A Study In Seduction(33)
Seemed to Jane there ought to be more to life than numbers. Certainly there ought to be more to Lydia’s life.
“Where did you meet Lord Northwood?” she asked suddenly.
Lydia gave her a startled look. “Oh… I can’t remember. Why?”
“His father is a bit stern. Lord Northwood didn’t seem that way. Neither did Mr. Hall.”
Lydia made a murmuring noise. “What did you say to him? Lord Rushton?”
“I asked him about his seedlings and what might be the matter with my fern. Seems he’s got an insect problem. He wasn’t as… as earlish as I thought he might be.”
“What did you think he’d be like?”
“Rather majestic, I suppose, as if he’d just come from meeting with the queen. Instead he was more grumpy than regal. I don’t suppose he’s invited to court often.”
“Because of his temper?” Lydia smiled. “Papa was once received at court, you know. When he was knighted. That was years before you were born.”
“Did you attend the ceremony?”
“No, but Mother told me about it. She said it was magnificent, if a bit severe. I’d the sense that she would have liked to tell a rude joke or something simply to see what would happen.”
Jane grinned. “Was she fond of jokes?”
“She was fond of laughter.” A soft, bittersweet affection flashed in Lydia’s eyes. Jane knew that though their mother had died a decade ago, shortly after Jane was born, Lydia had lost her long before that. And yet Lydia rarely spoke of their mother’s illness—she told Jane only of the days when she was whole and well, the way her eyes lit with happiness and her laughter sounded like bells.
“She wanted everything to be light,” Lydia said. “Cheerful.”
“Not like Papa,” Jane said, then added, “Or you.”
“No.” Lydia slipped her arm around Jane, drawing her closer. “I’ve always been like him. Serious, academic. But secretly I wanted to be more like her.”
“Why?”
Lydia brushed her lips across Jane’s temple. “Because I thought life would be easier.”
“But her life wasn’t easy at all,” Jane said.
“No, that’s true. I was wrong.”
Lydia’s arm tightened around Jane with sudden urgency, and she pressed her cheek against Jane’s hair. Jane started a moment, then slipped her arms around Lydia’s waist and hugged her.
“Do you still miss her?” she asked.
“All the time.”
“I wish I did.” Jane’s voice grew smaller, colored with a hint of shame. “But I didn’t even know her. I mean, I wish she were still here, but I didn’t know her at all, or what she was like… Is it wrong that I can’t miss her?”
“Oh, no. No. And you did know her. For too short a time and not as any of us would have liked, but you knew her.”
“Everything would be different if she hadn’t died, wouldn’t it?” Jane asked. “If she hadn’t gotten sick.”
Lydia’s grip tightened. Jane heard her sister’s heart beating beneath her cheek, a rapid thumping that made her look up.
“Yes.” The word was tight, strained. Lydia looked over Jane’s head out the window. “Everything would be different.”
Tension threaded through her sister’s body. Jane frowned, then reached over to squeeze Lydia’s hand.
An odd, uncomfortable feeling rose in her—the sense that Lydia didn’t want to imagine just how different things might have been if their mother had lived.
Hot, damp air filled the greenhouse, making Alexander’s collar too tight, his coat too heavy. Resisting the urge to pull at his cravat, he passed rows of flowering plants to where his father stood examining a pot of soil.
“Sir.” Alexander stopped a short distance away. An old, familiar feeling rose in him—a strange combination of pride and inadequacy whose layers Alexander never wished to examine. He’d experienced that feeling in the Earl of Rushton’s presence for as long as he could remember, a fact that made his recent aggravation with his father all the more unsettling.
Rushton looked up. “Northwood. What brings you here?”
“What have you heard about the war?”
“Whatever you have.”
“In the event of a declaration, the Earl of Clarendon has emphasized the right to consider anyone residing in Russia an enemy,” Alexander said. “I’ve sent word to Darius in St. Petersburg, though I suspect he already knows.”