“Lady Warring,” a familiar voice rang out, bringing the summoned lady herself from her sunny seat in the southern sitting room. Amelia had gone no farther than the door to that room, when a lady dressed in brown bombazine coursed into the hallway, where they spotted each other at once.
“Lady Chenmarth,” Amelia, Lady Warring said. She had mostly managed to avoid Lord Huntingsley’s mother at the wedding, having seen the cool light in that lady’s eyes upon entering the church on the morning of the wedding, but she had known even then that her respite was not one to be long-lived. “Jane, I’ve been expecting we would be speaking.” They were not exactly friends, but had known each other long enough to use first names in private.
“Then why didn’t you call on me this morning?” Lady Chenmarth asked with her usual forthrightness. It was odd, that straightforwardness of hers: she was that way with everyone, it seemed, but her own husband. Amelia had wondered any number of times how differently the Chenmarth marriage might have been if only they had developed the ability to talk candidly with one another.
The maid Angie came breathlessly into the hallway, having obviously been outpaced by the visitor. “Lady Warring, you have a… Lady Chenmarth is—”
“Well enough, Angie. As you can see, our guest has found me. Will you please bring tea now?” She turned to reply to Lady Chenmarth. “I apologize for not arranging to call. We have been fully occupied here for some time,” she said with just a hint of tartness. “But, please, won’t you come in?” She indicated the sunny room behind her where she had been doing some stitchery in the bay window’s light.
Lady Chenmarth might have had the thought that engaging in decorative stitchery was hardly a good enough excuse for not calling, but she did not deign to say as much as Amelia whisked her project into a drawer and bade her guest to be seated.
“This is very pleasant, having you to call,” Amelia said as she settled on the edge of her chair. She had been a hostess for going on three decades now, and had no qualms about telling little social lies.
“Nonsense. Don’t think I didn’t know that you were avoiding me at the wedding,” Lady Chenmarth stated.
“It was a terribly hectic day.”
“Do I not know it! My son comes to me one day and says, ‘How d’you do, ma’am, I’m getting married,’ and two days later he does. If that’s not hectic, I don’t know my own shadow.”
“In what way may I assist you today?” Amelia asked, wishing Lady Chenmarth would get to the point of what she could see was to be more than a mere social call.
The maid returned with tea and little cakes, but as soon as she was gone the conversation resumed.
“I came to speak with Geoffrey actually, and that girl of yours. I’ve decided it’s absurd for one old woman to live alone in so many rooms as I have. I think the children ought to have my present town house. I’ll go to a set of rooms Chenmarth has kept for years, naught but a short walk away.”
Amelia’s brows rose. She would not have guessed that the Countess of Chenmarth would be willing to remove to what could only be a humbler abode. Too, she remembered how quickly her daughter had cried out “no!” to the idea of sharing the countess’s home; would she want her mother-in-law so near? Still, if they had the house to themselves a preponderance of the time…?
“And what does Lord Chenmarth have to say to the matter? Would he support the household? Both households?” Amelia questioned.
“I rather imagine so,” Lady Chenmarth declared. It was true that Lord Chenmarth had never seemed to withhold largesse from the wife he never lived with anymore, so the lady’s claim was not without precedence. “And besides,” Lady Chenmarth went on, “Geoffrey has a very healthy quarterly sum. He could finance that household himself, and another besides, if he wished.”
That was true. Warring, even midst the madness of the hasty wedding, had made sure his daughter would be provided for.
Amelia leaned forward to offer her guest the tray of cakes, pleased to see one delicately iced selection taken. If anyone needed sweetening up, it was the often brittle Lady Chenmarth.
“Tea?” Amelia asked mildly, reaching for a china cup even as she glanced toward the open door. “Your offer is very generous, Jane. But Geoffrey is not here. I will have to ask him to call upon you with his reply.”
Lady Chenmarth conceded to this plan with a nod, while Amelia considered and rejected—with a shudder of alarm at the lady’s probable frosty response—the idea of asking if it had been she who had put forth to her son the abominable possibility of divorce.
***
Three hours later, Geoffrey received a sealed note from his mama out of Lady Warring’s hand almost as soon as he returned to New Garden House. His mother-in-law stepped away, and he broke his mother’s seal.
Dearest Geoffrey,
You are to call upon me as soon as may be.
It was simply signed M, for “Mother.”
“Lord Huntingsley,” Winters greeted from the doorway. Geoffrey looked up in time to see his valet’s bow.
“Winters. I have not had the opportunity to thank you for tending to my things, including those in the...er...wardrobe.”
“Thank you, sir. When you have a moment I should like to discuss schedules.”
“Schedules?”
“Of when you would care to be dressed, m’lord. When you rise, et cetera.”
“Oh, of course,” Geoffrey said. Inwardly he groaned. He had been avoiding for two days Winters’s hints that this needed to be taken care of, wondering how he was going to incorporate his valet into the strange situation he shared with Alessandra. Should he ask Lord Warring if, respecting his promise on how he spent his nights, he might use his first night’s room as his non-sleeping chamber? As things stood, Winters had only limited run of the chamber Geoffrey shared with Alessandra. His valet, clearly, thought having to store his master’s things in his own room and bring them with him of a morning bordered on being beyond provincial. “Come to my…the Sapphire Room after dinner, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Very good, my lord.”
As the valet turned to leave, Mr. Cloch, the butler, came up behind him, and announced, “Lord Huntingsley? Mr. Darringforth.”
The two servants departed, their respective duties done, and Elias sauntered into the room.
“Why so morose?” he called to his older brother. For his own part, Elias had his thumbs tucked into his buckskins in an attitude that said he was apparently most content with the world.
Geoffrey crumpled the note still in his hand, and replied to his brother crossly, “I am to go see Mama.”
