She remembered Charles saying that he was planning on staying in a pub not too far from her for a little while-was there a chance he was still there? If he was, what was it called? The Griffin? The Lion?
The Lion's Head.
A woman pushing a pram was hurrying past her, and though she was certain she looked a wreck, she reached out and called to her. "Excuse me, miss. Can you please direct me to the Lionshead pub?" The woman, visibly put off by Cordelia's interruption and appearance, quickly hissed directions at her, and walked away at an even faster pace than she was walking before.
As the pub's name would suggest, an ornate painting of the head of a lion hung from the outside windows, and Cordelia's heart began to flutter. She tried to peer through the tinted windows for any sign that Charles was still inside, but seeing none, she walked right in.
The Lion's Head Public House was most definitely not a woman's place, which was apparent to Cordelia from the second she entered. All around her, male students crowded around manuscripts, darts were flying overhead, and alma maters were being mumbled by drunken lips. It was hard for her to picture Charles anywhere near a place like this, as much of an academic as he is.
As little interest that she had in peering further into the Lion's Head's depths, Charles was nowhere in sight. Moving through the stumbling young crowds, Cordelia received her fair share of looks and glares. "Charles?" she had begun to shout, even condescending to shout out "Charlie?" Still, she received no reply and no visual on her friend.
Her search was halted when a main stumbled from one of the high tables and stepped in front of Cordelia. "I can be your Charlie, miss," he said, slurring his words. Cordelia took a step back, bumping into the belly of another student.
"No, I'll be yer Charlie madam," he said, ending his sentence with a belch. Cordelia tried her hardest to summon the etiquette lessons that had instilled into her any semblance of manners that she possessed.
"You gentlemen are both very kind, but I'm looking for a very erm...specific Charlie," she said, trying her best to wedge her way past the pair. A crowd was forming, and lots of the men around her were laughing. "Have any of you seen a Lord Charles Heyworth? He told me he'd be around here somewhere," she said, quickly adding "he's expecting me" in a voice bolder than she felt when it seemed no one was listening to her.
