Ivy acknowledged this question with a bashful shrug.
Miss Trelayne smiled gently and turned to Imogene. “And what of your interests, Imogene?”
“Oh, I have no interests,” said the girl nonchalantly.
“No interests?” marveled Miss Trelayne. “None at all?”
“Indeed,” said the girl, now with a trace of pride. “I haveno interests at all.If you wish to polish or promote an interest of mine, you may start and end with...” And now she made a strange fan-like gesture with two hands, slowly arching her palms open like a magician. This was accompanied by a blowing sound—presumably the noise of an abyss.
Ian was just about to scold the girl—a futile effort, he knew, but something should be said—when Timothea suddenly spoke up.
“No, no,no,” Timothea said, waving a fork back and forth in front of her face like a metronome. “There is abutter glazeon the radishes, Barton, I can taste it. Send them back. I swear, Ian, your cook is trying to kill me.”
Ian’s brain felt heavy, he wanted nothing more than to drop his head back and blink at the ceiling. He glanced at Miss Trelayne. She showed no reaction as she nibbled a carrot at the end of her fork.
“But how do you spend your days, Imogene?” continued Miss Trelayne, speaking to the carrot. “Perhaps that’s what I should have asked.”
“My days?” mused the girl. “Oh, I gaze out the window.”
“This I cannot believe,” said Miss Trelayne. “Far too boring.”
Imogene flashed an ingratiating smile and did not answer.
“I see you’ve altered the neckline of your dress,” commented Miss Trelayne. “This tells me that you’ve put off window gazing long enough to take up a needle and thread.”
“I was overwarm,” said Imogene, the smile still in place.
“Perhaps you like fashion, then?” asked Miss Trelayne.
“Perhaps it’s none of your business what I like or what I don’t like. Perhaps you can ask all night, or perhaps you can ask every night for the rest of my life, and perhaps I will not tell youmyinterests.”
“Genie,” whispered Ivy, a plea.
“That’s it,” said Timothea, slamming her cutlery downwith a clatter. “I must speak to the kitchen myself. There isfishin the soup.”
Ian closed his eyes, the gesture of a coward. He knew this; he embraced it. Closing his eyes was the quickest way to remove the scene before him. He could still hear it, of course—his sister ignoring the extreme rudeness of her daughter, hear footmen scramble out of the way as Timothea huffed her way to the door, hear Ivy’s squeak of distress.
We should have never left Dorset, he thought.
There’s no hope for it, he thought.
And finally:She’ll go. Miss Trelayne. Why in God’s name would she remain?
What an ambitious folly it had been to add another player to the farce of their lives. He had enough to worry about in Timmie and the girls; now he must worry about the flight of Miss Drewsmina Trelayne.
He opened one eye to peek at her.
She was eating her carrot with practiced calm; as if she hadn’t just been insulted, as if his sister were not as batty as a loon.
He opened the other eye and studied the flashing blue insect pinned to the neckline of her gown.
Why dress for dinner?he wondered again, signaling the footman for another drink.
Who gifted her with the gemstone broach?
What other—
“Perhaps,” Miss Trelayne said, forking up another bite, “Icouldask again and again. Or, perhaps you and I could find some peace between us?”
