chapter 7
The room quivered with silence. James turned fractionally aside, releasing Laura’s hand and placing his trembling arm behind his waist in a formal pose.
“My dear, allow me to introduce you. My mother, whom I believe you already know. My brother Claude, his lovely wife, Adelaide . . .” He went on, listing all the names he had told her about in the carriage, though he stopped on the last person, raising his brows in a look that hovered between inquiry and disdain. “And Mr. . . .”
“Netherly, sir.” The man bowed. He was elegantly dressed and his manner polished. His hair was dark, with a dramatic sweep of silver at the temple. “No doubt you don’t remember me, but I have been privileged to call upon your mother in London.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Mr. Netherly.” James inclined his head graciously. Laura was uncertain whether James’s inability to remember the man’s name was an indication of failing memory or a lack of regard. With James, it could be either.
The usually voluble Tessa was for once too shocked to speak. Her face had paled at their entrance, and something almost like fear shone in her eyes. Claude, too, had gone bone white at his brother’s introduction of Laura, but it was anger she saw flash across his face immediately after. Apparently James had drawn the reaction he desired from him.
The young man who had spotted them (his brother Walter, if Laura had the names right) stepped forward. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” He smiled shyly at Laura. Moving past her to James, his smile grew more frozen. “Congratulations, James.”
“Walter.” James nodded pleasantly enough in acceptance of the man’s greeting, though he added drily, “Sent down again, eh?”
“Well, uh . . .” The young man blushed. “Yes.”
“I’m glad you are here,” Laura told Walter, smiling and offering him her hand. “Else I wouldn’t have met you.”
“Oh. Well, um, thank you.”
As Walter stepped back, James leaned in and murmured, “Already a conquest, I see.”
Laura sent him a repressive look and went forward to make her curtsey to his mother. Tessa had recovered her composure, and she rose to kiss Laura’s cheek.
“What a lovely surprise. Laura, my dear—I hope I may call you that, given our long acquaintance—it is a pleasure to welcome you to the family. We must sit down and have a tête-à-tête. I want to know all the details.”
“I look forward to it, Lady de Vere.”
“Oh, no, you must call me Tessa. Lady de Vere sounds so old, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure no one would ever regard you as old,” Laura responded gracefully.
Tessa beamed at her, then swung away, wagging a playful finger at her son. “James! You are wicked not to give me even the slightest hint. Here we are without any preparations made.” She smiled prettily up at him and patted his cheek.
“No doubt Simpson is adequate to the task.”
“Naturally. Still, I’m sure your new bride would have liked to take a rest before being rushed into supper with her brand-new kin.”
“I think you’ll find Laura is made of sterner stuff,” James told her, and the smile he gave his mother was the warmest expression Laura had yet seen on his face. Apparently he was capable of affection, despite his razor-edged comments about his family.
“I confess that a meal sounds excellent to me,” Laura said. “If I could just wash away the dust of the road . . .”
“Of course.” Tessa flashed the smile that had won her many hearts, and looped her arm companionably through Laura’s. “Come, I’ll show you the way.”
Tessa whisked her out of the room. “Dearest, I cannot tell you how excited I am to see you. I had almost given up hope, you know, because James never showed any partiality for one girl. He is not very sociable, of course, but even when I can drag him to a party, he will dance with a few different girls and chat a bit, but he doesn’t seem terribly interested. One would almost think that he is odd, if I didn’t know that he has always had a string of—” She stopped abruptly. “But that’s nothing we need discuss. The problem is just that he is so very choosy. It would take a paragon to catch his interest, which, of course, you are.”
Laura was not sure what to say to that statement, but fortunately Tessa seemed to need little response from her audience, sailing on to a new topic of conversation. “How is your dear father?” Tessa glanced over and saw Laura’s stricken face. She stopped with a gasp, her eyes flickering down to Laura’s black dress. “Oh! No! Is Dr. Hinsdale—surely he is not—”
“My father passed away two weeks ago.”
