Bertrand looked at Estelle, his eyebrows raised.
“We will need to talk this over,” she said. “Between ourselves.”
It would be intolerable. And Maria would surely notappreciate such interference in her affairs—Oh, by the way, Maria, when you go to Everleigh Park, against your will, with the brother you hate? Bert and I will be going too to spend a few weeks there as his guests. Will not that be fun? I can scarcely wait!But... Melanie Vane would not be going with her. She would be all alone—with her brother. That would be a blow indeed to poor Maria.
“We would also need to speak with Lady Maria,” Bertrand said. “She is Estelle’s friend and a close acquaintance of mine. Even if we should decide between ourselves that we are willing to accept your invitation for her sake, we would not be comfortable having her presented with afait accompli.She may be your sister and ward, Brandon, and therefore subject to your commands, but she owes nothing to us.”
“Maria is indeed my friend,” Estelle said. “I would not do anything that concerns her behind her back, Lord Brandon. She may be a minor and a woman, but she...matters.As a person.”
The Earl of Brandon got to his feet. “I will say nothing of my visit here, then,” he said. “Until you have given me your answer, that is. May I expect it fairly soon?”
“You say you plan to leave here with your sister within the week,” Bertrand said. “We will give you our answer before then. In the meanwhile, it is altogether possible that we will call upon Lady Maria. If we do, we would appreciate a word alone with her.”
“You will have it.” The earl inclined his head and made his way toward the door. “Good day, Lady Estelle.”
Bertrand had got to his feet to follow him.
She murmured something as they left the room. She resented this, she thought as she stood up and stared at the door after it closed behind them. She deeply resented it.There wassomethingbetween the Earl of Brandon and Maria. Something old and ugly. Her father had died just before she and her mother came here—sent from Everleigh Park, it seemed, by the command of the present earl. Just as he had been banished by his father six years before that—if the story she had heard was true, that was. Was there a connection? But even if there was, it could not have involved Maria. She had beeneight years old.
Estelle tried to imagine what would happen if her own father were to die—horrid thought. She tried to imagine Bertrand sending their stepmother far away from Redcliffe. Banishing her. She could not picture it. Their stepmother was not theirmother.No one could take her place even though she had died before their first birthday and they had no conscious memories of her. But both she and Bertrandadoredtheir stepmother—they called her Mother—and she loved them. She was a very real part of their family unit. She would always have a home at Redcliffe, even if Bertrand moved there with a wife and family. Even if she chose to go and live with one of her three children instead of remaining at Redcliffe.
Maria had never offered any explanation of what had brought her and her mother here. Estelle felt for her now in her obvious distress over the arrival of her brother and could only imagine how she must be feeling about having to return with him—alone—to the home she had not seen in six years. Nevertheless, that wasMaria’sbusiness. She would adjust and cope somehow. She was a much stronger person than her physical appearance and her quiet demeanor suggested. Estelle very much resented being drawn into whatever secret passions lurked within that family story.
It was notherstory. Or Bertrand’s. They had dealt with their own demons when they had reared their nasty heads.And they had emerged from the struggle stronger and happier. They had their father back in their lives, with the wonderful bonus of a stepmother. And now they really were contented together here at Elm Court, alone again after a busy spring and a round of family visits. Alone for the autumn and winter, they had been hoping, with the possible exception of Christmas.
Bertrand came back into the room.
“You do not want to go to Everleigh?” he asked.
“I really,reallydo not,” she told him.
“But...?” He tipped his head to one side and regarded her closely. “You will have sleepless nights if we leave it at that without giving it another thought? Is that what your frown is telling me?”
“Idespisethe fact that you know me so well, Bert,” she said. “How dare he present us with this dilemma?”
“You really have taken him in dislike,” he said, grinning at her. “Your heart is not in danger, is it, Stell?” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh! That is not evenfunny.” She grabbed a cushion from the love seat and hurled it at him.
He caught it in one hand.
“We will talk about it,” he said. “We do need to consider Lady Maria and what, if anything, we can do to help her. I know you have grown very fond of her, Stell, and I care what happens to her. But may we have a tea tray brought up first? I am starved.Andparched.”
“And whose fault is that?” she asked.
***
Lady Estelle Lamarr had been hostile. Watley had been wary and careful in his response. He probably ought not to have called upon them, Justin thought as he rode back toProspect Hall, Captain loping along beside his horse except when he paused to sniff at something that caught his interest and needed further attention or went dashing off to explore the unknown. He never went far. He had been trained not to do so. A raised voice or a whistle would bring him back in a moment. The dog never needed a leash.
Inviting them to Everleigh had probably not been a brilliant idea from the start. But he was feeling a bit desperate. Maria had been a burden upon his conscience for the past six years, the innocent victim of a situation that did not involve her. He had driven her from her home not long after she lost her father and when she was at an age at which girls were starting to look forward to being young ladies and stepping out into the world of fashion and parties and courtship. But at least she had been with her mother. That had no longer been so for more than a year now. She had lost both her parents by the time she was nineteen. Clearly she could not remain where she was.
The only real solution was for her to live at Everleigh, where she had been born and spent her childhood. Where her brother and guardian lived. Where she belonged. Yet he had known from her clipped responses to all his letters, including the one in which he had asked if he might come for her mother’s funeral, that she would resist coming home. If she were younger, he could simply have had her fetched home after her mother’s death whether she liked it or not. If she were older, past the age of twenty-five, he would have had no further responsibility for her and would have been happy to allow her to remain at Prospect Hall as long as she wished and take full charge of her own life. But she was twenty, betwixt and between, and she was a burden to him.
Nota burden in the most obvious sense. Good God, hehad loved her when she was a child, and love never did quite die. Especially when there was no good reason for it to do so. The fact that she obviously hated him now was not a reason. She had been achild—and she had probably been fed misleading, even purely false information about him throughout her girlhood. She would surely not resent him so bitterly just for leaving home, leavingher, without an explanation or a goodbye. He hadtriedto say goodbye. He had run up to the nursery, leaving his hastily gathered bundle in the hallway, but he had been waylaid outside the door and escorted ignominiously to the stables and then all the way to the gates of the park by two burly, wooden-faced footmen—who were no longer in his employ, he had been relieved to discover when he returned home five and a half years ago.
When he had learned that Miss Vane would not go with them to Everleigh, he had wondered how soon he could hire a replacement for her. He must still do so, of course, but it would take time, and then her newly employed companion would be a stranger to Maria for some time. In the meanwhile, how could he find someone whowasfamiliar to her, someone to be with her for the crucial first weeks following her return home? His mind had alit upon the Lamarr twins. They were a handsome, well-bred pair and sufficiently older than his sister to provide some steadying influence—he had chosen to ignore that scene on the riverbank—but close enough to her in age to offer genuine companionship.
Ifthey would agree to be guests in his home for a couple of weeks, that was.