“In trouble with her already, only two days after the wedding? Is she upset that you did not marry the Bremcott chit? I always rather fancied that was Papa’s plan more than hers.”
“She does not say why, but I am to go ‘immediately.’ I don’t suppose you’d care to go with me?”
Elias shuddered, pulling a hand free to make a gesture of emphatic refusal. “I’d sooner join the army.”
“There’s a thought.”
Elias blew out a breath, clearly dismissive of any such idea. “That little visit aside, what ails you? One would think you’d be transported by joy. Wallowing in domestic bliss. Dancing amongst the stars—”
“You forget I did not choose to be married. ‘Twas thrust upon me.”
“Ah well. It comes to us all, you know, like birth, like death. No avoiding it, I’m afraid.”
“Spoken like a man who has no intention of marrying.”
“None whatsoever.”
Elias grinned, and Geoffrey soon followed. It was good to have his brother come into this house of near-strangers and provide some of the past’s stability. It was on the tip of his tongue to wonder aloud why his mother wanted to see him again, and have Elias speculate. That was quickly followed by the impulse to tell Elias about the promise Mama had made Geoffrey give her…but the thought of going through yet one more inquisition stopped him. Elias might play at being a ne’er-do-well, but he would be as shocked as anyone at the very mention of any possible divorce.
“So, tell me,” Elias said, his voice dropping low as he sidled up to his brother. He let his eyebrows wiggle. “Is there any reason why I should give up my designs on permanent bachelorhood?”
“Cad,” Geoffrey huffed, not confiding the truth that he remained nearly as much a bachelor as his brother.
“My! Aren’t we easily overset.”
“There are some things a gentleman does not ask another.”
“A gentleman, no. But a brother might,” Elias replied, undaunted.
“Say one more word and I’ll make you go with me to Mama’s,” Geoffrey threatened, but he was half-laughing despite himself.
Elias clapped a hand over his mouth and raised the other one to wave a farewell as he backed away toward the door.
***
Elias did not, however, leave the house. He hadn’t been to New Garden House in ages, so he went wandering about, reacquainting himself with the place he had played in a few times as a child. He only startled a few servants, but one named Maggie knew him, and once she smiled upon him and called him “Master Elias” he was baptized into being free to wander while collecting polite nods or curtsies from the other servants he encountered.
He found the old nursery, now more used for storage. He went to the library and delighted in finding the old, and now terribly tame, medical texts he and Geoffrey had once snickered over. He recalled the hothouse, and the little alcove that gave access to the roof—a favorite spot for testing one’s derring-do, the roof—and headed down the corridor that led toward it. He passed an open door, absently peeking in. Ah yes, the Sapphire Room. As big as three rooms together. And here was Alessandra, sitting on the long window seat, apparently staring at nothing. There was a book near her hand, but she was making no effort to read it.
“Cousin Lessie,” he hailed her.
He had startled her, but as soon as she recognized him, she smiled. “Elias.”
“That’s not what you used to call me,” he said, presuming that her greeting meant he was free to enter.
“Ah, yes. ‘E-Liar,’ as I recall it.”
He laughed. “I hated that.”
“I knew. That’s why I only used it when I was very angry at you.” She gave him her hands as he approached, and gently pulled him down to sit next to her.
“What were you supposedly reading?” he asked, picking up the book to glance at the title. He whistled, and read aloud, “’My Journey to India and a Record of her Wonders,’ by Sir Norbert Underhedding.”
The seat in the enclave was built for reclining, so she tucked her legs up under her, her white skirts with pale green stitching billowing around her. She hung her head in a retiring fashion that did not seem like her at all. She smiled slightly and confessed, “You’re right. I wasn’t reading it.”
“I could see you were not, and who is to blame you? No one should ever have to read anything ever written by a Sir Norbert Underhedding.”
He had made her laugh, though it was a wan imitation of the girlish laugh he remembered. Spontaneously, he reached out and laid his hand over hers. “You’re sad. What’s wrong?”
She shrugged, and turned her head a little, unable to meet the inquiry in his eyes.
“Never say Geoffrey has been unkind?” Elias said, sounding as if he could not believe any such claim.
“No. Of course not,” Alessandra said. She parted her lips as if to say more, then bit back the words. She shook her head, and rose suddenly. She called out toward the open door, a bit shrilly, “Emmeline! How might I help you?”
Emmeline turned back from her pace down the hallway, a questioning look on her face. She glanced between Alessandra and Elias, started to say something, then chose to nod a couple of times. “Yes-s-s. Could you see…Mama? In the kitchens? She has a question about…er, the sort of flowers you’d like at the newlywed celebration?”
“Of course,” Alessandra said a bit too brightly. She curtsied quickly in Elias’s direction, and swept out of the room.
Emmeline leaned against the doorframe, meeting Elias’s puzzled stare.
“What is wrong with her?” he asked, shoulders tense under his blue superfine coat.
“You know it was not a marriage either party sought,” Emmeline said with a sigh, then quickly overrode a protest he started to utter. “No, wait. You have to understand Alessandra has always had some romantic notions about ‘true love.’ She feels compelled, and misused, and, truly, what do they know of one another? Do they have any common interests? She is worried they do not suit.”
“Doesn’t everyone worry about that?” said the son of a domestically very unhappy woman. His words made Emmeline give him a twisted little smile of understanding.
“Yes. But it is one thing to know everyone has fears, another to experience your own.”
Elias stood. “Well, this won’t do. I’ll talk to Geoffrey—”
Emmeline thrust out a palm, alarmed. “I think not. Not yet. It is early days. I think we must let them try to find their own balance first.”
His stance relaxed, but he frowned. “It’s just like Geoffrey to muddle up something that ought to be fairly simple.”