“I am so sorry.” Tessa’s eyes glittered with ready tears. “You must be devastated. But of course, that explains why James said nothing to me beforehand. No doubt he went flying to your side as soon as he heard.”
Laura blinked, taken aback at the dramatic picture of James his mother painted.
“He did just right.” Tessa patted Laura’s arm comfortingly. “I will not scold the boy any further. Naturally he wished to marry you right away so he could take care of you. I do hope your father did not suffer, poor man.”
“No, I believe not. He went quite suddenly. It was apoplexy; I did not even hear him cry out.”
“Oh, my . . .” Tessa sighed, shaking her head.
Her new mother-in-law continued to talk all the way to the washroom and back, flittering effortlessly from one topic to another and requiring little response from Laura. It was clear Tessa was used to being the center of any social setting and equally clear why she was.
Though her face was softer and more lined than in the days when she had taken London by storm, her dimples were entrancing and her silvery eyes, so like her son’s, were vivid. She had a way of tilting up her chin and casting a sideways glance at one that both was charming and, Laura noticed, served to smooth out the wrinkles around her neck. And if Tessa’s dark hair owed its color to something other than nature, it was no less shining and dramatic against her pearly skin.
It would be difficult not to be charmed by the woman, but Laura waited with dread for the moment when Tessa asked Laura about James’s health. Since James had been in London, she doubted Tessa knew how serious his condition was. Laura would not want to be the one to tell her. That should come from James himself. However, if Tessa asked a direct question, she would find it hard to lie to his mother.
To her surprise, Tessa did not touch on James’s thinness or the shadows beneath his eyes and the lines of pain bracketing his mouth. The closest she came to the matter was when she paused for an instant in her monologue, a tiny frown wedging its way between her lovely curving brows, and said, “I knew Mr. Caulfield could not be right. He’s partner with James in some business or other, and he saw James in London, and he said—but obviously it was love that afflicted James. It would take him like that, of course. He would fight it.” She shook her head at the peculiarities of her eldest son. “But now that he’s married, it will be different.”
Laura stared at Tessa. Could she really think that James’s appearance came from thwarted ardor? That a few nights of love in Laura’s bed would make him whole again?
For an instant something peeked out from behind the dimples and smiles, and Tessa’s hand tightened on Laura’s arm. “He isn’t . . . ?” Then Tessa shook her head, letting out a little laugh. “No, I’m being silly. I fear I often am. Laurence used to call me his beautiful, foolish girl.” She let out a little sigh at this apparently cherished memory of her late husband. “James is obviously making plans for the future. He’s fine; he’ll be quite fine.”
Laura realized that Tessa did not want to learn what was wrong with James. It would shatter her pretense that all was well. Laura wasn’t sure whether she felt more pity or irritation at Tessa’s willful blindness.
The others were waiting for them in the anteroom. James gave Laura a searching look as he offered her his arm to escort her into the dining room. “I take it you survived my mother intact.”
“Your mother is charming, as you well know.”
“Yes, but you are accustomed to an atmosphere of quiet and peace.” He seated her at the elegantly laid table before she had a chance to make a riposte.
James assumed his seat at the head of the table, with Laura seated on his left and his brother-in-law, Mr. Salstone, facing her. Salstone was a sandy-haired man who sported a twirled guardsman mustache and muttonchop whiskers so ridiculously wide that Laura had difficulty not staring at him.
His wife, Patricia, seated beside him, resembled her mother, but she lacked Tessa’s vivacity, and her eyes were a faded blue rather than Tessa’s unusual silver color, so that she looked like a poor copy of the original.
As the first course was served, Laura took the opportunity to study the other diners. James’s brother Claude was seated beside her, and the youngest, Walter, was farther along beside the maligned Cousin Maurice. Neither brother greatly resembled James. Like Patricia, their eyes were blue and their hair more brown than black. Claude had a sullen set to his mouth. Walter, nodding along in a bored way as Cousin Maurice talked to him, kept sneaking glances down the table at James and Laura. Once, when Laura caught his gaze, he glanced down hastily.
