Still, for her to fall asleep in his arms was good in a way Tye couldn’t put into words. In the moment, holding her soothed and comforted him probably more even than it did her, regardless that this encounter would complicate their breakfast conversation considerably.
After a time, after even the lonely fox had gone silent, Tye carried Hester into the house and up to her bedroom, laid her on her bed, kissed her forehead, covered her with a soft tartan blanket, and withdrew to his room.
“The mail, your ladyship.”
Deirdre, Marchioness of Quinworth, eyed the pile of correspondence with misgiving but took the salver from the maid and set it well to the side on the breakfast table.
“Is Quinworth sending you more love letters?”
Sir Neville Pevensy had waited to ask until the maid had departed. He was a handsome fellow who did not care that he was ten years Deirdre’s junior, any more than she cared that his affections would always be held first and foremost by his business partner, one Earnest Abingdon, Lord Rutherford.
If Deirdre found it curious that Rutherford had three half-grown children, none of whom resembled their father, well, these things happened in the best of families.
“Hale is a reliable correspondent.” Deirdre poured them both more tea, being of the belief that at breakfast, at least, one shouldn’t have to guard one’s tongue against gossiping servants.
Or servants taking her husband’s coin in addition to her own.
“You are very likely the only woman on earth who even knows the old boy’s given name. Cream, my dear?”
“Please, and peel me an orange if you wouldn’t mind.”
He gave her a slow smile, a man who enjoyed a woman comfortable giving orders. “With pleasure. What do you call a reliable correspondent?”
“You are trying to pry confidences from me.”
She poured a generous amount of cream into her tea, cream being the best part of the business, then drizzled a skein of honey into her cup as well. Neville watched her do this, and she liked that he watched her.
And had to wonder if that didn’t make her just the smallest bit pathetic.
“You’re restless,” Neville said, starting on an orange. “Your salons are part of what makes Edinburgh a summer destination, your kitchens are the envy of the North, and you’ve just spent a fortune in Paris on new dresses. And yet, you aren’t entirely enjoying yourself.”
She wanted to ask him if he treated Rutherford to as careful a study as he made of her, but watched him make short work of the orange instead. A man with competent hands—her husband had competent hands—would always have a certain attractiveness.
“Quinworth’s communications follow a pattern. He asks politely if I’d be interested in joining him at this or that house party, claiming that for appearances, we ought occasionally to be seen together.”
The scent of oranges blossomed in the cheery breakfast parlor. “He has a point. Your daughters are not married, and cordially distant doesn’t mean complete strangers.” He passed her a section of orange and appropriated one for himself as well.
“He has a point? Quinworth always has points and sub-points and supporting arguments for his sub-sub- points. When the girls have serious prospects, then I’ll swoop in and impersonate a mother hen. Do not hog that entire orange, Neville.”
He passed over three more sections and gave her a sleepy, rascally look that did nothing to assuage the ache Deirdre felt for the company of her daughters—and her only surviving son.
“So you tell your husband-his-lordship you’ve made other plans and he must endure one house party after another all on his own. You’re a cruel marchioness.”
“I’m a marchioness whose Papa at least made sure she had her own money.” She paused to butter a scone, wondering if Papa would be pleased to see his little marchioness now. She was estranged from her husband and son, missing her daughters, and growing old in the company of mostly male acquaintances whose friendship did not abate a loneliness that became more bitter with each year.
“Are you going to stare that butter into submission or put it on your scone, my dear?”
She slapped a pat of butter onto the scone. “When he’s fed up with offering casual invitations, Hale resorts to seeking my business advice.” She took a bite of scone then passed the rest of it to Neville.
“I ask for your business advice, and then Earnest becomes fascinated with my ingenuity when I quote you.”
“Earnest is fascinated with your ingenuity under most circumstances.” She took a sip of her tea, wondering if she’d sounded like she were whining—and over a man she’d never wanted to more than kiss, for God’s sake.
“My favorite marchioness is out of sorts. Hale must have gone beyond soliciting business advice.”
“I provide him business advice in great detail, in my finest hand, on scented stationery. His next move is usually to demand that I take my place as a proper wife.”
“Doesn’t the man know you better than that?”
“No, Neville, he does not. I’ve borne him five children and been married to him for nearly thirty years, and he does not realize that I take a very dim view of men who comport themselves like domestic field marshals.” A few months shy of thirty years, but who was counting?
“I will endeavor to keep this in mind.” He popped the last section of orange into his mouth, holding her gaze while he chewed, the scamp. “Why did you marry such a blockhead?”
The question was fair, one she’d asked herself many, many times. “He was tall enough.”
Neville’s elegant, manicured hand stopped midreach toward his tea. “My dear, when prone or supine, a man’s height hardly matters.”
“I was seventeen years old, you dratted idiot. I wasn’t thinking about anybody being supine or prone, I was thinking about waltzing with him. Do you know how desperately a girl who is almost six feet tall longs for a partner worthy of her height?”
“I’ve wondered why you tolerate my company. Height would never have occurred to me as the
“Nor humility. Hale had height and a wonderful smile, and his papa was stupid enough to sign the marriage contracts my papa had drawn up. I was besotted with Hale’s beautiful manners and his beautiful speeches.” Also his beautiful body, but it would be disloyal to Hale to bruit that about. “We had some good years, and whatever else is true, my children are well provided for and welcome in every drawing room.”
Neville took a slow, silent sip of tea.
“Just say it, Neville. I consider you a friend.”
“What comes after the blustering? When dear Hale finally figures out that blustering and lecturing and cozening aren’t going to work, what then?”
“I don’t know.” She buttered another scone and took a bite lest some uncomfortable truth try to find its way onto the breakfast menu. Neville was a friend, but he was a man, too.
In less than two years, Deirdre would turn fifty years old, an age unthinkable to that girl waltzing around all those ballrooms years—decades—ago. As a wife and marchioness, she’d learned that nobody could make her as angry as Hale; nobody could bring out her stubborn streak as effectively.
And when he stopped lecturing and cozening and blustering, there was nobody whose letters she’d miss more.
She rang for her confidential secretary, bid the man copy the missive, then told him to fold it back up and return it to the sender with a fresh seal of the same colored wax as it bore when delivered—just as she’d done with every other epistle from her stubborn, pigheaded, high-handed husband.
“I was hoping Fiona might be free to join me for a short hack this morning.” Tye sent the child what he intended as an avuncular smile, and she grinned back at him and started fidgeting in her chair.
“May I go with Uncle,
