“I hope Mr Payne is not entirely knocked up by the journey,” she began. “He was not at dinner last night, and he did not come down to breakfast this morning.”
She smiled. “Indeed, he is perfectly well, merely caught up in his designs for the duke’s orangery. He was inspired by the one at Marshfields, and is working on a superior design to his first attempt.”
“I shall look forward to seeing it,” Sophia said. “He is so clever at drawing. I love to watch him work! But I dare say he is secretive about it, as Richard is. He shuts himself away in his room when he is working.”
“Simon does that too,” Lady Juliet said. “Especially when he is finalising the architectural drawings, he likes to be undisturbed so that he can concentrate.” Charlotte came in just then, whispered something to Augusta and Maria, throwingthem into gales of laughter, before bustling out again. Lady Juliet smiled. “How lucky you are to have sisters!”
“But you have sisters, too!” Sophia burst out before she could stop herself. “I am sure Mr Payne mentioned it once — three younger sisters, he said.”
“Oh yes, but I have never seen them. I left Edlesborough when I was three, you see.”
“But why? Oh, I beg your pardon. Pray ignore my vulgar curiosity.”
Lady Juliet laughed. “It is a natural question, but I cannot answer it, not properly. My mother died, and it was deemed best for me to live with… well, I called her Aunt Tabitha, but she was Mama’s cousin. She was a widow, living quietly in London with no children of her own, and… and I was sent to live with her.”
“Yet you have never seen your three sisters?”
“I have never seen any of my family since that day. I have two older brothers, Andrew, the heir — Viscount Kendle — and Luke, and then after Simon, there was John, Matthew, Rachel, Elizabeth and Martha. There may be more by now, but we could never afford the society newspapers, so we never heard.”
“You could look it up in Debrett’s Peerage,” Sophia said.
“I have never had a copy.”
“There is bound to be one here somewhere,” she said, waving a hand at the multitude of shelves laden with books. “Froggett is over there — he will know.”
Within a very few minutes, the butler had located a copy, with an apology that it might not be the latest edition.
“It is only five years out of date,” Sophia said. “We have the latest at home. Mama is insistent that we keep up with all the families to which we are connected. Here are the earls, Lady Juliet. When was your father’s title created?”
“The earldom? 1698.”
“Hmm…” She thumbed through the pages. “Here we are.‘James Edward Payne, Earl of Edlesborough, Viscount Kendle, Baron Landrick.’There! It will all be in there.”
She handed the book to Lady Juliet, who read it avidly for a few moments, then gave a little gasp.
“What is it?” Sophia said.
But just then, Mama entered beaming from ear to ear.
“My felicitations, Richard! You have a fine healthy daughter.”
“And Rowena?”
“Tired, but very well otherwise. You may see her in a little while. Are you awake, your grace? It is a girl.”
And in all the excitement of the news, Sophia quite forgot to see what had surprised Lady Juliet in the Peerage.
11: Daughters And Sons
Simon was satisfied with his new designs for the orangery. An uninterrupted afternoon had seen the last of his detailed architectural drawings finished, and he could not but be proud of what he had accomplished. Whether the duke liked his ideas or not, he felt he had produced something quite out of the ordinary, which met both the duke’s requirements and his own aesthetic standards. It was good, and he was pleased with it.
Mindful of Juliet’s instructions to pay some attention to Miss Sophia Merrington, which he was by no means averse to complying with, he allowed Robert to lay out his evening attire, and, thus arrayed, went down to dinner. He discovered at once that Mrs Richard Merrington had produced a daughter, and although there was the expected disappointment in the presentation of a female infant, still, there was satisfaction in the safe arrival and the promisingly healthy state of the mother. The physician from Brinchester had pronounced that all was well, and so there was an air of relief, if not quite celebration, in the assembled company.
One of the inexplicable, if pleasing, results of the visit to Marshfields was that Simon no longer struggled to distinguish Sophia from her sisters. He could not quite account for it, but now, whenever he saw them in a group, he could pick out Sophia with unerring accuracy. He drew her aside now, pleased that she seemed less twittery than her sisters.
“I congratulate you, Miss Merrington,” he said. “You must be delighted at the arrival of your niece.”
“Oh yes, if it will stop Richard from melting into an incoherent puddle,” she said, with a wry smile. “We are all so tired of him being wound so tight he might explode at any moment. In a few days, or perhaps a month or two, we have the greatest hopes that he might become rational again.”
