Temperance noticed this upon entering the drawing room and did not bother to address it. It was a typical occurrence in their household.
Biscuit… the largest of the three, a great tawny hound with a permanently mournful expression that bore no relation whatsoever to his actual temperament… was stretched across the full length of the cushions with his chin resting on the armrest and his eyes half-closed in the practiced manner of a creature who knew perfectly well he was not supposed to be there. Beside him, tucked into the corner with her nose buried under his ear, was Midge, small and wiry. And at the foot of the settee, taking up considerably less space, sat Peabody, short-legged, long-eared.
The scandal sheet lay open on the side table where Albina had left it, folded to the relevant column.
Of course, Temperance had read it twice already.
“One would perhaps read this as a compliment,” Temperance said, sighing. “It’s a testament to your young spirit.”
“Progress,” her mother’s voice drifted back from somewhere down the hall. “I shall write them a note of thanks.”
Trust her mother to turn the worst of situations into something to laugh at.
“You will do no such thing,” Temperance warned.
“Oh, but we must always keep them on their toes,” Albina smirked. “Besides, you know thetonis. Their memory is that of afish, and they will have forgotten this all by next week when they have the next scandal to salivate over.”
“You’re always optimistic,” Temperance replied.
“One has to be,” Albina replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Otherwise, life will simply beat you down and make you wallow in misery. Why on earth shall I waste my life like that?”
Temperance settled into the armchair across from the occupied settee, tucking her feet beneath and surveyed the room with a quiet sense of satisfaction. It was, in short, a room that was actually lived in.
“Where is Soot?” Albina appeared in the doorway holding two cups of tea, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked comfortable, which was relief to see. “I haven’t seen her since supper.”
Temperance looked up from the scandal sheet.
“She was in the kitchen earlier, trying to convince Mrs. Peel to give her the fish.”
“Did she succeed?”
“What do you think?”
“That cat has more charm than the entire House of Lords combined.”
“Considerably more,” Temperance agreed, as she wrapped both hands around the cup and looked back at the paper. There was a small, familiar warmth in her chest that she rarely examined too closely… the warmth of this, of evenings exactly like this one, of the unremarkable and extraordinary fact of being somewhere she was wanted, doing nothing in particular, with someone she loved.
She had not taken it for granted once in three years and suspected that she never would.
After all, she knew what the absence of it felt like all too well.
Temperance and her mother shared one thing in common. Both of them did not like to dwell in the past for too long. But the nunnery that Temperance had spent nearly every waking moment of her life until three years ago had left its mark on her.
Too many of her afternoons had been spent doing something or the other that the Sisters’ at the nunnery had asked her to.Askedbeing a polite term for being ordered.
It was a different life, and one that she might not have ever escaped from had it not been forcibly shut down. It was only afterwards that she got a chance to reunite with her parents, a father who had never wanted her and a mother who had assumed her to be dead.
Biscuit shifted on the settee and placed one large paw over Midge’s back in a gesture of unconscious ownership but Midge did not stir.
“You think they will feature me in the next edition as well?” Albina said in a cheeky tone.
“They should give you a portion of their profits, if they do,” Temperance rolled her eyes. “It’s no secret that thetonseems to love reading about your little adventures.”
“Can you blame them?” Albina chuckled. “Most of them, their lives are dull as they can be.”
There was nothing to say to that, really. In a way, her mother had a point. But in their society, notoriety like this was not something to be celebrated.
If you were a woman especially. Then, having an interesting life was one of the worst sins you could commit.
