“Is it?”
“Given your tone—” Vi handed Rita a new cocktail and then slipped into the chair next to her. “I’m guessing that you might benefit from the fierce use of an ice pick.”
“I would benefit from the fierce use of a lot of things. I might have even placed a pillow over my face and shrieked today after Father left.”
“Oh?” Vi waited but Rita was so busy staring into the distance that Vi finally asked, “Why did he come?”
Rita blinked rather rapidly and then her gaze met Vi’s and shifted. Rita was, Vi realized, rather pale. “Those Hollands brothers from my wedding have been coming by. Father wanted to let Ham know, but of course, Ham was off with Jack interfering in people’s lives after putting us in pretty little cages.”
“Are you and Ham fighting?”
Rita paused so long that Vi thought for certain that they were. “I—” Rita shook her head and then finished, “No. No, of course not.”
Their gazes met again and this time Rita’s matched Vi’s humor.
“All right, I confess. Ham and I have to keep consciously and desperately from arguing. We’re just both so…so…”
“Intelligent and opinionated?”
“Opinionated anyway.” Rita sipped her drink and then leaned back, fanning herself with her hand. She finally met Vi’s eyes. “Father had other news.”
“Did he?” Vi asked when Rita let the silence linger too long again.
“Father has purchased a house near ours.”
“You rather thought he was going to, didn’t you? Or at least leave Scotland after the scandal and the true colors of his friends becoming apparent.”
Rita nibbled at her lip and Vi was surprised to see the uncertainty on her friend’s face. Rita was nothing if not the confident, outgoing personification of a bright young thing. How…why…had Rita become so uncertain? Vi guessed. “Is he going to marry that woman?”
“Mmm.” Rita’s gaze shifted to the side. “They married while we were gone.”
Again, the silence was too long and it was filled with the suffocating weight of Rita’s bottled feelings.
“Mmm,” Rita said again.
“Are you too full of emotion for words?” Vi’s gentle tone made them both wince. Vi reached out a sweaty hand to her friend and squeezed Rita’s.
Rita had to clear her throat to answer and her voice was shaky when she did. “He knew I would understand when I discovered she was with child.”
It was Vi who was now silent as she stared at Rita. The silence was a different kind of weighty and Vi had to bite down on her bottom lip to hold in the inappropriate laugh. “Are you…isn’t she…my goodness. Isn’t she too old?”
“Apparently not,” Rita replied with an edge of bitterness. “I’m going to be a big sister.”
Again that weight. It was a combination, Vi thought, of ridiculous humor, jealousy, guilt for the jealousy, and hurt.
Violet turned her glass in her hand as she fought for how to be a good friend. “You’re jealous.”
Rita gasped as if wounded and then admitted, “Perhaps.”
“It’s all right to be jealous. I’ve been bitterly jealous of Isolde the whole of my life, and I adore my sister. Let alone the wart. Father is kinder and more engaged with the child he knows isn’t his over Victor and I.”
“He did raise him,” Rita said, knowing that Violet agreed.
“Emotions aren’t rational. Yours or mine. It’s fine if you’re jealous. It’s reasonable. Human even.”
“I expect better of myself.”
“So do I,” Vi added. “I love that wart of ours. I miss him when I don’t see him. I envy him his relationship with my father.”
“I…thank you.” Rita drained her glass.
“You need a distraction.” Whenever she said anything quite so mischievously it was evident she intended to dive into the type of hijinks that would send her stepmother into spasms.
Rita smiled slowly. “A party?”
“Something ridiculous. More ridiculous than going on a voyage without any investigation.”
“The opposite of my perfect wedding. From one extreme to the other,” Rita said. “Prizes like Father had, but of the most ridiculous nature.”
“Roller-skates,” Vi suggested. “A live band. Someone serving ice cream. A party that doesn’t start until most of the countryside has gone to bed.”
“Your bathing pool,” Rita added. “Midnight swims with candlelight.”
Vi’s eyes narrowed, recognizing the clever push of the party to Vi’s house rather than to Rita’s. Rita grinned widely and Vi said, “Fine. But you have to find the band and decide upon what we serve.”
“Agreed.” Rita rubbed her hands together and then groaned. “Oh, it’s hot. Maybe too hot?”
Vi shook her head. “We could have a party whenever, couldn’t we? Let’s start it at midnight.”
“I’m tired already,” Rita joked, but she had slipped a piece of paper from Vi and started to make a list. “Perhaps a shade earlier. Aren’t your supply of roller-skates in London? Shall we dart up and go shopping while we’re there?”
“Yes,” Vi said, “but in an auto. I would rather wear rags than get on a train in this heat.”
“Agreed,” Rita said. “Tomorrow we’ll go. Will Kate come?”
“Victor said she is refusing to even dress and spending much of her time in a cool bath regretting being with child during the summer. She has made him swear they will never have another child if this one is a boy.”
“Did he say yes?”
Vi rolled her eyes in reply.
Rita snorted. “Yes, of course, I forgot. He’ll do whatever she wants.”
“He’d have been happy with Agatha and Vivi anyway,” Vi replied. “Two girls, twins, so he can lead them down the path of all the terrible things he and I did? He’d never have wanted anything else.”
“Ahhh,” Rita said and then grinned. “Are you and Jack?”
She drew out the question and waggled her brows to indicate she wondered whether Vi and Jack were thinking of adding to their family.
Vi leaned back and eyed her friend. From her experience that question tended to be timed in direct association with someone else reproducing. She considered for a moment, fanned herself and asked, “Going to try in the future—when the time is right—so I’m not
