“We’ll be certain to let you know.” Mr. Bateman slid the door closed effectively silencing the driver.
“I take it Mr. Daniels is your brother-in-law’s employee then?” He frowned.
“Oh, yes. He’s on loan. Milford conceded that it wouldn’t look proper for me to travel alone in the mail coach.”
Mr. Bateman was nodding, as if her answer explained a great deal to him.
“And the carriage?”
“Milford’s as well. They’ll return to Rockford Beach once they’ve delivered me. Mr. Moyers assured me that the townhouse was staffed, and he said he was fairly certain a driver was part of the household .”
“Fairly certain,Princesse?”
“Relatively certain.” Although Mr. Bateman had now planted a seed of doubt in her mind. And she didn’t wish to have any worries at the moment. Especially when there was nothing she could do until she arrived and knew the exact details of her new circumstances.
“Are you excited, about your party?” Aubrey wanted to know more abouthim. “Will your sister be there?”
His lips curved into a sad sort of smile. “Not really. And no, it’s going to be a rather small affair.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why did you marry him? You obviously didn’t love him. Every time I imagine some old geezer…” But then he shook his head. “Why not wait for a proper husband,Princesse? Did you not dream of romance, of love?”
Every time he called her that, he made her feel as though she was special to him in some way. But that was an illusion. “My name is Ambrosia. You may call me Aubrey, if you’d like.” She ought not invite the intimacy, but it could hardly be less intimate for him to be calling her princess. And although she appreciated the independence garnered through widowhood, she wished she could cast off Harrison’s name as easily as she’d cast off her blacks.
“Ambrosia.PrincesseAmbrosia.” Heat flushed up her neck and into her cheeks upon hearing her name upon his lips. “How old were you, when you married?”
“Seven and ten.” It seemed a lifetime ago. “My father died, leaving Mother and me quite alone and quite penniless. Mr. Bloomington was a second cousin to my father and also my father’s heir. If I married him, he promised my mother, she could remain living in our home.”
“You have no sisters either, then?”
“No. It was just Mother and me.” She remembered the days leading up to her wedding. “I was happy to do it for her. But for some reason, I believed that I’d be allowed to remain in my own home. I was hopelessly naïve. After the wedding. I did not imagine that he would want to…” She swallowed hard.
“And this Milton fellow, your brother-in-law, is he going to allow your mother to remain in her home now?”
“Mother passed three years ago.” Aubrey blinked away tears. She didn’t speak of her mother often and to be telling this man about her, for some reason, brought up all those old emotions.
“Ah, I’m sorryPrincesse. That must have been a difficult time for you.” The sympathy in his voice was nearly her undoing. Aubrey wiped at her eyes and nodded.
“She was in pain for quite some time. I only wish I’d been allowed to be with her in the end…Mr. Bloomington insisted I remain at home and allow the ladies from the church to sit with her instead. He’d said he didn’t want his wife exposed to death. I was too delicate, he’d said.”
She’d been a fool not to fight him at the time.
“Dear Old Harrison,God rest his soul,was an ass.” At Mr. Bateman’s words, Aubrey couldn’t help but laugh in agreement.
“God rest his soul,” Aubrey grinned impishly. Milton and Winifred had only ever spoken of her late husband reverently. Mr. Bateman’s blatant lack of reverence was freeing.
She sobered. “In the end, Mother died in her own bed. She never had to leave our home.” Aubrey took great comfort in that her sacrifice had not been for naught.
Mr. Bateman’s expression seemed almost pitying, so Aubrey forced a smile and flicked a glance at her newfound pet. “I do believe he needs a distinguished name, don’t you think, if he’s to become a member of theton?”
The dog was sitting on the seat beside her, eyes alert and watching out the windows but with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “Why do you think he does that with his tongue?”
Mr. Bateman leaned forward and pulled up the animal’s lips. “He hasn’t any teeth.” When he sat back, he shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you certain you want to keep him,Princesse? I’m not sure how he’ll eat without any teeth.”
“Oh yes.” If anything, his handicap only increased her determination to care for him. “I’ll try soaking his food in milk.”
“You’re going to spoil him.”
“But of course! Doesn’t everyone deserve to be spoiled at some point in their life?” Aubrey had arranged her coat so as to keep the animal warm.
When turned forward again she caught Mr. Bateman studying her—with that baffled, curious, and somewhat… heated glance that made her squirm.
