The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister #1)(40)

It wasn’t the words that worked, but the tone—cool and calming. She could feel her anger ebbing away in response. In another few minutes she would be placid again, with nothing to show for the evening but a few nicks in the wallpaper where the tines of her fork had left their impression.

But she could still hear his voice. She could still see his eyes, so brilliantly blue, the intensity of his expression. That letter might have been a nothing-gesture for a man who could indulge in such things. But there had been just enough truth in what he said that she could not help but cling to it.

You could have had this, the memory taunted, if only you were someone else.

You could have had him if you were yourself. But you aren’t. You aren’t.

Eliza crossed the distance to her and set her hand on her shoulder. “You should never have known,” she repeated.

And that memory of herself—of that brash confidence, of that youthful excitement—seemed so distant that Minnie could feel herself nodding.

You’re nothing. Nothing doesn’t feel.

Eliza pressed on her shoulder, and Minnie collapsed back into her chair.

“There, there,” her great-aunt whispered. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Of course it’s nothing,” Minnie whispered. “That’s all I have ever been.”

After that, there was no holding back the flood of ugly tears. She cried until she’d expunged all the want from her heart—her wistful longing for the past she’d lost, entwined with the future she could not contemplate.

“Maybe,” her great-aunt said, when her tears tailed off, “maybe you need to take some time away from the whole…marriage…thing. Just stay here on the farm. A few weeks. What do you think?”

She didn’t have a few weeks. She had his letter, though—the proof that she needed. She could end the suspicion Stevens held toward her tomorrow.

So why wasn’t she doing it?

Minnie shook her head. “It won’t help,” she said. “It never helps. Nothing helps any longer.”

THE TABLE AT THE HOTEL could have been laid for eight, had it been necessary. Today, it accommodated Robert’s mother at one end, and at the other, separated from her by six feet of polished mahogany, himself. It seemed as if every silver fork that the hotel owned had been laid out for them, and most of their spoons beside. He could have constructed an entire clock tower out of the assembled cutlery.

From across the length of the table, Robert’s mother laid her fork down gently.

This was his mother’s way of sending a signal. She’d changed the date. She’d agreed to the meeting, knowing Sebastian and Oliver were both in town. That meant that this was not just a meal, but a palaver—two independent, faintly hostile parties meeting to come to an agreement on the tariffs between their nations.

As always, she had not a single hair out of place. She dressed in what he supposed was the height of fashion, if he’d bothered to follow it. Her gown was a dark blue, the hems embroidered in a white-and-gold pattern two inches thick. Her waist was slim, but not too tightly laced; a shawl of black lace looped over her shoulders.

She had always seemed imposing, like some faraway castle tower looming on the horizon. Even when she’d visited him when he was a child, she had been distant.

Now, the two yards between them could have been a furlong. In the years since he’d gained his majority, they’d come to a comfortable accommodation. When they were both in town, they had dinner together—no more than once—and talked of nothing. Her charitable work, his work in Parliament. Everything they said at those meals, they might have found out about one another through the society pages. He had no expectations of her and she no longer disappointed him.

But her coming to see him…this was new.

“Well, Clermont.” She set her spoon down as a servant removed her soup bowl. Her gaze was fixed on him—affable, polite, and unexceptionable. “You must know why I have come.”

“No,” Robert said. “I don’t.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t recall? The last time we spoke, you mentioned that you were planning on taking a wife.”

The last time they had talked had been two months ago. He had, in fact, agreed when she’d said that as a man approached his thirties, he ought to consider marrying. It had seemed an innocuous enough statement at the time. It had been talk that was not just small, but miniscule.

“You agreed to do your duty,” she said calmly.

“I said I would marry,” he said carefully. “I don’t believe I spoke a word about duty.”

Her nose twitched and her lips flattened, as if the idea that marriage could be more than a duty made her want to sneeze. Still, she didn’t say anything until the next course had been laid in front of them. Then, she waited until Robert had taken a bite—and couldn’t protest—before speaking.

“If we are to approach the matter properly, it might well take years. Such a thing cannot be taken on cavalierly. There are backgrounds to inquire into, information to obtain.” She picked up her fork. “We must make lists. I’ve started three already.”

Robert swallowed the bite of fish even though his throat had just dried. For all that the woman sitting before him was his mother, she was a stranger. He’d scarcely seen her when he’d been a child. There had been a time when he’d wanted her to care for him. He’d wanted it desperately; he’d made excuse after excuse for her absence. But she’d made it painfully clear that his excuses were just that, and that she wanted nothing to do with him.