“I hope it was a good meeting,” she said, but before he could answer, she added, “I am famished. Are you ready to dine?”
Glancing at the invitations, Adelia scooped them up and preceded Thomas into the dining room with its pretty blue-and-silver striped wallpaper. It still seemed odd sometimes that it was only the two of them. In earliest childhood, there’d been a third Smythe sibling, Frances, who’d passed from a wasting illness. It had begun as a small cough that ultimately took the life of the skeletal three-year-old. Not long after, the next birth had resulted in the death of both Adelia’s mother and the baby.
Her father had changed for the worse. Lord Richard Smythe had always been loud, brusque, and often heavy-handed when he wasn’t obeyed quickly. Without her mother’s tempering nature to soothe him, he had grown increasingly violent. Regrettably, Adelia’s shy nature and her childhood stuttering greatly annoyed him. If not for Thomas’s increased height and size, not to mention his devoted protection, she was positive she would have suffered far worse injuries than she’d sustained.
Eventually, she had overcome the stuttering at her father’s command, and it had taken only a few painful beatings for her to realize if she spoke slowly and softly, she could control the affliction. Thus, by the time she came out into society, she no longer had the speech impediment—except, to her shame, when extremely nervous or too tired to think clearly. If possible, she barely spoke at all, at least not to those outside of her very narrow acquaintance.
Unfortunately, she had never been able to alter her inconvenient shyness and dreaded most every outing. The only good part about a bruised cheek or a sore arm was being excused from social gatherings until she healed.
And then, nearly two years earlier, the earl fell ill from what seemed to be pyrosis followed by an attack of the purples. After a long, lingering decline of six months, he grabbed his chest one day and died.
The physician said he had inflammation of the heart, but she and Thomas could see the more worked up their father became, the more significant his symptoms.
“I vow the world annoyed our father to death,” Thomas said after the funeral.
Thus, when her brother began spending time at Teavey’s West End pugilist’s club, she worried her brother might suffer similar health issues from an overabundance of bile and aggression.
“Just the opposite,” he told her. “When I punch a man and he socks me back, we sweat like the devil and our muscles ache, and then we’re done. We shake hands before and after, and when I leave Teavey’s, I feel worry-free.”
Adelia placed the invitations on the edge of her side of the table, on the intricate lace cloth.
“Business is going well?” she asked.
“It seems to be. Victor said he has a way to improve productivity. Upon speaking with Mr. Arnold, however, he informed me profits are up this quarter. Therefore, I told Victor to stay the course at present.” He paused and cocked his head. “He asked after you today.”
Her stomach tightened, and she stared down at her soup. “Did he?”
There was nothing wrong with their engineer except he was a man and a stranger. She didn’t want her brother to think anything would come of trying to get her together with Victor Beaumont.
“He did. He wondered if you had formed any attachments this Season,” Thomas added.
She pursed her lips. After a moment, she replied, “That seems rather personal, perhaps inappropriate.”
“Not at all. He cares about this family. He might come to care foryouin a particular way.”
She’d been right. Thomas would be pleased if she showed some inkling toward the man who was so important to their company.
Her father, on the other hand, never would have entertained the notion since Mr. Beaumont was decidedly middle-class. But her brother adhered to newer ideas of barriers being broken down and of classes mingling.
Adelia thought it was a good thing when she considered it at all, but she didn’t want her brother’s radical ideas to involve her. It was bad enough she had to deter any interested noblemen, either with her fake braying laughter or by ignoring them completely by studying the wallpaper. Both tactics worked well, particularly the noisy laughter.
However, if she now had to also worry about dissuading all the other men of London, the bankers and engineers, the lawyers and stockbrokers, then she would have to stay indoors forever. The notion was entirely too taxing.
Men were loud, frightening creatures, apt to strike out in an instant. Her brother was an exception, and even he could be loud sometimes.
“I do not wish him to care for me in any way at all,” she said as reasonably as she could.
“Dilly,” he began, “I know you are a timid mouse, but you were meant to marry and have children. Don’t you think it’s against God and nature for you to do neither?”
She sighed. “I would prefer to remain living here with you. And I would appreciate your permission not to carry on with any more social events this Season. That is, unless I wish to attend.”
Thomas frowned.
She didn’t find it at all galling to ask his permission, though he was younger. He had always taken care of her, and he was now the head of the family. What he said would be the law. Thus, she held her breath.
“For your own good, I cannot agree to that. Not yet. What if you stay home and miss the man who was meant to be your husband?”
Adelia dropped her hands into her lap and clenched her napkin.
