He could see her hesitate. “I cannot stop you, can I?” she said.
“Ah, but indeed you can,” he assured her. “A simpleno would do it.” He was not going to have her tell herself and maybe her brother that he had forced his company upon her.
“I suppose it would.” She half smiled. “Yes, Lord Brandon, you may walk with me.”
He adjusted his stride to hers, though she was taller than he had realized and had long legs. He did not want his mind to dwell upon those legs at present, however. She was very slender, though not without enticingly feminine curves. Another detail he must ignore. He was good at self-discipline where women were concerned.
“Maria is displeased with you,” she said, “because you came to Elm Court to invite Bertrand and me to Everleigh Park without first consulting her.”
“It was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea,” he said. “If I had asked her first andthencalled upon you, she would have been displeased because she would surely have told me not to do it. If I called upon you—as I did—before asking her, then she would be annoyed that I had gone behind her back. As she is. I chose the option of the deep blue sea and invited the devil to do his worst. Maria is displeased with me full stop, Lady Estelle.”
She did not say anything else for a while as they came up to the bridge. She stopped in the middle of it and set a hand on the stone wall before looking at him briefly and then gazing downstream.
“Youloveher,” she surprised him by saying. She looked a bit surprised too, as though she had believed he must hate Maria just because Maria hated him.
He studied her face in profile. Perfect eyebrow and eyelashes, perfect nose and mouth and chin and neck. She was a true beauty, a fact that came close to irritating him. This was aboutMaria, not about him.
“I was fourteen when she was born,” he told her, turning his head to watch Captain, who was sniffing about in the grass on the other side and then loping in halfhearted pursuit of a butterfly he had disturbed. “An age at which one might expect a boy to be least interested in a baby in the house. She was born early and was unusually small and frail. Nobody said anything to me about her chances of survival, but I understood that she was not expected to live. She cried a great deal. I used to go up to the nursery when no one else was there with her except the nurse, and I would persuade the nurse to let me hold her and walk about with her and find a position in my arms for her that would stop the crying and lull her to sleep. I used to spread her fingers over one of mine and marvel at the perfection of them, even her nails. I willed her to live, but very shortly I came to understand that she did not need my strength or my will. She had enough of her own. She lived despite expectations to the contrary. She grew to be a thin and pale child and—in my estimation—tough. I spent a great deal of time with her until she was eight. And yes, Lady Estelle, I loved her. Make that present tense. Love does not die simply because of a long absence and changed circumstances.”
Lady Estelle stood very still, watching the water flow under the bridge.
“She says she will be happy to have us come to Everleigh Park as your guests,” she told him at last, turning to face him. “We will come, then.”
“Thank you,” he said, and found himself gazing into her eyes. They were brown, like his own, but not nearly as dark. “If you wish to accompany us when we go, there will be room in the carriage for you, and Watley too, unless he prefers to ride, as I will be doing. The carriage would be at your service whenever you wished to return home.”
“I believe it would be better,” she said, “for us to give both you and Maria a chance to settle for a few days before we arrive. It will also be more convenient if we travel in our own carriage.”
“As you wish.” He inclined his head.
This was perhaps the natural time and place to take his leave of her. There was nothing more to say, and he knew she did not like him.
“I will escort you within sight of your house,” he told her.
She gave him that half smile, which curved her lips but did not quite light her face. She led the way from the bridge, and Captain came dashing toward them to nudgeherhand, not his. She smoothed a gloved hand over his large head, and he closed his eyes in momentary bliss before dashing off again.
“You have made a conquest,” he said.
Again that half smile.
“You will not be the only guests at Everleigh,” he told her. “My aunt, my mother’s sister, will be there too, with my uncle and cousins.”
“Yes,” she said. “Maria told me. She has not met them before?” She doubtless knew the answer though she phrased it as a question.
“No,” he said. “After my father’s remarriage they felt it more tactful, I suppose, to stay away from Everleigh, though my father remained fond of them and they of him. I always adored them, and visited them every year. I believe you will like them. My uncle is all amiability and my aunt is...comfortable.It is the best word I can think of to describe her. Three of my cousins are closer to me in age than to Maria, though Rosie is younger than she by a year. I hope they can be friends.”
They did not proceed along the track to the road as he expected. Instead, she turned to walk along the riverbank. There was no well-defined path, but he supposed she knew where she was going and that it was safe. He walked between her and the river.
“I have also written to invite Maria’s aunts and uncle and their families from Yorkshire and a great-aunt,” he said. “Her mother’s siblings and aunt, that is. And our father’s sisters and their families, all of whom live in Cornwall. I had not yet heard from any of them before I left home. So there may be just a small gathering, or there could be quite a large one.”
“Lady Brandon was estranged from her family?” she asked. “And from her husband’s?” Again her words suggested that she knew the answer. Even if Maria had not spoken of them, though, she must have noticed that none of them had ever come to see her mother while she was sick or attended her funeral. At least, he assumed none of them had. He had never heard of any such visits.
“Family quarrels,” he said. “Unfortunately they afflict all too many families.”
He did not even know the exact cause of his stepmother’s estrangement from her own family, though he did know it had been from all of her siblings, not just one of them. They had been at their sister’s wedding to his father, the only time Justin had met any of them. Soon after, however, they were all unwelcome at Everleigh, though Justin had never heard his father speak of having any disagreement with them. The same held true of his stepmother’s aunt, who had married a baronet when she was very young. She had introduced her niece to society—and to his father.
“And such quarrels often endure for too long a time,” Lady Estelle said. “I hope they will all come, LordBrandon. It has occurred to me a number of times during the past two years, since Bertrand and I came back to live at Elm Court, that Maria is terribly alone.”
Was there accusation in those words?
