Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(49)
“And so it begins,” Devlin murmured.
Ben was busy with Joy, who was making grumbling noises at having her sleep disturbed.
“Welcome home, my lord,” the butler said, bowing importantly from the waist as Devlin descended the steps. “Welcome home, Mr. Ellis. And Miss Ellis.”
Devlin had not been sure if anyone here knew of the existence of Ben’s daughter. Apparently they did.
“Thank you, Richards,” he said. Everything outdoors was immaculate. Even the sheep below the ha-ha had looked as though they might have been washed for the occasion, though it seemed unlikely. Poor sheep if they had been.
The butler preceded them up the steps to the open front doors and bowed them inside the great hall. Devlin saw immediately what he had feared he would see and had hoped he would not. The servants were all there, lined up on either side of the entrance, the women on one side, the men on the other, as though they were about to perform some stately dance. All of them were in their best uniforms, clean and freshly starched and ironed. But even as the women all curtsied at a signal from the housekeeper and the men all bowed, Devlin became aware that he was not to escape the full flowering of this homecoming farce. A group of people stood facing him beyond the servants, forming a still, silent tableau.
The family.
His mother stood between two young ladies on her left and a young man on her right. None of them were smiling, and none of them came rushing down between the lines to hug him and Ben and welcome them home. He understood the reason, of course. They had not congregated here to greet the son and brothers they had not seen for years. They had done it as a formal, almost ceremonial gesture to welcome the Earl of Stratton to his principal seat. As though the earl were some impersonal being. But really he had not expected any different, if he had expected anything at all. He might have hoped this first encounter would take place in some private apartment—the drawing room, perhaps—but instead it was to be in a public setting. And of course it would be reported far and wide long before this day was over.
Perhaps that was the whole point.
His return was a necessary evil as far as the family was concerned.
“Mrs. Padgett?” he said, acknowledging first the housekeeper and then each of the two lines of servants with an inclination of his head. He glanced at Ben, who was looking toward something at which Joy was pointing, and strode forward between the lines without waiting to see if his brother was coming too. But this, of course, was all about him, not Ben. He could hear his boot heels ringing on the marble tiles as he went, the only sound in the hall except the slightly softer thud of Ben’s boots as he came along behind him.
Well, let them have their moment. He had inspected silent ranks of soldiers more times than he could count. This would not disconcert him.
His mother, he observed as he drew closer, had changed. Not so much in outer appearance—she was as elegant and poised as she had ever been. There still appeared to be no gray in her dark hair. She was perhaps a bit thinner. Her cheeks were more hollowed than he remembered, but her face was unlined and she was still beautiful. The change in her was something indefinable. There seemed to be a certain loss of charm and warmth, though it was surely not possible to form an accurate impression so soon, especially when she was looking at the son she had banished six years ago and refused to receive before he left. She just somehow did not seem like his mother. Perhaps he did not seem like her son. The light appeared to have gone out within her, whatever the devil that meant. But that was it, of course. That was what had changed.
They stood and looked at each other for several wordless moments after he halted a few feet away, neither of them flinching. Or smiling.
“Mother.” He held out his hand and, when she set her own within it, he bowed over it and made the quick decision not to raise it to his lips. It was icy cold and lay limp in his clasp. He had never called her Mother. He had not planned to do so now. But how could he call her Mama? He could not. “I trust I find you well.”
“Stratton,” she said. “Thank you. You do. Welcome back to Ravenswood.” She looked beyond his shoulder as her hand slid free of his. “Welcome home, Ben. And this is Joy?”
Stratton and Ravenswood to him. Ben and home to his brother. She had chosen her words with deliberate care, Devlin thought.
The child had burrowed her head as far inside Ben’s coat as it would go.
“She can be a bit on the shy side,” Ben said. “Thank you, Mother. It is good to be here.” He had always called her Mother in order to distinguish her from his mama, whom he could barely remember, he had once told Devlin.
Devlin turned to the elder of his two sisters. Philippa. She was no longer the girl he remembered. She was a young woman, whose looks had lived up to all the promise of her youth. Honey blond hair, a delicate complexion, blue eyes with long lashes a shade or two darker than her hair, a slender build—even to a brother’s eyes she was a rare beauty. But where were the sparkling eyes, the rose-petal cheeks, and the bright animation he remembered? Perhaps it was only this difficult moment that had banished them. The difficult moment or the whole fact of his return. She had not hated him when he left, but could he blame her if she did now? He had not done anything in all that time to retain her love or even discover if she lived or was dead—or married.
“Philippa.” He extended a hand for hers, and she gave it to him after a small hesitation. It was limp and cold, like their mother’s. There was no sign that she was married, he thought with a glance down at her left hand. Why was she not? How had her life changed after the age of fifteen? He had absolutely no idea.