A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting(53)

‘Yes of course, I’ll head that way.’

As he passed, Pattson pressed a hand briefly upon his shoulder – a very rare trespass of propriety that he would not normally allow himself. Radcliffe placed a hand over his without looking up and they stood there silently for a beat, before he moved on without speaking a single word.

‘Happy birthday, Archie,’ Radcliffe clasped his younger brother’s arm warmly. Archie squeezed his hand back, grinning – though a little weakly. He did look, Radcliffe thought, rather pale.

‘Are you all right?’ he could not help asking in a quiet aside.

‘Yes, yes,’ Archie said, with a wan smile that quickly slipped off his face. There was a pause and then, he went on abruptly. ‘You were right about Miss Talbot, you know.’

‘Ah.’ Radcliffe felt a pang of guilt. He had quite forgotten that Archie might be smarting from the Miss Talbot affair – though at least, he thought with relief, it was nothing serious bothering him.

‘Yes, she’s quite forgotten me now,’ Archie said with uncharacteristic bitterness. ‘Setting her cap at everyone but me, it seems. Thank goodness for Selbourne, he’s—’

‘Are you sure you do not want a party, Archie?’ Lady Radcliffe interrupted, gesturing impatiently for her sons to take their seats. ‘It is not too late, you know. After all, coming of age is an important moment – we all want to celebrate!’

‘I don’t,’ Lady Amelia said sourly. ‘Why should I celebrate Archie coming into his inheritance?’

‘No, Mama,’ Archie said firmly, ignoring his sister. ‘I am quite sick of – I mean to say, I am quite tired. This has been a … busy Season already.’

Radcliffe eyed him a little suspiciously. This seemed unlike Archie, who had historically always loved his birthday, the Season, and really, any excuse at all for a celebration. But perhaps that was no longer true. Radcliffe shrugged it off and before long the usual hubbub of the family overtook matters. As dinner was served, Archie seemed to regain his colour, looking and sounding more like his usual self, and Radcliffe was pleased to see it.

By the second course, Lady Radcliffe and Amelia had resumed their old argument as to when Amelia should be allowed to attend her first ball this Season.

‘Next year,’ Lady Radcliffe was insisting. ‘You are still very young.’

‘All of my friends are attending at least one this Season,’ Amelia complained loudly. ‘Not coming out – but just dipping their toe. Really, I shall be considered quite frightfully green if I’m the only one who hasn’t. Just one, Mama, surely there is no harm? After all, I’m only a year younger than Cecily and she’s been to heaps of them.’

Lady Radcliffe looked torn. She was not unsympathetic to the plea, but she could not help feeling daunted by the prospect of all her children out in society – and no doubt getting up to no good – at once. She hesitated, undecided. Life seemed full of these sorts of weighty decisions this year, and since her husband’s death, she had no one to discuss them with. Except that now, Radcliffe was right there. She turned hopefully to her eldest son.

‘James, what do you think?’ she demanded.

Radcliffe paused with a spear of asparagus halfway to his mouth.

‘What do I think of …?’ he asked, warily.

‘Of whether I should let Amelia be allowed to one ball this Season. Perhaps it would not do any harm – but then, if it will not, what is the problem with waiting?’ She looked at him, expectantly. Across the table, Amelia gazed at him, pleadingly. He stared from one to the other.

‘I would like your view, James,’ Lady Radcliffe insisted when he did not speak.

Radcliffe felt himself begin to sweat. He did not know what his view was and would not feel at all qualified to give it even if he did know. Was there any harm to it? Amelia was still just seventeen, which seemed young – and yet was that the terribly dour sort of opinion his father would have had? Was a terribly dour opinion the right one, anyhow? His cravat was beginning to feel awfully tight.

‘It’s your decision, Mama,’ he said at last, tugging on his collar. ‘I would not presume to know better.’

Lady Radcliffe looked a little crestfallen to have the responsibility batted back so easily.

‘I shall think on it, Amelia,’ she said to her daughter.

Radcliffe knew he had failed to pass her test. But really, why on earth should she call upon him for these matters, when he was barely ten years older than Amelia? Just because he had the title, now, did not mean he had any more experience or wisdom than he had when his father was alive. The late Lord Radcliffe would have had an opinion, of course – and they all would have heard about it, as loud as the church bell’s ringing at St Paul’s, he thought bitterly. He would have cared: cared for what was proper or improper, cared what other families were doing, and what they would think. Whereas Radcliffe could not muster any sense of that thought or effort within himself, though it was so clearly going to be required of him more and more the longer he stayed in London. Not for the first time, a desire to leave – to escape – warred within him with the desire to remain. Life was simpler at Radcliffe Hall; there he was free from family pressures, and yet … the London Season was captivating him more this year than it had before. Some of the responsibility for this lay, he could admit, at the door of Miss Talbot – and the unpredictability she was bringing to matters – and now he had begun the Season he could not help but want to see where it – and she – ended up.