She kissed him again. ‘You are the best of brothers,’ she said.
He held out his arm. ‘Come and take tea in the blue parlour and then I will show you the rest of the house.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
After supper, Sebastian and Matt retired to the study where a cheerful fire burned in the grate against the chill of the evening.
Matt swirled the brandy in his glass and took a sip. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. ‘I must say, Lord Somerton, life has dealt you a well-deserved hand. I still have to pinch myself to believe how it came about.’
Sebastian smiled. ‘It’s not as easy as you would think, Matt. First and foremost, I have responsibility for the lives and the livelihoods of the tenants—a responsibility my late cousin appeared to have done his best to shirk in his lifetime.’
Matt nodded. ‘It sounds like your cousin was not greatly loved.’
Sebastian looked into the depths of the newly procured, expensive but legally imported brandy. ‘I am struggling to find some redeeming feature in him,’ he said.
‘He had good taste in women,’ Matt said.
Sebastian looked up.
‘Having just had the pleasure of Lady Somerton’s company for the last fortnight, I was not wrong in my first impression.She is a treasure. You know the old pianoforte? She played it like it was the finest concert instrument. Beautiful and talented.’
‘I’m glad you like her.’ Sebastian maintained a neutral tone, but it pleased him to hear Isabel spoken of so highly by his brother.
‘She doesn’t talk about her husband much,’ Matt pried.
‘No. It was not a happy marriage,’ Sebastian replied, cutting short any further comment.
‘Those cousins of his are a strange pair,’ Matt said. ‘How on earth did you get saddled with that frightful duo?’
‘I appear to have inherited them as a problem my cousin wasn’t prepared to deal with.’
Sebastian toyed with confiding his thoughts on Anthony’s death to his brother but decided not to cloud the younger man’s judgment for the moment. Any insight Matt could offer was best untainted by Sebastian’s growing unease about Freddy Lynch.
‘On the other side of the coin, tomorrow you are going to meet your grandmother and a large assortment of aunts and uncles and cousins. I have organised a picnic in the grounds for the family. If the weather is foul, it will be a picnic in the ballroom.’
Matt shook his head. ‘Fancy that, a whole family we never knew about. Connie is so excited.’
Sebastian nodded. ‘All those years of thinking it was just us in the world, Matt.’
‘So why did Lord Somerton cut his son off like that? Was it just because he loved the vicar’s daughter?’
Sebastian sighed. ‘From what I can gather, it was pride on both sides. Lord Somerton had betrothed his son to the daughter of an earl and our mother was betrothed to someone else. When they eloped, both fathers would have felt a terrible sense of betrayal and shame. But enough of the past. All the players in that sad drama are dead, and I think speculating on what might have been is a waste of time.’
‘Quite right.’ Matt rose to his feet. ‘It’s been a long day. I amlooking forward to losing myself in that bed. I swear it would have filled my room at home.’
Sebastian smiled and bade his brother goodnight.
He sat for a while longer, finishing his glass of brandy and gazing into the fire, reflecting on what he recognised as a rare moment of contentment.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The next day dawned bright and clear, but before the guests were due to arrive, Sebastian took Matt and Connie down to the village to call on their aunt and grandmother. Peggy had burst into tears on seeing Connie.
‘Oh, you are the spit of your mother,’ she sobbed. ‘I would have sworn it were Marjory herself walking up the garden path.’
Connie, in turn, had burst into tears on meeting her grandmother. While the women wailed, Sebastian and Matt stood by the door, waiting for the flood to subside. Sebastian stole a glance at his brother and noticed the younger man’s eyes seemed moist.
Matt caught his glance, sniffed, and looked up at his brother with a rueful smile.
