“It is cold in here,” she complained.
“You have the draft from the door on your back, dear,” Lady Hannah Milne, her aunt, told her. “Why do you not exchange places with me?”
“Do stay where you are, Aunt,” the Countess of Wanstead said, looking up briefly. “You should have worn a warmer dress, Meg. And you should have brought down a shawl to wrap about your shoulders. It is December, after all. It is foolishness itself to dress for the evening in muslin at this time of year.”
She knew why her sister-in-law had donned such an inappropriate gown, of course. She wanted to look her prettiest tonight for my lord’s benefit. The countess could understand that even if she herself had not been similarly motivated. Quite the contrary, in fact. She still wore black even though it was no longer necessary to do so. She might by now have graduated to gray or lavender or even to other colors. Gilbert had been dead for almost seventeen months after all. But in the past week, since receiving his lordship’s letter, she had been glad she had not yet left off her mourning. She would certainly not do so for a while now. She would not have it appear that she was trying to impress him.
“I am hungry,” Margaret announced. “I do not know why we cannot eat, Christina.”
“You know exactly why.” The countess smiled to soften the abruptness of her words. “When his lordship has written to announce his intention of arriving today, Meg, it would be ill-mannered indeed to dine without him.”
“But what if he has changed his mind?” her sister-in-law asked reasonably enough. “What if he is putting up at an inn somewhere for the night and does not come on here until tomorrow? Perhaps at this very minute he is in the middle of his dinner. What if he did not even start out today? Are we to starve until he does come?”
“I do not believe his lordship would say he is coming and then not come, dear,” her aunt told her. “It would be discourteous to Christina.”
The countess bent her head to her work again. It was a seductive idea that he might not come until tomorrow after all, but on the whole she hoped he would come today so that this waiting, this suspense, might be at an end. “We will wait one more hour,” she said. “If he has not come by then, we will eat.”
“Another hour!” The words were a complaint in themselves, but Margaret did not argue further. Her fingers continued to drum on the chair arms.
If he did not come soon, Christina thought suddenly, she herself would surely explode into a thousand pieces. She had woken early in the morning after a night of fitful sleep, dreading his arrival, wondering how she would possibly face it since there was no avoiding it. And yet as the day progressed she had found herself wishing that he would come—now. If not sooner.
She wished he had stayed half a world away for the rest of his life.
“I wonder what he is like now,” Margaret said with a sigh, her eyes on the coals. “I have only dim memories of him. He left Thornwood before Papa died when I was eight years old and never came back. It was good riddance, Gilbert used to say. He said Gerard was wild and reckless. What he meant was that he was a rake.”
“Meg!” Christina said with sharp reprimand. And yet it was true, she thought, even if it was unladylike to say so. He had been wild.
“Oh, dear,” Lady Hannah said, “I am not sure he was ever so very bad. Most young men are high-spirited. Not Gilbert, of course, or even Rodney—they were always patterns of propriety, may God rest their souls. But there are plenty of young men who feel obliged to sow their wild oats before settling down to perfectly decent lives when they marry. The time to which your brother referred, Meg, was many years ago. We may expect a different man altogether now. He is Wanstead now.”
Christina’s lips thinned as she concentrated on her embroidery.
“I do not care if heisstill a rake,” Margaret said. “I do not care if he is still wild. I do not even care if he is vulgar. I daresay he will be, will he not, after spending ten years inbusiness? In Canada of all places. Mr. Evesham says it is a primitive and savage country, not fit even to be visited by a gentleman. Perhaps Cousin Gerard has become a savage himself. Perhaps he paints his face and his body and wears feathers in his hair and beats his breast.” She chuckled merrily.
“Oh, my,” her aunt commented.
“I hope,” Margaret said, gazing into the fire, her drumming fingers stilled, “he will be interesting at least. Life has been so dreadfully dull since—since Papa’s death. Not that anything has changed in the last year and a half since my cousin has been my guardian, but perhaps now that he is coming here ...”
“Whatever he is and whatever he might do,” Christina said firmly—all this speculation about how he might have changed, how he might have remained the same, was making her decidedly nervous again, “we will discover soon enough. Only one thing is certain. He is the earl now. Master of Thornwood.” And of everyone living here, a voice said inside her head though she did not speak the words aloud. She breathed deeply and evenly to quell the pointless panic she felt.
“Whoever would have expected,” Margaret said, “that Papa would die and Rodney and Gilbert too and that Gerard would inherit? Poor Papa. He had his heir and a spare and all for naught. And I was a mere daughter. Though for all that I think he used to like Gerard well enough despite what Gilbert said afterward. Gilbert, of course, would not allow us even to mention his name.”
No. He had not, Christina remembered. He had made a particular point of it early in their marriage. Mr. Gerard Percy, he had said, speaking with the sort of pompous formality she had soon learned was customary with him, was everything that was to be abhorred in a gentleman—if the circumstances of his birth allowed him even to claim that title for himself. He was ungrateful for the privileged upbringing his uncle had given him after the death of his own parents, raising him at Thornwood as his own son; he had become a wastrel, a gamer, a womanizer, a drinker, a fortune hunter. And finally he had repudiated his dubious claim to be called a gentleman by taking up business and commercial pursuits. Christina would kindly take note of the fact that his name was never again to be mentioned.
It was a command she had never felt inclined to disobey.
But through a bizarre twist of fate the prodigal cousin was now the Earl of Wanstead and had been for almost seventeen months. Gilbert’s father had died before Christina’s marriage. Her brother-in-law had drowned in Italy two years after her wedding. Gilbert had died of a sudden heart seizure after almost nine years of a marriage that had produced two healthy daughters and two stillborn sons.
And now the new—the almost new—Earl of Wanstead was coming home. To gloat? To stay? Merely to pay a courtesy visit before disappearing for another ten years or longer? His letter had provided no answers. They would have to wait and see—all his dependents. Christina found herself having to draw a steadying breath again.
“I hope there will be some changes here,” Margaret said wistfully. “I hope—”
But she was not destined to tell them what else it was she hoped. Lady Hannah had held up a staying hand and they all assumed a listening attitude. Margaret leaned forward and gripped the arms of her chair, Christina sat with her needle suspended above her work, and Lady Hannah kept her hand upraised. The rumble of wheels and the clopping of horses’ hooves on the cobbled terrace below were distinctly audible. And then there was the muffled sound of voices, one of them shouting out commands.
“No!” Christina said sharply as Margaret jumped to her feet. “Please do not look out the window, Meg. Someone might glance up and see you. It would not be at all genteel.”
Margaret pulled a face, but she slumped down into her chair again without argument. “We should at least go down,” she said, “and meet him in the hall. Oh, do let’s.”
Christina had thought of it. But it would not be the right thing to do. It would be like meeting and greeting a guest to the house. He was not a guest. He was the master.
