Agnes was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. How did one respond to such a confidence from a near stranger?
“I am so sorry,” she said again. “Did you love him very much after all, then? Viscount Ponsonby, I mean?”
The countess’s blue eyes widened, and she looked suddenly stricken. She set a gloved hand on Agnes’s sleeve.
“Oh, has hetoldyou, then?” she asked. “How very naughty andcruelof him. But impetuous behavior rarely brings lasting happiness, as I might have informed him from personal experience if he had waited to ask. Especially when it leaves one with no choice but to live with the consequences. But maybe they will not be as dreadful in this particular case as they were in mine. Maybe... Well, I hope all will turn out well. Imostsincerely do.”
She rested a hand on Agnes’s arm again and squeezed, smiling with warm, melancholy sympathy.
Agnes was not sure she understood just what was being said. Yet she had the strange feeling that Lady Hazeltine was choosing every word with great and deliberate care.
“I told Mama I would be in here for the merest moment,” she said, dropping her hand to her side, “while I picked up the latest novel from the Minerva Press. Do you read them? I swear I am addicted, silly as they are. Mama will be awaiting me in the carriage, and the drivers of other conveyances will be very cross if it stands there half blocking the road for much longer. I do hope I will see you again soon, Lady Ponsonby. We are to be neighbors and... friends, I trust.”
“Yes.” Agnes clutched her books even more tightly. “Yes, I hope so too.”
She watched the countess weave her way to the front of the library and stop for a moment at the desk to present her book. Madeline was still standing patiently just inside the door, looking about herself with interest.
What had that been about?
Oh, has hetoldyou, then? How very naughty andcruelof him.
What had been said before that? Agnes frowned as she tried to remember.
I ought to have waited to see what would happen with—well, with my first and only true love. But I did not, alas, and it is forever too late now.
Agnes had assumed she was talking about Flavian’s older brother, for whom she had been intended. But she could not have waited longer to see what happened to him. He had already been dead when she married the earl. Flavian’s elder brother had been Viscount Ponsonby. But so was Flavian now. He must have had the title before the marriage of the Earl and Countess of Hazeltine.
I ought to have waited to see what would happen with—well, with my first and only true love.
. . . It is forever too late now.
And Flavian had called upon the countess yesterday without a word toher.
There was nothing so strange about his calling on the Fromes, though, or upon their daughter, was there? They were his neighbors in the country, after all, and perhaps he had felt he ought to offer some apology for the awkwardness of their meeting at Arnott House a few days ago.
But without Agnes?
And without even telling her about it?
But impetuous behavior rarely brings lasting happiness, as I might have informed him from personal experience if he had waited to ask. Especially when it leaves one with no choice but to live with the consequences.
Whoseimpetuous behavior? Andwhatimpetuous behavior? What consequences?
“Pardon me, ma’am,” a gentleman said politely enough but with a hint of impatience in his voice.
“Oh,” she said, realizing that she had been standing in front of the same shelf for far too long. “I do beg your pardon.”
And she made her way to the desk, hardly remembering which books she had selected.
17
Flavian had called at Sir Winston Frome’s town house at Portman Place the afternoon before. The Fromes were his neighbors in Sussex, after all, and if he intended to spend time at his country home in future, as he surely must now that he was married, then he would inevitably meet them socially there. It would be as well to dispel any awkwardness caused by their last meeting.
If itcouldbe dispelled.
And if Velma was going to be living with them again, as it appeared she was, then he would have to meet her again too—in the country as well as here in London. There could be no avoiding her forever. Len’s home had been in Northumberland, and he and she had stayed in the north of England after their marriage, where Flavian was unlikely to run into either of them ever again.
It was too bad Len had died.