Laura suspected that Mr. Netherly was one of the “swains” James had mentioned hanging about his mother. Tessa seemed to devote most of her arch glances at him. The other person at the table, Claude’s wife, Adelaide, lived up to James’s description, her smile almost constant and her voice soft and sweet. Indeed, in all her ribbons and flounces, with her porcelain skin and fluffy blond hair, she looked like a confection herself.
“Lady de Vere.”
It took Laura a moment to realize that James’s sister was addressing her. A faint flush rose in Laura’s cheeks as she said, “Yes, I’m sorry. I am still unused to my new name.”
“Of course,” Patricia responded with a narrow smile. “I don’t believe we have met before, have we?”
“No, I think not. I’m sure I had my come-out before yours,” Laura replied.
“Then you do not visit London during the Season?” Patricia went on doggedly.
“Rarely.”
“My wife prefers the solitude of the countryside,” James told his sister, putting a faint emphasis on the first two words.
“But do you not miss the balls? The plays?”
“Not the balls, but I do enjoy the theater.” Laura smiled. “And the museums.”
“Oh. How . . . unusual.”
“I am sure you would find it so,” James agreed. “Laura is peculiarly given to things of the mind.”
“Now, James, don’t tease your sister,” Tessa inserted with the ease of long practice. “I believe Laura often visits her aunt in London, don’t you, dear?”
“Sometimes,” Laura agreed. “But I preferred to stay at home to help my father.”
“Yes,” Patricia’s husband said in the languid, faintly arch drawl affected by upper-crust young gentlemen. “Your father is a . . . barrister, isn’t it?”
“No,” Laura replied evenly. “My late father chose to devote himself to medicine, much to the disapproval of his family, who, like many aristocrats, find helping people quite beneath them.”
Beside her, James, who had stiffened at Salstone’s disdainful tone, relaxed slightly, letting out a chuckle, and Walter hid a sputtering laugh behind his napkin. Even Claude smiled. Patricia’s husband was apparently not liked by any of the de Vere males. Unfortunately, from the look on Patricia’s and Archibald’s faces, Laura suspected she had made enemies of them both.
Tessa once again entered the fray. “I rarely speak ill of people.“ That brought another quickly hidden smile from her sons. “But I must say, Laura, that I have never really liked your father’s family. Your cousin Evesley seems a selfish, unimaginative man.”
“Evesley?” Archibald cast a sharp glance at Tessa. “The Earl of Evesley?”
Tessa nodded. “He’s Laura’s cousin. I pity poor Mariah, having to put up with him. Of course, she was determined to catch him. Her family hadn’t a penny; everyone knows her great-grandfather gambled it away. Still . . . I’m sure she never dreamt Evesley would live this long.”
Archibald swung his gaze to Laura. “The Earl of Evesley is your cousin?”
“Of some sort. His father and my grandmother were cousins, I believe. I’m not sure what that makes us.”
“It makes you the all-important relation to an earl, doesn’t it, Archie?” James gave his brother-in-law a smile devoid of humor. “And how is your father, the baron?”
Laura, watching James, thought she would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of his icy smile. Unsurprisingly, after that dampening exchange, conversation limped forward in spurts of polite chitchat. The chill around James was almost palpable, though Salstone, at least, seemed not to notice it. Patricia kept up a resentful silence, and Claude was politely distant.
It was a relief when the meal ended and the women left the men to their port and cigars. Laura, pleading fatigue from the day’s journey, retired to the sanctuary of her bedroom. It was, she found, large and furnished with equally massive dark furniture, embodying both grandeur and gloom. But at least it offered solitude, which she badly needed at the moment. With a sigh, Laura plopped down in the chair by the window and rested her head against the back.
What a strange, eventful day it had been. Her wedding day.
Thank heavens it was over.