“How long are you staying?”
“Just a few more days. Then I’ll return to Denham for a while. Spring is an important time. The fields must be sown.”
“Well, let’s not pretend you do any of that personally,” Octavia said tartly. “I do miss father.”
“Yes.” Their father had died peacefully in his sleep, not making a fuss, which was how he’d liked to have done it. “He was elderly.”
“Still, I just didn’t see it coming. Have you heard from Caius?” Octavia asked.
“He came by for supper the other day. I believe he and Eliza will travel to Bickerley in April, and they will spend the summer there.”
“Well, I do hope they’ll drop in.”
“I’m sure they will. You really should spend more time in London. Who do you have to talk to staying there all winter?”
“Granted, it is a little slow on riveting conversation.” And since his father’s death, there was even less of it. At times, he had considered taking himself off to London, but it had felt a little like admitting defeat. Saying that, he absolutely loved Denham and the estate around it. There was something exhilarating about going for a ride on a frosty winter’s morning. The countryside was beautiful through the cold season, but most didn’t stay to see it. “One makes do,” he said, wishing this particular topic didn’t continue.
“I hear your wife is galivanting all over Europe with her Italian prince.”
An even less desirable topic. “I wish her well.” And that was true. He had no bitter feelings about it. Perhaps a little judgmental about her character for not sticking to her bargain, but it wasn’t as if he was jealous. In all that, perhaps it said something about the state of their marriage, as it had been. Marrying for mutual benefit was more common than people admitted to. If one had requirements outside the marriage, one conducted such things with absolute discretion. One didn’t run off to take up a lover in the most public manner possible.
The rebuke was battling to get out of her lips, how she’d told him the marriage would be a disaster. While she thought so, the marriage had been a success. It had achieved everything it had intended to. The fact that it was now effectively over was happenstance. Obviously there could be no reconciliation. His standing and pride could never tolerate it. She had made her choice and she had to live with the consequences. Truly, he felt it was little of his affair now. The truth was that he had discreetly inquired about a divorce—had even instructed his solicitor to make progress. But his sister’s pressing was annoyed him deeply, so he refused to acknowledge he was doing anything at all. It would be fair to say he’d hampered the progress because of it too. It also annoyed him that Cressida tried to dictate to him to make him do what she wanted. The woman was used to getting what she wanted, and Julius was in no mood to by anyone. If that gave her sleepless nights, then it was less than she deserved.
To be fair, there had been a hope that they would fare really well together. They had many things in common—values and perceptions, but they hadn’t ever settled well together and achieved that sedate comfortableness that married couples often had together.
Thinking about it was putting him in a bad mood.
“I met Joseph Straithmarsh yesterday,” Julius said.
“Oh, that ponce,” Octavia said and sat back with her teacup. “That must have been tiring. No wonder you’re eager to leave.”
“Don’t be unkind. He sends his best regards.”
“I’m sure he does,” she said sarcastically.
“Well, he is tedious, but he had some good points. I need to have a portrait made.”
Octavia’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You wish a portrait of yourself?”
“Are you not sorry we don’t have a good portrait of Father? You children are never going to know what he looked like.”
Taking one of the ginger biscuits, Octavia considered the statement. “I suppose what you say is true.”
“And why have a portrait done when you’re old and decrepit?” He hated that he was repeating all of Joseph Straithmarsh’s points, but they were good points.
Octavia conceded. “It takes a great deal of time. Eliza had some miniatures done of her children by that artist we met once. Remember the girl from Brighton that we dragged around with us one season?”
“The one that didn’t manage to find someone to marry?” Julius replied, less than impressed.
“She did an outstanding job. Made the little monsters seem like angels. If ever there was someone to make you look handsome, it would be her.”
Julius gave her a chiding look. “I’m not looking for a miniature.”
“She has remarkable skill. The artist Eliza chooses, and she deals with artists fairly regularly. That should tell you something.”
The woman Octavia was referring to was a mere slight of a girl that Julius vaguely remembered. A charity case, if he recalled right. For some reason or another, Eliza had decided to give the girl a season. Well, it had been a waste of time and money, as no one had offered for her, in the end. Seemed she still worked as an artist.
“Well, she would have to come to Denham,” Julius said. “I’m certainly not going to Brighton.”
“I will ask Eliza to write to her and see if she’s available. If you’re going to have a portrait done, you don’t want to spend all that time and then find out that the artist wasn’t up to the job.”
Actually, now that he thought about how long it would take, he was starting to
