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“Yes. He and Michael were so much older than I. We rarely spent time together. And Mother was so …”

“Obsessed with them?”

He chuckled. “Of course, I loved him. I loved both of them. But in the way a younger brother looks up to older brothers. I don’t know that I truly knew either of them.” He paused, wondering whether to say more, but what was this visit turning out to be but an opportunity to voice what had remained unsaid for far too long? “That was why I was so fond of you when we first met. You paid me so much kind attention. You may not remember, but I had an interest in architecture, and I had sketched a plan for a tenants’ cottage that I thought would be more comfortable, and efficient, than those we had at Galecroft. You did a smashing job feigning interest in it.”

She regarded him for a long time. “It was not feigned. You were a remarkable young man. You still are.”

“Not so young anymore,” he said, attempting to mimic her blithe affect but, he feared, failing.

She didn’t speak for a long moment, but when she did, her face had softened so utterly that she looked years younger. “Your brother could make me laugh like no one else. He wasn’t a scholar, but he had a … silly heart. I know that sounds ridiculous. He was …” Her attention was drawn by Wallace, who was attempting to wiggle his way out of her lap. “James was like a retriever, loyal and sweet and silly. My suitors prior to him had been much more serious-minded. One of them fancied himself a poet.” She rolled her eyes to demonstrate what she’d thought of her former swain’s literary ambitions. “Let us just say that he did not have the talent that your friend Lord Stonely does.” Frances set the still wriggling Arthur on the floor and patted his head. “James used to apologize to me about your mother. About the way she treated me. And he used to lament that she wasn’t doing right by you.”

“He did?” Simon had always assumed his brothers took the maternal attention they commanded as their due.

“Oh, yes. He was forever fretting that she and your father weren’t taking enough of an interest in your education. He was worried you weren’t genuinely interested in the Church.”

“I was …” What? “I was not not interested in the Church,” he said weakly.

Thankfully, she said no more on the topic. “Simon, may I ask—of course you don’t have to answer—why this line of questioning all these years later?”

No. Well, yes, she could ask. But he could not answer. Not in any specific way. But perhaps he could tell her a not-lie. “I have been thinking, in a broad, generalized way, about marriage. About the succession, given that I’m the only one left. About what it might be like to bring a wife into the household.”

“Oh, no, you can’t do that.”

“Right.”

“It’s your mother or your wife. Both can’t survive.”

He nodded curtly. “I thought as much. Thank you for … illuminating things for me so thoroughly.” He was, suddenly, exhausted. He didn’t know how to extricate himself.

Well, no, given all that had happened this evening, all that had been said, why was he standing on ceremony? He rose. “I am sorry to leave so abruptly, but I am, truth be told, a bit overcome.”

“Of course.” She stood and came around to embrace him. He wanted to hold on for longer than was seemly.

He forced himself to let her go. “I understand why you stay away, but you know you are always welcome in my home—both of them.”

“I like it better when you come here.”

“Well, then, I shall endeavor to do so more often.”

She graced him with a smile, a great big one. “Please do.”

7

The Other Dowager Countess of Marsden

August 14, 1823

Twenty-five days before Earls Trip

“Simon, darling.” The Dowager Countess of Marsden—the first one—swept into the library as if she owned the place.

She did not own the place, the fact of which Archie and Effie frequently reminded Simon.

Simon took a breath. He had not expected to see his mother today. It had only been a day since his audience with Frances, and his heart was still battered by all that had been revealed. He had hardly slept or eaten. He’d known he was going to have to say something to his mother, do something about her. He couldn’t hear what he’d heard, absorb what he’d absorbed—into his very bones, it felt like—and remain disengaged.

Still, he hadn’t thought he would have to do so just yet.

Simon’s mother appeared to float as she approached his desk; she paused—hovered—for a moment before lowering herself into a chair in a single, smooth movement.