“It really isn’t,” Millie said with a laugh. “Who is down there, anyway? Anyone else from London?”
Claire shook her head and sighed. “No, not yet. How many roses do you think Mama will bring?”
“All of them,” Millie answered with immediate, dry certainty. “Every solitary bud.”
It got a smile out of Claire, a little reluctant and a lot childish. But then, her mother’s roses had always been a source of shared exasperation between her sister and herself. “I can’t believe she talked you into a bouquet when you got married,” she said, eager to change the subject, to talk about anything but Freddy.
“Ah, well,” said Millie with a languid stretch and a yawn, “it happened gradually, the convincing. Abe was surprised too.”
“Oh, Abe,” said Claire a little dreamily, crossing the room to throw herself onto the bed beside her sister. “I never could have predictedhim. I wish I had been with you in London that year, when it all happened.”
“No, you don’t,” said Millie, reaching for and squeezing her hand. “He lived with your husband that year, remember? And then your husband continued living there after the wedding, with both of us. It was …” She trailed off, considering the memory. “It was surprising, really.”
“Surprising,” Claire echoed. “Yes, Freddy is always that.”
Millie turned her head, her cheek pillowed by her dark curls, and frowned. “I’m not throwing barbs at him, Claire. He was surprising tome,and I only expected the very worst of him. I think it will be all right, him coming here. I think it will be well.”
“I hope you’re right this time, Millie,” Claire replied, returning the squeeze and wrinkling her nose at her own words. “I usually hate it when you’re right.”
“You do,” Millie agreed on another, longer yawn, her lashes starting to pull her eyelids down, the exhaustion of the journey catching up with her here in Claire’s bed instead of her own. “Miracles already.”
Claire watched her drift off with narrowed eyes and a tender heart. Fatigue sounded very nice right about now. Oblivion sounded even better.
Alas, neither were available to her just now.
She pulled herself from the bed with a muffled grunt and slid her slippers onto her feet, emerging out into the main halls of her manor.
For the last four years, Claire had been the lady of Crooked Nook, her husband’s ancestral estate in the Cotswolds. She was a countess, of course, just on merit of having married the man. But she functioned as head of the county as well.
While Freddy had languished in jail all those years ago, Claire had staged a legal coup with the other women he’d wronged, even the one he’d jilted in favor of Claire.
It had been Dot who hid Claire when she’d fled back to London in the wake of her crumbling marriage. Sweet, righteous Dot had saved her, even if she hadn’t deserved it. Millie had saved her. Even Ember Donnelly, Freddy’s one-time mistress, had saved Claire.
In fact, they were en route to Crooked Nook now from London. Perhaps it was odd, to have Freddy’s jilted ex-fiancée and his former mistress attend his mother’s wedding, but the world was a strange place.
Sometimes, the strangeness was the only good thing about it.
She sighed, taking the stairs two at a time down to the bottom floor and drifting toward the sound of voices. The foyer was still very cool, even this late into spring. She could feel the cold through the soles of her shoes and found it bracing against her hand on the railing. She inhaled it deeply, inviting the cool into her throat and her lungs, offering it her company.
From the sunroom to the right, she could hear her son expounding on something with great enthusiasm. It made her smile, and solved for her the intention of her next destination. A duet of impressed voices interjected here and there.
Yes, she thought, listening to little Oliver tell a desperate, shrill accounting of his last encounter with a doggy, strangeness was a balm.
How many runaway wives had come to be master of the marital estate? How many countesses, after all, befriended their husband’s mistress? How many could do that?
Claire could. Claire had!
In fact, it had made her mother-in-law think perhaps she could, too!
The dowager countess had already invited her late husband’s bastard to this wedding, though perhaps that was because he had married Dot. In any event, shehadinvited him, and then, in a gust of inspiration, she’d looked up at Claire across her desk and said, “Maybe I should invite his mother too. Maybe we have been remiss, treating one another with enmity. After all, Claire, look at you!”
She didn’t know if Patricia Hightower had followed through on that thought. She didn’t know if Miriam Cain would even accept such an invitation. Still, it made her feel rather inspirational and important, knowing she’d sparked the mere thought of it.
She turned into the sunroom with a look of happiness, finding her little boy standing on an ottoman as he attempted to demonstrate just how high his favorite terrier could jump to a rapt-looking and laughing Abraham Murphy.
Her mother-in-law, the dowager, was seated off to the side with her chin in her palm, looking utterly charmed by the display. She caught Claire’s eye first and smiled at her, inclining her head to invite her closer.
“Ah, Lady Bentley!” Abe said in his Scots brogue, sandy brows rising as he came to his feet. “I didn’t hear your approach!”
