Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Tea at Rosehaven
The drawing room was empty when I arrived, which was surprising.
Usually, my siblings were to be found consuming the tea offerings as if they hadn’t been fed for days.
But then I had come down ten minutes early—a rare luxury in a house of eight siblings, where solitude was as scarce as common sense.
For precisely three minutes, the room was blissfully still. And then Honeycutt appeared in the doorway. “The dowager Countess Rosehaven, my lady.”
Of course. Grandmother was never late, but she was frequently early, a habit she attributed to good breeding. I, on the other hand, attributed it to an eagerness to dispense opinions.
She swept in with the energy of a woman half her age, her silver hair immaculately dressed, her dove-grey silk rustling with purpose, her favorite cameo at her throat. Her expression suggested she had arrived with an agenda.
“Rosalynd, my dear.” She kissed my cheek, then held me at arm’s length, examining me with the shrewd appraisal she brought to all things—horseflesh, china, and the romantic prospects of her granddaughters. “You look well. A touch pale, perhaps. Are you sleeping?”
“Perfectly well, Grandmother.”
“Hm.” The syllable conveyed a world of skepticism. She accepted a cup of tea from a maid with a gracious nod. “Now. Tell me about the Langley ball. I heard you attended with the duke.”
And there it was. The opening salvo, delivered with the practiced ease of a woman who had been maneuvering conversations toward marriage for the better part of five decades.
“I attended in my capacity as Chrissie’s chaperone,” I said. “Steele happened to be present.”
“Happened.” My grandmother’s eyebrow rose. “My dear child, the Duke of Steele does not happen to be anywhere. He is far too deliberate for that.” She sipped her tea. “You danced with him. The whole of London is talking about it.”
“The whole of London should find more productive topics of conversation.”
“They would, if you would simply marry the man and put an end to the speculation.”
“Grandmother, we’ve discussed this topic before.”
“Don’t ‘Grandmother’ me, Rosalynd. At seventy-six years of age, I have earned the right to be direct.” She set her cup down with a decisive clink. “The duke is handsome, wealthy, intelligent, and clearly besotted with you. You are six-and-twenty and unattached. I fail to see the impediment.”
“The impediment is that neither of us wishes to marry.”
“What you wish and what is sensible are not always the same thing.”
“Steele and I have an understanding,” I said gently. “We enjoy each other’s company. That is enough.”
“For now,” Grandmother said, with the air of a woman who could see the future and found it both inevitable and amusing. “Very well. I shall say no more on the subject.”
She would, of course, say a great deal more, just not today. I recognized the tactical withdrawal. She had planted her flag and would return to advance her position at a later date.
Before I could steer the conversation toward safer waters, Honeycutt appeared again. “Lady Edmunds, my lady.”
Claire swept into the drawing room with the bright energy of a woman who had come for tea but hoped for entertainment.
“Lady Rosehaven, how delightful.” Claire kissed my grandmother’s cheek with genuine warmth.
The dowager approved of Claire—or rather, approved of her as a potential match for Cosmos, which was the same thing.
“Rosalynd, darling, I hope you don’t mind.
I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in. ”
Claire was never merely in the neighborhood. Claire appeared at Rosehaven with the unerring frequency of a woman who knew precisely when Cosmos was likely to be home.
“Of course,” I said. “Please, sit. There’s plenty of tea.”
“Is your brother about?” Claire asked, settling into a chair with studied casualness.
“Cosmos is in the conservatory. Something about a specimen that arrived from Kew this morning. He’s been in there since breakfast.”
“How fascinating.” Claire’s eyes lit with the particular gleam that always preceded one of her campaigns. “Perhaps I should pop in and say hello. I have so many questions about—what was it he was telling me about last week? Pollination cycles?”
“You do not have questions about pollination cycles, Claire.”
“I have questions about anything your brother wishes to explain to me. At length. Preferably while standing very close.” She rose. “I shan’t be a moment.”
