“We can work in partnership for other assemblies too?” Jim asked, swiping again at his already clean counter.
“It sounds like a good idea to me,” Devlin said. “My mother will no longer be burdened with the planning of every social event at the hall. I may hire someone to do it, or—”
“People around here would be only too happy to get back to all their old committees, my lord,” Jim Berry said, cutting him off. “The way things used to be when I was little more than a lad. Everyone pitched in to plan and help and we didn’t have to pay nobody to do it for us. We was a real community then.”
Devlin was feeling a bit stunned. His father had taken that away from them? He had centralized almost all the social life of the neighborhood about himself? And passed on all the work to Devlin’s mother? Was thatreallythe way it had been? But—
“I’ll talk to the missus,” Jim said. “I’m not going to force nothing on her she don’t like. That’s not the way we work. But I think she will like going up to the hall with her food and her recipes and showing the cook there a thing or two. No offense meant, my lord.”
“You had better be careful, Jim,” Devlin said. “I may decide to keep her.”
That drew guffaws of mirth from everyone gathered there.
“You walked into that one, Jim,” someone said. “Evelyn Berry, head cook at Ravenswood Hall. Looking down her nose at lesser mortals. Including her own husband at the village inn.”
The poor innkeeper was still being mercilessly teased when Devlin took his leave.
—
The countess and Philippa had gone after luncheon to call upon Miss Wexford, the colonel’s sister, who had declared yesterday at the tea that she would be celebrating her birthdayquietly at home because at her age—she was turning fifty—she had no wish for anything louder. However, anyone was welcome to come and commiserate with her over a cup of tea.
His mother and sister were returning home just as Devlin was riding up from the village. He had to draw his horse to the side of the drive beside the ha-ha to allow the carriage to pass. He touched the brim of his hat to them but could have avoided a closer encounter. He could have continued on to the stables to unsaddle his horse and rub it down himself.
It was amazing actually to what lengths he could go to avoid his mother. Even in less than a week he had it down to a fine art. So did she. It had not always been so. He could remember her telling him not long before he left—it was probably during the height of the busy preparations for that fete—that she did not know what she would do without him.And never put me to the test on that, Dev, my beloved boy,she had added, laughing.
It was strange how random memories like that could pop up out of nowhere when one’s guard was down.
He did not ride to the stables, weary as he was from an eventful afternoon, to say the least. He followed the carriage onto the terrace and waited while the coachman set down the steps and handed his mother out and then Philippa.
“Mother.” He removed his hat. “Were you the only ones to attend Miss Wexford’s non-birthday party?”
“We would have been surprised if we had been,” she said. “And of course there just happened to be enough cakes and pastries baked this morning to feed everyone.”
“Mother,” Devlin said as they turned to climb the steps to the front doors. “May I have a word with you?”
It was probably the worst possible time. She would be weary after her visit. He was still feeling rubbed raw after what hadhappened at Cartref and then at the inn. He actually wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and stay there until he had put himself back together. But his mother was looking back at him and nodding.
“Come to my sitting room in a little while,” she said.
This,Devlin thought a little less than half an hour later as he knocked on the door of his mother’s private sitting room, was the very last thing on earth he felt like doing. But then he did not want to be doing any of this. What he really wanted was to be back with his men and his regiment. It had suited him admirably, that life, for all its discomforts and dangers and brutality. Sometimes he thought his father had died deliberately to avenge himself upon the son who had wrecked the very satisfactory double life he had enjoyed for years by disclosing the truth of it to a large gathering of his family, friends, and neighbors. And, ultimately, to thetonitself. His revenge would be to force Devlin to give up his life of soldiering and return home to clean up the mess he had created.
Millicent, still his mother’s dresser, opened the door. “Come in, if you please, my lord,” she said. “Her ladyship is expecting you.” She let herself out after Devlin had stepped inside, and she closed the door quietly behind her.
It had been his sitting room—or his den, as he had liked to call it as a boy—attached to what had been his bedchamber and dressing room. The whole suite was now his mother’s. But he was immediately engulfed in a different familiarity. A faint scent of gardenia and the sight of the furniture from her old sitting room. There were the soft love seat and chair with their cheerful chintz covers, and the dark green velvet chaise longue, on which as a boy he had loved to lie when he was feverish or had the sniffles or was otherwise feeling under the weather and sorry for himself. His mother would cover him with the cozy wool blanket she had knitted herself, and he would thread his fingers through the holes andpull it up about his neck while she laid a cool hand on his forehead and bent to kiss his cheek and told him she would have him feeling all better in no time at all. Words he had always trusted without the shadow of any doubt. In those precious days his father had protected him from all illsout theresomewhere while his mother had held him close in a nest of warm security and lovein here.
Childhood was a golden time for those who were loved.
She was standing by the window, but she moved away from it as soon as he came in and she bent over the tray on the low table before the love seat to pour two cups of tea. She put a buttered scone and two small macaroons on a plate to hand him after she had set his cup and saucer before the armchair. Just as she had used to do, picking out the best of his favorites for him instead of offering him the whole plate. He had always loved macaroons. And scones with lots of butter but no jam or cream.You like scones with your butter, do you, Dev?his father had asked one day, laughing and ruffling his hair.
He did not want these memories.
“Thank you,” he said, taking his place and setting down his plate beside his saucer. Any food would surely stick in his throat.
She sat on the love seat, her own cup and saucer cradled in her hands. “Well, Stratton,” she said.
“Well,Mother,” he replied.
And they had spoken volumes with just those four words. The whole history of the past six years with its bitterness and pain and estrangement was in them.StrattonandMother.The silence between them was loud. No, not that. There was no suggestion of sound. The silence wasthick.
