Someone to Love (Westcott #1)(11)
“I must protest your language, Harry,” Camille said. “It may be all very well for your male acquaintances, but it certainly will not do in the hearing of your sisters. You owe Abby and me an apology.”
“Do I?” He grinned and then winced and grasped his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. “You both look like avenging angels, I must say—just what a fellow needs when he has come home for a well-earned sleep.”
At least he had not said they looked like two crows, as he had when they first put on their blacks. Camille was darker haired than her brother, tall, very upright in bearing, rather severe of countenance, her features too strong to be described as pretty, though she could certainly be called handsome with some justification. Abigail had her brother’s coloring and good looks and slender build, though she was small of stature.
“Mr. Brumford will soon be awaiting us at Archer House,” Abigail reminded him. “So will Cousin Avery.”
“But what can be left to discuss?” he asked, releasing his temples. “He droned on for hours when he came here a few weeks ago, though he had absolutely nothing new to say. And why do the two of you have to go this time as well to be bored silly? I shall have a few questions for him when I see him, you may rest assured.”
“Which will perhaps be within the hour,” Camille said, “If you will but go and change, Harry, rather than continue to stand there clutching your temples and looking like a tragic hero. You would not wish Cousin Avery to see you like that.”
“Netherby?” Harry grinned—and winced again. “He would not care. He is a good egg.”
“He would look at you through his quizzing glass, Harry,” Abigail said, “and then he would lower it and look bored. I would hate above everything for him to look at me like that. Go.”
Their mother appeared behind him at the top of the stairs at that moment. He smiled shamefacedly at her and ducked out of sight. Their mother followed him.
“He is still half inebriated, Abby,” Camille said to her sister. “I wish Cousin Avery would put his foot down, but one knows he will not. Uxbury had a word with Harry last week, but our brother told him to mind his own business. Uxbury implied that he used stronger language than that, but he would not quote him verbatim.”
“Lord Uxbury does have an unfortunate way of saying things that set Harry’s back up, you must admit, Cam,” Abigail said gently.
“But he is right every time,” Camille protested. “Yet it is Cousin Avery who is the good egg. Harry gets away with altogether too much. He is wearing a black armband—a crumpled black armband—while we are decked out in black from head to toe. Black is not your color, and it most definitely is not mine. You are supposed to be making your come-out this spring, and I am supposed to be marrying Uxbury. Neither event is going to happen, yet Harry is out every day and night, sowing wild oats. And neither Mama nor Avery utters one word of reproach.”
“Sometimes life does not seem fair, does it?” Abigail said.
Camille turned away from the stairs to return to the morning room, where they had been about to take their coffee when they heard their brother stumble his way into the house. Their mother came into the room behind them.
“What is this summons to Archer House all about, Mama?” Abigail asked.
“If I knew that,” the countess said, “we would not need to go. But you girls have been starved for entertainment, and the outing will do you good. Your aunt Louise and Jessica will be happy to see you. It is too bad mourning precludes you from attending all but the most sober and dull of the Season’s entertainments. But if you are about to complain to me, Cam, that your brother’s social life is not as restricted as yours and Abby’s, then you might as well save your breath. He is a man and you are not. You are old enough to understand that gentlemen live by a wholly different set of rules from the ones by which we must abide. Is it fair? No, of course it is not. Can we do anything about it? No, we cannot. Complaints are pointless.”
Abigail took her a cup of coffee. “Are you worried about something, Mama?” she asked with a frown.
“No,” her mother said quickly. “Why should I be? I just wish to have this morning over with. Goodness knows what it is all about. I must advise Harry to change his solicitor. Avery will not object. He finds Mr. Brumford tedious beyond endurance. If the man has business to discuss, then he ought to come here and discuss it in private.”
The sisters sipped their coffee, exchanged glances, and regarded their mother in thoughtful silence. Something was worrying her.
*
Edwin Goddard, His Grace of Netherby’s secretary, had seen to the setup of the rose salon. Chairs had been arranged in three neat rows to face a large oak table from behind which Brumford presumably intended to hold court at the appointed hour. Avery had viewed the room with distaste earlier—so many chairs? But now he stood out in the tiled hall, awaiting the arrival of the last of his guests. At least, all these people must be called guests, he supposed, though it was not he who had invited them. Standing out in the hall was preferable, however, to being in the salon, where his stepmother was playing the part of gracious hostess to an alarmingly and mysteriously large number of her relatives, and Jessica was in transports of delight at seeing Harry and his sisters and was talking to them at great speed and at a pitch high enough to have brought a frown of censure from her governess if that worthy woman had been present. She was not, however, Jess having been released from the schoolroom for the occasion.