Chapter Seven
Dues must bepaid when one has only one living relative, especially when that one relative is a woman of significant age and health.
Dear Aunt Petunia.
His aunt’s long-suffering companion, Mrs. Turner, greeted Oliver in the hall. “Lady Whitely says she is dying, my lord. The doctor assures me she is not, but she is convinced. She insisted that you come here straight away.”
Oliver nodded and handed his hat and gloves to his aunt’s butler and followed Mrs. Turner down the hall. “I’m relieved to hear that her health is not as dire as she has imagined. I am so glad you are here to watch over her. Although I know she can be trying at times,” he said in a good-natured tone.
She smiled. “It is an honor, sir. You know I have been her companion for near on twenty years. I am quite used to her ways.”
Mrs. Turner was a small woman, with light silver-streaked hair and intelligent hazel eyes. Oliver liked her very much, always had.
“In any case I would make it known to you that I am very grateful to you.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She blushed.
Oliver patted her hand as he left her in the hall and entered his aunt’s dimly lit parlor to be immediately set upon by three small yapping fur balls who took to jumping up on his legs. Hesighed with the knowledge that his boots would be all but ruined by the dogs’ small claws.
“Ah, Bellamy,” his aunt called from her chair by the fire. “You have finally come to me. Must I be on death’s door for you to visit?”
He bowed and she waved him farther into the room. “I was here but the day before yesterday, Aunt,” he replied, placing a kiss on her cheek.
Looking a little confused, his aunt Petunia squinted up at him over the rim of her spectacles. “Were you? Surely I would have remembered that,” she said. Then, “Oh, do sit down, Bellamy, you are far too tall. Give me a crick in my neck looking up at you all the time. Anyway, it does not signify, for I am dying.”
“Really, Aunt? Dying?” Oliver took his usual seat.
“Yes! The dear doctor said so.”
Oliver raised a brow. “Mrs. Turner said the doctor concluded you werenotdying.”
“What would that old charlatan know? He’s not me,” she said in a superior tone, chin up in the air.
Oliver stifled a chuckle. “Aunt…”
His aunt began fussing with her shawl. “Bellamy, there are things that must be said before I curl up my toes.”
Oliver took one of the small pug dogs, who kept leaping up at him, onto his lap. “I am at your service,” he replied.
“Good. Now, is it true you’re marrying the Black Raven woman?”
“No!” Oliver’s eyes widened. His voice rose to an alarming and ungentlemanly-like pitch. The poor dog on his lap whimpered, and Oliver realized his fingers had squeezed the poor creature. “Where did you hear that?”
Aunt Petunia looked disappointed. “The doctor mentioned you were the talk of theton. I had hoped there was a smidgen of truth to it.”
“Old charlatan,” he muttered, letting the dog lick his hand in forgiveness of his rough treatment of a moment ago.
“Bellamy!” Aunt Petunia reprimanded, albeit with a smirk.
“The Countess of Blackhurst and I…”How to explain something he was yet to quite understand himself.
His aunt sat forward. “Yes? You do know my dying wish is to see you married, don’t you?”
He watched her as she looked at him with pleading eyes. She reminded him of one of her dogs whenever there was a treat on offer. Oh, his aunt was at her mischievous best today. “Are you not worried about her reputation?”
She flapped her hands around in a dismissive gesture. “Reputation? Oh, you mean about her husband? Henry said he was a shockingly rude fellow with no sense of propriety.”
“Did he indeed? Some say she killed him or had him killed. What do you say to that?” Oliver watched as his aunt processed all this information with little more than a raise of her graying eyebrow.
