“Good afternoon, Lady Juliana. Mr. Huddleson.” He stepped back and pointed down the hall. “They are gathered in the morning room.”
“Thanks.” Bertie handed his hat to the man. “I don’t suppose you know… I mean to say…”
Juliana took pity on him. “Is Mr. Smythe here?”
“Yes, my lady.” The butler sniffed. “Arrived not ten minutes ago.”
Bertie paled.
She secured her arm more firmly through his. “You have nothing to fear from seeing the man.” She pulled him down the hall. “The wrong was all on his end.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make meeting with him any easier.” He tugged at the knot of his cravat. “Not when he and I were—” He darted her a quick look. “Uh, such particular friends.”
She patted his hand and drew him into the sitting room. Bertie wasn’t the only one to face a past lover. She met James Masters’s gaze and gave him a smile and nod. But unlike Bertie’s relationship, hers had ended amicably.
“Juliana! Bertie!” Lady Mary swept forward and took her hands. “Thank the heavens another woman has arrived.” She nodded towards the settees and chairs in the room, most of the spaces filled. “As you can see, the only feminine influence on the conversation has come from me and Miss Lynn. And she, well…”
“I understand, Lady Mary.” Miss Bella Lynn was a… challenging conversationalist, to say the least. Never outright rude, yet she seemed to make those around her aware of her disdain all the same. “What is the topic of conversation today?”
The woman sighed and patted her snow-white hair. “We’re still up in the heavens, discussing comets and what-not. I much prefer talking about the going-ons of what happens down here on our planet.”
A man peeled himself off his perch on the windowsill and glided their way, his smooth movements impressive considering the height of his heels. The ends of his tawny hair just curled about his collar, and Juliana knew for a fact that he spent a large sum of money on a barber to give him that slightly disheveled look. “The topic has become dreadfully dull, I agree. And since we are guests in your home today, I say we change the subject. Did anyone read the opinion piece inThe Timesabout the upcoming demise of Romanticism? They’ve predicted it every year in the past twenty.”
He winked at Bertie, and her friend stiffened next to her.
Juliana burned for Bertie’s sake. To act so casually, as though nothing had occurred between the two men, was the deepest of cuts. Mr. Smythe was truly a horrible man. “The Romantics bore me,” she said. “All feeling and no reason. They’re the toddlers of modern poetry.”
Smythe narrowed his eyes. He made his living as a Romantic poet, but had yet to break into the ranks of a Wordsworth or Shelley or Rose. “As the founder of your favorite salon is a Romanticist, I’d say that is a bit hard of you.”
“But she may not be wrong,” a man wearing a banyan as a coat said. “I’ve long complained about the maudlin excesses of the movement. Balance is what’s needed.”
“Balance?” Miss Lynn leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “We’ve been ruled too long by classical ideals of Rationalism. It’s what has led to hundreds of years of domination by the aristocratic class. Romanticism elevates true beauty, spontaneity, the authenticity of the individual. There should be no balance for that.”
A loud chorus of boos clashed with applause of support. And any more talk of comets was promptly forgotten.
Pushing Bertie in the opposite direction of Mr. Smythe to mingle, Juliana led Lady Mary back to her chair and settled beside her. “Lady Mary—”
“No such conceits here. Just Mary.”
“Mary.” Juliana leaned closer, not wanting to be overheard, although with the exuberant ejaculations that accompanied the current discussion, being overheard was unlikely. “You’ve known my father for some time now.”
“If you consider forty years a long time.” Mary plucked up a glass from the table in front of her and took a long swallow. “If you consider the entire history of the world, that’s hardly any time at all.”
“Yes, well, in those forty years, have you ever…” She squinted. How to phrase this?
“Ever what?” Mary smiled, the crepe skin of her cheeks pulling tight. “I can assure you, in my years there is very little I haven’t done.”
Juliana chuckled. “Yes, but I was wondering more about my father, and what he might have done. Have you ever known him to have enemies?”
Mary sat back. “That, my dear, is a very odd question.”
Juliana looked at her hands. “I realize that, but—”
“I adore odd questions.” The older woman tapped one of her rings against the rim of her glass. “But I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like your father. Henry is, and has always been, a very kind man. After your mother passed, there was quite the flurry of eager young things hoping to become the next Countess of Withington.”
“Really?” Juliana pursed her lips. “My father’s estate—”
“Was enough to get by on. For a sensible sort of woman, having a kind husband and enough to be comfortable is more than enough. Your father would have been fortunate to wed any one of those women, but he was too heartbroken to consider marrying again.”
