“Yes,” Lady Agnes said. “Dolores, you are not feeling well. I’m sure you would like some time alone.”
“Oh, tosh. I didn’t say anything the rest of you weren’t thinking.” Dolores stood and, with one last glare at Rosamund, strode from the dining room.
For a five count, everyone just looked at their plates. Then Kevin asked the duke about some horse he had seen race, and Minerva asked Douglas’s wife about some party she had attended, and conversation resumed.
“My apologies,” the duke murmured beside her.
“Not at all. I had no idea that the ton had such interesting dinners.”
In truth, Rosamund was relieved to have the talk move around her instead of right at her. It had been an astonishing five minutes. She hoped she never saw the likes of it again. However, if one of them was that angry, maybe all of them were. Even Kevin.
She couldn’t blame Dolores for being bitter, although she thought sisters of dukes did not act so rudely at dinner parties. Probably they didn’t. Normally, at least. The difference was that this woman did not consider the target of her rudeness worthy of anything else. She could insult the farmer’s daughter hat maker, just as she could scold a servant, to her mind. Politeness was reserved for polite society.
Still, it was useful to know the bad feelings about the legacy. She would keep that in mind in her future dealings with this family, along with the amazing bluntness with which Dolores had said the same thing as Felicity had in the park—That the last duke had been killed.
Not a single relative, not one, had disagreed with her.
* * *
Port was passed. Kevin poured himself a goodly amount. Sipping it kept him from succumbing to the urge to go upstairs, find Aunt Dolores, and—he wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t thrash her, which was what he felt like doing.
And the family claimed he was rude.
“That was quite a dinner,” Philip said, throwing himself into his chair after finding a cigar. “To think I almost declined the invitation.”
“It was beyond the pale,” Walter said. “However . . .” He just let that hang in the air.
“Are you making excuses for her?” Kevin asked. He couldn’t thrash Aunt Dolores, but Walter would do.
“Not at all. Her behavior was embarrassing, and an insult to Agnes and the rest of us. Yet it was understandable as well. Since that peculiar legacy affected you even more than the rest of us, I’m sure you will agree.”
“Did she really expect Miss Jameson to say, you are right, I shouldn’t have it, Please, let me give it back so you can split it up?” Nicholas said.
“I rather wish it had happened that way,” Philip muttered.
“She would be an idiot to do that. Or a saint,” Chase said. “Perhaps if she were weak, she might have been cowed by Dolores. Miss Jameson, however, didn’t even flinch.”
“No,” Nicholas said. “Damned impressive.”
She had been impressive. Kevin had felt obligated to protect her, but he doubted she needed his effort, or even that of Nicholas. He got the impression that if Dolores had continued much longer, Miss Jameson would have ceased her silence and given far better than she got, much as she had held her own with his father.
Nicholas began talking with Walter about one of the estates, and Philip availed himself of more port. Douglas sat quietly, as usual, observing.
Chase got up and came around to Kevin and sat down beside him.
“She will ask you about Uncle’s death now. She didn’t miss that slip Dolores made.”
“She already has. Felicity was indiscreet in the park. I explained it. The basics, at least.”
“If she is curious still, she may not ask you for more. It could be Minerva, or me.”
“Whoever is asked can just tell her what the record supports, as I did. An accident.”
“Do you think she will accept that after what Aunt Dolores said?”
“I don’t know. She has other things to think about right now. It may not be something she finds intriguing or wants to learn about.”
At the end of the table, Walter, who had assumed the head seat, was waxing idiotically about some bill being debated in Parliament. His musings probably sounded too much like a lecture to Nicholas, whose annoyed gaze did not match his amiable half smile.
“I think I will go and raise a different topic,” Chase said, standing. “After Dolores’s histrionics, we don’t need fisticuffs too.”
He strolled around the table and inserted himself between Walter and Nicholas. He brought up the subject of a different bill, one that Walter did not care about.
Kevin barely listened. He turned his attention inward and held a conversation with his own head. The topic was the enterprise, and a letter he had received from France in the morning post. That letter created a conundrum. It was a hell of a thing to have a door reopened when you still couldn’t walk through it.
“Quite a scene, eh?”
The voice startled him. He turned his head to see Douglas sitting where Chase had just been. Only, from the sounds of the conversation down the table, Chase had left some time ago.
How long had Douglas been sitting there? It was easy to forget the man was around, but Kevin tried to at least be aware this cousin existed. At least he had since the day several years ago when he strode into a family meeting, sat down, and asked where Douglas was—only to discover Douglas was sitting right next to him and had been there first.
“Yes, it was a scene for the family legends.” Kevin poured himself more port, then topped off Douglas’s glass too.
“She didn’t even blush, though. Miss Jameson. She held her own.”
“She did indeed.”
“I expect that quality doesn’t make things any easier for you, what with her having half that business now. It isn’t as if you can just dictate how things will go, I’d think.”
“We get along quite well.”
“Not the same thing, is it?”
He gave Douglas a good look. How someone could look so much like
