“Not so much as a letter.” Temperance reached for her own tea. “Whoever he is, he does not appear to be in any great hurry to claim what is his. I confess I stopped waiting for him some time ago. He can take the title and the estate and every creditor attached to it, for all I care. As long as Mother and I are left in peace.”
“That seems optimistic,” Alethea said.
“I prefer to think of it as practical.” Temperance smiled at her over the rim of her cup. “We are managing perfectly well on our own.”
Even if it wasn’t deemed perfectly acceptably by society’s standards.
“Well, if you can manage to keep your mother out of trouble, then yes,” Charity said. “Funny. It is usually the other way around.”
“I don’t mind it so much. It adds some flavor to my own life,” Temperance replied.
“Out of us all, you were always the one with the most zest for life,” Alethea nodded in agreement. “Proving that the apple does not fall too far from the tree.”
The three ladies shared a laugh, but then Temperance suddenly froze at a very familiar sound.
She knew that laugh. A very, very drunk laugh.
Temperance was on her feet before she had finished the thought.
“Forgive me,” she said, already moving toward the door. “I have to sort something out.”
Charity and Alethea exchanged a glance, but neither of them tried to stop her. They knew better.
She found her mother in the east garden. There were four of them gathered in a loose circle near the rose arbor and in the middle of them stood Albina Hosmer, Dowager Viscountess of Wilmington.
Forty-six years old, three glasses of champagne past sensible, and absolutely beaming.
“….and I told him that if his horse had more sense than he did, then perhaps the horse ought to be the one attending Parliament!” Albina announced, to a round of tittering.
“Oh, Lady Wilmington,” said one of the women, a narrow-faced creature in yellow whom Temperance did not know by name but recognized by disposition. “You are too dreadful.”
“I have been told,” Albina agreed cheerfully.
“One does wonder how your poor daughter manages,” said Lady Whitmore, with a smile that did not strike Temperance as sincere, though her mother might not have noticed. “Shepherding you about must be rather exhausting work.”
“Oh, Temperance loves it. She would be bored without me, I assure you.”
“I imagine she would be quite a lot of things without you.” Lady Whitmore glanced at her companions. “Respectable, for one.”
The laughter that followed was not kind but Albina’s smile did not waver, but something flickered behind her eyes before she tipped her chin up and said, brightly, “And you, Lady Whitmore, would be quite a lot of things without your husband’s fortune. Dull, for one.”
There was more laughter and Temperance stepped into the circle.
“Mother.” She took Albina’s arm with a firmness that brooked no argument and turned a perfectly pleasant expression on the assembled women. “What a lovely afternoon. I hope you’ll forgive us…. there’s someone inside who has been desperate to speak with her. You know how it is.”
Lady Whitmore looked at her disapprovingly.
“Miss Hosmer. We were simply enjoying your mother’s company.”
“How generous of you.” Temperance smiled. “I’ll be sure to let her know, once she’s rested. Good afternoon.”
She did not wait for a response and steered her mother firmly toward the garden path. Albina came along without resistance, which was either a good sign or a sign that the champagne had reached the stage where walking in a straight line required concentration.
“I was winning,” Albina said mournfully.
“You were entertaining them.”
“There is a difference?”