My grandmother watched Claire depart with the expression of a chess player observing a particularly bold opening gambit. “That woman is going to marry your brother someday.”
“Cosmos hasn’t the faintest idea he’s being courted.”
“Of course he hasn’t. He’s a man. They never do.” She selected a sandwich with surgical precision. “The important thing is that she knows. And she is remarkably persistent.”
As Claire’s footsteps faded down the corridor, the drawing room door opened to admit a procession of Rosehavens.
Laurel entered first, twelve years old and already possessed of the quiet self-containment that would one day make her formidable.
She carried a book under one arm, its title obscured by her sleeve.
She greeted Grandmother with a proper curtsy, kissed her cheek, and settled into the corner chair nearest the lamp, where she opened her volume and disappeared into its pages.
Fox followed close behind, ten years old, with the particular swagger of a boy who considered himself very nearly grown. After bowing to Grandmother, he made straight for the chair beside Laurel.
Holly and Ivy arrived together, as they always did—nine years old, identical in face and temperament, their red hair in matching plaits. They took the small settee by the hearth, settling side by side with the unconscious symmetry of twins who had spent their entire lives in each other’s orbit.
Grandmother surveyed the assembled company with a wrinkle to her brow. “Where are Petunia and Chrysanthemum?”
“I suspect Petunia is playing with her kitten in her new bedchamber. Both she and Chrissie should be down shortly.”
For a few minutes, the drawing room hummed with the particular contentment of a family enjoying their tea and cakes. In between sips and bites, Fox said something to Laurel about her book while she turned pages. The twins murmured to each other.
The peace would not last. It never did.
In the next instant, Chrissie burst into the room, impeccably dressed in an afternoon dress of pale blue muslin. Her expression suggested she was dressed for battle.
“That man,” she announced to the room at large, “is the most insufferable, arrogant, pompous creature to ever draw breath.”
The twins stopped whispering. Fox looked up with interest. And Laurel’s gaze lifted briefly from her book.
“Which man, dearest?” I asked, though I had a strong suspicion.
“Lord Redmayne.” She spoke the name as though it were an insult. She dropped onto the nearest chair, her skirts billowing around her. “Do you know what he had the nerve to do?”
I didn’t ask. She would share it soon enough.
“He sent flowers.”
“Shocking,” I said and calmly sipped my tea.
Grandmother, on the other hand, seemed somewhat confused. “Lord Redmayne? Is he a suitor, dear?”
Chrissie humphed. “Hardly! Do you know what he called me at the Langley ball?”
“As I wasn’t there, Chrysanthemum, no, I don’t.”
“He said I was a fribble.”
Grandmother’s brows rose. “That seems rather ungentlemanly of him.”
“Actually, Grandmother, he referred to Chrissie as a frivolous young woman whose chief accomplishment appeared to be twirling about a ballroom in an expensive dress. Not directly to her, though. He was talking to his mother at the time, and Chrissie happened to overhear him.”
“As I said, a fribble, and now he has the nerve to send me a bouquet of red roses and a note of apology.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “The man is insufferable.”
The dowager set down her teacup. “In other words, he did not succumb to your charms.”
“No, he did not,” Chrissie said, as though this were the gravest injustice in the history of England.
“How intriguing.” Grandmother’s eyes twinkled. “In my experience, the men most worth having are precisely the ones who do not fall at your feet. Any fool can worship what is beautiful. It takes a man of substance to see what lies beneath.”
“I don’t want a man of substance,” Chrissie said. “I want a man who notices me.”
“You want both, my dear. You simply don’t know it yet.” The dowager selected another sandwich. “Give it time.”
Chrissie looked mutinous but said nothing further. She poured herself tea with the aggressive precision of someone who wished the teacup were Lord Redmayne’s skull.
Petunia burst through the drawing room door, her copper braids flying, her blue eyes wide with distress.
“Snowball is gone!”
I sighed. Not again.
Rigoletto could not come soon enough.