Chapter Two #3
Thomas Silbern. Charmer, dreamer, and inveterate gambler.
And all she had to her name after eleven years of marriage to him was a few crates of plates and cups, some bed linens, the odd bauble or two he’d acquired to charm her out of her frustration with him, and Edmund. Thank heavens she had Edmund.
“Well. That was generous of him, at least,” her aunt continued. “And now you’re here, just at the moment I have need of you.”
Iris shook herself. “Yes, it’s all happened quite fortuitously, I’m certain.”
Her aunt narrowed her eyes. “Don’t whine. If there’s anything a man can’t abide, it’s self-pity.”
Oh, she’d had her fill of what men thought and needed and wanted.
“I don’t have any men I’m attempting to impress, so I suppose I’ll say what I wish.
I know you’d rather have Edmund and me elsewhere, and that is my plan.
This,” and she gestured between them, “you needing aid and me needing a bit of time to get my feet back under me, is what’s fortuitous.
Now. If you don’t mind, I would like to take a bath and change into something less … traveled in.”
“You do look a fright. Like you just escaped from Bedlam.” Aunt Margaret cackled. “And have your girl lay out something suitable for a soiree. We’re attending the Forsythe ball this evening.”
“I don’t mean to tread on your social calendar, Aunt Margaret. You and Lord Harold should go. I’ll be quite content to remain here with Edmund. It will be nice to have an evening to relax, after coming all the way from Shropshire.”
“Nonsense. It’s the Season, you’re in Mayfair, you’re an earl’s granddaughter, I need someone to help me get about, and you’re going with us.
Nothing was ever accomplished by sitting and relaxing.
” She waved her hand toward the stairs. “Forward, Suzette. At a trot. And summon Gerald to carry me downstairs. Don’t want you tipping me down on my head. ”
“Of course not, my lady.” Suzette rolled her shoulders. “And once we get you settled, I’ll be fetching my portmanteau and going. Cornwall will be two days by mail stage, two days back, and hopefully not more than a week to tend my mother.”
“Eleven days? Did I agree to that?”
“You did, my lady.”
The two women, still bickering, rolled toward the front of the house, and Iris continued to her borrowed bedchamber.
Tomorrow she would be Suzette, pushing Aunt Margaret hither and thither, rubbing her foot, and listening to her relation’s constant, self-obsessed, occasionally amusing chatter. She took a deep breath.
Staying at Grove House gave her what she needed, Iris reminded herself.
Time. Time to convince Lord Harold to lend her a sum, time to make arrangements to rent or purchase that cottage she and Edmund liked back in Shropshire, and time hopefully to find a few tenants to rent a room or two from her, thereby offsetting her expenses and allowing Edmund and her to live independently.
The last thing she wanted to do was go dancing.
Fritter away an evening with endless chitchat about the weather and fashion and who had said something rude to whom.
Eleven years ago she’d done all that, had her debut Season, had shown well enough to snag the attention of Viscount Bellamy’s second son, Thomas.
But that story had run its course. She didn’t like the idea of beginning at chapter one all over again.
Polly hurried into the room. “Goodness. In London for less than an hour and already invited to a party. That’s grand, Mrs. Silbern.
” The maid walked to the portmanteau squatting beside the wardrobe and flung the lid up.
“The violet gown, do you think? I’ll have to dampen it to pull all the wrinkles out, but you do show well in it. ”
“Yes, that’s fine, Polly.” Iris sat in front of the dressing table. Oh dear. Her hair looked even worse than it felt. “Has Lady Margaret truly had Edmund rubbing her feet every day?”
“Yes, ma’am. Every afternoon. The last two or three days he’s taken to hiding after luncheon, but that Suzette sniffs him out. I think she may be part hound. This morning he vanished early, but I thought he must be out in the garden. He seems to like the garden.”
“He’s attempting to tunnel beneath it to freedom. I made him promise not to go through the gates or over the walls, but evidently I left out the bit about going under them.”
“Goodness. No wonder Mr. Fredericks has been chiding him about ‘dirty fingers, and an odor that lingers.’”
Snorting, Iris began pulling pins out of her hair. “Poor Mr. Fredericks. I’m grateful he agreed to come to London with us, even with my paying him what could barely be considered a pittance.”
“I think he would have worked for room and board alone.” Polly giggled.
“I should have offered that, first.” A knock sounded at the door. “That’ll be my bathwater. Will you let them in, Polly?”
A procession of steaming buckets marched into the bedchamber, emptied themselves into the copper tub set beside the wardrobe, and returned downstairs for another round.
Previously when she’d bathed, she’d filled the bathtub herself, with cold water, and had Polly heat one large pot of boiling water on the stove to take away the worst of the sting when she climbed in.
This … Oh, this would be heavenly. Her first truly hot bath in six years.
“Everything in here’s wrinkled,” Polly announced, pulling more clothes from the trunk, shaking them out, and then refolding them before setting them into the wardrobe. “I might have stayed to help you pack up your things, Mrs. Silbern. Mr. Fredericks keeps a good eye on young Edmund.”
“There wasn’t any time to be careful,” Iris returned, facing the maid’s reflection, “and there was nothing you could have done about that. I threw the clothes in at the last moment because it seemed more important to pack up everything remaining of Edmund’s before Reginald and his retinue charged in with their wallpapers and paint and French furniture. ”
“Were you permitted to keep your furniture, then?”
“No. They were all his, he said, even if they were only fit for a barnyard.” She took a breath. “I never liked the green sofa, but giving it over to pigs seems unnecessarily cruel.”
“Uncle Lord Bellamy should live with pigs,” Edmund said from the doorway, his face red and his fists clenched. “He didn’t even need another house. He just didn’t want us to have it. Why didn’t I inherit it? I would never have thrown you out, Mama.”
“As I’ve said, your grandfather, the previous Viscount Bellamy, lent the house to your papa.
It was never your father’s to pass on to you.
When your papa passed away, it went back to the Silbern family.
Your grandfather let us stay on. After he died, though, your uncle decided it would make a perfect hunting lodge.
” She reached out one hand, and Edmund walked up to take her fingers.
“I would rather live in a place that’s ours, anyway.
Wouldn’t you? It’s tiresome, living at the whim of other people. ”
“Other people who smell like tobacco and old milk and dead fish feet,” he added, scowling. “Yes. But I still don’t like that it happened.”
“Neither do I, Pickle. But it won’t happen again. Our next home will be ours.”
“I hope so. Did you remember my fishing pole?”
“I did. It’s in the spare sitting room, I imagine. We’ll look for it after I wash all this road dust off me and beat my hair back into submission.”
He looked up at her hair. With a quick grin he took a handful of his own light hair and pulled it away from his head. “You are frightful.”
“And don’t you forget it. Now go find Mr. Fredericks, apologize for fleeing, and cooperate with him for your entire lesson.”
Groaning, he stomped back to the door. “If he tries to make me rhyme ‘Bonaparte’ again, I’m going to say ‘make me fart.’”
She nodded. “It’s a good rhyme.”