Phoenix and Ashes

entirely the urge to see you bound up in wedlock.'

He gritted his teeth, and studiously buttered a piece of dark toast. 'Not—entirely, you say.' The thought of fielding all those women made his head ache. Or maybe his head was aching because of the way his jaw was clenched. Nevertheless, it was not something he could contemplate quietly.

The Brigadier, wisely, was keeping silent, pretending a polite deafness.

'No.' His godmother looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if searching for inspiration in the intricately carved plaster. 'I think she has finally gotten over your father's death. I think she has realized that the world still goes on outside the gates of Longacre Park. And I think this is her first, rather rash step towards rejoining that world. Your aunt and I have both been attempting to coax her back out of her retired state. I should hate to see this fail to come off; I fear it might send her back into seclusion again.'

Reggie stopped buttering his toast, and stared at Lady Virginia, struck dumb with first astonishment, then guilt. If that were true—

He needed another opinion on this, quickly. He turned to the second of his breakfast companions. 'Brigadier? What do you think? You've known Mater for as long as anyone; you should be some sort of judge here.'

The Brigadier, still erect, still fit, and still every inch the soldier despite his years and gray hair, coughed once, politely. 'I wouldn't be so discourteous as to contradict a lady, but I also wouldn't even make an attempt at guessing what is going through any lady's mind, no matter how long I've known her. These are mysteries that a man dares to plumb at his peril.' He raised one bushy eyebrow and nodded at Lady Virginia. 'I leave that to the members of their own sex.'

Lady Virginia smiled slightly. 'I never thought you were a coward, Brigadier.'

He lifted his hand to interrupt her—politely. 'I was, in my time, considered a good strategist, my lady,' he said, with a twinkle in his eye. 'And a good strategist never attacks a fortified stronghold. Ever.' He spread his empty hands in a gesture of conciliation. 'Besides, I am at a disadvantage. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter will be invited for the ball. If they were to discover that I dared to be against it, however briefly, I will have to watch for arsenic in my brandy.'

Reggie swallowed his groan. If it was, indeed, the case that this was the sign his mother was ready to move back into her old circles again— then how could he possibly object to something that would get his mother to do what he had been praying she would ever since his father's untimely death? She couldn't keep trying to lock the world outside away. It wasn't healthy. She'd turn into a Miss Havisham if she weren't careful.

But there was no denying the fact that this weekend party was a thinly disguised attempt to force him to make some sort of choice of fiancee and announce an engagement. If not announce an engagement and a wedding—at this point in the war there had been so many hasty marriages that virtually any young man who wanted or needed a special license could get one on a moment's notice. Not that he entirely blamed her on that score; he was the only heir, and he was going back to the Front when his leg healed—

—when his mind healed—

But dash it all, there wasn't one of these society fillies that he could stand being in the same room with for the course of a cardparty! How was he to tolerate one day in, day out, for the rest of his life?

The mere thought took away his appetite, and he excused himself from the table, going out onto the terrace to stare unseeing down into the gardens. He had made some progress towards the goal that Lady Virginia had set for him; his shields were far more transparent now, and he had been making some small, tentative attempts at reading the currents of magic around him. As a result, he sensed it was her coming up behind him, long before she spoke.

She stood beside him, looking out onto the vista that had cost his distant ancestor a pretty penny to produce. 'Sometimes I wonder if you hate me, Reggie,' she said, in a voice that sounded tired.

He turned towards her with surprise. 'Hate you? No! Why should I hate you?'

'Because I tell you all the uncomfortable truths you would rather not hear. It's a privilege of age. But that doesn't make it less painful to hear them, I'm sure.' She made a little, annoyed sound in the back of her throat. 'Not that I'm going to stop telling them to you.'

'Not that I expect you to,' he countered. He leaned on the marble balustrade and looked out into the garden. 'Mater wants me married. She wants it with a desperation that frightens me. I don't want a wife, or a fiance, or anything like one. I won't insult you by claiming some noble motives, my lady, or pretending I want to spare some unknown girl grief when I go back to the Front; the simple fact is that I have not met one single young woman who would be 'suitable' in Mater's eyes who was not a dead bore, an empty-headed mannequin suited only for displaying expensive clothing, or—'

He almost said, 'Or a hard-eyed chit who would wait just long enough for me to get onto the train to the Channel-ferry before collecting her lovers to populate my house at my expense,' but decided that discretion was the better part there. Besides, Lady Virginia would want to know who he was talking about, and he didn't want to tell her.

'Or an opportunist more interested in my title and social connections than myself,' he concluded,